In 1990, Hollywood was daring enough to employ Paul Verhoeven fresh from Robocop to helm Total Recall. His adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” had Schwarzenegger at his peak, sex, satire, hyper violence and body horror. In 2012, Total Recall is the latest cult classic to receive the remake treatment, and instead of hiring someone of Verhoeven’s stature, the director is Len “Underworld & Die Hard 4.0” Wiseman.
Doug Quaid is Colin Farrell, a factory worker who thinks there must be more to life than the daily grind and his wife, Kate Beckinsale. In a world of utter destruction outside the walls of Britain (The United Federation of Britain (UFB)) and Australia (the Colony), there has to be more for Doug. That’s where Total Rekall comes in; they give people the opportunity to live out fantasies through manufactured memory. When Doug arrives at Rekall, something goes wrong and he has to deal with the military might of the UFB and Cohaagen side by side with the woman he has had dreams about, Jessica Biel’s Melina.
The problem with this concept via the minds of Wiseman and his screenwriters, Kurt Wimmer & Mark Bomback are twofold. It is too tightly affiliated to the mythology of Verhoeven’s film and any potential subtlety is negated by on the nose exposition. Where it wasn’t definite if the original was all in Rekall or real, this version clears any potential doubt multiple times.
There is one difference in Wiseman’s work and that is the grounding and world building. The film is confined to the two separate territories, no Mars this time. To get from one area to the other there is a lift that goes through the center of the planet, it’s a silly epicenter. Silly concepts aside, the world building is impressive if ultimately diminished by the flaky CG construction.
Instead of making a satirical statement, Wimmer & Bomback attempt to make political statements with revolutionaries, terrorists, class & immigration defining the conflict. The end goal is to free Australia from the tyrannical rule of Britain and the synthetic army, who themselves recall I-Robot and Clone Wars. There is a precedent for shifting issues like imperialism onto sci-fi, however for it to be deemed successful it needs a little more refinement than awkward politics and peculiar geography.
Like Many remakes before it, total recall takes many scenes hook, line and sinker from its progenitor. Whether it is references to Mars or an appearance from the iconic three breasted woman, Wiseman recycles Verhoeven’s mythology. The three breasted woman has no foundation to exist within, it’s just a transparent attempt to placate fans. Equally, there are scenes which duplicate the ‘this isn’t real, your sat back at Rekall” scene only with none of the intrigue, the mask hiding Quaid’s identity of which the effort has been made to cast a woman who looks alarmingly like the woman from the 1990 original.
Of its own volition, the film doesn’t feel all that capable, efficient but far from capable. Take the cast as the prime example. Kate Beckinsale puts in an unremarkable action anti-heroine as a composite of Michael Ironside & Michelle Pfeiffer. Colin Farrell is a capable everyman, even if he is too handsome for the line “someone like YOU married to me” to carry any value. Jessica Biel is as bland as ever and the supporting cast occupied by Bryan Cranston, Bill Nighy and John Cho are great if none of them have anything substantial to do.
With any action film be it a remake or not, any flaws become forgivable if the film was thrilling or exciting, Len Wiseman’s Total Recall is anything but. He incurs the wrath of genre fans by enacting outright plagiarism in an overly long, soulless slog of an action film that yet again exhibits flawlessly how Hollywood has devolved over the past 22 years.
Filed under: Megaplex
