Doug Quaid is a factory worker from The Colony (Australia) who manufactures the means of his own people’s oppression: synthetic policebots (robocops!) controlled by some British Federation which is the only superpower left in the world after a chemical war. The year is about 2200. Tempted by a cheap artificial vacation, Quaid goes to Rekall to have a recreational memory implant. As they do his preparatory psych evaluation, they discover that he is in fact a real secret agent, which is as surprising to him as it is to them. And so the chase is on.
Unsurprisingly, the remake isn’t as engaging or exciting on the plot level as the original movie, and a major reason for this is that we are not told in any detail about what the proposed memory implant would have been about, and so we are not at all watching a version of the implant play itself out. That’s a major plot aspect dropped on the floor right there, as this was one of the most important structural foundations of the original movie.
The 1990 Total Recall is one of my favorite movies of all time. It works amazingly well on virtually all fronts. The intelligent story is the main thing, of course, but the cast is great, too. The characters may not be deep, but they have room to breathe and room to act. They have charisma and their surroundings are bright and colourful. Having no doubts, beforehand, that the remake would not measure up to the original, I nonetheless went into it with high expectations – not rationally, but emotionally. I like the original movie so much that even the idea of a pale imitation of it holds some satisfaction for me. So, on seeing the remake, every analytical bone in my body naturally starts taking it apart, and coming up with obvious reasons why it is inferior to the original. Make no mistake: it is very inferior. Both plotwise and characterwise it is no match for the Verhoeven masterwork. The new plot is much weaker, has several crucial holes and shortcomings, and the characters are much more superficial, never gaining any background substance to speak of, and running around in a quite dark and rainy world. Colin Farrell is no Schwarzenegger, and the whole feeling of uncertainty as to whether the action is taking place in the real world or not is practically gone; in the remake we’re never in any real doubt that everything that is going on is quite real (in its fictional sci-fi world, that is). So in almost every way that matters to the story, the remake is pretty terrible and indeed is only a pale imitation of the original. In several places, for instance, its plot has been twisted into nonsense just to be able to retain one-liners that pay tribute to the original movie, such as “I just work here”.
But you know what? I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy the heck out of it anyway! This is no run-of-the-mill B-movie; it has an original world (no Mars and no mutants), brought to life by a substantial budget with loads of amazing special effects illustrating the high-tech gadgetry of this future. It has multi-level cityscapes (often recalling Blade Runner), a preposterous transportation device that goes through the entire planet, and lots of large and small plot elements which are funny nods to the original movie. As I mentioned above, it certainly also has things that don’t work and details that don’t fit, but the movie looks damn good even so. 38-year-old Kate Beckinsale is a complete vision of slender, butt-kicking loveliness. Jessica Biel is nice, too, but her character has no depth at all (though to her credit Biel actually tries to add some through effective acting), whereas Beckinsale’s character is a conflation of Sharon Stone’s and Michael Ironside’s characters.
The remake becomes a bit too convoluted in its attempt to recapture all the plot twists of the original movie, but I like movies with tightly-woven screenplays. There was much to look at here, much to discuss and think about, and above all there was great-looking action-packed entertainment. I went to see this movie with seven friends (mostly sci-fi fans), and none of us were disappointed. I actually think I’ll go see it again – I can already feel that I can’t wait until the Blu-ray release to catch these visuals again (although, actually, the excessive use of lens flares does become annoying fast). My tentative rating is 7 stars out of 10, but if I enjoy it as much the second time around I will probably be raising that to an 8. If you’re a fan of the original movie, I absolutely recommend the remake. I guarantee it will keep you entertained.
Director: Len Wiseman
Cast: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bokeem Woodbine, Bill Nighy, John Cho and others.
Runtime: 118 min.
Country: USA / Canada
Film Rating: 
