Total Recall

Why?! I'm not saying that this remake of Verhoeven's famous sci-fi movie is completely bad, but it’s completely unnecessary and purely commercial with regards to the twenty-two year old original. What made the old Total Recall special, i.e. the great make-up effects, the atmosphere of an alien planet and the director's sense of the right level of brutality, is reduced here to shootouts and chases in the middle of a future city. And while it works in the first half and the viewer can't even breathe under the flood of action, in the final part everything slowly fizzles out and the repetitive pattern becomes unpleasantly and profusely boring. Farrell tries hard, but, with all due respect, he’s no match for Arnie's stony gaze and swollen biceps, so the only positive additions are the beauties Jessica Biel and especially Kate Beckinsale, who apparently refuses to age and whose lithe body deserves its own star on the Walk of Fame. Wiseman once again proves that he can handle action, but, compared to Verhoeven, he’s a terribly unimaginative and routine director. (27/01/2013)

A passable remake, adapted to today’s hurried times. Perfect craftsmanship, Wiseman lays action scene upon action scene on the viewer and the shots of his wife (Kate Beckinsale) are filmed with such care that it’s a pleasure to watch. Also, she’s a thoroughbred terminator, but with a smile to fall in love with your dying breath. Poor old Colin Farrell doesn’t have much acting to do, but he tries hard. Bryan Cranston is fine too. The visual side of the movie is superb. A combination of Blade Runner and Minority Report, with a pinch of Star Wars. It’s over the top and gets away with it. It’s fantasy, after all, isn’t it? ;) If I’m not me, then who the hell am I? (16/08/2012)

A terribly simplistic and almost painfully naive dystopian sci-fi flick, but when you stop asking questions like “how” and “why”, it sort of works. Visually and technically, it’s very good, but the script is so stupid. With other films, I wouldn’t get over it, but here yes, if only because of the dynamic and original action scenes. Wiseman might not be genius, but if he ever gets a good script, I wouldn’t ignore him. (14/12/2012)

The visually arresting first half will tickle the heart of any sci-fi fan. And it doesn't matter that the Asian architecture, the perpetual rain and parakeets are a rip-off of Blade Runner, and the chases with hoverboards are a rip-off of Minority Report. But then, as the minutes tick by, the film makes it clear that the script was written by the infamous Kurt Wimmer, a man with no talent and no creative intelligence, so the mounting annoying clichés and situations like those from the most subpar B-movies quickly cool down the initial enthusiasm. Where the old Total Recall clearly wiped its ass with clichéd Hollywood and was engaging in its ambiguous answer to what is truth and what is a dream, Wiseman's film is dull and woefully predictable. It's like Kate Beckinsale's "terminator" character: visually appealing and energetic, but bluntly direct. (18/08/2012)

I was expecting a new version of a Dick’s story, but what I got was an excruciatingly boring cover version of a great film. Aside from the good visual effects and the idea of dusting off the "good old" idea of displacing the inconvenient inhabitants of Great Britain to Australia, nothing in the new Total Recall impressed me at all. This bland story full of stupidities and clichés, which doesn't manage to do anything more imaginative than quoting from the original, is not even close to Verhoeven's bloody sci-fi anecdote. Colin Farrell is awkward, Bill Nighy underused, the female characters useless. Just like this whole movie. Perhaps one thing worked - watching it made me want to watch all the much better films it had ripped off again. (30/12/2012)