Redux Redux review
A sci-fi thriller that seeks vengeance across the multiverse.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Redux Redux
Directed by Kevin McManus and Matthew McManus
Written by Kevin McManus and Matthew McManus
Starring Michaela McManus, Stella Marcus, Jeremy Holm, Jim Cummings, Taylor Misiak, Dendrie Taylor and Grace Van Dien
Redux Redux Review
If you grew up with a big family there’s a good chance you and your siblings played at making movies at some point. Whether they were filmed or not…it’s highly unlikely that you ever managed to produce anything nearly as good as the McManus siblings have with Redux Redux. Written and directed by Michael and Matthew McManus, the universe hopping revenge thriller stars their sister Michaela McManus. It boasts an inventive sci-fi story, a vile child murdering monster…and is, of course, about family.
Irene (Michaela McManus) hops between parallel universes searching for something that she has never found. A place where her daughter is still alive. Everywhere she’s been…a man named Neville (Jeremy Holm) has already killed her. Irene takes the opportunity to eliminate Neville in every reality she travels to. More times than she’s been able to count. When she saves another girl from one universe’s Neville…she ends up taking on a difficult partner that she didn’t ask for.
Redux Redux begins with Irene standing over a man tied to a chair as he burns to death. It gets the movie off to a hot start…if you’ll allow it. We don’t understand the context as we watch the moment…unless you’re watching it after reading the plot synopsis, of course. It’s just one of a countless number of Nevilles Irene has dispatched throughout the multiverse. We watch the loop play out a couple more times before the story kicks off another angle. Honestly, I could have watched Irene kill Neville for the entire runtime of Redux Redux and been satisfied.
The movie has other ideas, of course. The question of what all this vengeance is doing to Irene looms over everything she does. She has non home…at least not one she’s seen in who knows how many time hops. The closest thing she has to a human connection is a man she seeks out for solace from time to time across the multiverse. Even that has a Groundhog Day feeling of unfairness to it. She doesn’t even seem to have thought through the consequences of her actions in the worlds she leaves behind. Sparing other kids the harm that came to her daughter would be a noble pursuit. Irene’s mission is purely about her revenge. Until one of those consequences is staring her in the face.
Mia (Stella Marcus) is a fifteen year old girl who is about to become Neville’s latest victim in her reality. Irene shows up to kill him…and ends up saving the girl. Neville gets away from that encounter…and Mia is Hell bent on taking him out. Irene doesn’t want her help…or anything to do with her. When Mia steals Irene’s gun and heads for a confrontation with her would-be-killer…Irene has no choice but to rethink her strategy. Things change even more when Mia and Irene are forced to escape to a new reality…together.
The nature of the universe hopping involves a machine that a person (or, we learn, two) can fit into. We see some other universe hoppers during the story when Irene needs to get a part for her machine. There’s a whole underground system that we only learn enough about not to ask questions. That’s usually the best way to handle sci-fi. Give us enough to accept the premise…but leave enough to let our imaginations run wild.
Some of the beats you’d expect in the second half of a story like this are present…but they all feel earned. Michaela McManus is terrific as the tortured and ultra-capable grieving mother. Since Neville is a child murderer in every universe she arrives in…her mission is incredibly satisfying. She’s quick to pull the trigger and worry about the fallout after doing so. Every loop doesn’t go off without a hitch, of course. Irene fights for survival almost as often as she puts an end to her enemy. But you also get the sense that failure to survive isn’t the worst outcome she can imagine. That all changes when Mia enters the story.
Redux Redux is a consistently entertaining sci-fi thriller. It presents strong characters and puts them into dangerous and exciting situations. Irene’s arc is a strong one…filled with a trail of dead bodies and an examination of the toll it takes on her along the way. Those looking for some inventive, character driven sci-fi with plenty of violence should seek it out. You just might walk away from it upset your relatives aren’t so talented.
Scare Value
Redux Redux lets its main character wallow in the darkness long enough to question if there is anything else…no matter what universe she’s in. A strong lead performance and the right mix of sci-fi and violence give Redux Redux momentum that never lets up. If you know that true evil exists in every world in the multiverse, can you ever find contentment for yourself in one of them?
3.5/5
Redux Redux Link
In theaters February 20th – Fandango
