Movie Review: Total Recall

Plot: In the future, most of Earth has been destroyed by chemical warfare and has been divided into two hemispheres. Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a factory worker, living with his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) in the poverty stricken hemisphere known as the Colony. Plagued by dreams and wanting more from his life, he visits ReKall to have a dream vacation implanted. As the procedure begins, Quaid discovers that he’s actually a secret agent named Hauser, whose memory was erased by the president of Euromerica, Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston). Now with Lori, herself an agent in Cohaagen’s force, trying to kill him, Quaid/Hauser must go on the run, and discover the secret his suppressed memories hold before it’s too late.

In 1990 Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, hit theaters and became the suprise highest grossing film of the year. After its release, Columbia Pictures tried for years to get a sequel on the screen with several failed attempts. After a sequel couldn't be worked out they began trying for a remake, which also went throught failed attempt after failed attempt, as well as a television series that was cancelled after one season. After 22 years of efforts, Total Recall has finally made it back to theaters, and with a cast like Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, Bryan Cranston and Bill Nighy it should be pretty good right?

The first twenty minutes of this film builds up to something potentially great. Director Len Wiseman has built a beautiful technologically advanced world that is the best I've seen since Spielberg's Minority Report. Much like Minority Report, the weapons, tools, vehichles and appliances are vastly advanced while keeping them in the realm of possibility of one day acutally having the potential to exist.

Sadly, once the action begins the film goes downhill quick. I'm not a fan of "chase" films because most of them have the same formula; the protagonist is on the run, the antagonist catches up to the protagonist, big action scene, the protagonist gets away, and this formula is repeated for two hours. It is hard to develop characters and a plot with a set up like this, and Total Recall is no exception to the rule. It's a mess. Films like Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can and the Bourne series take time with their films. Yes, they are on the run but there doesn't have to be an unrealistic action sequence every fifteen minutes. It's not a race and it's ok for a character to stay in one place for more than five minutes.

Most of the build up going in for me was the cast they had lined up, but unfortunately they were a disappointement and not even the great Bryan Cranston could hold his own. I thought this was Farrell's chance for a big comeback, but he had next to no emotion in the film. He looks bored and uninterested in most of the tense scenes. Don't get me wrong, the writers are to blame for this mess, but he is to blame for the performance. I was excited to see Kate Beckinsale in her first role as a villain and for a moment she does really well. But having your husband as the director can really blow it for you sometimes because she was in this film WAY to much. I mean Len Wiseman crammed her in as much as he possibly could and tried to boost her up as some action star. It failed big time not to mention she had the worst lines out of anyone. So when Jessica Biel enters the film, I'm thinking that maybe she can pick up the slack but she was the worst out of them all. Her character was uninteresting and more of a problem than a help. So by the time Bryan Cranston shows up, it's to little to late for him as he is a cliche'd power hungry villain that falls flat.

But the main offenders of this trainwreck are the writers. I'm suprised that Columbia Pictures were not more aggresive in their hires since the studio wanted this to be a franchise so badly. Between the two writers they have a resume of films such as; Salt, Street Kings, Ultraviolet and Race to Witch Mountain. These B to C level writers do not cut it when making a film with this kind of budget. As a viewer I was insulted at the countless stupid scenerios that we are supposed to just believe and accept. 1) When a man walks into a room shooting at officers, they don't stand and watch while only one officer fires back at a time. 2) If your going at high speeds through the center of the Earth and your standing on top of the transportation device, you're not going to be ok, you're going to fly off first of all and burst into flames secondly. 3) Task forces can't appear out of thin air. It's 2012 and I demand a smarter script. This could have been pulled off in the 80's or early 90's but not today.

Aside from cramming his wife into the film extremley to much, Wiseman created a fantastic world with a sour and rotten core thanks to poor, lazy writing. And what a shame because this had potential. Now Columbia Pictures is left with what is sure to be a dead franchise now.

Final Verdict: 4/10 (a generous 4/10 I might add)