Tom Hanks: The Nomad

As I listen to the horribly stilted narrator, it's hard to hear and really understand what she's actually saying about Tom Hanks. The narrator is either a bot or an incredibly bad voice actor; possibly a relation of the producer?

At any rate, there is no reason for Prime to have picked this up and made it available for viewing on their streaming platform as its just so pedestrian. It could have been edited in someone's attic during a clean out of newly found VHS tapes. No, really! Tom Hanks deserves so much better than this even if it were an unauthorized program. What did Tom ever do to this filmmaker?

This is the worst documentary I've ever seen and it's about the best actor I've ever seen! The montages were horrible - images that didn't match the narration, mixed timeframes, even occasionally wrong actors' images being portrayed as Hanks. Several of the interviews were lame, inane and very amateurish. I would be surprised if Hanks saw this and approved its release - - maybe if it was a young student's project for college or even high school credit? There was a whole long and detailed inclusion of Hanks' first wife which most of us know nothing about, while interesting didn't warrant so much coverage. I endured this documentary only because of the source material. Tom Hanks is unignorably fascinating, but sloppy journalism and poor production values do not make up for this!

Aside from the unfortunate production, the first two stills of Tom's first wife, Samantha (including a wedding shot) are of his second and current wife, Rita Wilson. That's a terrible screwup for a documentarian. It casts doubt on the veracity of anything subsequent in the film. The only plus might be the interviews with Tom Hanks, at least I think it's him 🤣.

I expected a much better documentary about such an outstanding actor, like Tom Hanks. He is someone as versatile as Henry Fonda, but seems to be truly admirable in his personal life. I'm curious if this film had any participation from Hanks, himself. Doubtful. He's certainly a better director than the maker of this film.

A film star of massive magnitude and long successful career as Tom Hanks is destined to have many documentaries made about him for times to come, during his lifetime and beyond. The low score this small project has doesn't come for the fact that no documentary should be made of Hanks because he's still alive and he has many things to do, or neither because biographies are only special when the subject is no longer alive. It gets a downer vote due to its awkward poor presentation that makes it seem that zero persons were involved with its making/editing, it all feels like a robot put everything together and sent it to the world to see.

It follows the usual television biographical specials showing basic information about Hanks family life and early days, then moves ahead to present his meteoric rise to fame, success, failure, awards and public recognition and other personal ventures. It's hard to go wrong with the facts and basically anyone can do it.

The doc consists of showing countless interviews with Hanks during promotion of his many films, actors and directors also appear being interviewed in a similar manner, and no testimonies from outsiders, film historians and others are shown as made for the project. It's all archive stuff, some are cool to watch, others are just boring.

Outside of those aspects, it's a highly problematic piece where you have an AI narrating the movie. I might be proven wrong if the actress in question comes along but that voice was lifeless through the whole thing, and I think I noticed some errors while she speaks names and words (HAL 9000 would never be doing those things, even he had some life in that soothing voice). Not just that, it feels this was also edited by an AI and cringe mistakes can be easily spotted - Tom Hanks' first wife images are not from hers, it's all Rita Wilson with a different hairstyle, just make a basic web search and you'll see it. Painfully jarring to see that, and another moment where the voice just says Tom and instead of Hanks appearing they showcase a pic of Tom Arnold. There are a couple of moments that stills are shown in a very displicent and careless manner. If this is the future of the world without the human element then I'm frightened about the possibilities.

This only shows the magnifiency of Hanks life and career on a superficial visible level, no profundity whatsoever. Only worths some view just to see his interviews over the years, all cool moments. A future project, better developed and with massive material will come, no doubt, but we'll have to wait a little longer.

A man of his charisma, persona and enthusiasm easily gets one made but until then his movies speak for him and his career. He deserves better. 4/10.

This is obviously AI generated and narrated. It's full of errors (for example, a displaying a photo with his current wife while mentioning his previous marriage) and tacky, awkward transitions between stock images and archived interviews. Viewing it and listening to the artificial voiceover felt almost like being in some kind of dystopian, alternate reality. I highly doubt this was authorized by Tom Hanks, and he should demand that Prime removes it.

Even more disturbing is how Amazon tried to release this onto it's streaming service with no disclaimer about its AI origin, as though it wouldn't be detected. If this is the future of production, I'm out!