HORRIFIED FANS SLAM DE-AGED TOM HANKS AND ROBIN WRIGHT AS 'NIGHTMARE FUEL' IN NEW FILM

Tom Hanks and Robin Wright are reuniting on screen for the first time since Forrest Gump, but fans have been left recoiling over the ‘nightmare fuel’ first-look images from their upcoming film, Here.

The two Hollywood stars, who are also working again with Forrest Gump director Robert Zemeckis for the project, are tasked with portraying the same two characters over the entire span of their lives – from 18 into their 80s.

Naturally, prosthetics have been used to age them up and CGI to smooth out and de-age their faces for the scenes when they’re youngest.

However, this has not gone down well with fans, who have questioned filmmaker Zemeckis’ reliance on the technology – and the effect it has achieved – describing the digitally de-aged Hanks, 67, and Wright, 58, as ‘CGI monstrosities’.

Here is based on the 2014 graphic novel of the same name by Richard McGuire and takes place across a century in the same, single location – with the camera never moving from its fixed position and viewpoint inside the home.

In the newly-released trailer, Here actually goes even further back into time, following its chosen location from what appears to be the dawn of time, through dinosaurs, early man and into American history before the house is eventually built.

While Wright and Hanks play the central couple, Margaret and Richard, viewers will also get to observe Richard’s parents, Paul Bettany and Kelly Reilly, at home, as well as Michelle Dockery and Gwilym Lee as a couple at the turn of the century and a 1920s pairing comprised of David Fynn’s inventor and Ophelia Lovibond’s model.

‘Calling on the Biden administration to ban digital de-aging,’ announced Mark Yarm on X as he reacted to images of Hanks and Wright, which includes them embracing as teenagers with retro hairstyles, as well as a still of the two stars as slightly older adults, with Hanks in a plaid shirt worn over a T-shirt and Wright’s noticeably CGI-altered face caught in rather a dead-eyed expression.

She also doesn’t look much at all like Wright did playing Jenny in Forest Gump, who was 28 when the film was released, to Hanks’ 38.

‘Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Because… why?’ asked B.A. Parker on the social media platform, with other users demanding that there ‘have to be consequences’ for this.

‘I cannot get over how bad it looks,’ admitted fan Anna, while Olivia Truffaut-Wong couldn’t resist quipping of the Oscar-winning star’s lookalike actor son: ‘This is so rude to Colin Hanks.’

Many fans were also frustrated by Cast Away director Zemeckis continuing to favour the use of CGI, as he did for previous animated films including The Polar Express, 2009’s A Christmas Carol with Jim Carrey and – most infamously – 2007’s Beowulf.

‘Forrest Gump 2 spanning through 9/11 and beyond is honestly something I’m not sure I can miss because it’s going to be unadulterated Zemeckis-nightmare fuel,’ posted @benzostraydogs.

For Beowulf, which also starred Wright, the filmmaker transformed the then sturdy 50-year-old Ray Winstone into a six-packed 20-year-old warrior.

Although these movies represented big leaps forward in movie-making technology at the time, they also contributed to the uncanny valley reaction fans had to these altered humans’ ‘offness’.

‘Zemeckis must be stopped,’ insisted @HunseckerProxy after seeing the pictures from Here, while @FredSmith914 added: ‘Robert Zemeckis I am begging you to stop learning about new moviemaking technologies.’

However, other fans admit they have been drawn to the spectacle promised by Here.

‘Expecting this to basically be a feature length version of the opening of Up with some CGI monstrosities throughout, wouldn’t have it any other way with a Zemeckis picture,’ observed Marcus Finch.

Defending his choice to use CGI again for the movie, Zemeckis told Vanity Fair: ‘I’ve always been, for some reason, labelled as this visual effects guy. But those were always there to serve as the character arc.’

He also insisted he felt that directors’ jobs ‘as filmmakers is to show the audience things that they don’t see in real life’.

He added: ‘It only works because the performances are so good. Both Tom and Robin understood instantly that, “Okay, we have to go back and channel what we were like 50 years ago or 40 years ago, and we have to bring that energy, that kind of posture, and even raise our voices higher.” That kind of thing.’

In the trailer, Hanks’s Richard is seen introducing Wright’s Margaret to his father before it jumps to decades later as he observes: ‘Time sure does fly, doesn’t it?’

It then skips around showing glimpses of their lives across the decades, as well as the couple entering through the door in their old age as Hanks observes: ‘This was our home. We lived here.’

The film’s synopsis reads: ‘Here is an original film about multiple families and a special place they inhabit. The story travels through generations, capturing the human experience in its purest form.

‘Directed by Robert Zemeckis, [with a ] screenplay by Eric Roth and Zemeckis, and told much in the style of the acclaimed graphic novel by Richard McGuire on which it is based, Tom Hanks and Robin Wright star in a tale of love, loss, laughter and life, all of which happen right Here.’

Here is scheduled for release in the US on November 15. A UK release date is yet to be announced.

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