Reminiscence trailer, Lisa Joy's directorial debut

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Well, this sure was...okay? I'm going with
, maybe
.

Super short review: it feels like it hits the beats of a Nolan film, and has the cadence of one, but without the satisfying puzzle box nature of one. It has all the window dressing of one of those kinds of high concept films but it's actually not as interested in that stuff. In one sense it seems to address the common complaint with Nolan (Christopher or Jonathan) films, in that it cares as much or more about the characters as it does about its plot machinations, but it seems to do this just by not overwhelming the former with the latter, rather than having anything particularly interesting or moving to say about it at all.

There's some good stuff there. Some good lines, some solid performances, and of course the interesting asides about how the technology in the film has rippled through society. It's basically a sci-fi Chinatown at points. But it's just too predictable and never really explores any one part of itself fully enough to be satisfying.



Well, this sure was...okay? I'm going with
, maybe
.

Super short review: it feels like it hits the beats of a Nolan film, and has the cadence of one, but without the satisfying puzzle box nature of one. It has all the window dressing of one of those kinds of high concept films but it's actually not as interested in that stuff. In one sense it seems to address the common complaint with Nolan (Christopher or Jonathan) films, in that it cares as much or more about the characters as it does about its plot machinations, but it seems to do this just by not overwhelming the former with the latter, rather than having anything particularly interesting or moving to say about it at all.

There's some good stuff there. Some good lines, some solid performances, and of course the interesting asides about how the technology in the film has rippled through society. It's basically a sci-fi Chinatown at points. But it's just too predictable never really explores any one part of itself fully enough to be satisfying.
I would agree with a rating between
and
. I think I watched this one in a short lull where I wasn't writing up my reviews.

I thought that it tried way too hard to coast on mood and atmosphere and the occasional "oh wow!" technology moment. But from my point of view it went back to the same three wells over and over and over. The first time
WARNING: spoilers below
we think we're watching events "live" only to realize it's a memory
was cool. The third time? Meh.

There were also way, WAY too many coincidences for my liking, such as
WARNING: spoilers below
the guards noticing at the last minute that he's a veteran and only pretending to kill him (which is beyond dumb because obviously it'll get back to their bosses that this guy is still alive?!), or her dropping the earring and him just happening to be the one to fish it out of the gutter months later at exactly the right moment to infer that she had been back to see him
.

And for all the time that was spent with the characters, I actually felt like they never actually developed into real personalities. More like circling each other with a series of thriller tropes.

Even not expecting much, I was underwhelmed. And for a movie that seemed to want to say something about memories and our relationship to them, I thought its conclusions were pretty rote. (Hey, did you know that everyone has a choice between wallowing in the past or moving forward?!).