Director: Alex Garland

Writer: Alex Garland

Stars: Jessie Buckley, Rory Kinnear

Synopsis: A young woman goes on a solo vacation to the English countryside following the death of her ex-husband.

Although his methods aren’t polished to perfection, writer-director Alex Garland has always found a way to get under the audience’s skin via different styles and mediums (film, tv, and even video games). However, his projects all cover three main themes: identity, creation, and the element of rebirth (or metempsychosis). These themes all intertwine thanks to his surrealistic directorial efforts and the utilization of beautifully crafted yet claustrophobic set pieces, moving across different budget scales and genres. In my opinion, his directorial debut, Ex Machina, has been his best work to date, as it entrancingly examines creationism via the technological advances of artificial intelligence. However, while his follow-up, Annihilation, does contain some mesmerizing concepts, something is lacking in its narrative and presentation, preventing it from becoming a great piece of sci-fi storytelling. Nevertheless, two years after working on his series, Devs, Garland arrives with his third feature, the A24-backed and Jessie Buckley-led Men. 

While there are elements that will intrigue fans of the horror genre and the director’s work, a combination of two main factors lowers its chances of being on A24’s shelf of top-notch arthouse horror. In the wake of a personal tragedy, where her husband James (Paapa Essiedu) fell to his death outside their apartment, Harper (Jessie Buckley) travels to the English countryside to start anew – to stay in a place where she can heal. Knowing the filmmaker at hand, the viewer understands that everything will go wrong one way or another. Not only was Harper in the process of divorcing his partner, but while James was falling, they locked eyes, causing a state of pure elongated shock onto her (that moment felt like an eternity). She rents a place with many open green spaces and no neighbors. Upon arrival, Harper is greeted by the owner of the house, Geoffrey (played by Rory Kinnear in one of the many roles he plays throughout the film). 

The awkward proprietor gives a tour and helps her out with her luggage, later leaving her so she can get settled onto the property. Harper’s search for reflection and moments of peace is ruined. While taking a quick walk through the woods, a person starts to stalk the poor Harper. Dread, unease, and a sense of inevitability are poured over the screen as the person gets closer and closer. This is the first instance of more to come that will cause Harper to face her internal and external fears, fully formed by the depths of her darkest memories. It’s a feverish nightmare come to life. Men marks the return to Alex Garland’s stripped-back narrative persona, while being his most thematically abstract and emotional at its core. It’s his take on folk horror, a la The Blood on Satan’s Claw, yet with his own distinctive style and religious symbolism regarding creation and rebirth. Some images revolve around the biblical story of Adam and Eve, with the forbidden fruit being the key representation – a lonesome apple tree in the cottage’s garden. 

It represents the choice one has of choosing a good or evil action, targeting the loss of innocence after consumption. There’s also Celtic imagery of the Green Man (which represents the cycles of life, death, and rebirth) and Sheela na gig. Both figures and carvings intertwine with the aforementioned concepts, in addition to the conflicts between men and women throughout the centuries. The image alone of these cultural or religious figures creates a sensation of forthcoming trepidation, filling the screen with aversion. That’s one of the fascinating facets of folk horror. There is no clear-cut definition behind all of what’s happening in the respective story, but it all relates to isolation, religion, and the capable power of us humans. However, it does not succumb to all the folk horror totalings, in the way that Rainer Sarnet’s November efficiently does. Instead, he combines those facets with personifications of women’s various apprehensions and gender divisions. This is where Rory Kinnear’s multiple characters come into play. They (priest, cop, stalker, proprietor) depict a different form of misogyny and hostility, from victim-blaming to misguiding her fears. 

One way you could interpret these all-familiar faces that Kinnear portrays is that all these horrors could appear in plain sight, on a bright morning, or in the dead of night. In pure Garland fashion, it is up to you, the viewer, to decipher its meanings within the confines of the narrative he’s presenting. His works are worth the analysis, as it leaves more questions than answers and makes space for their own imaginative exploration. For the most part, the questions his projects propose are intriguing. Ambiguity is a weapon he uses in his features to add a more profound sense of dread while you think about it after you have watched it. Thanks to its themes of trauma, despair, and loneliness, Men is effectively unsettling for its first two acts, later switching into a brutal third that I enjoyed, yet will ultimately divide audiences. Nevertheless, it’s the opaqueness and ambiguity that injure the movie in the end. Story-wise, Harper’s arc is never completed, and it feels like it was left in the middle of things. 

Even though I liked it, the finale has faults because it’s designed as a means for conversation instead of resolving or providing a rightful conclusion to the lead character’s suffering. Once people begin to see this film, thousands of videos with people explaining the ending will appear. And Garland knows this, as he stated in the press notes for the movie, that it will arouse solid opinions and emotions, both good and bad, depending on the recipient. Apart from those narrative fragmentations, it’s technically well-made and crafted. What shines the most is the work of cinematographer Rob Hardy, production designer Mark Digby, and the score by Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury (which includes some vocalizations by Buckley and ambient instrumentations). These aspects help to elevate the surrealistic and grounded horrors and build up a confined sensation as the film concludes. Individual characteristics also contain similarities with Jordan Peele’s Get Out – not thematically, but structurally. However, unlike other films that have tried emulating, these similarities don’t take you away from the experience. 

It goes without saying that Jessie Buckley was incredible in this, once again showing she’s one of the best actresses working today. A true marvel at the craft, Buckley’s portrayal of Harper takes you inside her mind as all this despair and dread revolves around her in these horrific circumstances. Equally fascinating is Kinnear, whose multiple performances make you feel uneasy and laugh (it is funnier than you might imagine). Kinnear and Buckley deliver highly committed performances full of cinematic heft that force you to stick with the picture, even if you are pretty entangled with what’s happening at its core. This type of project could have only been crafted in the pandemic because it feels restrained, but that’s how Garland works best (hence, Ex Machina being his best work). Men may have some issues, but it’s never a slog; it does have some missteps while reaching its outrageous grand finale. But, for me, it’s a step up from Annihilation.

Grade: B

Director: Eskil Vogt

Writer: Eskil Vogt

Stars: Rakel Lenora Fløttum, Alva Brynsmo Ramstad, Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim, Sam Ashraf.

Synopsis: Four children become friends during the summer holidays. Out of sight from the adults, they discover they have hidden powers. While exploring their newfound abilities, their innocent play takes a dark turn and strange things begin to happen.

What is the inner life of children like? What happens when they are on their own, free to explore their instincts and socialize amongst themselves with no supervision? These questions are at the core of The Innocents, the latest film by writer/director Eskil Vogt, who, after spending years focused on his career as a screenwriter, returns to the director chair since 2014’s Blind.

Vogt, best known for his successful partnership with Joachim Trier – they have cowritten all of Trier’s films, including this year’s Oscar winner The Worst Person in the World –, seems to be interested in continuing to explore themes and feelings previously visited in Trier’s Thelma, but in a more sinister way. In The Innocents, Trier abandons the coming-of-age angle and the hopeful view in order to create an anxiety-driven mystery. The innocence is present, but under a dark approximation.

Ida (Rakel Lenora Fløttum) and her family just relocated to Oslo. Her big sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad) is autistic and doesn’t know how to communicate, existing in a faraway world where no one can approach her. As Ida experiences exasperating feelings, she becomes friends with Ben (Sam Ashraf), a boy who quickly shows off that he has powers to move objects. Soon enough, Ida, Anna, and Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim), Anna’s new friend who seems to understand her, also realize that they have mental abilities that intensify when they’re together. Their essence defines what they do with these powers, with Vogt exploring the source of malice and virtue, and questioning the way our surroundings shape our personality and decisions.

Are we naturally bad? Are we evil because of something inside us or do we become evil because of the influence or absence of others? The director invites debate by offering different paths and decisions in each of his four main characters.

Going back to Thelma, The Innocents could easily be its worthy pair and counterpart. While the former invites hope and support for the protagonist –even as we discover her tumultuous past– The Innocents invites conflict and discomfort. We witness the kids existing without the norms and rules of the public square, discovering their personalities and the differentiation between right and wrong. The fact that it is centered on them makes the film more unbearable and stressful. While other directors avoid exploration and exploitation of crude images, Vogt insists on shocking the viewer with the children’s casual cruelty that is born from innocence and ignorance of morality and ethics.

Vogt relies on the creation of tension – as soon as the film starts, it is evident that something terrible is going to happen – and the absence of excessive action. Nevertheless, when it appears, it is drastic and horrifying because of how recognizable it is. Anticipation, shock, and an unsettling turn of events are met with chilly silences, the sound of the wind or soft music. The evident decision for the smooth and discreet makes the film more unsettling; flirting dangerously with horror.

Just as the film explores the secret life of children and the development of their inner selves, it also tackles the role of the parents and the constant pressure they put on their offspring. The kids are constantly ignored, silenced, and questioned by the tired and exasperated adults around them. Consequently, the children are forced to resolve serious issues under the pressures and limitations of their dependable nature. In the film, the adults are the challenges, providing new problems to the private life of the protagonists.

In this respect, Vogt aptly deals with the test of not working with one, but four children. Every child actor offers a distinct presence on screen and a well-defined personality, each with a distinguishable background and an essence that is reinforced throughout the film. However, Alva Brynsmo Ramstad is the highlight as the autistic girl with superpowers that raise questions about her mind’s condition and her relationship with the world.

While enrapturing, the film is also challenging because of its bleak aura and discomforting mood, the multiple raw situations involving children, and the unexpected resolutions. Nevertheless, these are the characteristics that make the film special: Vogt enjoys and takes advantage of the Nordic creative liberty to explore these themes.

The Innocents is the daring exploration of the private life of children. It presents their haunting reality of internal struggles, profound relationships, complex moral dilemmas, and the pains of forming a personality before their formal introduction to the complexities of society. While their innocence is usually a relief and a source of optimism, in this film it is excruciatingly terrifying.

Grade: B+                                      

Director: Michelangelo Frammartino

Writers: Michelangelo Frammartino and Giovanna Giuliani

Stars: Claudia Candusso, Paulo Cossi, Mila Costi

Synopsis: The extraordinary adventure of the young members of the Piedmont Speleological Group who, having already explored all the caves of Northern Italy, changed course in August 1961 and went South to explore other caves unknown to man.

In 2010, Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino delivered the short and gentle indie hit Le Quattro Volte (interpreted as The Four Times in English). The film depicted the concept of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of souls, in a mountain town in Caulonia, Italy. Frammartino’s technique is meditative and a tad odd as it explores the beautiful natural world through lengthy lingering shots of the plains, animals, and the village’s community. The reason why it’s strange is not that it has little to no dialogue; it is because of its mystery about the journey that he takes us on about rebirth and the ideas of unity by humans, animals, vegetables, and minerals. There is a possibility many will see the film and think that its concepts are somewhat or entirely outlandish. Personally, I don’t think it is silly, albeit it took me a couple of watches to start getting into it and appreciate its reflections on life. 

He takes an approach to filmmaking similar to Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s (who also had a film about resurrection that same year called Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives). Nonetheless, Frammartino delivers his third feature eleven years after his critically acclaimed experimental drama, with Il Buco. Set in August 1961, Frammartino’s latest recreates the real-life exploration and study of one of the deepest caves in the Calabrian hinterland, the Bifurto Abyss (almost seven hundred meters below the surface). During this time, Europe was undergoing an economic boom; on one side of Italy, the highest building at the time was being constructed. Meanwhile, on the other side of the country, some adventurers dedicated their time exploring this cavernous chasm to see where it led them. Even though it is dedicated to the real people who got down into the tunnels, Frammartino is highly interested in venturing on his own into the atmospheric abyss (with some limitations because it doesn’t go into the cave’s depths). 

There isn’t much of a narrative in Il Buco, always staying on the thin line between narrative feature and documentary. My gut says it is neither; the best way to describe it is a cinematic spiritual experience. It demands patience since watching can be somewhat frustrating; the only way to ideally experience the movie correctly is in the theater because there are no distractions. The viewer becomes immersed as the film continues through its transient ninety-three-minute runtime and absorbs the ravishing images. Like Le Quattro Volte, there is almost no spoken dialogue. It transgresses with slow pacing–taking its time, sauntering as it goes deeper into the cave, or displaying the beauty of the Italian scenery. It’s truly a marvel to look at, thanks to cinematographer Renato Berta (Au Revoir les Enfants and Lover for a Day), who’s an expert in showing delicacy through subtlety and using natural light (and darkness) to help encapsulate the beauty within each frame. 

Time moves at a different pace when watching these types of movies. It reminded me of the experience I had watching Weerasethakul’s Memoria (which was one of my favorite films of last year). However, I wasn’t as engaged with Il Buco as with Joe’s latest. Regardless, I wasn’t entirely gripped or engrossed by Frammartino’s vision during the movie’s first half. However, my attention picks up highly in its second half. Here, we get parallels between the health of the film’s epitome of a natural observer, an old shepherd (Paolo Cossi) watching everything on a nearby hill (who apparently plays the only witness to this discovery), and the actions the explorers make during the culmination of the investigation. In this half, that’s where people start analyzing the most. The viewer begins to think about the different parallels and compare them to the scenery shown. 

The shepherd’s fate being woven into the land he watches over, the loss of traditions as modern progress continues to develop, isolations versus peace, and the essence of life as it fades with nature are some of the multiple concepts Il Buco showcases throughout its silent composition. It is hard to explain all its metaphysical metaphors about life and nature intertwined, but I don’t think it matters if one can clarify what it’s all about or not. If the viewer only focuses on what’s happening on the screen, there is a loss of sense of self. It is as if you lose the sense of time and embrace the ambiance presented by Frammartino. It is hard to get into it during its first half, and there are many deep thoughts to acknowledge, yet, admiring the beauty of this filmmaking approach is vast enough to ponder in your mind for many days. 

Grade: B+

Director: Sam Raimi

Writer: Michael Waldron

Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Benedict Wong

Synopsis: Dr. Stephen Strange casts a forbidden spell that opens the doorway to the multiverse, including alternate versions of himself, whose threat to humanity is too great for the combined forces of Strange, Wong, and Wanda Maximoff

In 2002, when director Sam Raimi directed the first incarnation of Spider-Man, there was no way of knowing that 20 years would go by and the comic book genre would dominate the modern blockbuster landscape the way that it has. But outside of a few features from both the MCU and DC, there haven’t been many who have captured the magic, wonder, and vision of what Raimi brought to the original Spider-Man trilogy. With his background in horror and comedy, his sensibilities as a director brought something exciting to a newly explored genre, and with Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, his return brings a jolt of chaotic, fun energy that has been desperately missing in superhero movies. In doing this, Raimi’s style is the catalyst for why this film is one of the best MCU to date.

Picking up after the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is trying to pick up the pieces of his life he left behind in order to become a Master of the Mystic Arts. In a relative time of peace, he starts to see visions of a cosmic universe, where he witnesses a version of himself who has to help a young girl named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) escape the clutches of evil beings trying to drain her of her powers, which is the ability to jump from any multiverse she wants with just a single punch. Strange, thinking this is all a dream, gets dressed, and heads to the wedding of Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), the love of his life and the girl who got away. Everything is going well, until a portal opens, and America is seen fighting off a giant monster in the middle of NYC. Strange, alongside Wong (Benedict Wong), helps vanquish the creature and assist America in finding a way to control her powers, as well as find a way to understand the multiverse more than the very little they know.

In order to fully understand the power that America wields, Strange seeks out an old friend, and former Avenger, Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen). When we last saw Wanda, she was grieving the loss of Vision and the children that she created in the Marvel TV show WandaVision, and found some dark powers within her to form the Scarlet Witch, a powerful witch capable of destroying everything in her path to get what she wants. When Strange realizes what Wanda has become, no longer seeing the good that was once in her, it sets off a chain of events to get America out of harm’s way from Wanda, in this universe and beyond.

From the jump, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is an adrenaline rush built on the backbone of craftsmen who understand what they are doing. Throughout many of the Marvel films over the last fifteen years, creatives behind the camera have had to give into the machine-like nature of Marvel, with fans and spectators having to stretch their imaginations in order to find a hint of a director’s personality within their film. Most of this has been attributed to producer Kevin Feige and Marvel’s episodic nature which allows their template to make it easy for anyone to slip into and make a name for themselves (looking at you Jon Watts). But when you hire Sam Raimi to make your movie, there is no hiding his flare for the theatrics, which is a perfect combination of playful humor alongside possessed beings, terrifying zoom-ins, campy visuals, and enough heart to tie it all together. There is a personality to this movie, a vibe that has been missing from cinemas since Raimi was banished for making the flop, Oz the Great and Powerful. With this return, Raimi has delivered the best direction anyone has delivered within the MCU, and has shown the world once again that he is the real king of the comic book genre. 

Alongside Raimi’s stellar direction lies two fantastic performances from Cumberbatch and Olsen. When we first met these two characters, they were middle of the road superheroes, who served a purpose to bridge us to the next chapter of the Avengers storyline, thus not being able to make a real impact. But over the course of time, and various films and a television series, we’ve grown attached to Strange, as he is struggling with keeping everything together while trying to understand what it must take for him to grow as a not just a hero, but as a man, and with Wanda, to understand why she has gone to the dark side. Her actions are sinister yet justifiable and thus make for compelling stakes when you realize that it is a movie about two broken people trying to mend their broken hearts and minds.

There are issues with the film. This movie continues the franchises trend of having the usual Marvel trappings of too many side characters with nothing to do, cameos that are only inserted to appease the fans, lack of stakes, over explanation in the dialogue, as well as an underwritten portrayal of America Chavez. Yet, whenever an issue came up, Raimi seemed to swoop in with something dazzling or inventive enough to keep me engaged and happy overall. 

Grade: B

Director: Angela Washko

Writer: Angela Washko

Stars: Roy Haylock, Patrick Holt, Simona Ioffe

Synopsis: After an unlikely casting onto a reality television show, 47-year old suburban telemarketer Ed Popil leaves his job to pursue a full-time entertainment industry career as his drag queen alter ego, 1960’s era housewife Mrs. Kasha Davis.

Despite its reputation for being one of the weaker seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race, season 7 introduced some of the franchise’s most beloved queens to the world. Ginger Minj, Kennedy Davenport, Jasmine Masters, Trixie Mattel, and Katya have all gone on to fame and notoriety, while most of their fellow competitors have fallen in favor over time—they’ve also all been invited back for (at least one) All Stars. One season 7 queen who hasn’t been given the flowers she deserves, however, is Mrs. Kasha Davis, someone who finished in 11th place on her season; not due to a lack of talent but because she didn’t fit the mold. Now, director Angela Washko uses her feature documentary debut to explore the numerous ways that Mrs. Kasha Davis is remarkable and ready for a renaissance. 

Told through a mix of home movies, YouTube videos, Drag Race clips, Drag Race audition tapes, and Washko’s vérité camera, Workhorse Queen follows its subject through many highs and lows. We see in the home movies and YouTube videos, a confident star who always knew who she was. “Mrs. Kasha Davis” is a character, an exaggerated mid century housewife who drinks too much and performs homemaking. Her camp sensibilities blended well with the Rochester, NY drag scene and earned her a decent amount of local success. Then, with several years of experience under her belt, the so-called “Olympics of drag” started casting. Fellow Rochester queens Pandora Boxx (season 2) and Darienne Lake (season 6) eventually made the cut, but year after year, Davis did not. Her audition tapes reveal an increasingly rawer and more intimate side of her.  

As an art form, drag is an effort to break gender molds and knock down identity barriers. For years, Ed Popil twisted himself into knots trying to fit the heteronormative archetype of the apex suburban family man. Because it’s what his parents wanted (and what he thought he wanted), he married a woman and attempted to live “the ideal,” only to discover that an idyllic life is relative. In my inference, this is where Mrs. Kasha Davis comes from. The film doesn’t fully commit to psychoanalyzing Popil’s creative choices or the exact origins of his drag persona (other than inspirations from his mother), but I’d reckon Popil’s experience with performing picket fence perfection out of drag has a lot to do with his behavior in drag. Mrs. Kasha Davis, the character, is both an homage to and a critique of the suburban decadence she so deftly portrays.

 So, with Mrs. Kasha Davis being a distinct and specific rendering of a very particular type of bygone womanhood—plus being a queen of a certain age—she was an excellent choice to round out the eclectic cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 7. But, when it comes to TV’s second-best drag reality competition program, singularity can be a double-edged sword. For a show that purports to embrace the entirety of an ever-changing and limitless art form, the judging is somehow awfully narrow, yet incredibly demanding to an almost uncompromising degree. Ironically, when it comes to advancing on Drag Race, there is a bit of a model to follow (and looking like a model is part of it). So even though Mrs. Kasha Davis is undeniably an exemplar of the show’s Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve, and Talent rubric, she was unfortunately never destined to win…

 Herein lies the crux of Mrs. Kasha Davis’ varying levels of achievement and the bedrock of Workhorse Queen. Ed Popil already had a story before entering into The Werk Room and fittingly declaring “I’m ho-ommme!” in the style of a 1950s sitcom dad. Woefully, the show wasn’t all that interested in exploring Davis’ history before asking her to sashay away—mere moments after winning that lip sync against a stymied Kandy Ho (just saying)! Cut to seven years later: Mrs. Kasha Davis has a narrative now, hunny! As Washko’s footage shows, backed up by confessionals from a supporting cast of friends and family, post-Drag Race life first made and then absolutely broke Popil. His marriage to “Mr. Davis” nearly imploded and his professional relationships in Rochester became strained as Popil really put his alter ego’s “There’s always time for a cocktail!” catchphrase to the test for a while.

But, like a beehive-clad flight attendant for Glamazonian Airways, she has been on an ascending trajectory ever since, with just a few bumps along the way. So when—yes, when—Mrs. Kasha Davis rightfully returns for an All Stars season, she can enter The Werk Room and proclaim that “There’s always time for a comeback!” because you simply cannot keep a good broad down. In addition to Davis, my French vanilla fantasy cast for this ultimate All Stars season, if I may, would include: Akashia, Jessica Wild, Carmen Carrera, DiDa Ritz, April Carrión, Shuga Cain, Jackie Cox, and Widow Von’Du. Mrs. Kasha Davis deserves to be among this hypothetical nothing-but-bangers cast of mine because Angela Washko’s film is here to make it clear that Davis’ charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent is boundless. 

Grade – B

Director: Martin Campbell

Writer: Dario Scardapane

Stars: Liam Neeson, Guy Pearce, Ray Stevenson, Taj Atwal, and Monica Bellucci

Synopsis: An assassin-for-hire finds that he’s become a target after he refuses to complete a job for a dangerous criminal organization. 

It’s ironic that a film with a title like Memory is so forgettable, and it’s even more ironic when the basic idea of the movie, a remake of Erik Van Looy’s De zaak Alzheimer (based on the book of the same name by Jef Geeraerts), centers around memory loss. It’s definitely an interesting spin in the pantheon of Liam Neeson’s “particular set of skills” cinematic universe, but not enough to entice anyone into watching. Not even Martin Campbell, director of two of the best James Bond films of all time (GoldenEye and Casino Royale) can make the material feel tangible, or Neeson interested in what he’s doing. At this point, he’s become a full-fledged recreation of Charles Bronson in his Cannon Group-era starring in a slew of milquetoast, and nearly-identical, action thrillers and phoning it in every single time. Neeson is turning 70 this year and doesn’t have the spark he once had making these types of thrillers, especially when he collaborated with Jaume Collet-Serra, who’s off to bigger things having previously directed Jungle Cruise and is now working on Black Adam. Maybe it’s time for Neeson to think about starring in other films before he inevitably does a remake of Bronson’s Assassination. 

In Memory, Neeson plays Alex Lewis, an assassin-for-hire slowly losing his mind (and memory) to Alzheimer’s. He wants out, to enjoy the rest of his life before the disease takes control of his body, but accepts the infamous “one last job” before retirement. The “last job” involves acquiring two USB keys, and killing two targets. However, one of the targets is a child, and when Alex realizes it, he refuses to complete the mission, which leads to the “contractors” hunting him down, led by Monica Bellucci’s Devana Sealman, and FBI agent Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce) looking for Alex. 

A Martin Campbell-directed action thriller, starring Liam Neeson, Monica Bellucci, and Guy Pearce?!?!?? How on earth can it not suck? Oh, how naïve I was. Memory immediately halts your attention through the first few minutes of the movie, signaling to the audience that it’ll spend over an hour of its time in “first act” mode. The film’s pace is so languishing that it keeps introducing new characters well after an hour has passed, and has very little time to wrap things up during its anticlimactic ending. 

It’s almost as if screenwriter Dario Scardapane gave up midway through the script at fleshing out the characters and the drama surrounding them that he jumped the shark and crafted an ending so inane, and unsatisfying it’ll ultimately leave your brain by the time the credits finish rolling. If you’re doing a “particular set of skills” film, the ending needs to involve Neeson in some capacity “finishing the job”, but the second act of Memory puts Neeson in a hospital bed, allowing him to, quite literally, sleep through his performance. Neeson has been very good at saying “listen to me very carefully” (which he does here) and lightly slapping antagonists to knockouts in Taken 3, or, most recently, in Blacklight, and he makes it absolutely clear that he just does not care anymore. They’re easy paychecks, which are extremely apparent in the way they are shot and written. 

There’s no thought to deepen the premise of Neeson progressively losing his memory while trying to kill someone. The film only uses Alex’s Alzheimer’s disease as a framing device, with the character getting sporadic bouts of memory loss, which seem completely random, and only necessary for forced drama, particularly when he is in tight situations. When these occur, he suddenly loses all sense of self and gets disoriented. But look at him kicking major ass in the previous scene! It makes no sense and it is so underwritten that it ultimately becomes offensive to those who are truly suffering from Alzheimer’s, a disease that has unfortunately made its way into my family and claimed the lives of people close to me. You can’t magically turn it on or off, which Scardapane does way too frequently. Again, the premise is interesting enough, but the execution is so haphazard that it borders on offensive territory. 

None of the supporting actors are good, too, which is a shame. Guy Pearce seems like the only one who gives a damn, but his character follows the trope of “FBI Agent who thinks he’s one step ahead of the protagonist but not really.” He’s the type of character we’ve seen a thousand times before in film, and his arc is the exact same as every single FBI agent with that same arc in the history of cinema. He catches the guy, and then they help out since their interest in the real antagonist of the story is mutual. And Bellucci is a great choice to play an antagonist, but it’s a shame that the film does absolutely nothing of interest with her character, who sits around getting medical treatment and ordering people around on the phone. Ray Stevenson also pops up during the movie as a rather brutal detective, but he’s as boring as everyone else. Stevenson recently gave the best performance of his career in S.S. Rajamouli’s RRR (a movie that everyone who loves maximalist blockbusters should check out), and so Memory is a huge step down from what he accomplished in Rajamouli’s film. 

As far as the action sequences go, they’re definitely not as tight, or as brilliantly directed as Campbell’s previous work. Even The Foreigner, which was a lackluster film, had superb action that took advantage of Jackie Chan’s martial arts talent. Memory sticks Liam Neeson in the most standard gunfights imaginable, with no eye for visceral tension, or a kinetic camera. It’s amazingly standard, and since the film contains very few action scenes, they’re immediately forgotten after they’ve passed, or even during the movie. I was so bored to tears that I quickly forgot what happened after one cut, or even after one scene. The movie never engages with the audience from the get-go, so how do you expect the audience to engage themselves if they don’t feel compelled to step into the film’s world?

I do applaud Memory for accomplishing the impossible, which is to make you forget about virtually every aspect of the film by the time the lights go back up in the cinema. Of course, if you’re a fan of the most standard action movies that were once made by The Cannon Group and starred Charles Bronson, you may find enjoyment in Liam Neeson delivering the same type of disinterest that Bronson did in films like Assassination, 10 to Midnight, or Messenger of Death. Neeson has toyed with the idea of retiring from action films for a while now. To be honest, while his earlier movies were fun, the schtick has grown tired. He should definitely consider starring in a dramatic film, partly to regain the status he once held as one of the greatest dramatic actors of all time and remind us all how great of an actor he is when he cares about the material and believes in the movie. 

Grade: D