TMS Movie Review: Memory
(Briarcliff Entertainment / Open Road Films)
Film director Martin Campbell is, in my opinion, the man who probably deserves credit for saving the James Bond franchise for its past two iterations. He’s the man who gave us GoldenEye (1995), our intro to Pierce Brosnan’s 007; and later Casino Royale (2006), Daniel Craig’s debut in the series. I consider these not only the best Bond movies to date, but also two of the best action films in the past three decades. So, you would think, with that kind of cred, Campbell would be able to produce decent projects for the future. Instead, he’s somehow reverted back to filming mediocre, forgettable schlock like Memory, now in theaters. Starring the king of what the internet now refers to as ‘geezer teasers,’ Liam Neeson; the name of Campbell’s new flick is a little ironic.
Set back and forth between Mexico City, MX and El Paso, TX; Memory follows veteran assassin-for-hire Alex Lewis (Neeson) as he becomes a target by both the FBI and a major criminal organization when he refuses to break his moral code of ‘no women or children.’ The mission was to kill 13-year-old Beatriz Leon (Mia Sanchez) to save wealthy businesswoman Davana Sealman’s (Monica Bellucci) adult son punishment for soliciting sex from a minor. At the same time, FBI agents Vincent Serra (Guy Pearce), Linda Amistead (Taj Atwal) and Hugo Marquez (Harold Torres) notice Beatriz’s ultimate murder—as well as other recent murders in the crime world—do lead back to Alex.
(Briarcliff Entertainment / Open Road Films)
The title, Memory, refers to Alex regularly popping prescription pills to counter signs of Alzheimer’s; and the plot is based on the 1985 Belgian novel The Alzheimer Case by Jef Geeraerts. While I’m not familiar with the original book or Erik von Looy’s 2003 Belgian film adaptation, Campbell’s Hollywood interpretation of Geeraerts’ story has the same problems his previous action thriller, The Protégé (2021), did. Memory’s not good enough nor bad enough to be entertaining. The plot is predictably stale like a lot of Campbell’s and Neeson’s pictures these days, and neither the characters nor performances are interesting enough to make up for it. I’ve seen much worse movies in the crime genres, but this one isn’t even silly enough to amuse viewers. The logic is dumb, but not distractingly stupid until the middle of the film, when Alex experiences an injury that should have killed him. We get some dodgy fake accents from Neeson, Pearce and Atwal; and while it’s always nice to see Bellucci on screen, she’s pretty wasted here as a bland villain.
Honestly, the most surprising thing related to Memory is that so many people are still interested in going to the movie theater for Neeson. Considering how much he’s openly embraced making movies as more of a day job than an artform, it’s nice to see him still maintain his fanbase into the crossover. Memory is somewhere in between Olivier Megaton’s Taken (2012) and John Lee Hancock’s The Little Things (2021) in quality. Unless you’re a huge fan of Campbell, or anyone in the cast, I would skip it.