Remember Me 2/4
Summit Entertainment, Rated PG-13
Remember Me is a suds-driven dramatic vehicle with a dollop of early 21st century Romeo And Juliet tossed in—not necessarily for good measure. And while Robert Pattinson, aka Twilight’s sexy vampire, may not be everyone’s cup of bloody brew, his cultivated angry young man persona which this story seems to have been custom built for pretty much upstages the lean plot line. In the end, the film’s title is something that, 20 minutes after leaving the theater, most viewers won’t be able to do.
[popup url=”http://assets.longislandpress.com/photos/gallery.php?gazpart=view&gazimage=1322″]
Click here to view more photos from Remember Me[/popup]
Set in the summer of 2001, Remember Me is helmed by small-screen director Allen Coulter (The Sopranos, Sex And The City) and penned by first-time screenwriter Will Fetters, and their unfamiliarity with the imperatives of this medium shows. Robert Pattinson is Tyler, a poor little rich kid matriculated at NYU, who doesn’t seem to be involved in much schooling, but has plenty of time to smoke, drink, brawl and party hard, all the while boasting a smug nihilistic attitude about nearly everything in life.
Emilie de Ravin and Robert Pattinson star in Remember Me.
After having his butt kicked and getting arrested one night in a back alley by Officer Craig (Chris Cooper) following an impromptu pub smackdown, Tyler decides to get even by pursuing his daughter, ravishing coed Ally (Emilie de Ravin), on a dare from the mouth of his twisted geek sidekick Aiden (Tait Ellington). Love blossoms, as the dating pair discover what they share in common—great wall sex and family members who experienced horrible deaths.
But the primary conflict presenting itself is whether or not their extracurricular romance will elude detection by either a clueless Ally or her I’ve-got-anger-management-issues dad. Then there’s the question of whether or not the couple can co-exist, as each has quirks that take some getting used to, including Ally’s dessert-for-appetizer eating habit, because life has proven to be so tentative and she fears not living long enough for the main course, and Tyler’s justified but out of control rage against a neglectful, brash tycoon father (Pierce Brosnan) and tendency to defend his withdrawn kid sister Caroline (Ruby Jerins) from grade school bullying. His solution? To terrorize her classroom full of mean girls by tossing their desks around, which comes off even scarier than Pattinson’s neck-sucking obsession.
You get the impression Coulter panicked and, as if to salvage a wilting, less than tightly woven narrative with a dominant episodic sensibility, takes an emotional detour and shifts directions, doing a hasty cut and paste into what seems like an entirely different film. Though in no way is Pattinson to blame—He just feels far too big for this movie.
