Courtesy FilmNation Entertainment
Did you see the 1995 sci-fi flick Strange Days, wherein Ralph Fiennes is a drug dealer whose product is memories that users can experience? Did you see Christopher Nolan’s Inception, wherein the concept of manipulating dreams and memories is explored? Ever catch Dark City? Blade Runner? Minority Report? Have you ever heard of or played the Lovecraft-inspired video game The Sinking City?
If you answered yes to any of these, you’ve already seen what the new Hugh Jackman movie Reminiscence is about—and you’ve seen it done better.
From Westworld co-creator Lisa Joy comes the latest steaming pile of sci-fi wherein Jackman is Nick Bannister, a former soldier and current memory...uh...guy living in a future-esque flooded version of Miami. The oceans rose, buds, and Bannister’s business is all about folks using a sciencey water tank and headgear to literally relive their favorite memories. Bannister does this iffy science with his good buddy Watts (Westworld alum Thandiwe Newton), and when the most beautiful nightclub singer/dresses with high leg slits enthusiast wanders in and kicks off a relationship with our hero, something, something, something—who cares? The lady is Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), and she promptly disappears, leading Bannister to get hooked on his own science tank as he searches for answers, walks places very slowly and makes stern faces at good guys and bad guys and regular guys and anyone else around.
Jackman’s newest might get points for being pretty (flooded Miami does look pretty cool), but in the originality and enjoyment departments, it leaves a lot wanting. Joy’s noir-lite thriller would surely work a lot better if it wasn’t so obsessed with checking off tired detective movie tropes: the dirty cop, the dame with the tortured past and the dogged lead with the struggling business who just wants answers. Let’s not forget the wise-cracking best pal and the contemptible robber baron who you just know has a deeper connection to everything. Let us also not forget it’s hard to care.
Jackman’s fine as Bannister, as is Newtown on the periphery. Ferguson does what she can with ham-fisted dialogue, but in the end it feels better that she’s not around so much. When veteran character actor Cliff Curtis shows up, it’s easy to think things might get better. They don’t, however, and when the big reveal finally happens, it’s easy to wonder why we were supposed to be surprised, let alone invested.
Be glad you can stream this one on HBO, but know there are plenty of films out there to scratch a similar itch without all the tedium and chewed scenery.
4
+Pretty look; Thandiwe Newton is never bad
-Feels stolen; feels tired
Reminiscence
Directed by Joy
With Jackman, Newton, Ferguson and Curtis
HBO MAX, PG-13, 116 min.
