“Oooh busy week. Got a lil bit of catch up to play. I saw Bourne Legacy again on Wed. Just as awesome on a second go. Then came Total Recall on Thursday. Ended up going to a late show, and there was beer involved. Not such the best strategy.
The condition for watching this movie was that I had to watch the original first. Got that done a few days before, so it was still pretty fresh in my head. Really glad I did that because I was able to pick up on a bunch of subtle references that were kinda cool. But beyond that, there really wasn’t a whole lot to the movie.
It wasn’t bad, but there wasn’t anything special about it. Generic was the word my movie buddy used to describe it. And the previously mentioned time + beer combo meant that I was falling asleep throughout. The story was a bit streamlined from the original flick. The whole Mars thing and mutations plotline were cut entirely. You know, I never quite caught what the big evil’s motives were. But the basic character storyline was there. Guy goes to get fun memories implanted in him, finds out the life he knows is an implanted memory, kick ass-ery ensues.
I love Colin Farrell, but he’s no Ahnold. Just doesn’t have the same charm. The special effects definitely got a major upgrade since the original. I did kinda miss the animatronics, even though they’d gotten completely written out of the story. The rest of the action was just your typical blowing stuff up. We all know I live for that, but it’s taking more and more to impress me and for the most part this didnt do it.
The one area where Total Recall did score some major points was that it felt really connected to the other Phillip K Dick inspired movies. The world looked so much like Blade Runner, you’d swear this was a misguided sequel. And there was a car chase scene (I’m using the term car rather loosely) that was pretty much lifted right outta Minority Report.
I’m scoring this higher than the tone of the write would suggest because again, there wasn’t anything wrong with the film. There just wasn’t anything incredibly right about it either. It was enjoyable, but adds zero to the world of cinema. You can’t win ’em all
Total Recall – \m/ \m/ \m/