What Was the Last Great Robert Zemeckis Movie?

legendary filmmaker Robert zamus has confirmed that he's going to be using AI to Dage actors like Tom Hanks in his new upcoming movie called here but Robert Z's name just doesn't hold the same promise as it used to and it made me think what was the last real great Robert zamus movie when it comes to movie lovers zamus has had a sort of Fall From Grace because often big ambition from him doesn't often have the same reward as it used to with that let's get into a quick history of Robert zamas he first made waves with his movie used car starring Kurt Russell and that movie has sort of become a cult film throughout the years but his first film that really sent him on the journey that he's on with Studios today is Romancing the Stone zamus made Romancing the Stone in 1984 for 20th Century Fox with two big stars of that time Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner if you've seen the 2022 film The Lost City with Sandra Bullock and chanting Tatum Romancing the Stone is literally that similar plot similar Vibes Kathleen plays a reclusive author named Joan Wilder who embarks on an adventure to save her sister who's being held hostage and find this mythical Diamond along with Michael Douglas who's basically playing the American Crocodile Dundee so yeah they go on this adventure across Colombia to find this diamond Danny DeVito's great knit too what's interesting about Romancing the Stone is a studio executiv saw an early cut of the film before it was released and they were not impressed zamus was at the time supposed to helm cocoon which came out the following year and and was eventually directed by Ron Howard great movie by the way but he was removed from the film because Executives just weren't impressed by the early cut of Romancing the Stone that said when the movie came out in theaters it became a huge box office hit and thus sent zamus on the legendary journey of Back to the Future of course one of the most beloved movies of all time whatever quote you want to drag out whatever character whatever song there's something for everyone do I even have to talk about why Back to the Future is so legendary But Not only was Back to the Future a massive cultural and box office hit is spawn 2 sequels which I guess solidified zam's place as a reliable Studio filmmaker with ambition and with a creative voice but right before releasing the Back to the Future sequels zamas directed a very important movie in his career and in movie history Who Framed Roger Rabbit the movie's blend of live action and animated characters was ambitious at the time and really paid off with audiences both critics and audiences loved it and still do today it won the Oscar for best visual effects zamus was reunited with Christopher Lloyd and Kathleen Turner the movie made over $350 million and just continued to show that zamus was reliable with directing Blockbusters and utilizing new visual techniques which is going to be a constant throughout this video and then we get to the incredible Forest Gump this movie also had some revolutionary visual techniques like weaving Tom Hanks in with deceased celebrities like John F Kennedy and John lennin I got to pay I believe he said he had to go P it was just also this incredible epic that didn't sacrifice substance for style it's I mean I've already talked enough about Forest Gump but it is a masterpiece and it won multiple Oscars including best picture and director for zamus zamus also continued to play sci-fi fans with his fantastic alien movie contact which is a movie I love that stars jod Foster and Matthew mccon so now zamus is beloved with critics he's reliable at the box office and he has an Oscar where could he possibly go well in 2000 he made two very different but very interesting movies that show where his past start to diverge first of all What Lies Beneath it stars Michelle feifer and Harrison Ford and is a sort of typical sort of suburban Thriller that you would see today it did very well at the box office though not as well with critics it showed zamus doing some more things he wasn't really used to like diving into this thriller genre it also dealt with some special effects with the jump scares and so on but again it just wasn't as big of a hit with critics I'm not a huge fan of the movie personally but I know it does have its fans and I understand why some enjoy it and then the other film he made in 200000 do I even have to say what it is it's Cast Away Cast Away was again a huge hit with audiences still is it got Tom Hanks another Oscar nomination and continued to show that maybe zasan hangs together they got a good thing going and I think Cast Away was sort of the final film that was this widely beloved by zus where zus probably started to run out of luck was his experimentation with this different form of Animation did you watch The Polar Express growing up well yeah that was Robert zamus the movie was an entirely digital capture movie which meant all the actors including Tom Hanks were on set but they were performing captured and then brought into this animation world something similar that you would see like Spielberg's Adventures of Tintin critics said that the animation just felt lifeless and honestly uncanny and I understand where they're coming from I enjoyed this movie growing up I'm kind of scared to rewatch it because I've heard that it just holds up so badly you guys want to hear SI mode or moamba sio mode or moamba uh the movie still made a lot of money it's made 426 million but it's where critics really started to diverge from that love for zus that lasted almost 20 years at that point and zamus didn't back down from this criticism he made bolf and A Christmas Carol with those same animation techniques A Christmas Carol in particular was a massive box office bomb and neither critics nor audiences were particularly a fan of seas' new adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel that had Jim Carrey playing eano Scrooge in a similar performance capture anime ated world going into the 2010s with Z X's career he becomes very unpredictable he's not trying to stick to one thing but he also doesn't have that same confidence or trust that he had um going into the 2000s you would say so I want to take a look at these movies and finally answer the question of what the last great Robert Zas movie truly was so first of all we have Flight the movie was a hit with critics who called it a return to form for him and it was also nominated for two Oscars including best actor for Denzel Washington and best original screenplay the movie follows Denzel as an airline pilot who manages to miraculously land a plane after a disaster in the air but soon he starts to be investigated for what possible responsibility he might have had in the injuries and deaths of the passengers in the crash landing it's a really interesting movie Denzel is terrific in it and it shows you a character who isn't necessarily empathetic or likable but just shows you for his flaws and his sort of attempts at Redemption that may or may not succeed it's a well-paced film even though it's almost 2 hours and 20 minutes the flight scene itself is really brutal and really well put together with the visuals and sound and I'd highly recommend this film it also did excellent at the box office making over $160 million so overall this movie was considered a great success for zamus after some films that made him lose some street cred fast forward to 2015 we have the walk the walk unfortunately did not enjoy the same success success as flight did at the box office but it is a really terrific movie I watched it in theaters in 3D and the experience is really stunning and I think this is where zamus uh was starting to play as much with the technical elements as is anticipated with his next film here the movie follows Philipe petite who's played really well by Joseph Gordon levit who comes from France to New York in order to follow his dream which is to walk a wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center which sounds like a crazy idea right you know with that sort of inspiring true story elements and the lovely visuals and Joseph's performance and the great pacing this movie really works I really enjoy not just the technical elements but the entire story and script a year after that he released Allied starring Brad Pit and Mar and card the movie set in World War II where Brad p and Mar and card play uh two spies posing as a couple in order to assassinate some Nazi leader in Morocco soon they fall actually in love and start a family but start to grow suspicious of each other as the threat of Germany looms uh in the continued efforts of the war this is a movie I actually watched kind of recently and I enjoyed it a lot more than the critics did I think it has around 60% on Rotten Tomatoes but I actually once I think like the second half kicks in I started to really like it the movie doesn't have great CGI when he uses some green screen you can notice but man the story is really enjoyable the costumes and set design are really convincing it was nominated for the costumes Oscar Brad Pit's genuinely excellent in it I think it's a solid war movie that utilizes fiction and real events uh quite effectively I don't know if I would call it great though next in 2018 we got welcome to marwin critics despised it did not do well at the box office and it's about a victim of a Neo-Nazi attack and he's dealing with the trauma of his attack by uh building a miniature set and basing all the characters of the women in his life and so a lot of the movie is actually through the miniature figures who are played by the actual actresses in the movie like Janelle Monae and Leslie man who are putting on moap suits for these miniature coming to life and going to war scenes and I think in this movie is where we started to see that ambition Falling Again The Witches came out in 2020 and this did not help zam's case at all the movie is another adaptation of R doll's book and the reason I say another is because Angelica Houston started one in the80s I believe this one has Anne Hathaway and Octavius Spencer but again it flopped hard with critics and I don't believe audiences were big on it either and then in 2022 we have the absolute stinker that is Pinocchio this is probably the worst of the Disney liveaction remakes like wow it's so horrible I'm not even going to get into how bad this is but I think it really shows how zam's love for these big CG experiments it wasn't just that but so to finally answer the question even though I like Allied I'm going to say that the last great Robert zamus movie was the walk this is a really great movie I feel like it's still underrated even though it got really good reviews from critics just because a lot of people haven't checked it out like I hoped again it didn't really do great when it was released even though it was advertised and coming out with all these big formats and so on including IMAX 3D and whatever but I really do recommend the walk it's honestly one of my favorite Joseph Gordon Le performances as well and it's probably the last time that I had confidence in Robert zcas utilizing all these big uh visual tools because now with here coming out even though people are already concerned about AI it's not like we feel like we're in great hands seeing that Robert Z is directed it it seems like it's another experiment for the sake of experimenting but I'd love to be proven wrong I'd love to see what he does with this new film even if the visual effects don't pay off I'd love to see what the movie is about and what Tom Hanks is doing in it so thank you for taking this trip with me through Robert Z X's career don't forget to like subscribe follow me on Instagram at film toppings where I'm most active and check out more like this coming very soon

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Length: 12min 3sec (723 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 21 2024