 Reminiscence is a film all about looking back on past memories and how much joy they can bring you Which is a bit ironic because I never want to think about this film again The only joy to be found in this film is from the writer and director Lisa joy That's her last name last name is joy HBO Max and Warner Brothers have struck quite a deal Where every shitty Warner Brothers film that goes to theaters also gets released day one on that platform That also sucks. So you have a bad set of films to watch on a bad application. It's a great time all around I think the film froze about four times before it was done three of which were because of the shitty app And one of which was because I actually froze the film paused it and had to reflect on my time and what I was doing with it Not every movie that's been released day one on HBO Max has been bad by Warner Brothers I mean the Suicide Squad was phenomenal, but I mean we're talking about a diamond in the rough there for every the Suicide Squad there's a space jam Godzilla versus Kong and Mortal Kombat 2021 to be seen reminisce and stars two of my favorite actors working We have Hugh Jackman. We got Rebecca Ferguson. What why didn't this work? Well for starters? They have zero chemistry which is kind of one of the main purposes of the film is to get us to be on board with their Relationship together what we have to work with here is one part inception a dash of Sin City And we sprinkle in a little bit of Blade Runner for the aesthetic none of which is done Well, I say Sin City because it has that old-school vibe to it that that Mystery thriller aspect where the main protagonist narrates most of the film. There's a lot of metaphorical dialogue Most of it's really cheesy, but in Sin City it works so well because that whole movie style It oozes it and the cheesy dialogue just adds to the effect It just makes it so much more palpable whereas here it comes off as just lazy and bad writing Here's the plot in a reminiscence shell Miami's underwater. This is the future things are not looking good There are countless crimes and murders being committed on the daily There's a city of unrest the rich stay rich and they live on top Looking down from their ivory dams that they've built around their palaces at the the common folk The pathetic miscreants living down below under the sea a little bit of a water world vibe in here, too If I'm gonna be honest because it sucks Hugh Jackman's character Nick and his colleague Emily were both in that war They they served a couple terms or whatever or whatever. It's called a couple sessions a couple of Matches Emily shot a bunch of people she kind of braggalicious about it. Nick is pretty impressed He kind of sucks all around for being a you know a dude that's been in a couple terms of war He's kind of a pathetic loser when it comes to hand-to-hand combat or fighting out of a situation Because he's constantly getting his ass kicked in this film. They're not doing well financially or mentally for that matter in order to make ends meet They have this rememining and remembrance Reminiscence chamber set up for people to come over and pay him some coin to take a ride take a spin in it And what it does is it lets you look back on some of your favorite memories or your worst ones If that's something that gets you off the weird part is while this is going on Hugh Jackman's character Nick He gets to watch this whole thing unfold. So if you're thinking about making love to uh, you know someone special He's gonna be in the room with you joining sometimes. No, it doesn't go that far. He gets close He get really close to you everything's business as usual for Nick until May walks into his life sparks fly almost instantly It was love at first sight Because he got to see her fully nude as she's stripped in front of him. We don't get to see that This is PG-13 and they don't even give us like a corner of an ass not even a side boob We get nothing here. This movie gives us nothing in any sense of the word Nick and may become close they form a special connection. They bond they fall in love Really until one day may goes missing now Here's where the chunk of the film really plays out after about a half hour in we get our mystery to solve What happened to me? Where did she go? Is she still alive? Why is she wrapped up in some sort of the seedy underbelly of this water town? This will keep you invested for another 10 minutes before you fully check out I was at the 40 minute mark 45 minute mark of I'm being generous where I just couldn't do it anymore I was nodding off. I was having to slap myself awake This movie is so Slow and so uninteresting if it didn't have the flooded city stuff I don't even know what I'd be watching that Like that's the only interesting thing and it doesn't really play into the movie much at all This just could have been a shitty downtown city It didn't matter that there was water everywhere. It really is inconsequential as Nick starts to pull on the threads and unspool this mess It just leads to more and more overlapping bullshit and by the end of the movie. You're just kind of like Okay, I don't really care about any of these characters at all. Am I supposed to am I supposed to be rooting for someone? And like I don't know why Nick is so infatuated with May. They didn't have this years long Relationship they knew each other for a couple months yet He's willing to just throw everything by the wayside his work his relationship with this co-worker And just all for this one woman now there would be maybe something powerful there if they had any semblance of a Emotional or spiritual connection with each other on camera, but that never really plays out We get a lot of slow-motion smiling shots of her kind of teasing him sexually of them going up some spinning Stairs and looking out at the Dilapidated buildings in the background under water nothing about it is romantic or special It doesn't have that la la land feel to it, you know I did the the director just can't handle this material and there's some really silly shit thrown in scenes that have no real Bering on the overall story You got an action sequence that comes in later where they're where they have a little shootout around a tank full of barracudas Horrible horrible scene it's filmed so poorly and Hugh Jackman's got his face in there and they're like snipping at him But then for a good amount of time they're not doing anything to him like make up your mind You're gonna eat this dude's face or not It doesn't have the cool goofy style of a sin city and it doesn't have the brilliant Storytelling and beautiful imagery of a Christopher Nolan inception so it's left just being the stale Waterlogged waste of time that's perfect for HBO Max The music's M.I.A. completely forgettable the only positive I'll give this is the opening shots pretty cool for a video game cutscene where the camera has you like flying First person through the city as it's all underwater. It looks pretty sweet It does end though with Hugh Jackman who's clearly green screened into the shot reaching down into what? I can only presume with CG water to pick up a card because the ripples are so perfect Maybe I'm way off, but it looked unnatural as all hell and that's really the whole movie in general At the end of these reviews. I usually like to say yeah absolutely watch it or don't waste your time This is a don't waste your time. I wouldn't even watch it for free on HBO Max. It's two hours It's boring. It's sluggish. It just ultimately gives you no emotion when it's done So yeah, there's watch inception again watch interstellar watch really anything by Christopher Nolan If you want a cool sci-fi type angle on a film. This really isn't even sci-fi It's just so uninteresting in every single aspect. It's a shame good actors Wasted if you saw the film and had a completely different experience Please let me know in the comments below like the video if you had a good time Make sure to subscribe as I put out content pretty much daily at this point It's it's pretty bananas over here Gwen Stefani and I'll hopefully I'll see you around No Hugh Jackman ever takes his claws out once in this it's really quite sad. Oh, you're still here Hey, if you really like what I'm doing you can check me out on patreon at patreon.com slash Adam does movies I have a dollar tier a five dollar tier ten You can just give me one or two bucks a month show your support that would be awesome You can also join me right here on YouTube via the YouTube join button It's kind of the same way you get access to additional videos that no one else does Yeah, you're very special and important to me