The Forgotten (DVD)

What an aptly named title as I was thoroughly entertained with this film in the theater, but apparently once is enough when it comes to The Forgotten.

Julianne Moore stars in this film as a mother suffering from the loss of here child whose existence to this day seems to be slowly fading until suddenly every last memory is erased from her life. At this time she learns from her psychiatrist that in fact her son never existed at all and the eight years of memories she was recalling were all in her mind. Unwilling to accept this explanation she sets out to discover just why her son has been forgotten by everyone except for herself.

While this film doesn't really employ anything new to a relatively simple plotline it does offer up a couple of cool special effects and a car crash scene that really is the highlight of the 90-minute feature.

The primary draw to the special features on this DVD is the extended version of the film including an "alternate" ending that is only alternate in the fact that it adds a minute or so to the final outcome. The problem with this "seamless" integration of the deleted scenes into the feature is that it triggers a slight pause every time the DVD accesses the additional scenes, much like the pause you experience when your DVD player switches at the end of the first layer of the disc.

This may not be a huge deal to most, but the jittery inclusions are distracting enough in my opinion to never want to watch that version again.

As for the featurettes, you get an audio commentary with director, Joseph Ruben and the writer as well as some behind-the-scenes and making of featurettes, which are only interesting to see just how they did the "takeaway" scenes where unsuspecting victims are snatched up.

Overall, I was unfortunately disappointed with my revisit to the Julianne Moore thriller and apparently the film is not as good as the theatrical viewing led me to believe. I wouldn't recommend buying this one as repeated viewings are unlikely, but if it will be your first time seeing the picture it will make for a good Saturday night thriller from your local Blockbuster.