Let’s make a short list of all the brooding, macho, occasional male sex symbols that worked for a moment. Marlon Brando; James Dean; Holden freaking Caulfield. The star of the new film Remember Me, Robert Pattinson, tries to find a place among them, but ultimately falls short. He’s more than able to make an audience of tween Twilight fans coo, though, so he’s sure to help this film make some cash at the box office.

The film itself is flat on many levels, which is a disappointment considering the high hopes I had for director Allen Coulter (The Sopranos, Hollywoodland). Instead of making an introspective film on young love and broken homes, he makes an angsty teen romp that could be confused with one of a hundred like productions.

Pattinson’s broody bookworm, Tyler Hawkins, gets his face cut up in a skirmish with a cop (Chris Cooper) early in the film. This leads his sidekick and not-so-funnyman, Aidan (Tate Ellington), to concoct a half-assed plan to set Tyler up with the cop’s daughter, fellow NYU student Ally (Emilie de Ravin). The goal is wine her, dine her, dump her and embarrass her to revenge against The Man. All goes according to plan, until the two beautiful young people fall in love. I didn’t see that one coming.

Newbie script scribbler Will Fetters doesn’t strike any new ground here. The story has been played out time and time again in different guises, and there are too many stock characters to count. The hard, uncaring father is there (Pierce Brosnan), the mother who wants to see her family be a family (Lena Olin), and the artistic little sister (the refreshingly adorable Ruby Jerins) who Tyler loves to death. You won’t find a single compelling character in the bunch.

All of this probably sounds like some harsh criticism, and to be fair Coulter worked as best as he could with what he had. There are some tender moments, and brief flares of chemistry between the lead characters, but the moments are few and far between. They’re almost teases that, I suppose, can at least carry someone through the dull parts of the film. One shout-out I’ll give is to the set designer, who created a young male’s bachelor pad that I could personally relate to.

That’s about it, though. The rest of the film fails to deliver where we can see that someone has, at least, tried to do something memorable. The cinematography and editing are confined by Hollywood standards, but there is at least one moment where some creative juices were at work. The cast, which seems to be a Frankenstein ensemble on paper, actually works well together. If it weren’t for all the bad or hilarious Brooklyn accents, you might even say there’s a sort of rhythm between them all.

With all the good and the bad, Remember Me would likely be forgotten, if it weren’t for the surprise ending. I won’t mention it here, because it really does sneak up on you. That doesn’t make it worthwhile, though. In fact, the end does nothing more than cheapen the whole film. I wouldn’t be surprised if some, if not many, people even find it offensive. Nonetheless, there were good intentions behind it, as with the rest of the film. You know what they say about good intentions, though.

If you’re a fan of Robert Pattinson, you will probably enjoy watching him again on the big screen. If your date likes Robert Pattinson, you should take her. If you don’t fit either of these criteria, save yourself 113 minutes and steer clear of Remember Me.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 12th, 2010 at 10:48 pm and is filed under 2, Film Reviews, Matt Balmaseda. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.