Tom Hanks And Robert Zemeckis Travel Through History In The Here Trailer

I'm of two minds about "Welcome to Marwen." Robert Zemeckis' 2018 live-action/motion-capture creation is everything that Jeff Malmberg's 2010 documentary "Marwencol," the film that inspired it, isn't (namely, visually off-putting and emotionally shallow). Yet, as "shockingly bad" as "Welcome to Marwen" is, to quote Chris Evangelista's review for /Film, its failure seemed to turn Zemeckis away from taking big swings. Instead, he subsequently retreated into boring familiarity with his live-action remakes of "The Witches" and "Pinocchio," both of which earned lackluster reviews and vanished into the direct-to-streaming void, never to be spoken of again. I've since found myself wishing he would take on something challenging and experimental once more.

Well, in classic cautionary tale fashion, it appears my wish has led to a finger curling on the monkey's paw. Zemeckis is coming back this year with "Here," a film based on Richard McGuire's graphic novel about the events that take place in the same spot of land (and the house that's eventually built there) from the distant past to the future. As Zemeckis has explained to Vanity Fair, the camera never strays from its fixed position in his picture. "The single perspective never changes, but everything around it does," he noted. "It's actually never been done before. There are similar scenes in very early silent movies, before the language of montage was invented. But other than that, yeah, it was a risky venture."

Here's the kicker, though: "Here" uses A.I. to digitally de-age its cast, including its director's "Forrest Gump" stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. Unfortunately, the official stills of the de-aged actors have an uncanny valley air to them (which is a polite way of saying they're kind of creepy as hell). Do they look less off-putting in motion? Check out the "Here" trailer featured above and see what you think.

The thing about Zemeckis is that his grasp of visual storytelling has never faltered despite having shot himself in the foot with his fixation on incorporating motion-capture into his work. As discomforting as the mo-cap humans are in his animated "The Polar Express" and "Beowulf" adaptations (which also featured Hanks and Wright, respectively), the actual films move like clockwork and are full of compelling ideas and captivating sequences. Thankfully, that also seems to be the case with "Here" based on the trailer, which suggests it has a much firmer grip on its tone and themes than "Welcome to Marwen" did. Aside from the de-aged Hanks and Wright's unsettlingly smooth faces, this looks like an interesting continuation of motifs that Zemeckis has returned to time and time again in his career, even going back to "Back to the Future."

Best case scenario, "Here" ends up being a little like "The Irishman" in the sense that you adjust to the de-aging CGI and its doesn't distract from what the rest of the movie is doing. Worst case scenario, well, see most of Zemeckis' output from the last 20 years. 

Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, and Michelle Dockery round out the cast of "Here," which was written by Zemeckis and his "Forrest Gump" scribe Eric Roth. The film opens in theaters on November 15, 2024.