Reminiscence is a movie written and directed by Lisa joy has a lot of Westworld alumni starring Hugh Jackman as a mind investigator with a machine able to tap into people’s memories. Nick Bannister, Jackman’s character is focused on helping people not only cope with past traumas of loss of life but also as a means of getting information from people for the Government. Nick meets Mae, a wayward stranger that seemingly by chance, wanders into his establishment. A romance ensues and before you know it, Mae goes missing without a word. Nick, gets infatuated with Mae when she disappears and finds there is this bread crumb trail. Setting up the scenery for this adventure plays into the somewhat, not very distant future of underwater settings where the world is flooded and has a mix of modern tech combined with old tech it’s the concept is a good idea. However, I think the idea of it is much better on paper than it is executed on film. The CGI is great though and I’m not saying that the film is bad I actually don’t think it’s too bad. I think some ideas are really good some ideas are really other ideas of comic come out like water painting and others just don’t have anything to do with the world being flooded.

A Post Semi-Dystopia Theme

For example, the world underwater is a cool visual in terms of living like America’s equivalent to Venice, Italy. I am trying to understand the relevance and only could come up with the feeling of apocalyptic stress. Does it really have anything else to do with the story? Add in a dialogue that is so generic you could just about put anything in it and you would still miss the point. I feel the whole movie is a little bit of a wasted opportunity boiling out of a pot. The idea is that Jackman’s character is so obsessed with finding out what happened to her that he’s tapping through all his memories and all of his past interactions with her like an addict does with their preferred method of abuse. But he doesn’t really seem to care about any kind of consequence to his actions or use rationality. It is only happenstance he finds the leads to find this girl.

Off The Rails For A Minute

And continues the narration. The Dick Tracy narration I just found irritating. The narration has so much exposition in it and missing the personality or world-building that could have been done. I wanted more of the characters rather it’s just explaining things for the sake of explaining them. Beside the obvious slow moving nature of this film, which could have been edited a little bit more. The shootout scene in the middle of the movie was just not even necessary. And didn’t need the added Quintin Tarantino rip off either. Seriously, how long did Nick hold his breath for? He somehow passes out and then wakes back up in the water which makes no freakin sense once again. However you can get that Westworld vibe and visualize Director Lisa Joy really tapping into the humanity and the philosophical elements we are all to familiar in Westworld. I will say this. There is the scene toward the end of the movie that was touching. He is viewing the bad guys memories and Mae sends a message through that memory.

In the end, I found the idea of this movie more entertaining than the actual movie itself. There are some cool twists and Director Joy really shows you her style and grace, but the chemistry is all wrong with the actors. And these are some good caliber actors with a lot of experience. I did enjoy some of those twists I do like the conclusion of the story not just with Jackman’s character even if it is a bit cheesy but also with his investigation with his partner, Thandie Newton’s character. Newton is always good but I don’t think the part missing from the acting had anything to do with actors. I’m probably never going to watch this again so then I’m going to give Reminiscence a 3 out of 5 charms for the CGI. It’s unfortunate too because I really was looking forward to this movie.