Netflix often functions as a halfway home to rehouse formerly offensive flops, and that's just happened again with a recent Hugh Jackman movie that was incredibly poorly received when it first debuted.
Reminiscence was released in 2021 and was panned by critics and audiences alike, sitting on Rotten Tomatoes at 36% for the Tomatometer and 37% for the audience score.
However after being added to Netflix in the UK on Tuesday, November 6, it became a hit with viewers, becoming the third most-streamed movie one day later. That's particularly fast given that new arrivals generally take a week or more to climb the rankings.
Reminiscence was directed by Lisa Joy, the creator of Westworld and writer on Burn Notice, Pushing Daisies and the upcoming Prime Video show Fallout. She's also the sister-in-law of Christopher Nolan.
The movie stars Hugh Jackman and is set in the near future where climate change has raised the sea level and made the world too hot to live in at day. Jackman plays a businessman who owns a business that helps people relive their memories, however, he's drawn into a plot when he falls for a client who then disappears.
Alongside Jackman, there's Rebecca Ferguson who plays Mae, Jackman's lover, Thandiwe Newton who plays his business partner, Cliff Curtis who plays a bad guy sent to hunt down Jackman and Daniel Wu as a gang leader in the city.
Critics slated Reminiscence for just about everything under the sun, with particular criticism going towards the way the world isn't developed much and the movie can feel like a smorgasbord of sci-fi tropes.
Something about the movie has Netflix fans disagreeing though, given that it's managed to beat out The Grinch which has been on Netflix's top movies list for months now.
Not all of Reminiscence's flaws are its own fault though, like its box office bombing. At the box office, it made only $16 million back of its budget, which was estimated to be between $54 and $68 million. However it did come out in late 2021, which was far from a great year for theater attendance (Covid's fault!), and it was temporarily released on Max in the US at the same time as its theater release.
If you missed Reminiscence before, now's your chance to check it out, along with all the other Netflix fans.
