Reminiscence
Warner Bros PicturesAn ideal debut should be bold, creative, and fixated on new avenues of interest to explore. Lisa Joy, director of Reminiscence, depicts an apocalyptic world. Miami has flooded. Good. That is about all Joy can present here, the flooding of Florida lingering as a mild inconvenience rather than a catastrophic event. They have adapted fairly well to the immediate flooding, sticking a few walls up here or there. Walls which, upon reflection, are metaphors for what Joy does here. She builds up walls around her beloved leading lad, and Hugh Jackman, because of this, is impenetrable. Even as a rugged veteran that helps people relive their favourite memories, however dangerous a job that may be.
Reminding people of happier times is a dangerous job, which is why Jackman wipes away the usual quality audiences associate with him. To remind them of that would be a sour taste, because his performance here is well below par. Pontifications of what time means and how one can never be late, Nicolas Bannister (Jackman) is a hard character to take seriously. Had there been a semblance of tongue-in-cheek admirability to Reminiscence, then perhaps it would be far more palatable. Ever the engaging presence, Jackman still has no trouble reeling his fans in, but there is nothing within his performance as Bannister that truly challenges him. His post-X-Men career not exactly paying dividends, but at least his role bolsters appearances from Rebecca Ferguson and Thandiwe Newton.
Neither Ferguson nor Newton comes out particularly well either, but at least they are not at the front, absorbing all the damage as Jackman does. They are preserved not just by the generic flippancy of Joy’s narrative, but because they are given little to do. As the soundtrack rises, hitting its crescendo, the presumption that something is about to happen is almost palpable. When such a release does not meet with anything of interest, the disappointment is far larger and horrific than any form of pay-off these flutters of excitement could offer. Reminiscence is rather remiss with its facets of entertainment, primarily because anything it could offer, in a desperate attempt to be original, it realises has been done before, elsewhere. Better as well. Joy bears the burden of this rather well, but for a first feature where she should look to impress, the burden is a stain on an otherwise opportune debut.
Still, there are moments that Joy can hold onto. Hope is not completely removed from Reminiscence. Quality is, though. Jackman and Joy make for an agreeable pairing, but with a post-apocalyptic shift and a science-fiction angle thrown in for good measure, the prose takes quite the beating. It is not what Reminiscence leaves for the imagination that is the issue, it is the moments that are meant to develop building blocks for the audience that are so riddled with error. They are either defunct upon arrival for they have been explained to the audience elsewhere or are disconnected and wish for the viewer to suspend their disbelief for something forgettable or lacking in meaning. Reminiscence will hope to impress with its special effects, but the way they are utilised and how they look is one of many breaks in this oddly ambitious, yet floundering fantasy feature.