Prepare for non-stop excitement and pulse-pounding thrills in this explosive action thriller. Colin Farrell stars as Douglas Quaid, a factory worker who visits Rekall, a revolutionary company that can turn his superspy fantasies into real memories.
Ironically enough for a film called Total Recall, Len Wiseman's bland summer-action-movie remake is completely forgettable.
To be fair, it was a film that was always going to have the cards stacked against it. Because if there's one thing that's guaranteed to raise the ire of science-fiction fanboys, it's the unnecessary remake. Trying to recapture past glories is a tricky business at best, and it's rare to find a "re-imagining" of a classic franchise that has ever surpassed the original. After all, you only need to look to movies like Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes or Stephen Hopkins' film version of Lost In Space to see how badly wrong it can go.
Total Recall isn't quite as egregious a remake as those examples, but neither does it succeed in bettering the Arnie vehicle that was originally released way back in 1990. Retaining the same basic paranoid-thriller storyline (involving a man called Douglas Quaid who's not sure whether he's a secret agent who's been programmed to believe he's a regular Joe, or a normal guy dreaming he's a super-spy), the film seems somewhat schizophrenic when it comes to deciding how closely to stick to the original. Because whilst it jettisons many of the significant details of that movie (such as the colony on Mars, or the mutant sub-species of humans) it also retains several key scenes or lines of dialogue that only serve to keep reminding you of the earlier story that this one is aping.
So, you get reprises of classic Arnie lines like "If I'm not me, then who the hell am I?", you get another appearance by a three-breasted woman (which is particularly conspicuous here because she was meant to be a mutant in the original - so what's the explanation for her here?), you get the memorable "shoot me" scene and you get a cameo from a lady passing through a customs check who looks suspiciously similar to Arnie's disguise from the earlier film. All of which is presented in such a half-hearted way that it makes you wonder why you're not watching that version of the story instead of this inferior facsimile.
That's perhaps a little unfair: there are one or two neat touches that are unique to this movie, most notably in the impressive production design and special effects, all of which outclass the more primitive efforts of the Arnie version by quite some degree. But even here, there's a sense that the new version of Total Recall is imitating more than it is innovating. So, you get futuristic video displays and technology that feel as though it's been lifted from Minority Report, you get a multicultural rain-soaked and neon-lit urban environment that evokes Blade Runner (complete with flying cars), and you get an army of robotic police drones that feels oddly reminiscent of the Star Wars stormtroopers crossed with the droids from I, Robot, but dressed in a colour scheme and mask that makes it look as though they're doing an impression of Top Gear's Stig.
There are also some interesting new details added in terms of location. Rather than sharing its action between Earth and Mars, this version of the story takes place in a futuristic British empire inhabited by the upper classes, whilst the lower-class citizens dwell in a giant overpopulated slum in Australia. The characters commute between the two via a giant elevator through the middle of the Earth, which allows for some (again) impressive special effects, including a neat mechanism that sees the passengers experience a gravity-flip halfway through the journey. But this is all just window-dressing, and doesn't really help the story along to any great extend.
However, one thing that the new Total Recall does have going for it, compared to the original, is its cast. Colin Farrell is an improvement over Arnie in one critical department: he can actually act. And Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel turn in good performances as the two women in Quaid's life, with the former playing the good-wife-turned-bad with great relish, and the latter managing to stand around and look vulnerable and pretty when the script demands it. Bryan Cranston (who you might recognise from Breaking Bad and Malcolm in the Middle) is also great fun as the scenery-chewing nasty president, whilst Bill Nighy makes a fun extended cameo as the leader of the resistance for whom Quaid believes he is working.
But as good as the cast is, they can't elevate the material above the mediocre, even with their all-round decent performances. As a result, this sci-fi remake joins the list of "why did they bother?" movies, ending up feeling derivative, predictable and unimaginative, even when taken on its own merits.
Ravi Nijjar
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Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play. Total Recall is an action thriller about reality and memory, inspired anew by the famous short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick. Welcome to Rekall, the company that can turn your dreams into real memories. For a factory worker named Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), even though he's got a beautiful wife (Kate Beckinsale) whom he loves, the mind-trip sounds like the perfect vacation from his frustrating life - real memories of life as a super-spy might be just what he needs. But when the procedure goes horribly wrong, Quaid becomes a hunted man. Finding himself on the run from the police - controlled by Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), the leader of the free world - Quaid teams up with a rebel fighter (Jessica Biel) to find the head of the underground resistance (Bill Nighy) and stop Cohaagen. The line between fantasy and reality gets blurred and the fate of his world hangs in the balance as Quaid discovers his true identity, his true love, and his true fate. Actors Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bill Nighy, Ethan Hawke, John Cho, Will Yun Lee & Bokeem Woodbine Director Len Wiseman Certificate 12 years and over Year 2012 Languages English Region Region 2 - Will only play on European Region 2 or multi-region DVD players.
Len Wiseman directs this sci-fi action thriller, a revisiting of the 1966 Philip K. Dick short story 'We Can Remember It for You Wholesale'. Initially adapted for cinema in 1990 with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the starring role, the story is resurrected once again in this glossy big-budget version starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and Ethan Hawke. Farrell stars as factory worker Quaid, whose recurring dream leads him to suspect that he may be an unwitting spy in the ongoing war between nation states Euromerica and New Shanghai. But how can he find out if his suspicions are true, let alone establish which side he has been programmed to fight for?
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