Friday, September 01, 2017

'Rememory' Has Little Else to Offer Besides a Great Performance from Peter Dinklage

A machine that can extract, record, and play memories.  A murder mystery.  Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage.  A posthumous appearance by Anton Yelchin.  And the pretty Évelyne Brochu (Orphan Black’s Delphine). All these interesting elements are in the sci-fi mystery film Rememory.  So it must be worthwhile, right?  Er, not so much.

In portraying Tyrion Lannister, Peter Dinklage has established his reputation as an awesome actor.  Despite his small stature, he has a strong screen presence that allows him to effortlessly stand out and engulf a scene when necessary.  Hence, I like the idea of him having the main, central role of a movie.  And, indeed, he’s easily the best thing about Rememory.

Unfortunately, his committed and compelling performance is paired with an underwhelming, boringly-paced story.
The plot surely has potential.  It gives Dinklage’s character a chance to play detective to get to the bottom of the suspicious death of a man who has invented a revolutionary machine that allows people to draw out and view memories, using that very same machine to help him in his investigation and finding closure with his brother’s tragic death.  But the script is terribly lacking in drawing something fascinating from the promising setup.  It comes off as pretentious rather than intriguing.

Rememory is very disappointing.  Not only because it’s ultimately unmemorable, but because it wastes the chance of Peter Dinklage headlining a movie by giving him the impossible task of elevating a poorly presented film.  He almost nearly made it moderately worthwhile – a testament to his talents – but the movie just has too many problems for him to drag up.

I just hope that this movie doesn’t ruin the possibility of Peter Dinklage being given the opportunity to once again play the main character of a promising film production.

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