‘Redux Redux’ offers multiverse of murder, mayhem
As the title suggests, there’s a lot of repetitiveness in “Redux Redux,” a film in which we observe a vengeful, grieving mother slay her teenage daughter’s abductor a dozen times across the multiverse. It’s a premise you’d reasonably expect to quickly grow tedious. And in some ways, it does. But for most of its duration, the siblings Kevin and Matthew McManus devise inventive ways to keep you engaged.
It also helps that they found the perfect leading lady across from them at the Thanksgiving table in their hometown of Warwick, Rhode Island. That would be their willowy sis, Michaela McManus, star of the brothers’ last film, 2021’s “The Block Island Sound,” which also cleverly cross-pollinated horror and sci-fi. She’s so pitch-perfect in the role of the stoic homicidal mama bear, Irene Kelly, that she puts a rare positive spin on nepotism.
Heck, you don’t even think of her as family, as she comfortably slips into the role of vigilante, using her version of the flux capacitor to travel across dozens of parallel universes to kill, kill and kill the slobbering scumbag, Nelson (Jeremy Holm), in all sorts of inventive ways, from burning the sick pedophile alive to shooting him point-blank in the diner where he works. And each time, Irene outsmarts the fuzz just long enough to slip into her casket-like device, stowed in the back of a Penske rental van, to do it all over again in the next dimension – until, ideally, happening upon a realm in which her daughter, Anna, is still alive.
Originality isn’t a strong suit, as the brothers McManus freely pluck bits from a dozen or so classics, from “Terminator” to “Groundhog Day” to “The Silence of the Lambs.” Yet, it seldom fails to feel fresh, especially after crossing paths with another of Nelson’s adolescent victims, an orphaned spitfire named Mia (Stella Marcus) whose orneriness keeps her alive long enough for Irene to rescue her. Not only is Mia a potential substitute for Anna, but she also gives the McManus brothers a chance to show us what kind of nurturing mom Irene might have been before Nelson robbed her of the chance.
The chemistry between McManus and Marcus isn’t the best, but it will do, as they bicker and feud their way toward a symbiotic catharsis. Whether that proves satisfying to the viewer depends entirely on your willingness to suspend disbelief, which can be a chore at times. Ditto for the predictable finale that somehow stirs chills despite not being much different from all the preceding showdowns between Irene and Nelson.
Still, like Irene, you’re compelled to see this thing through, although, if you’re like me, you’d like to see a little more of Irene’s budding romance with Jim Cummings’ charming Jonathan, a sort of port in the storm, with whom our heroine trysts on almost every stop along the way. C’mon, girl can’t go without a little physical lovin now and then, can she? Nope! But like a lot of moments in “Redux Redux,” there’s more here than meets the eye.
At its heart, what we’re witnessing is a woman in what seems like an endless search for a normalcy that no longer exists. She’s stuck in a loop that closely adheres to Einstein’s definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” What does the Pope of Physics know? Heck, it’s widely believed he never even uttered the phrase. But Einstein’s fingerprints are all over this thing, as the McManus brothers borrow from his theory of relativity to break the plane of the plain and ordinary to land Irene in a much better place than where she began.
Movie review
Redux Redux
Rated: R for violence
Cast: Michaela McManus, Jeremy Holm and Stella Marcus
Directors: Kevin and Matthew McManus
Writers: Kevin and Matthew McManus
Runtime: 108 minutes
Where: In theaters Feb. 20 (limited)
Grade: B
