Susan Granger’s review of “Total Recall” (Columbia Pictures/Sony)
Set in 2084 on a grim Earth that’s almost uninhabitable because of chemical warfare, this remake stars Colin Farrell as Douglas Quaid, an assembly-line worker who, despite protestations by his beautiful wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale), is determined to spike his humdrum life by visiting Rekall, a company that, through intravenous injections, converts a person’s fantasies into fake memories that seem real.
Problem is: once he’s injected, robotic soldiers burst into the room, forcing him to flee, and he spends the rest of the chaotic plot on the run with a mysterious woman named Melina (Jessica Biel), trying to figure out if he’s really the superspy of his fantasies or if the entire scenario is just a mind-warp in a parallel universe.
There are endless chases through the Fall, a commuters’ chute dug through the planet’s core that connects the workers’ rain-soaked island Colony (Australia) on one side of the world with the ruling settlement in the United Federation of Great Britain. If the special effects look familiar, think “Blade Runner, if the stormtroopers/hover car chases look familiar, think George Lucas’ “Star Wars” and if the three-breasted prostitute looks familiar, think of the surreal elements in the previous version, because there’s little originality here.
Adapting the same 1960s Philip K. Dick short story – “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” – that inspired Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 film, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone, writers Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback,working from a screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, John Povill and director Len Wiseman almost completely dispense with the Mars locale and curiously mutated inhabitants, along with all character development and humor. As a result, bewildered Farrell, brutish Beckinsale and beguiling Biel are shallow prototypes, as are the adversarial political leaders, autocratic Chancellor Cohagen (Bryan Cranston) and rebellious Matthias (Bill Nighy).
FYI: Kate Beckinsale is married to “Underworld” director Len Wiseman, who goes for lanky, lean, long-haired brunettes, ultra-fashionably clad in black leather.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Total Recall” is a tedious 3 – a total waste of time and best forgotten.
