With a stellar cast including the man ‘who can do no wrong’ – Hugh Jackman – it’s a pity this new movie called Reminiscence just doesn’t seem to stack up.
The critics are united in saying it just doesn’t excite or appeal as it should. One said, perhaps the movies’ ‘greatest crime’ was how ‘effortlessly it wastes the collective appeal of it’s a-list cast.’
This movie is a moody, snail-paced mix of neo-noir and sci-fi. Set sometime in the future along the Miami coast – now, devastated by climate change and partially sunken – with a modified version of life still persisting on its belt nocturnally since days are just too hot.
You can see the aim for Reminiscence was an existential, film-noir, but sadly, the result is a vaguely pessimistic dystopia at best.
You’ll see nods to the likes of Chinatown, Blade Runner and even Minority Report, and while this is not a bad thing, the problem is Reminiscence does so little that’s actually original.
Stellar cast including our own Hugh Jackman
Hugh Jackman plays the lead character, Nick Bannister and he a private eye who gets to investigate the depths of his clients’ memories. He and his fellow ex-military business partner Watts, (played by Thandiwe Newton) work together and they have a good, platonic thing going in a world where the future offers no hope and past is the only avenue that comes with jolts of optimism buried within.
While the duo give freebies to repeat customers often, they still manage to make a living with their memory machine – a cocoon bed and a wired headpiece that plays and projects any memory the client chooses from stashes of discs, as a 3D hologram.
The resident femme fatale of Reminiscence arrives in the form of Mae, the sad jazz singer played by Rebecca Ferguson. She’s clad in a spectacular, crimson-red gown that could disarm any lethal human in its presence.
Bannister and Mae soon embark on a steamy romance but that’s only the beginning. There’s far more that happens in this dystopian future world but the problem is, when the movie’s finished, you probably won’t remember it.
While the director, Lisa Joy, has taken some risks here and has produced an interesting film, there’s not enough to pull all the interesting effects together, which is a pity.
You can watch Reminiscence in cinemas if they’re open or you can rent it online at Prime Video.
Photo: Courtesy of Reminiscence
