Based on Philip.K.Dick's science fiction short story of the same name and directed by John Woo, this film tells an interesting future prophecy story with philosophical speculations. But "Cracked Memories" ended up being Ben Affleck's most bland film of its time.
The male protagonist Mike Jennings (Ben Affleck) is an engineer who uses reverse engineering to steal other people's technology as a way to make money. Pay a lot of money for a win-win situation—the company gets technology patents and unlimited money, and Jennings gets the money and the life he thinks he wants.
The film opens with a series of technological scenes to explain the nature of Jennings' work. In my opinion, the biggest problem with this set of scenes is that the "cutting-edge technology" depicted with the help of VFX is neither imaginative nor functional. Under such special effects, the hard work of the actors will only become a laughing stock. Whether it's the gadget Mike uses to steal other people's ideas that doesn't show his true abilities as an engineer, or the child's play machine that erases Mike's memory, what should have been the most gripping opening came to nothing. I thought that this was director John Woo who wanted to concoct Hollywood-style coolness, but ignored the effect basis of this coolness.
Fortunately, after the film went on track, Jennings completed the three-year task given to him by his college friend Jimmy, and erased his memory according to the agreement. However, he found himself voluntarily giving up his promised eight-figure payment after the mission, and both the FBI and Jimmy were chasing him. From this point on, a lot of suspense and action sections are staged in turn.
Not so much the negative reviews of this film are overwhelming, it's more regret than complaints. "Memory Cracks" could have been an action suspense movie of the same magnitude as "Total Recall" (after all, the original novel was also written by the same writer), but too much mediocre treatment made this film barely able to achieve the sentence " Average" rating. We can't say that the film doesn't discuss the ethics of amnestics, but it's commonplace to place such discussions only in the context of procedural plots.
The smartest thing the movie does is to omit the three-year love affair between Jennings and Rachel Parker (Uma Thurman). The clever kind, and I don't know if this is an original structure based on the original novel). In the second half of the film, Jennings only relied on some clear or vague memory fragments to recall the love and life scenes with Rachel. In the end, the love between the two is still the same. Although the film has emphasized many times, Jennings is motivated to maintain this relationship because he recalls part of his love for Rachel, but I think that for Jennings, The reconstruction of this relationship is mainly based on sharing weal and woe after losing memory. Although the two still love each other, they are based on their respective positions and emotions. This is where "Memory Cracks" is worth pondering.
Whether it's the recurring "You don't believe in second chances, do you?" in the film, or the unpretentious action scenes, it all makes the film seem bland. There are very few admirable memory points. It is still a long way from the ideal "Bourne Bourne" plus "Total Recall" plus "Planning Destiny". On the contrary, it was the pigeon that flew in from outside the door, which made director John Woo "real" in Hollywood movies.
2017.3.2～2017.3.7
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