New 'Total Recall' won't make you forget original
The almost nonstop chase of the new “Total Recall” isn’t enough, by itself, to make one forget the earlier take on this Philip K. Dick story back in the last century. And for all the effects, the action and the showcase performance provided for his wife, Kate Beckinsale, “Underworld” Spandex salesman Len Wiseman never lets us forget that he’s no Paul Verhoeven, who directed the original film.
Verhoeven brought a demented, visceral and sexual energy to a high-minded sci-fi “B” movie saddled with the Teutonic bore, Arnie Schwarzenegger. Wiseman doesn’t have Verhoeven’s inventiveness, his kinky and wicked wit.
But he does have Beckinsale, whose years of vampire pictures have taught her how to lean into the camera and how to keep her mop of hair tossed over one scowling eye. Here, she’s the villain, the adoring wife Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) thinks he’s been waking up to these past seven years. And she’s terrific.
We’re 100 years in the future. Memories can be invented, introduced, changed, bought and sold.
“We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” was the title of the story this is based on. And the folks at Rekall are all about tinkering with your memory, your reality.
“Tell us your fantasy, we’ll give you the memory,” a Rekall guru (John Cho) purrs. “What is life but our brain’s perception of it?”
Exactly. It’s a measure of this movie’s mediocrity the many credited screenwriters and the director cannot make more of that possibility.
Doug has been waking up with Lori (Beckinsale), but dreaming of Melina (Jessica Biel). And it turns out, those dreams are his real past — an agent mixed up with a rebellion, a sexy rebel agent (Biel) working for the rebel leader (Bill Nighy) or perhaps for the fearless leader, played by with generic villainy by Bryan Cranston.
Humanity has barely survived a chemical world war and we’re living in two enclaves — Euromerica and New Shanghai.
And keeping the peace — “Synthetic Federal Police,” who take their fashion cues from the armored Storm Troopers of “Star Wars.”
In this future, cell phones are implanted in your hand (neat), paper money still exists (check out the face on the bills), guns still use bullets and darned if those bullets still don’t miss the hero.
It’s a “Blade Runner” world of dark and rain, a “Fifth Element” future of stacked up “levels” of humanity and traffic. No doubt about it, there’s a lot to take in, visually. So, kudos where they’re due — to production designer Patrick Tatopolous.
But it adds nothing to this “Recall,” which is not quite totally different from the last “Recall” to note that the last “Recall” wasn’t all that. This one isn’t either.
FILM FACTSTITLE: “Total Recall”CAST: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, John Cho, Bill NighyDIRECTOR: Len WisemanRATED: PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, some sexual content, brief nudity and languageGRADE: ★★ (out of 5)
