Forrest Gump: 25th Anniversary Edition - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Forrest Gump: 25th Anniversary Edition



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
It’s only been a year since Paramount released Forrest Gump on 4K UHD with a VERY controversial transfer and problematic HDR applied to it.When I heard about a new mastered Blu-ray I assumed that it would be a NEW master (struck in the last few months), but this new mastered Blu-ray actually is taken from the "newer" master that the 4K UHD stemmed from. That being said, it's actually a really good transfer and the best the film has looked on Blu-ray (and almost in general, as the 4K UHD master looks similar, but weirdly tweaked thanks to the HDR and Dolby Vision). It's a nice upgrade for those who are more interested in Blu-ray, and a great looking tranfser in all. It's not as perfect as having a redone 4K UHD disc, but it's a win for Blu-ray watchers and I'll take it.

There are very few movies out there that can be considered pure “movie magic”. Star Wars: A New Hope is one of those films, but Forrest Gump has become an American classic that very few other films can rival in terms of scope, complexity, and depth. Tom Hanks became a superstar from this film over night, and American audiences were captivated with the film in an instant (as it did garner in 6 academy awards that year, including Best Picture). I sadly was a bit too young to see it in its original theatrical run (12 year olds were more interested in things that go “pew pew” rather than dramatic epics), but I gained a new appreciation for the movie in college film class and have been a huge fan ever since. It’s another one of those movies that I have owned on DVD, Blu-ray, and now 4K UHD, and still love digging in and watching it with a nice cup whiskey on a Friday evening. The 4K UHD disc DOES suffer from a very problematic video encode, but Paramount has been kind enough to upgrade the audio mix to full on Atmos, and port over all of the fantastic extras from the 2 disc Blu-ray to make for a pretty good package.

Forrest Gump is a tale about a fictional man who grows up in a time of great upheaval in the 2nd half of the 20th century. Young Forrest Gump (Michael Connor Humphreys) is the disenfranchised son of a single mother (Sally Field) in Greenbow Alabama. Forrest was cursed with a horribly low IQ (we’d technically put him under mental retardation) and a twisted spine that forced the young boy to walk about with full leg braces for his younger years. Abused by the people round him, Forrest’s only friend comes in the form of Jenny (Hanna Hall). However, fate would change when he is able to shed his leg braces and Forrest learns that he can run. And by run, I mean REALLY run. From there he goes on to college, enters the Army during the start of the Vietnam War, makes friends with his Lieutenant (Gary Sinise), Starts a shrimp company from a small $25,000 sum, and meets the President, and do the one thing in life that he’s always wanted to do. Rekindle his friendship with Jenny (now played by Robin Wright).

Forrest Gump manages to work on SOO many different levels, telling a heart wrenching, totally sweet, lighthearted (even when it shouldn’t be) and totally relatable winding epic about a young man enjoying the best parts of America during that time period. Forrest’s integration into famous points of history never feels forced or cliched, but flows effortlessly from time period to time period. Each one just as believable and entrancing as the next. It’s a classic tale of rags to riches, but it’s so much more than that too. The audience truly CARES for Forrest, and we get to watch his simplistic outlook on life guide him through a time that was anything BUT simplistic. The painful aspects of growing up seem less severe the childlike mind, and his lovingly sweet outlook on people, and their foibles, is something we should all strive to imitate in a world where bitterness, and jaded emotions reign supreme.

Tom Hanks had been a bankable star before Gump, with films like Turner & Hooch, The Burbs, and The Money Pit giving his comedic legs a chance to roam. However, Forrest Gump put the man on the map in a big way, and his dramatic career took off literally overnight. Quite literally EVERYONE wanted Hanks after this film and It’s not hard to see why. He plays Forrest with a such a genuine mix of innocence, charm and depth that you can’t help but love him on screen. This film defined his later career so heavily that you can almost go back to this time in his life to see when his cinematic direction took a shift and he was landed squarely in the middle of an upward line.

That’s not to say that the rest of the cast is any worse than Hanks. Robin Wright excels at Jenny, the “run of the mill” girl of Forrest’s dream, and Gary Sinise is incredibly lovable as Lt. Dan (and many a veteran can relate to the bitter state that Lt. Dan goes into after losing his legs and coming home to a country that was booing him as a baby killer). The Oscar worthy performances in Gump are almost too many to count, and for a 142 minute film, Zemeckis keeps it flying along at an incredibly smooth pace. 2 hours and 22 minutes feel like an hour and a half, and by the time you’re done, you want to go back and watch it yet again.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for drug content, some sensuality and war violence




Video:

Well, I can pretty much guarantee you that this new transfer will be discussed to death among fans. Last year Paramount gave us a VERY problematic 4K UHD disc that was very frustrating with it’s changes due to HDR and some tweaking, but with this newly mastered Blu-ray I was wondering how it would look without all of the color changes from HDR/DV. Well, the result is a great looking Blu-ray. The UHD disc wasn’t an abomination, and is actually pretty good clarity wise, but it’s faults stem mostly from revisionist tweaking with the color gamut and some odd DNR applied. While the Blu-ray is struck from the same master, without the HDR and other tweaks it looks really nice on Blu-ray. I still notice some smoothness here and there, and some weird grain structure, but the Blu-ray really does look marvelous. Colors are vibrant and rich, with deep greens in Forrest’s home town scenes, and well saturated blues out at sea. Primaries are generally very bold and well done, while the black levels are deep and inky.

The textures are very impressive, with fantastic detail levels around and despite some of that smoothness, generally REALLY well textured. Facial pores are evident, as are the nuances on the military uniforms, jeeps, and the boat that Forrest goes out on later in the film. Vietnam is one of the more revealing locals, with great greens, and you can even see the individual bits of dirt and grime on the soldiers faces. While the UHD really did suffer, the Blu-ray is actually a really nice looking Blu-ray and pushes the limits of the format much more than 2160p version. Now, am I saying that the Blu-ray master is BETTER than the 4K UHD? No, even with the tweaks on the Blu-ray the detail levels are moderately stronger and there are some much better blacks on the disc. It’s just that it comes REALLY close, and without the oddities that Dolby vision and revisionist changes on the color gamut introduced in that version.







Audio:

Once again, Paramount has deigned to upgrade the old 5.1 track with a nice sounding Dolby Atmos track that really does expand the sound stage to a richer and fuller experience. It's the exact same Atmos track found on the 2018 4K release, which finally puts the Atmos track on the Blu-ray for those without 4K equipment. The first half of the movie isn’t really one that will push an Atmos mix toe the max, but it does do a good job with the dialog centric hour, and Alan Silvestri’s score flows effortlessly through the channels. The college football game is one of the first points in the movie where the track picks up a little steam, opening up the mix with a loud and uproarious audience participation that fills out the back channels and low end quite nicely.

It’s not until the Vietnam War scenes that the Atmos mix truly gets engaged, with helo rotors thudding overhead and the screaming sounds of battle coming from all directions. Mortar shells and rockets blast all around Forrest and Sgt. Dan, while the thudding of the low end really does shake the room. The scene with Forrest addressing a mall over the loud speaker comes through with great vocal clarity, and the final scenes of the movie soften up a bit to bring it back to the forward heavy mix that the first hour was privy to.






Extras:

• Audio Commentary with Robert Zemeckis, Steve Starkey and Rick Carter
• Audio Commentary with Wendy Finerman
• Musical Signposts to History
• Greenbow Diary
• The Art of Screenplay Adaptation
• Getting Past Impossible – Forrest Gump And The Visual Effects Revolution
• Little Forrest
• An Evening With Forrest Gump
• The Magic of Makeup
• Through The Ears of Forrest Gump – Sound Design
• Building The World Of Gump-Production Design
• Seeing Is Believing – The Visual Effects Of Forrest Gump
• Screen Tests

Final Score: ​

Forrest Gump is one of those timeless American classics that gets better with age. I was barely 12 years old when the film came out so I missed its theatrical run (I wasn’t exactly into dramas back then), but has fast become a favorite of mine once I got into more diverse genres in college. It’s a movie that defies genres, and is exquisitely acted to boot. Tom Hanks was already a great actor, but this film launched into super stardom almost overnight, and for good reason. As for this 25th Anniversary 4K UHD disc? Well, it's the same 4K UHD disc that we got back in 2018, just with the Blu-ray part of the combo pack replaced with the newly mastered Blu-ray and given new cover art. If you're getting it to upgrade the 4K UHD that was already released, well then I would pass. But if you're looking to get the newly remastered Blu-ray then this or the single release is the one to get as it's definitely an improvement over the old Sapphire edition Blu-ray.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Sally Field
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Written by: Eric Roth (Screenplay), Winston Groom (Novel)
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English, German, Spanish, Spanish (Latin), French, Italian DD 5.1, Japanese, Portuguese DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Paramount
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 142 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: May 7th, 2019

Recommendation: Great Movie

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I agree, great movie to have as well.

 

[Asere]

Thanks for the review. I own the dvd but may upgrade soon.