Rebecca Ferguson Reminiscence Singing

[Enrique Vasquez]

Reminiscenceopening in theaters and on HBO Max August 21, skillfully combines science fiction with romance and noir. Hugh Jackman stars as Nick Bannister, a brilliant and lonely man who offers clients the chance to relive their best memories. After falling for the mysterious Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), he must turn his technology into a tool to hold onto the woman he loves - and to uncover her dangerous secrets.

My character - that she wrote for me - I guess on one level it has an element of Wolverine in it. That tough, impenetrable exterior underneath a lot of pain and brokenness, with a little bit of badass in there. But you mix that with an almost obsessive love affair that happens out of the blue for him, and then she disappears.

For the character, I think it's very much like what the audience goes through with this movie - which is, "I know what this movie is." 10 minutes in, you're like, "Yeah, I get it." And then very quickly, it goes into areas and places narratively and emotionally that you don't expect. It's the same for Nick.

I want to talk about Lisa Joy real quick and the technology because that's another thing about this film that I want everybody to know. This isn't necessarily CG. Talk to me about this technology, because when I read about it, I couldn't even wrap my head around it.

Hugh Jackman: Well, I couldn't either. She told me she was gonna do this thing, and I was like, "Has that been done before?" She says, "No, we're working it out now." And I'm like, "Okay... You're a first-time filmmaker, that's a big thing to take on."

But the holograms - which is not really what they are, but that's the best way to think about it for most people watching - are real. They are in-camera. So when I as the actor was standing at that reminiscence machine, I'm looking at a real hologram of Rebecca Ferguson singing. Even at the point where - I don't want to give it away, but - I enter one of the memories, that's real.

I'm so used to, my whole life, acting to tennis balls on top of a stick. It was really complex and really difficult. And I said, "Lisa, we've got to get the word out that you've done this." Because no one will know or believe, they'll just assume it's so brilliant that it had to have been done by computer.

Let me just say one more thing. Because as I said that, there's not a day [that] goes by where I'm not unbelievably grateful for having been part of that MCU Universe. Particularly to be there at the beginning of it, and to watch it. To see Kevin Feige going from being an assistant to a producer and a mate of mine, to where he is today. And that was a role of a lifetime.

Even Hugh Jackman's indisputable star power can't light up the pretentious, pseudo-poetic, sci-fi murk that is \"Reminiscence,\" a thundering misfire you can see in theaters or on HBO/Max, though I can't think of a single reason you should make the effort.

It's no crime to create a movie that wishes it were \"Blade Runner\" or something intriguingly opaque by Christopher Nolan. Screenwriter Lisa Joy, making her directing debut with this clammy calamity, is married to the \"Inception\" virtuoso's brother, producer Jonathan Nolan, with whom she created the hit HBO series \"Westworld.\" Lightning has not struck twice.

Jackman plays Nick Bannister, a private eye in a dystopian future where Miami is sinking in the ocean and only the rich can afford dry land. Nick operates an immersion tank where he guides clients to relive their not always happy pasts. His partner is Watts (the reliably terrific Thandiwe Newton), an ex-military pal buddy from an unspecified border war, whose love he spurns.

Miami is so choking hot that everyone stays inside till dark, which makes for great, hothouse atmospherics. It's the lack of fun that's stifling. Joy saddles Jackman with overripe voice-over narration meant to evoke Bogart in film noir classics. Instead, the verbalizing violates the rule of \"show don't tell\" by telling us everything and then repeating it until we want to scream.

Download the all new \"Popcorn With Peter Travers\" podcasts on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Tunein, Google Play Music and Stitcher..\"You're going on a journey to a place in time you knew before\" intones Nick, who fits each client with electrodes. We see what they see in hologram flashes. By the time Nick says, \"memory is the boat that sails against time's current and I'm the oarsman,\" I was ready to bail.

Things perk up when femme fatale Mae (Rebecca Ferguson) slinks in. Someone describes Mae as \"an idea wrapped in a tight dress.\" Nick's idea is to make frisky memories with her. But the Ferguson/Jackman chemistry is even dimmer here than it was in \"The Greatest Showman.\"

So that's a bummer. When Mae vanishes after she bewitches Nick with a torch song, he goes on an odyssey to find her. That might work if the script didn't go all artsy again by comparing their romance to the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. What happened to boy meets girl?

Jackman almost makes you care when Nick dips into his own memory bank to feed his addiction to Mae -- a no-no in the reminiscence business. Such films as \"Logan,\" Les Miserables\" and especially the recent \"Bad Education\" showed the singing-dancing boy from Oz could act with the best of them. And even in a leaky bucket like this one, he fills the screen.

The film's stuporous mood is broken by two dynamite action scenes -- one pitting Nick against drug kingpin Saint Joe (Daniel Wu) and a tank of killer eels and the other a knockdown fight with crooked cop Cyrus Boothe (Cliff Curtis) in an underwater hotel ballroom. It's nice to see Jackman in Wolverine mode. And even nicer that Nick needs a woman to save him. Yay, Watts!

Still, every time Joy throws us a crumb of narrative momentum, she spoils it with highfalutin' babble about how we're all beads on the necklace of time. Oh, please. \"Reminiscence\" only made me remember other, better movie mindbenders. \"Blade Runner\" anyone?

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