Reminiscence

Reminiscence gives us a rich futuristic setting, and some lovely visuals, but the story it tells feels moldy and dusty.  For all of its visual splendor, and the talented cast that has been gathered to tell the story, this is a movie that never quite builds the momentum it should.  It has a curiously lifeless energy to it, and that starts with its leaden dialogue.

But before all that, we are introduced to a future Miami that is partially underwater, as is most of the world.  Only the incredibly wealthy can afford to live on land.  And due to the humidity in this future Earth, people have mainly become nocturnal, with all businesses and most activity going on after the sun goes down.  While the world does take quite a bit of inspiration from Blade Runner and some other influences, it is immediately striking, and sets us up for a lot of sights and ideas that we have never seen before.  The world has been well realized and designed, but sadly, writer-director Lisa Joy (the HBO TV series Westworld) uses this intriguing backdrop to tell an old fashioned detective noir story.  Rather than truly explore the world she has created, she gives us something we have seen many times before, as well as not being strong enough to want to see it again, only dressed up in a new way.

The detective at the center of the story is Nick Bannister (a brooding Hugh Jackman), who runs a business where he lets people enter an immersion tank that allows paying guests to relive their happy memories or moments.  Given the state that the world is currently in, nostalgia for how life used to be is an industry in itself.  Along with his partner Watts (Thandiwe Newton), Nick divides his time between helping people relive nostalgic memories, and aiding the police in crimes by using the same memory technology on suspects.  Again, all of this intriguing, and got me excited for where the film was going.  Sadly, despite Jackman's usually reliable screen presence, he's been saddled with a dud of a character here who delivers every thought he has in a drawn out voice-over narration that is supposed to bring to mind hard boiled detective stories, but only gets unintentional laughs from how heavy-handed and poorly written the dialogue is.

Of course, not every actor could deliver lines like, "memory is the boat that sails against time's current", or how, "memories are beads on the necklace of time" with a straight face.  Jackman just can't bring any life to his performance in order to make Nick a character worth following.  He drones on in endless narration that spells out everything to the point that it almost becomes self-parody.  This being an old fashioned detective story, a mysterious woman has to come walking into his office.  That would be Mae (Rebecca Ferguson).  She initially comes wanting to use his memory machine to find her missing keys.   Soon, she bewitches him, and they seem to be building a genuine relationship.  Then she goes missing one day, and Nick becomes obsessed with finding out just what happened to her, starts using his technology on himself, and gets pulled into what is supposed to be a twisting and winding mystery that leads him through the underbelly of this dystopian future, but never quite picks up the steam required to make the audience care much about anything

Reminiscence does have some brief moments of life, such as some strong action scenes that show up now and then.  And again, the world that has been created here is visually fascinating, and has obviously been thought through carefully.  But none of this holds much weight when put up against the largely dull mystery at the center of it all, and how very few of the characters seem to be all that interesting.  Of the main cast, only Newton as Watts manages to command some scenes, to the point that I kind of wished the movie was following her instead.  I usually love watching Jackman, but in this particular role, he seems a bit deflated.  It's not that he's not making an effort.  I simply think he just can't rise above some of the dialogue he's required to say.  He also just does not have the chemistry required with Ferguson, who previously co-starred with him in The Greatest Showman.  I just never sensed anything between them that could lead to his character's obsession to track her down after she just disappears without saying a word.

Where the mystery ultimately ends up is also not worth the journey it takes to get there.  There's a lot of seedy and suspicious characters, such as a New Orleans crime boss, a crooked cop, and a wealthy "land baron", but they too fail to make much of an impression.  When Nick learns the truth about everything, and the connection it all has with Mae, it's not powerful or shocking.  And despite the interesting world and ideas the movie does create, it's disappointing to see it used only for old detective story cliches.  I was particularly intrigued by the idea of how people can become addicted to nostalgia and memories, almost like a drug.  Sure, this concept has been explored before, most notably in the underrated 1995 Sci-Fi thriller, Strange Days, but that doesn't mean it couldn't work again here if it had been put to better use, instead of just merely being touched on as Joy's script does.

You can see how a movie like Reminiscence could have easily worked, as all the right elements are there.  It's the script, and the curious lack of energy from the cast and the film itself that betrays any potential this might have had.  When a movie starts off by showing me a world I have never seen before, I always get excited.  Too bad the filmmakers had to fill it with such a dusty old story, and characters who are not worth inhabiting such a visual spectacle. 

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