Time for a quick game of One of These Things Is Not Like the Others: Marlon Brando. James Dean. Robert Pattinson.
In the wobbly “Ordinary People” retread “Remember Me,” RPattz does stake his claim to be compared to a famous actor: Hayden Christensen.
OK, he isn’t that bad (who is?). But as a brooding NYU student haunted by the suicide of his older brother, “Twilight” star Pattinson is ingratiating when he’s supposed to be tormented, vexed when he’s supposed to be volcanic.
PHOTOS:
A heavy smoker and drinker who is often rude and occasionally gets in fights (this set of characteristics used to be known as “male,” but now, apparently, qualifies you for your own wing in the Bad Boy Hall of Fame), Pattinson’s Tyler gets in a dust-up with a dirty cop (Chris Cooper) that leaves him with a scrape on his cheek.
In a halfhearted revenge prank dreamed up by his goofy sidekick (Tate Ellington, who makes you long for the relative genius of a young Steve Guttenberg), Tyler asks out a fellow student who is the cop’s daughter Ally (Emilie de Ravin — picture Michelle Williams, then divide the amount of talent by five) with a sketchy idea of being mean to her.
Instead, they genuinely warm to each other. They’ve got tragedy in common — her mom was murdered in front of her. This event changed her on a deep emotional level: Now she eats dessert first. You never know if you’re going to get gunned down during the entree.
ROBERT PATTINSON: VAMPIRE SLAYER
SPOILER ALERT: ROBERT PATTINSON’S NEW MOVIE ENDS HOW?!?
The movie thinks it’s setting the table for a tense scene when Ally inevitably discovers why Tyler first approached her. But since they really do like each other, his original intention to embarrass her doesn’t much matter.
Meanwhile, the script trots out dueling clichés such as the precocious little sister and the heartless dad (Pierce Brosnan, doing a hilarious Brooklyn accent). Daddy is a corporate titan who was such a bore to work for that he’s the main reason his older son killed himself.
Tyler’s sidekick flaps around in the background trying very hard to be funny and telling his buddy and the audience all about how broody and torment-y Tyler is, but it’s the audience that gets tormented by Tyler’s would-be banter — lines like “Anonymous. Is that Greek?” and “Mon dieu, sacre bleu, French toast!” Also, just to make it clear he liked his dead brother? He’s got the guy’s name tattooed over his heart.
The dullness of this writing (script by Will Fetters) is more than matched by the dull look achieved by director Allen Coulter, who appears to have shot the film through a piece of yard-sale Tupperware.
Coulter pompously thinks he’s going to floor us in the final moments, but no one who has been paying attention will be surprised. For all Coulter’s pretensions to cosmic profundity, the ending is just a meaningless coincidence and a cheap gimmick. “Remember Me” wants to make us think of Holden Caulfield, but it’s far closer to Nicholas Sparks.