Reminiscence - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Reminiscence



Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


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Movie
Lisa Joy is best known for producing Westworld with her real life husband Jonathan Nolan, and if you’ve watched the show, then you can already sort of place the tone the film is going for. It’s part modern Noir flick, mixed with dystopian future, and some mild elements of Blade Runner, Westworld (some of the actors show up form Westworld here) and even some old classic noir Humphrey Bogart films come to mind when watching. HOWEVER, despite having elements from all of these movies, Reminiscence can’t seem to find footing of it’s own and never breaks into a true identity that the film can claim as truly being unique to this production. Instead it plays out like a mishmash of said films, with a dogged vocal narration (ala Blade Runner) that thrives on the mysterious puzzle box nature of Westworld, only to fizzle out with a contrived and cliched ending.

In the not so distant future the world looks a lot different. The rise of global climate change has caused future Miami to be partially underwater, and the excess heat of moving closer to the sun has turned most people nocturnal to escape its gaze. An ex war veteran (unnamed war) known as Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) and his partner Watts (Newton) are co-owners of a “Reminiscence” establishment for the city of Miama. That is, they utilize an advantage technology to delve into a person’s memories for a price. People who want to go back and revisit an old lover, a man wanting to see his dog in a time when he had his legs, or to sell out information to the local District Attorney for cash as they pull answers out of criminals heads. Things are rough for the duo, but still manageable, until SHE walks in (yeah, feels straight out of a 1950s gumshoe novel). Beautiful, slinky red dress, asking for Bannister to retrieve a memory of lost keys.

Bannister is immediately hooked and finds a way to see her again, soon finding out her name is Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), and the two fall head over heels in love. Only thing is, fate is conspiring against them and Mae just vanishes off the edge of the Earth. Desperate to figure out what is going on, Bannister puts himself under the light of his own technology and digs into his OWN memories to find out what truly happened to her. However, the answers he seek may pull up even more questions and bring him more pain than he ever imagined.

Reminiscence promises a TON, but delivers on very little at the end of the day. In typical Westworld fashion, Lisa Joy dangles the carrot of a gigantic puzzle box, opening up pieces of it in little increments, only to leave you with more questions at the end of the run time than are answered. At first I was rather enjoying the film noir, despite the heavy handed Blade Runner esque narration, but as the film’s 3rd act started unraveling the puzzle, you realize that it was all smoke and mirrors. Most of the questions and the big secrets that the film teases are nothing but a distraction. A distraction that is completely thrown to the side with the rushed final ending, leaving you staring at the screen in utter shock and bewilderment wondering how something so simple and cliched was allowed in. I’m not sure whether or not Lisa couldn’t keep up with her husband’s style of misdirection and storytelling (Jonathan Nolan is almost as good as his brother at keeping thins close to the chest), or whether they just ran out of time and scribbled something cheap and cheesy on to wrap it all up. All I know is that most of the film’s great secrets and big reveals are nothing more than window dressing designed to distract you from the slight of hand introduction of a Hallmark movie ending.

It also doesn’t help that Hugh Jackman and Rebecca Ferguson have next to no chemistry together. Both of them are terrific actors in their own right, but together in this film they just weren’t convincing at all. The romance that spawned between them felt awkward and unwieldy. So much so that when Bannister would go into a rage trying to find out what happened to her I almost started chuckling. It felt about as authentic and real as Kathy Bates making out with Justin Bieber. This made sure that an already shaky film flopped pretty dramatically at the box office, barely pulling in a quarter of it’s budget when all is said and done.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for strong violence, drug material throughout, sexual content and some strong language




Video:

Sadly due to supply chain shortages Warner was only able to send out the Blu-ray for us to review today, but said Blu-ray is not anything to sneeze at either. Luckily it’s not the typical 4/5 rated video score that they’ve put out in comparison to their 4K UHD discs, and is really a show stopper. The visually impressive film has a sort of cool blue and slate gray tone to it with muted colors, intermingling sharp primaries as a contrast to the cooler tones. The night time and inside shots give this a very dim and murky appearance, but shadow detail and clarity throughout are superb. I noticed some crush and a few flickers of banding, otherwise this is really an artifact free affair. Great clarity, good sharpness, and enough detail to really shine all the way across the board.







Audio:

The Dolby Atmos track found on the Blu-ray AND The 4K UHD is a stunner for sure. The opening scene with the Miami winds whipping around the half flooded city, and the deep bass waves that accompany with the Nolanesque score is a treat to listen to. It’s powerful, very weighty in the atmospheric use of said score, and the bass track doesn’t ever want for fodder. The slamming weight as Bannister and Curtis’s character as they fall into the water filled theater is jaw dropping. Surrounds get used quite heavily and there’s some nice rain effects coming from the overheads. Dialog centric portions can be much quieter and subdued, and vocals are never anything short of impeccable. All around great mix.









Extras:

• You're Going on a Journey
• The Sunken Coast
• Crafting a Memory
• Reminiscence: A Family Reunion
• Save My Love

Final Score: ​

Is Reminiscence a horrible travesty of a film? Not at all. But it is most definitely a huge disappointment considering the top line of actors and pedigree behind the production. The entire thing felt like a huge waste of incredible potential, leaving the audience more frustrated at the end due to the gigantic puzzle box tease, than if it had just come out and been made as a cheesy lifetime movie without the twists and turns. The Blu-ray is absolutely incredible though, with fantastic audio and video, and the typical modicum of extras we’ve come to expect from modern day home video releases. Worth a possible rental, but not much more.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton, Cliff Curtis, Marina de Tavira, Daniel Wu
Directed by: Lisa Joy
Written by: Lisa Joy
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 AVC
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 Core), English French, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Latin Spanish, Castilian Spanish, Canadian French, Parisian French, Brazilian Portuguese, Finnish, Greek, Norwegian, Swedish, Dutch, Danish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 99 minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: November 28th, 2021

Recommendation: Rental

 

[Asere]

Thanks for the review. I started watching this film and stopped halfway through. I thought it was boring and slow.

 

[Epoxy1]

Couldn't agree more. What a miss. It seemed as if the actor's were sleep walking through the entire film.