Remember Me

*Photo Courtesy of Summit Entertainment TM (All Rights Reserved)

As the theater darkened, The Sex and the City 2 trailer, with the help of Alicia Keys, glorified New York. As the Eclipse trailer rolled next, the dusky light deified Rob Pattinson's eyes and sculpted body.

Then Remember Me started. First, two men mug and murder a mother on a Brooklyn subway platform. Then Tyler, Pattinson's character, smokes on his emergency exit stairs--drunkenly hating himself and the world. In two minutes, New York the Glamorous and Rob Pattinson the Greek god disappear.

There is no room for fantasy in Remember Me. Tyler, a 21-year-old college student, longs for his deceased brother, direction in his life, and his father's love (though he would not admit to the last one). Ally, the girl Tyler falls in love with, wants to get her life back to the way it was before her mom's murder and her dad's withdrawal. Caroline, Tyler's eleven-year-old, brilliantly artistic sister, wants her dad's love and the bullies' acceptance. The two dads aren't happy with the way their lives have turned out, but are unwilling to change. They are distant from their children, and lost in their own worlds.

The characters deserved a better plot. This should have been a memorable, thought-provoking drama, but Remember Me trips over itself by overestimating its strength. In an early scene, Ally tells Tyler that she eats dessert first--she never knows when an asteroid will fall out of the sky. As the movie progresses, her philosophy gets more and more credible. An asteroid falls every other scene. Sudden deaths are unlikely, but not here. Eventually, death becomes a gimmick, which makes the audience lose all respect for the characters.

Another mistake is the overly-obvious symbols and foreshadowing tactics. Every scene seems to be shot in slow motion. All the music is too loud, and too suspenseful. Finally, Remember Me rushes headlong toward an overblown ending, which prevents the movie from achieving greatness and renders it merely watchable.

Robert Pattinson (Tyler Hawkins): 4 Stars
Emilie de Ravin (Ally Craig): 4 Stars
Pierce Brosnan (Charles Hawkins): 3 Stars
Chris Copper (Neil Craig): 4 Stars
Ruby Jerins (Caroline Hawkins): 5 Stars
Tate Ellington (Aidan Hall): 3 Stars
Allen Coulter (Director): 3 Stars
Will Fetters (Screenplay): 3 Stars

Movie: 3.5 Stars; best to rent it on DVD