Welcome new reviewer Chris Tucker to The Blu-ray Blog!! (No, not THAT Chris Tucker…)
REMEMBER ME (2010, Blu-ray released June 22, 2010 – MSRP $34.99)
Is Remember Me a film to remember? Well, Robert Pattinson – henceforth referred to as Vampire Boy – plays Tyler, a broody, introverted youth simultaneously refusing and craving love … obviously the role was chosen to showcase the versatility of his acting chops. To be fair, Vampire Boy can act, and on top of being competent he’s easy to watch. It’s a shame the Twilight series will forever damage his cred. Maybe that is why he overreaches by taking on the role of executive producer here.
After a despondent night of college boozin’ Vampire Boy gets lippy with a cop for no apparent reason. The officer is played by the always stellar Chris Cooper. Cooper throws him in jail and as revenge, Vampire Boy’s roommate, the annoyingly talented Tate Ellington, encourages him to pursue Cooper’s daughter – Preggers-from-Lost (Emilie de Ravin). Holy coincidence Batman! Both Vampire Boy and Preggers-from-Lost have been wounded by tragic losses drawing them closer into the melancholic arms of one another. As a child, she witnessed the murder of her mother on a subway platform while his brother hung himself – and guess who found the body?
Among scenes of the tormented lovers torn between what they want and what they’ve lost, we have interspersed family conflict. Cooper is racked with guilt and over-protectiveness with his daughter. I think he may also like the taste of the booze. Pierce Brosnan plays a distant yet stinking rich father to Vampire-boy, while Ruby Jerins rounds out the cast as his kid sister, Caroline (she’s cute…role accomplished.) Before falling for the golden locks of Preggers-from-Lost, Caroline is the sole thing in the world he gives a damn about. Without giving anything away, things happen, people kiss, people get mad, people sit down and look contemplatively at the floor/out the window, and people have to deal with loss and more loss.
Heavy handed director Allen Coulter (with a CV packed with TV credits) should have concentrated less on making smoking look cool and more on exploiting the plethora of talent handed to him. Cooper and Brosnan are two of the best things about this film, yet the film would have benefited had their roles been brought to the forefront or scrapped altogether. There is too much sulking and not enough character development. Coulter does handle some of the lighter moments rather well, in particular the early dating scenes. Remember Me most likely would have would have been a stronger movie had a more accomplished filmmaker been at the helm. At least cinematographer Jonathan Freeman makes everything look pretty.
Love and loss, nearly two melodramatic hours worth, but not at a total loss. I wouldn’t say Remember Me is a good film but somehow I did enjoy it and having not heard anything about it going in, the ending took me for a whirl…
The good news here is that Remember Me looks and sounds just fine on Blu-ray. There’s nothing to write home about – this won’t be your new demo-disc – but the transfer is solid, as is the lossless English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track. Detail and colour fidelity are superb but you’ll note some shots that drift to the softer side of photography. That’s the style of the film, in this case, and not the transfer/encode. The audio is front heavy, as expected in a conversational drama of this sort, but still manages moments of great dynamism in the music and immersion in the sound field, particularly in the busy, exterior NYC scenes.
Special features are few but solid on the Blu-ray, comprised of a fairly engaging 15-minute “Making-of” featurette and a couple of commentary tracks – one with Coulter and one with the cast.
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