Reminiscence (2021, Lisa Joy)

I did give Reminiscence a fair shake. I really did.

It’s not my fault it opens with an all-CGI “helicopter” shot introducing the setting—a future, flooded Miami—and a terrible voice-over from star Hugh Jackman. It’s writer and director Joy’s fault. And her producers. And whoever thought doing low-to-middling CGI on a fake helicopter shot was a good idea. And whoever told them no one would remember Dark City, which is the first obvious… um… “homage.” Unless the helicopter shot is a Birdcage nod.

Reminiscence is what happens when you put Unforgettable, Blade Runner 1, Blade Runner 2, Waterworld (Joy didn’t have the courage for the urine filtration, sad to say), the aforementioned Dark City, and Dredd into a mixer and then bake them in a Big Sleep-shaped pan. I’m only including Unforgettable on the list because it’s got the same MacGuffin, but I’m not sure Joy’s familiar with it—though the movie ends up lifting a scene from The Departed trailer, so nothing’s too obvious. A Bugs Bunny cameo would’ve improved Reminiscence a lot. Especially since femme fatale Rebecca Ferguson is based more on Jessica Rabbit than anyone else.

That Departed lift jumps out because all the other prominent references outside Blade Runner 2049 are at least twenty years old. Wait, no… Dredd. But I feel like if you made Reminiscence you assumed no one saw Dredd, because if they had, why would they be watching your movie (outside the eventual and then frequent Jackman beefcake, which at fifty-two is still very impressive, as is his ability to emote in underwater close-ups). From the first few seconds of the film, Reminiscence is a fail. It’s just going to be two annoyingly tedious hours to figure out exactly how it’ll fail. Who it’ll fail. Spoiler: Thandiwe Newton. It completely and utterly fails Thandiwe Newton, particularly when it turns out the Occam’s razor on why Jackman falls for Ferguson instead of long-time best friend Newton (he’s Bogart, she’s Dooley Wilson, wish I was kidding) is because… you guessed it… she’s a Black woman.

There’s a lot of backstory to Reminiscence’s dystopian future, and we get every single bit of it from terrible voice-over narration. Even before the end of the first act, you’ve got to wonder how Jackman—who’s sort of been trying to do everything as a neo-noir (superhero neo-noir, sci-fi neo-noir)—didn’t get someone to try to fix the film. Somewhere in the third act, he does such a good impression of Clint Eastwood saying yes to a movie he really shouldn’t have, and you all of a sudden remember Jackman’s the movie star, and Reminiscence completely fails him.

Anyway.

In the ruins of the old world (Miami and the Gulf of Mexico flooded, Americans banded together to force Mexicans, brown people, and poor people of all colors drown), Jackman is a former interrogator (for the Americans) who uses the technology they developed to go into people’s memories to sell people “reminiscences.” You pay to relive your good memories from before the world went to shit while Jackman and Newton watch it all. Jackman’s a good guy though, he turns his head when there’s nudity. Even when femme fatale Ferguson wants him to look.

After sweeping Jackman off his feet because she can sing and apparently no one’s left who can sing, Ferguson leaves him, and he becomes a memory junkie. But when he and Newton have to go consult on a case for the cops—they need Jackman to talk calmly to the suspect while Newton watches the computer in case it tells her to tell Jackman to stop (the district attorneys and cops in Reminiscence are abject morons because Joy can’t figure out another way to do the Big Sleep nod)—he sees Ferguson in a memory and has a new lead.

He wasn’t actually investigating her before just reliving the memories (there’s even a massive clue to where she might be hiding the movie doesn’t notice because Joy’s a bad writer). But now he’s on the case, and he’s going to meet drug dealer Daniel Wu–Reminiscence forgets for the first act the majority of the population is addicted to some drug you can never, ever kick, and it’s ruining the ruined society—and crooked cop Cliff Curtis. Wu’s terrible, but Curtis is good with horrible writing. Like he’s trying. No one else in Reminiscence tries. Hopefully.

It’d be much, much worse if Jackman and Ferguson are trying. Jackman’s on autopilot. Ferguson’s got what Joy thinks is a great part, kind of an empowered femme fatale, but it’s actually this very weird slut-shaming, aggressively misogynistic, classist take. Also, Ferguson and Jackman have zero chemistry. Probably because of the bad script and bad direction, but neither actor should’ve believed Joy telling them they were Bogart and Bacalling it.

For some of Reminiscence, it seems like Jackman will at least escape unscathed. Joy must have something to say about these genres she’s blending together. When it turns out she doesn’t, and then there’s still another forty minutes in the movie, it’s just a descent into mainstream mediocrity. Jackman doesn’t have to be embarrassed by his performance, just agreeing to be in the project. Though maybe the voice-overs.

Newton’s not great. She’s fine. But not really anything more because her writing is terrible and her part is worse. She’s believable in this lousy production, which makes her definitionally infinitely better than anyone else. Must be Newton’s experience working with Joy on the similarly insipid “Westworld” show.

Technically, Reminiscence is without highlights. Paul Cameron’s photography is bad or worse. Worse on the green screen composite shots. Ramin Djawadi’s music is terrible. Waterworld Miami isn’t great, but not as good as it should be—so either Howard Cummings’s production design just misses it or Joy’s direction screws it up. The fail on the flooded city, which has tropical noir overtones, seems mostly to be Joy’s impatient direction–Reminiscence is such a chore to watch; Joy’s predictable, contrived, impatient, and tedious. So the movie’s rushing to do things slowly. The relatively short and hilariously bad epilogue goes on forever. Even the last fade-out is too long.

So maybe it’s all editor Mark Yoshikawa’s fault. Perhaps he could’ve saved us. Or at least made Reminiscence’s seemingly endlessly bland, unimaginative mediocrity move at a better pace instead. The film’s a bad memory and hopefully one easily forgotten.

Solo (2018, Ron Howard)

Solo: A Star Wars Story is juvenile, which might be what manages to save it. It’s got nothing but problems—a troubled production (director Howard took over from fired “executive producers” Christopher Miller and Phil Lord and shot seventy-percent of what’s in the film), an uninspired screenplay (by Empire and Jedi screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan and his son), the worst Star Wars music since A Day to Celebrate (“courtesy” John Powell), and a hilarious miscast “lead,” Alden Ehrenreich.

Ehrenreich is playing young Han Solo, almost forty years after Harrison Ford originated the part and became a megastar. Howard never directed Ford in anything—they did fight over Shirley Feeney in 1962 Modesto—and maybe it would’ve helped if Howard had any experience with him. But the script is so talky—the Kasdans write Ehrenreich is a cocky jabberer (and I’m not sure they realize with juxtaposing him with whiny Mark Hamill from the original Star Wars is a bad idea)—and Ehrenreich so bland he can’t even figure out how to get his hair to do the acting for him, which means he couldn’t have worked in the seventies, it was never going to work. Solo tries to ignore itself instead of embrace itself and ends up rotting on the vine.

The only performance the film needs to have right and has right is, arguably, Donald Glover, who’s playing Billy Dee Williams playing Lando Calrissian. Glover doesn’t mimic Williams’s mannerisms, but the voice inflections are spot on. And Glover manages to have a sincere subplot. Not in the script, but in his performance.

Miscast or not, Ehrenreich shouldn’t be getting shown up as far as sincerity goes. Especially not after now bad girl ex-girlfriend Emilia Clarke tells Ehrenreich he’s secretly the good guy. If we’re finding out Solo is going to come back and save them at the Death Star, we need to see it. We don’t see it anywhere.

Though Solo’s particularly bad at showing things. Cinematographer Bradford Young is anti-contrast; everything looks a little muddy, a little muted. Whatever Young and Howard thought they were doing with the colored lighting doesn’t work either. Especially not when the movie starts pretending it’s Empire Strikes Back, which leads to some okay spaceship flying shots and some really bad attempts from composer Powell to integrate John Williams music for nostalgia’s sake.

But at least they’re trying something.

And the trying is what “saves” Solo; albeit conditionally.

The movie opens with thirty year-old teenagers Ehrenreich and Clarke growing up in a Star Wars version of Oliver Twist. When they finally get to escape, only Ehrenreich can make it. He’s going to come back for her, he promises.

Fast forward three years and Ehrenreich hooks up with Woody Harrelson’s intergalactic thief crew. It’s Harrelson, Thandiwe Newton, and Jon Favreau voicing the CGI action figure. Harrelson initially seems like he’s having fun and it’s not translating to a good performance. Then it seems like he’s not having fun and it’s still not translating to a good performance. Newton’s okay but she’s got the nagging girlfriend part–Solo goes out of its way to fail Bechdel and its “equality for droids” subplot is problematic and the slavery stuff is icky too. It’s not malicious, just exceptionally thoughtless.

Though, obviously, the whole thing is exceptionally thoughtless. It’s not like there’s some gem of a chase sequence or the big redeeming action set piece.

In not trying, however, Solo manages not to fail. Occasionally. There’s the broad fail of the concept, the broad fail of Ehrenreich, but Glover’s… captivating in his impression or performance or whatever. Clarke’s got a thin part written a piece of fortune cookie paper but she’s sympathetic.

Even if she apparently said no to Star Wars costumes and just wears a dress.

Paul Bettany’s villain isn’t… good but Bettany’s not sleeping through the performance. He’s not Harrelsoning it. And Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s droid activist really does seem to be there for a bunch of White men to laugh at civil rights, but Waller-Bridge’s great. And her comedy timing is better than anyone’s, though she presumably recorded the droid’s voice in post-production and didn’t have to suffer the set.

Solo is bland, long, boring—the first act is particularly dreadful, mostly because Ehrenreich’s so prominent and so disappointing—but it’s also not… predictable. The Kasdans’ script does make a lot of bad narrative decisions but they are decisions. And there are a lot of them. Event-based plotting might be the way I’d have described it as a teenager in an effort to justify liking it.

Plus there’s an Elder God.

Also… and I didn’t manage to work this anecdote in anywhere because I didn’t trend mean enough… Ron Howard? Bringing in the guy who infamously failed with Willow is a choice. Bringing in the guy who caped for Jake Lloyd’s performance in Phantom Menace is a choice.

And none of it even matters: Solo never had a chance. You might be able to recast Harrison Ford, but you can’t recreate Harrison Ford as Han Solo.

Though maybe they should’ve let Donald Glover try.