TOTAL RECALL, a modern-day adaptation of the Philip K. Dick story WE WILL REMEMBER IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE, is the second filmed version of the material following on from the 1990 Schwarzenegger movie. Unfortunately, it pales in comparison to that movie in every respect. In essence, this film can be summed up as follows: action/CGI/CGI/CGI/action/action/CGI/CGI, repeated ad infinitum.
It turns out to be a soulless and hollow viewing experience, one which lacks depth and the kind of drive to make it an exciting production. Instead it plays out superficially, never deeper than the level of a comic strip, refusing characterisation at all times. Unforgivably, it also excises all of the good stuff from the Arnie movie: the humour, the satire, the background, the sci-fi elements, the violence, and the effects.
What we're left with is one long chase movie, augmented by endless CGI effects which lose their impressiveness about five minutes in. TOTAL RECALL is a movie which makes the classic Hollywood mistake of imagining that bigger effects = better action (think of TRANSFORMERS, 2012), whereas those filmmakers who realise that greater intensity = better action (THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, THE RAID) do far better. Colin Farrell is humourless in an uninteresting lead role, while Kate Beckinsale gives an embarrassingly wooden performance. Other actors, like Bryan Cranston and Bill Nighy, are given so little screen time that they barely register. In fact, the only parts of this I really enjoyed were the in-jokes referencing the earlier classic movie.
It turns out to be a soulless and hollow viewing experience, one which lacks depth and the kind of drive to make it an exciting production. Instead it plays out superficially, never deeper than the level of a comic strip, refusing characterisation at all times. Unforgivably, it also excises all of the good stuff from the Arnie movie: the humour, the satire, the background, the sci-fi elements, the violence, and the effects.
What we're left with is one long chase movie, augmented by endless CGI effects which lose their impressiveness about five minutes in. TOTAL RECALL is a movie which makes the classic Hollywood mistake of imagining that bigger effects = better action (think of TRANSFORMERS, 2012), whereas those filmmakers who realise that greater intensity = better action (THE BOURNE SUPREMACY, THE RAID) do far better. Colin Farrell is humourless in an uninteresting lead role, while Kate Beckinsale gives an embarrassingly wooden performance. Other actors, like Bryan Cranston and Bill Nighy, are given so little screen time that they barely register. In fact, the only parts of this I really enjoyed were the in-jokes referencing the earlier classic movie.