Memorize

At first sigh, beginning of a serie. A policier reminding Minority Report , well crafted , with impeccable storytelling and inspired twist. Memorize - chip as tool for discover every movement of a person. Futuristic atmosphere. A cop looking for the murderer. The surprise revelation. And inspired fight scenes. So, a good short film.

Watching a lot of short films it is odd to notice that some people will welcome a short film that has great effects but offers nothing else, but that the same people are quick to decry a summer blockbuster which offers precisely the same thing. Well personally I do not mind when a film delivers a good punchy bit of action and if I'm in the mood I do not mind if there is not too much going on behind it. This is the case with Memorize, although it does have a few ideas as its base. The main plot sees a future where we all have a chip that records what we see and of course this is used to control and track us – so police investigating a crime can simply scan the chip, access the memory at that time and see what was happening. In this film we see that deployed by a Judge Dredd style officer hunting down a murderer.

That set-up really only goes as deep as it needs to in order to then deliver a pretty decent action sequence of gun-play and the use of holograms. It does have the look of people filming in and around disused building in their neighbourhood, but the direction makes up for that because it does move the camera around well and has a good pace to the action. The hologram device is good but owes a lot to Total Recall and unfortunately as the film gets closer to its plot, it shows more problems. It does work well as a live-action video game shooter for a few scenes, but it needed more use of the ideas, more charisma in its main character and just more clout in its delivery to be more than this. It entertained me for what it was, but it had nothing more to offer than what it showed on the surface.