Zone 414

Early in “Zone 414” (2021), you get the feeling there’s going to be an unreliable narrator or some other kind of twist that completely turns the story on its head. Maybe it’s because Guy Pearce is playing a discredited detective tasked with finding a missing person inside a community of androids in a dystopian future (I can tell it’s dystopian because the weather is lousy) and a “Memento” vibe is coming on strong. Disappointingly, the twist is nothing that inventive. Pearce is solid as usual, and Matilda Lutz plays a great android, but there are huge plot and continuity holes.

The Seventh Day

The devil is hiding everywhere. It seems police procedurals are, too. Ostensibly an exorcism/horror flick, “The Seventh Day” (2021) sets up more like a detective story. The wizened veteran with a cross to bear (so to speak), is paired with a talented rookie who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. Find-the-bad-guy (and we’re talking about the baddest bad guy of all) hijinks ensue. Was the suspect framed? Is there a dirty cop involved? Substitute priests for police and you’ve got this middling Guy Pearce effort pretty much figured out. It has the audacity to foreshadow a franchise in the epilogue.

Memento

I wanted to use the word ennui to describe my feelings about “Memento” (2001), but then I looked up what it actually meant. I’ll stick with dissatisfaction. I was not only left dissatisfied by the film, I was dissatisfied in trying to pinpoint exactly why I was so dissatisfied. I guess stories told in reverse chronology starring a guy with no short-term memory who is trying to hunt down his wife’s murderer before he forgets everything again will do that to you. But hey, Joey Pants is in it. He doesn’t star, but he’s in it. So that’s a thing.