Total Recall (2012)

The practice is nearly as old as cinema itself, but it seems like remakes have grown more and more prevalent over the last ten years. I guess Hollywood figures that if singers can find success covering songs, why can't studios cover movies? The majority of recent remakes have been adapted from movies released during the '60s, '70s, and '80s, which allows enough time to have passed for these new takes to seem fresh.

But then along came a remake of a movie made during the '90s. Remakes of more recent movies are nothing new, but they've mostly been relegated to movies made in non-English speaking countries in Asia and Europe. They wouldn't have any real name recognition in America to begin with, so they're fair game. But Sony and Columbia Pictures chose to remake Total Recall, a movie that if it were a person would be barely old enough to drink. But I guess I shouldn't be complaining too much, since I have a hard time putting anything past Hollywood anymore. But what worries me the most is just how they'd handle the movie, especially considering that the original is one of my favorite sci-fi movies of all time. I guess there's only one way to find out, so let's dig into the 2012 iteration of Total Recall and see if they can do any better than Paul Verhoeven and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

By the end of the twenty-first century, Earth will have been devastated by chemical warfare. Much of the planet is uninhabitable, with only two regions left able to comfortably support life. Political superpowers have divvied up these regions; the affluent United Federation of Britain encompasses the British Isles and parts of northern France, while Australia has become "The Colony," home to the majority of the world's working class.

Among the Colony's blue-collar workers is Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell), a factory worker who's grown weary of his mundane day-to-day life. Against the wishes of his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) and the advice of his friends, Quaid pays a visit to Rekall, a business that specializes in implanting fake memories into the minds of their customers. The only catch, as Rekall's director (John Cho) explains it to Quaid, is that the implanted memories cannot resemble one's real life experiences or it could risk causing a mental breakdown.

Quaid opts for a "secret agent" scenario to be implanted, but the procedure immediately goes awry as the memories of having been a secret agent are already in his brain. He instinctively kills a team of commandoes that kick down Rekall's door, amazed and horrified that he was actually capable of such a thing. He returns home and confesses the whole thing to Lori, who doesn't exactly take the news of his trip to Rekall well. Even she tries to kill him, revealing in the process that she's not really his wife, but an undercover government agent assigned to monitor him six weeks earlier.

With Lori leading every commando, mercenary, and police officer she can assemble in a manhunt for Quaid, he only finds a little safety when he's rescued by a mysterious woman named Melina (Jessica Biel). She explains to Quaid that he's really Carl Hauser, a spy who answered only to UFB Chancellor Vilos Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston). After he developed sympathies for an anti-UFB resistance movement in the Colony, he was captured and had his mind wiped, with his life as "Doug Quaid" implanted as a suppressive measure. Unsure of his own identity, Quaid now finds himself in the middle of a war between Cohaagan and Lori's soldiers and the Colony's freedom fighters, with both sides fighting to find a piece of crucial information locked deep within the recesses of Quaid's mind.

While I entered Total Recall with some slight trepidation because of my affection for the original movie, I left the theater pleasantly surprised. I honestly liked the movie a lot more than I thought I would. The movie provides not only a lot of fun moments for people familiar with the Arnold Schwarzenegger version, but it goes its own way in some aspects, which I respected. If it had been just a carbon copy of the 1990 movie, then I probably would have resented and disliked it. But I did indeed enjoy the new Total Recall, even if it did have a few flaws.

The movie was directed by Len Wiseman, who'd previously helmed the first two Underworld movies and Live Free or Die Hard. His work with flashy action movies certainly made him seem like a decent enough choice to make a Total Recall remake, and I don't think he disappointed. For starters, it's nice to see that Wiseman didn't go overboard with the shaky, jittery camerawork that a lot of action movies utilize nowadays. I will, however, concede that he probably went a little overboard with the slow-motion "somebody jumps from one ledge to another" shot. He uses that bit almost to the point of abusing it, so much so that you could turn it into one of the rules in a Total Recall drinking game.

But yeah, I thought Wiseman did a great job directing the movie. He never lets it become dull or boring, and the action scenes were exciting and well-orchestrated. (That lack of shaky-cam I mentioned helped out a lot, in that aspect.) His work is bolstered by the slick CGI effects and some moments of very nice cinematography. If anything, at least Wiseman and his crew make Total Recall nice to look at.

Next up to bat is the script penned by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback. While the story they tell is awfully familiar, it's different enough that it still feels relatively new too. The lack of Mars is a start, but it goes beyond that. He big thing is that outside of a couple of scenes, the remake is a lot less ambiguous in regards to whether or not the whole thing could be part of Rekall's implanted memories. Wimmer and Bomback still run with the internal conflict, though, playing it up as Quaid having his entire world turned upside down and struggling to comprehend it. It's an interesting way to approach this aspect, and I thought Wimmer and Bomback actually pulled it off well enough.

And this brings us to the cast, who all do fine jobs in their respective roles. Colin Farrell is great as our hero, bringing Quaid's confusion to the forefront with his vulnerable performance. For all I thought Schwarzenegger did with the character in 1990, Farrell makes Quaid feel more real. He draws you in and makes you actually care about Quaid, a nice bit of acting that adds a lot to the movie.

I also enjoyed Jessica Biel, but it felt like there wasn't a whole lot for her to do. There wasn't a lot of acting required for her, just action and stunts. She's far outshined by Kate Beckinsale, who is really fun in as her total bitch of a character. I guess I'm too used to seeing her play the heroic vampire of the Underworld franchise, but watching Beckinsale skillfully play an amalgam of Sharon Stone and Michael Ironside's characters from the 1990 movie was really cool. And she practically steals the whole movie, to tell you the truth.

So my final thoughts on the Total Recall remake? It's perfectly acceptable entertainment. Time will tell if it'll age as well and be as revered as the original movie, but as of this moment, me and the remake are cool. It's a fun ride from beginning to end, with enough fun moments to please both fans of the old Total Recall and those who are unfamiliar with it. And thus, I'll give the movie three and a half stars and a hearty recommendation. Check it out if you have the opportunity, because it's totally worth it. (But watch the Schwarzenegger version first, okay? You'll thank me afterwards.)

Final Rating: ***½