TOTAL RECALL (2012)

(August 2012, U.S.)

The year 1990 was the absolute worst year of my youth for many reasons, including my education, my professional life and being in love with a girl who didn't return the same feelings. The blockbuster summer season didn't do much to take my mind off things, as films like BACK TO THE FUTURE-PART III, DICK TRACY, ANOTHER 48 HRS., ROBOCOP 2, and particularly TOTAL RECALL repeatedly let me down. To this day, I'll never understand why Arnold Schwarzenegger's sci-fi action movie is so damn popular. The acting and visuals are, at best, mediocre and cheesy. The dialogue is corny and typical of just about any other Schwarzenegger vehicle, despite whatever joy we make take in watching him gun down Sharon Stone and declare, "Consida dat a divorce!" In fact, it's Sharon Stone as Lori Quaid offering her delicious body to Arnold, and seductively offering, "I'll give you something to dream about"...

...or even that incredibly sexy and vicious look she has on her face when she tries to kill him that highlights this Paul Verhoven dud, in my opinion...

Well, love it or hate it, the original version of TOTAL RECALL was probably one of the few movies I ever expected to be remade, but it was, and it's a far superior improvement on what I believe author Philip K. Dick intended to be a dark and dystopian tale with his 1966 short story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale". This time the setting is Earth only, and no one is required to get their ass to Mars. The story blends political themes of American and Asian influences, particularly in overpopulated settings of two divided nations, the United Federation of Britain (UFB) and the Colony. It's the end of the 21st century, and our planet is deemed almost inhabitable due to chemical warfare. Factory workers living in the colony, including Douglas Quaid (played by Colin Farrell), commute to the UFB everyday on a gravity elevator known as "The Fall". Within the UFB is a resistance group, viewed as a terrorist movement in the media, seeking to improve the quality of living in the Colony. As Doug appears to be living a boring life of a factory worker and married to Lori (played by Kate Beckinsale), he dreams of being a secret agent living a life of adventure, and visits Rekall with the intent of fulfilling this fantasy through memory implants. But before the fantasy can be implanted, it's discovered that Doug already has memories of being a spy, and this is when all hell breaks loose, with police squads trying to arrest him. Instead, Doug instinctively reacts and kills the entire squad. His wife is also revealed to be a UFB intelligence agent and that their marriage is just an illusion, and now she's trying to kill him.

Much like the first film, Doug is repeatedly pursued and repeatedly escapes his would-be captors. Along the way, he learns more about his true identity and his true purpose withing the resistance, even getting help from visual recordings made by himself in the past under his former and real life identity of Carl Hauser, an agent working for UFB head and movie bad guy Cohaagen (played by Bryan Cranston). It's up to Doug and his female sidekick Melina (played by Jessica Biel) to stop the impending invasion by an army of robots against the Colony citizens. Plenty of action and explosions later, justice and freedom are restored, and Lori, the insanely-vicious female killing machine is finally defeated, too.

Like I previously indicated, people consider the original 1990 film a sci-fi classic, and I'll never know why. That being the case, it's almost no wonder this remake of TOTAL RECALL earned so much negative criticism, and I'll never know why. Visually, this is a far more striking experience to the senses, much in the spirit of Ridley Scott's BLADE RUNNER and Steven Spielberg's MINORITY REPORT (both inspired by Philip K. Dick stories), while giving us some truly detailed and richly-constructed action sequences without being silly or campy (though sadly, the silly three-breasted hooker is still included in the remake). It's also impossible to deny that Colin Farrell is an actual actor in the role as compared to a slab of meat like Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that counts for a whole lot when you're trying to tell any story. Bottom line, I've never felt that science fiction should be silly or funny in any way, especially when it's meant to be a tale of our dark future. If there's any exception to that rule, it comes only from Woody Allen and his 1973 comedy SLEEPER.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Lori Quaid: "By the way, you haven't even begun to to see me try to kill you!"