THB #614: Juror #2 and Here

I feel like I just went to wakes 2 days in a row.

There are many very talented people, in front of and behind the cameras, on these 2 pictures. And I can’t tell you that the movies are terrible. They aren’t. But…

you feel lucky, punk?

Here feels like a movie that Bob Zemeckis should have made back when he was experimenting with Beowulf and A Christmas Carol. The technology has improved a ton since 2009. But my issue is not with the tech so much as the feel of an experimental film, which is what Here feels like to me.

At first, it reminded me of the Carousel of Progress from Disney World in my childhood… not just in concept, but in the calm soundscape… moving through time… any time being possible around any corner. Interesting. But does that make it a movie you want to spend 100 minutes with?

There are many beautiful images in Here and moments that make you think. But like The Nickel Boys, the form of the film sometimes gets in the way of the storytelling. The only time, for instance, whe…