Contributor: Henry T.
Screen Story by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, Jon Povill, and Kurt Wimmer
Screenplay by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback
Directed by Len Wiseman
The inevitable question in every remake of a film is why the remake exists in the first place. They can span a complete re-interpretation of the original material or a generic retread. The new version of “Total Recall” markets itself as the former when it’s actually the latter. Was it really necessary to re-make a movie from two decades ago that starred the most popular action movie star of that time in Arnold Schwarzenegger? That was the first mistake of this new “Total Recall”.
It’s an action film carried by Colin Farrell, an actor who isn’t the drawing card that Ah-nold was in his heyday. Then everyone involved made this film fully CGI, leaving behind the practical special effects of the prior film. I won’t argue that the film looks better than its predecessor, but it had a lot of visual clutter onscreen, which was unexpected. Even as it does look better than the older version, the story has some large logic holes and an utter disregard for the laws of physics that became an annoyance as the film went on.
The story of “Total Recall” begins with Douglas Quaid (Farrell), a lowly factory worker who lives in “The Colony”, an area of what used to be Australia. He, and other people who live in The Colony, work in the United Federation of Britain (UFB) on the other side of the world, ostensibly the upper class in this new world. The UFB is headed by a dictatorial chancellor named Cohagen (Bryan Cranston). They take a daily transport machine called “The Fall”, which connects the two pieces of land through the core of the Earth. The rest of the world has been rendered uninhabitable by global chemical warfare. Every day, Quaid comes home to his loving wife, Lori (Kate Beckinsale), but feels like there is always something missing from his ordinary life. It might involve a mysterious woman Quaid keeps seeing in his dreams (Jessica Biel), and there is only a place called Rekall that might give him the answers he’s been looking for.
The major problem I had with this film was that I found the geopolitical details of this new futuristic world (presumably it’s the early 22nd century) much more intriguing than any of the main action with Quaid. It functions only as window dressing, for director Len Wiseman has other priorities on his mind. The film can only go so far in being the “re-interpretation”, and that really becomes a loose term for it as certain details are changed from the first film. There is no Mars, no Kuato, no mutants. A resistance exists, but it’s a patchwork group of people who don’t have names or personalities because all of the focus is on Quaid/Hauser once the secret agent/double and triple cross plot begins in earnest.
The geopolitics of the story would bore people, but it’s crucial to what the characters are doing. It would seem that the writers and director don’t care about the consequences of any character’s actions and would rather show most of them jumping from one thing to the next. We need to know why Cohagen intends to invade the Colony, or why he feels the need to replace human spies with machines.
We’re told that the the Fall is a “symbol of enslavement and oppression.” I see it as the only viable transportation between either worlds. If it’s destroyed, what happens to the Colony and the UFB afterwards? How can the citizens of this new world keep itself operational? It’s a shame that the film ignores all of this because it would make the film feel much more relevant to what’s happening in today’s world. Both worlds are overpopulated and people literally live on top of each other (I’m reminded of the planet Coruscant in the Star Wars universe, one of the film’s many nods to a galaxy far, far away). It’s a possibility that could occur in the future, and it would resonate more firmly if the film didn’t regard it as mere window dressing around an action plot designed solely to draw in more viewers.
That action plot could have been done so much better as well. Everything felt so rote to me. If you’ve seen the original 1992 film, then the double cross and triple cross that occurs at the beginning of the third act won’t be much of a surprise. I never got the sense that Quaid/Hauser was in any danger. I get that he’s the hero and he’s supposed to survive to the end, but that mindset is really the fault of both the screenplay and the stock villains in the plot.
The characters routinely defy the laws of physics with all of the jumping around that they do. By and large, Quaid should have broken both of his legs and many parts of his body multiple times jumping from the dizzying heights that he does throughout the film. It’s treated as if it’s something he does every day of his life. Both Lori and Cohagen have ample opportunities to put a bullet in Quaid or Melina, yet choose to do a villain monolog or send a group of soldiers to do it, only to get frustrated when they don’t complete the job.
There is a neat hover car chase in the film that had me interested in how the roads of the future work, but again, Wiseman chooses not to dwell on any of this. He’s too worried that the audience will get bored so he has to fill the screen with as much visual clutter as possible. Ironically, the action sequences don’t have any stakes to them so boredom seemed inevitable. This is one of the messiest films I’ve ever seen. Wiseman uses everything he can think of and puts it on the screen, from lens flares (which I find really annoying, and not as stylish as some directors think it is) to constantly flashing light sources and a camera that won’t sit still at any one time. It’s as if the film was made for people who have Attention Deficit Disorder.
Farrell underplays the role of the hero and seems unwilling to sell the turmoil going on in Quaid’s life. It was also hard to take the principal villains seriously. Cohagen isn’t in much of the film and, as I’ve detailed before, his intentions are somewhat unclear. Lori is just as bad. She plays innocent at the beginning, then switches into single-minded killer mode seemingly with the flip of a switch. She then spends the rest of the film perfecting the straight march towards the camera with her head down, as if she were the killer in a horror film stalking her prey. It’s unintentionally comical, even if there’s really no clear reason why she wants Quaid dead.
Look, I know that both “Total Recall” films aren’t going to be deep science fiction masterpieces. It’s going to be a matter of style trumping substance every time. All I ask is for this film to make some logical sense and maybe entertain me at some point. Seeing this as the final product means that either the studio interfered with production in some way or the director caters to his own whims rather than paying attention to what the audience wants. The original film didn’t completely work, but it held some interest. The remake felt really unnecessary. The best science fiction films engage the mind and might be willing to quicken the pulse once in a while. When the geopolitical occurrences are of more interest than the primary action plot, there are problems. No amount of visually impressive CGI can make up for all of those problems. All in all, this version of “Total Recall” qualifies as a disappointment. The biggest failure is the thought that it could have been so much better.
Score: 5/10
