Total Recall: Still Trying to Understand

It’s been over twenty years since Paul Verhoeven’s spectacular masterpiece of blood and explosions, known as Total Recall bedazzled action/sci-fi fans on the big screen. It was profane, bloody, crude and despicably fun. Bystanders die by the truckloads, There was a bad guy (Michael Ironside), who was so vile you actually wanted to kill the actor himself—and the good guys, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and a horde of militant, half naked mutant prostitutes from mars, are not much better. It had a script that was surprisingly humorous, absurd but well thought out, and had enough personality to not get in the way of the unadulterated carnage its fans really came to the theater for. So how does the remake hold up when compared against this shining gem of schlocky perfection?

Len Wiseman’s 2012 remake starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, and Kate Beckinsale is literally none of this. Not that it would have really mattered considering Wiseman’s track record: he is the visionary behind the epically bland Underworld Trilogy. And beyond that, any attempt to conjure up a successful remake of this film was savagely beaten to death when some nimrod producing exec decided to make this PG-13. By taking out the unabashed violence and crudeness of the original you’ve stripped the movie of the very flavor that made it so delectable. It’s like telling the NFL to play two- hand touch in the Super Bowl or dumping you’re gorgeous soul mate for the first decent looking drunk who sloppily hits on you at the bar.

The plot more or less mirrors the original, but seemingly random plot points and characters are re-used or ignored for reasons I have not been able to decipher. You can’t help but think the screen writers put up an elaborate outline of the original story on a huge board, got wasted, blind folded themselves, and threw darts at it to decide what would get used in the remake. And then  they brought in some Disney writers to fill in the rest.

In the original, Schwarzenegger plays Douglas Quaid, a construction worker married to the sexiest woman on the planet , Sharon Stone. But he is still somehow not fulfilled with his life and he suffers from nightmares of Mars. He visits a laboratory/shop/whatever that specializes in implanting memories of vacations into people’s brains and then all hell breaks loose. Turns out he is a secret agent who was double crossing his evil boss and had his memory wiped by said boss. After traveling to Mars, reuniting with his prostitute girlfriend, and meeting a psychic stomach tumor that resembles Chucky from the movie Child’s Play, he learns that he was double-double crossing his new friends and must decide if he now wants to double-double-double cross his…oh god I’m making my head hurt.

Substitute Arnold with Farrell, Stone and Ironside with Beckinsale (trust me, it’s not as interesting as it sounds), previously mentioned prostitute warrior princess with non-prostitute warrior princess Jessica Biel (as boring as it sounds), Mars with Australia, and mutant rebels with some of the most bland robots in the history of film, and you’ve basically get the gist of the remake.

It’s not like certain aspects of the original couldn’t have been improved upon. The original had pretty goofy action sequences, cheesy special effects, and a pretty un-unique Cinematography. But instead of improvement, we’re treated with cheap imitations of Bourne Identity fight scenes, a little ’lens flare’ here and there (which seems to have become a staple of crappy, thoughtless action flicks), and a dimly lit set in a lazy attempt to make the movie appear ‘dark and edgy’. Wiseman lacks the vision to create his own world here, so he rips off certain aspects of films like Blade Runner, Inception, and Minority Report, and lacks the creative vision to even successfully copy-cat those.

Whether the actors’ performances in this film or the dialogue in it was more boring, I honestly couldn’t tell you. All I know is when I can’t just enjoy Beckinsale’s perfectly shaped tush for a few moments because the on screen chemistry between her and Farrell is so laughably bad, then EVERYONE ON SET IS DOING SOMETHING WRONG. There was a small glimmer of hope when I saw that Brian Cranston (Breaking Bad) starred, but unfortunately he too mails in his performance. Literally, video mails in his performance. Almost all of his scenes are a brief shot of him on a video feed. He does grace us with his presence in the end but by that point you’ve already fallen asleep.

Normally, I would tell you save your money and wait until this one comes out on DVD. Fortunately for you, you don’t have to wait! Just get the original—unless violence and gore makes you queasy, and you suffer from chronic insomnia. In that case you’ll just have to wait for this schlock to come out.