Reminiscence

In building this mystery, and in proving herself as a major entertainer, Joy always has something up her sleeve, including her savvy ways to suddenly spike the plot with a slickly edited fight scene that builds the mystery instead of just taking a break from it.

Like its characters, it’s drunk on what came before, relying too heavily on noir tropes. But its smart, thought-provoking concept isn’t so easy to shake off.

Reminiscence doesn’t leave us much to remember it by, apart from those mournful CGI vistas of water-logged Miami.

Highfalutin, lightly enjoyable mush, Reminiscence is one of those speculative fictions that are at once undernourished and overcooked. It makes no sense (despite all the explaining), but it draws you in with genre beats, pretty people and the professional polish of its machined parts.

Reminiscence is never not interesting, but Joy leaves a lot of the intriguing issues unsatisfactorily explored.

Too many of the points the story earns for ambition get deducted for execution in this jumble of ideas.

It slogs on, piling on scenes and memories of every sci-fi epic and film noir from Blade Runner to Chinatown, but who cares?

Reminisce... probably one of the best Movies that's like an Adaptation to a Game! Called The Sinking City...

Reminiscence feels more like a product of 15 years ago, with its themes, elements, and story seemingly borrowed from better works. The potentially intriguing science fiction premise isn't fully realized, and instead, the soap opera-like character developments significantly diminish the story's appeal, plunging the entire work into a distorted and unconventional valley of values.

Reminiscence (2021) is a sci-fi noir thriller and is a directorial feature film debut of Lisa Joy, the co-creator of Westworld alongside her husband Jonathan Nolan. She also directed one of my favourite episodes from Season 2. It is set in a not-so-distant future Miami where the world has been subject to rising sea levels wreaking havoc. Memory tech is a craze where one can relive their cherished moments from the past and Hugh Jackman's character is running a business of it alongside his friend played by Thandiwe Newton. Things go awry when a customer, played by Rebecca Furgeson, goes missing and Hugh's character takes it upon himself to find her. I was curious to check this out and sadly it was disappointing. The movie is competently made for the most part i.e the sets, the production design, the CGI, sound effects and music, the pacing, the cinematography, the acting, are all executed well enough that you get the feeling of a proper good looking and sounding movie. It's in the writing and story department where it falters and drags the entire experience down from being a good or even great one to a middling one at best. The movie mixes in different ideas and concepts, none of them new, and while on their own they are cool, when blended together with the story you get, it doesn't work nearly as well as there is a lack of energy and urgency that you don't really get throughout. You are experiencing the story play out and it's kinda OK but it never goes beyond that. There is superficial depth to the themes and ideas where the movie thinks it is being deep and poignant but you don't really get that feeling. It's just sorta there. Not to mention the fact that the entire plot hinges on a romance that was hardly developed so you don't get that connection which should hook you. Take out the competency in other elements and high profile actors and this would be bad but since those things are present, it goes up a few notches, so props to Lisa Joy for that at least and hopefully her next outing will be better. Rebecca Furgeson's beauty alone kinda pushes it one point above for me not gonna lie, it is what it is. Simply put, it was just OK. Disappointed cause it could have been a lot more. Maybe if Jonathan Nolan was helping with the script, that would have been the case, who knows. Not recommended but hey, if you are curious, give it a shot. And if I were to rate it, I'd give it a 6/10.

My goodness. This is seriously weak sauce. I struggled to get through it, and ended up skipping quite a bit. Felt like someone using two hours to tell a really boring story.

Boring... The most interesting part of this movie is the opening and ending.