{"id":9451,"date":"2024-11-30T12:20:30","date_gmt":"2024-11-30T17:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=9451"},"modified":"2024-11-30T12:20:30","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T17:20:30","slug":"reminiscence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/30\/reminiscence\/","title":{"rendered":"Reminiscence"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Reminiscence<\/strong> (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Sci-Fi-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 116 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong violence, drug material throughout, sexual content, some strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Lisa Joy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Lisa Joy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ramin Djawadi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Paul Cameron\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 20, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton, Cliff Curtis, Daniel Wu, Mojean Aria, Marina de Tavira, Brett Cullen, Natalie Martinez, Angela Sarafyan, Javier Molina, Sam Medina, Norio Nishimura, Roxton Garcia, Giovannie Cruz.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $3.9M (US)\/$16.4M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ll grant that Reminiscence<\/strong> isn\u2019t the first movie to put a futuristic sci-fi spin on 40s film noir. I\u2019m sure it won\u2019t be the last either. It certainly won\u2019t be the last to pale in comparison to Blade Runner, still the best sci-fi-noir hybrid EVER!<\/p>\n

\u00a0To be fair, Reminiscence<\/strong> owes a great debt to author Philip K. Dick as it also borrows elements of Total Recall and Minority Report in addition to Blade Runner, an adaptation of his brilliant dystopian novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? The truth is there\u2019s not a single original idea in Reminiscence<\/strong>. It also borrows from Strange Days, Waterworld, Chinatown, Inception, Vanilla Sky and any number of classic noirs- e.g. Out of the Past, The Maltese Falcon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Written and directed by Lisa Joy (HBO\u2019s Westworld), Reminiscence<\/strong> is set in a future where climate change has flooded cities and raised temperatures to a point where people live nocturnally because it\u2019s unbearably hot when the sun is up. Only the elite (rich people) can afford to live on dry land; everybody else lives in the waterlogged streets of the city. They must go through a lot of socks just walking across the street.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Nick Bannister (Jackman, the X-Men movies) is the hard-boiled detective character. He and his partner, Girl Friday character Watts (Newton, Mission: Impossible 2), operate a unique business in Miami. They allow clients to relive specific memories with a memory machine (aka \u201cthe Reminiscence\u201d). Watts fits them with a wired headpiece and submerges them in water while Nick provides psychological prompts. The memories are stored on discs as 3D holograms for the clients to revisit any time they\u2019d like. They do a lot of repeat business.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One day, a sexy, mysterious lady walks in asking for helping finding her keys. She\u2019s nightclub singer Mae (Ferguson, Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation & Fallout), the femme fatale of the story. Nick is instantly smitten with her and they begin a relationship much to Watts\u2019 disapproval. She doesn\u2019t trust Mae. Nick is deliriously happy and in love. Then, just like that, Nick is awakened by Watts. It turns out he\u2019s been spending an inordinate amount of time in the Reminiscence reliving the relationship. Mae disappeared without a trace months earlier and he\u2019s looking for any clue that might help him track her down. I guess it never occurred to him that she might not want to be found. His investigation leads him to a conspiracy involving drug dealers, corrupt cops and the wealthiest family in Miami. As we all know, wealthy and screwed-up go together like PB&J in movies like this.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s the time of the season when you have to take whatever pleasure you can from the slim pickings of the late-August movie releases. That\u2019s one thing COVID didn\u2019t change. The studios still unload their dregs in the final dog days of summer. Nice to see some things stay the same. I can see why Warner waited until now to release Reminiscence<\/strong>. It\u2019s not an easy film to market. Technically, it\u2019s sci-fi, but not the kind with lasers, spaceships and super-powered aliens. It\u2019s only sci-fi in the sense that it\u2019s set in a future hell where our greatest fears- i.e. climate change- have become an everyday reality. As I see it, it\u2019s more of a neo-noir with sci-fi trappings. It has all the classic noir elements including a voiceover by the protagonist. He utters deep\/non-deep statements like \u201cThe past can haunt a man.\u201d and \u201cMemories are like perfume. Better in small doses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0In this future, it\u2019s possible to tap into a person\u2019s memories and not just for purposes of reminiscence. Law enforcement uses it for interrogation purposes. A warrant is required, of course. Nick is called upon from time to time by the DA (Martinez, End of Watch) to help elicit information from suspects or witnesses by observing their memories. It\u2019s an interesting idea I wish the makers had expounded on a little more. For all its lofty ideas, Reminiscence<\/strong> remains rather superficial. It has themes that demand deep exploration and don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Jackman is fine in the lead role, but I can\u2019t help thinking the role could have been played by any actor, A-list or otherwise. He doesn\u2019t really do anything special with it. Honestly, I\u2019d have rather seen Clive Owen play the part. We know he can do disheveled; look at him in Children of Men. Ferguson is terrific as the femme fatale. She is mad sexy and alluring. When she sings, it\u2019s easy to see why men fall at her lovely feet. Newton is sufficiently tough and steely as the Girl Friday who might harbor feelings for her boss only he wouldn\u2019t know it. They\u2019ve been friends since \u201cthe war\u201d and he sees her as a sister-in-arms. He knows nothing about her past. Isn\u2019t that always the way?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Despite it being derivative from start to finish, Reminiscence<\/strong> is a nicely entertaining sci-fi-noir with a decent storyline. Although it\u2019s described as a \u201cmind bender\u201d, it\u2019s not mind-boggling like last year\u2019s Tenet. The narrative is a little more straightforward even with the occasional visits to the land of memories. I wouldn\u2019t call it predictable, but the pieces of the puzzle form a picture we\u2019ve seen before. It\u2019s still kind of cool though. I like this movie. I like it more than many of my colleagues. It\u2019s no classic, but it\u2019s better than the crap that usually comes out this time of the year.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reminiscence (2021)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Sci-Fi-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 116 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (strong violence, drug material throughout, sexual content, some strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Lisa Joy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Lisa Joy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Ramin Djawadi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Paul Cameron\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: August 20, 2021 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Hugh Jackman, Rebecca Ferguson, Thandiwe Newton, Cliff Curtis, Daniel Wu, Mojean Aria, Marina de Tavira, Brett Cullen, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Reminiscence-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9451","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9451"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9451\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9670,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9451\/revisions\/9670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}