Director: Len Wiseman
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Rating: B-
I'm a little ashamed to admit it, but I actually really enjoyed this movie. The acting isn't superb, the plot is weak at points, it's not really moving on an emotional level or funny or anything. At its core, Total Recall is a mindless action flick set in a dystopian future. It isn't meant to have a great plot or great acting or connect on an emotional level (the lack of funny, however, is a bit of a disappointment). It's supposed to have awesome chase scenes, mind blowing special effects, and cool gun fights. Total Recall has all of this and more - in addition to it all, it also has this awesome futuristic world. Sure the science is sketchy, but damnit, it's science fiction. The science doesn't have to be right, it's fiction.
Total Recall follows factory worker Douglas Quaid (Farrell) as he begins to realize that his life is not exactly what it seems. After a series of nightmares in which he is a spy of some sorts running from the police, Quaid decides to visit Rekall, a company that implants memories into its clients. You can go anywhere, do anything, be anything. While he's at Rekall, however, things go horribly wrong and before he's even put under it's revealed that Quaid is in fact a spy, who worked for a resistance movement. From here his life goes to shit as his wife, Lori (Beckinsale), reveals that she isn't really his wife but rather a cop who's been assigned to watch him. Quaid must flee from her, and by extension the entire paramilitary police force of both the United Federation of Britain (UFB) and the Colony (otherwise known as Australia), the only two habitual land masses on the planet. Oh, and in it all, the girl from his dreams, Melina (Biel), appears.
The plot and characters in Total Recall are somewhat weak. There isn't really the emotional connection between them and the viewer that the original film had. I will give the film a lot of credit, however, in that it doesn't just totally rip off the original movie; while it follows the same basic plot and much of the general storyline, it also goes on a number of different directions. This Total Recall is a lot more political than its predecessor, although never in a really original way. It's very much anti-militaristic totalitarian and rather pro-workers, which is pretty much what you expect of a movie like this. There's a lot of development towards this aspect of the plot, just not the characters themselves - I actually don't think I would have known the name of Biel's character if not for Wikipedia (and the fact that it's the same name as used in the 1990 version).
That being said, though, the movie's fun. The special effects are cool, the chase scenes are hot. Every action movie is pretty much required to have a chase scene at one point or another, and in Total Recall it does so with hover cars. Hover car chase scenes are the best. The science is a bit wonky, but who cares - they go through the center of the earth. Going through the center of the earth is always awesome. The thing with the original Total Recall is that, while it's got a good plot and is emotionally charged the futuristic elements are rather lame and dated. It's something that's a bit characteristic of older science fiction movies, which makes them a bit annoying to watch in the present day. In this Total Recall, however, everything is slick and smooth and very much along the lines of what the future would look like if current trends continue. I'm sure in another twenty years I'll be saying that the futuristic technology used in this Total Recall is rather old, dated, and lame when they remake the movie again, but for now it looked damn awesome.
I think, though, that my favourite part of this movie was the way that it differed from the original film while also paying tribute to it. There's no Mars, but they mention it. There's no huge brothel, but there's still a three breasted prostitute (no midget prostitute, however, sorry). There's a fat woman who's travelling to the UFB for two weeks. There are more moments like this, and to be honest every time they happened I smiled. I enjoyed them. Total Recall knew it was a remake of an older classic and assumes that you've seen the original. It doesn't try to be some grand, fantastic movie. It's a mindless action flick, and it does mindless action damn well.
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