Total Recall review

Another remake, this time of the classic Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, Total Recall.

Truth be told, they should've just stuck to making an original premise instead of remaking one.

Now the premise of the movie is loosely adapted from the 1990 Total Recall, which in turn was adapted loosely from a Phillip K. Dick novel titled We can Remember It For You Wholesale.

So, in essence, the movie has absolutely nothing to do with the book anymore.

You may be wondering why I'm bringing this up. Well, truth be told, I did enjoy the movie at its core: a sci-fi action movie.

The problem is that the whole movie kinda takes itself so seriously, and the whole movie would have worked WITHOUT the whole secretly-a-double-agent-pretending-to-be-mindwiped-secret-agent angle.

It has a lot of interesting/awesome/cool ideas: The Fall, which connects The Colony (formerly Australia) to the United Federation of Britain (all of Europe apparently), which somehow goes through the Earth's core, I wonder how that works; the synthetic armed forces!!; handphones which are now taken quite literally.

I have a soft spot for mecha.

Colin Farrell is alright as Douglas Quaid, Kate Beckinsale is hot and deadly as Douglas' wife, Lori (DIBS), and Jessica Biel is a pretty face to look at as Melina, a member of the resistance and Douglas' love interest (DIBS AGAIN).

She will probably shoot you and break your limbs after a sexy session.
Totally worth it

Fuck you, Justin Timberlake, you lucky son of a bitch.

I also enjoyed Bryan Cranston (you might remember him as Hal from Malcolm in the Middle) as Chancellor Cohaagen, every scene he was in was a joy to watch.

Oh yea, Bill Nighy was in the movie as well. For like a total of 5 minutes, then he was killed off. What a waste.

While I did enjoy this movie, I felt like:

1. It's a completely unnecessary remake, it brought nothing new to the table. The premise may have changed, but the storyline sequence is EXACTLY the same, which actually made the movie boring for me.
2. It had a very interesting premise, with the two territories on Earth left habitable; The Fall being seen as an economic and sociological symbol of oppression etc etc. The problem was that none of it were really ever explained properly nor given time to shine.

In my opinion, the movie is rather disappointing, I was hoping for something new, some twist in the storyline or a new angle to look at the whole "it's all in his mind" debate, or lack thereof, since its played straight that it's NOT a fabricated memory at all.

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So, what can I say about the movie? Well, frankly, it's a disappointment, and a bit boring at times.

It has plenty of action scenes, some cool gadgets, and a potentially good premise, but ultimately its all wasted because they're trying to force in the storyline of Total Recall.

If this movie were given a different, more original storyline that makes better use of the premise, it probably would've turned out a lot better than this jumbled up mess that we currently have, running in the cinemas.

On the other hand, THREE BOOBIES!!!!