Total Recall

½ pipe out of 4

Schwarzenegger out acting someone? Inconceivable right? Wrong. Colin Farrell is the man selected to modernize Arnold’s iconic role and does a horrible job. It did not help that he had an absolutely atrocious script to work with but it is his job to recognize good and bad scripts and he found a bad one. Jessica Biel continues her downward spiral of movie making by playing Farrell’s love rebel love interest while Kate Beckinsale makes a poor career choice by portraying Farrell’s wife. Len Wiseman of Underworld and Live free or Die Hard fame chose to direct the Total Recall remake while Kurt Wimmer of The Recruit and Equilibrium fame chose to write. Wimmer and Wiseman eliminated many iconic scenes for attempted modernization which did not add anything to the film he also removed a huge plot point only to replace it with a mashed up confusing alternative. Instead of a colony on Mars, there is a colony on earth that is one of two places on the earth that is inhabitable after nuclear war. Klatu (Bill Nighy) is no longer a mutant fighting for equality and freedom for mutants but just independence from the United Federation of Britain. Brian Cranston plays the evil Prime Minister who wants to destroy all the inhabitants in the colony for no discernible reason and wished to do so with synthetic robot guards, instead of the regular military. With this decision to eliminate a good portion of the plot of the original Total Recall, Wimmer appeared to create a list of things that are required to be in a Total Recall remake such as the three breasted prostitute, reference to divorce between Beckinsale and Farrell’s character. He subsequently proceeded to check them of in no discernible order. In the beginning of the film it appears to have promise with the new direction that the director chose to go but he was limited to be unable to divert to far of the original. With these limitations, Wimmer and Wiseman sink the remake into the nuclear wasteland that they created.

The Bourne Legacy

1½ Pipes out of 4

The action remains but the heart is gone. With Matt Damon removed from the Bourne series the logic and investment held by the audience has disappeared as well. Jeremy Renner attempts to continue the franchise made famous by Damon and puts forth a good effort but is not given a whole lot to work with plot wise. Renner is in the difficult part of his career where he has been pigeon holed and type casted as the next action star so was the logical choice for Damon’s replacement. This is a problem when the Bourne films have developed into more than just action films but acting and action films. It also does not help that the audience has built an emotional attachment to Jason Bourne only to have a fourth film that has almost nothing to do with him. There is the occasional reference to Bourne as being in New York with a news clip about his exploits but little more than that. For the most part of the film the audience is following the exploits of Aaron Cross, a bioengineered super soldier who is betrayed by his government. He then must go and rescue a doctor (Rachel Weisz) who has been overseeing his bioengineering who coincidentally has also been betrayed by the government. This then leads to the main plot of the film which actually appeared to be a sub plot but turned into the main which leaves the viewer incredibly disappointed at the end of the film because they were expecting more. The rest of the film follows a government official (Edward Norton) who is never really explained, only that he has top security clearance and he is in charge of the numerous programs spawned from Treadstone and Blackbriar. He is attempting to clean up the mess left by Jason and that means killing both Renner and Wiesz’s characters. The writer and director Tony Gilroy who also wrote the previous 3 Bourne films stated he likes that being the director means he gets to do the film his way but maybe he needed that input to make the movies good because  The Bourne Legacy doesn’t even come close to the other three films.

Lawless

1 pipe out of 4

Great acting cannot save this bland and drawn out plot. Even with the stand out performance of Guy Peirce and steadfast acting of Tom Hardy could not save this movie from being unrelatable and ordinary. The movie follows the Bondurant brothers who are bootleggers in Franklin County, Virginia. The county is subsequently taken over by a corrupt district attorney who hires a ruthless mercenary (Guy Peirce) to bring all the Bootleggers under his thumb. Naturally the Bondurant brothers refuse and a “war” if you can even call it that begins between the two parties. There are continual teasers throughout the film of a confrontation between the two but is constantly differed to later. There are minor scrimmages that defiantly warrant the R rating that the film received but nothing like were indicated with the advertising. It appears that they tried to pull in the action movie viewers only to try and give them a drama action film that has questionable acting other than Pierce and Hardy. Shia Labouf is supposed to play the relatable character that is searching for equality and respect from his older brothers but fails miserably in that regard. He constantly is making stupid decisions and never owning up to the consequences. When he and his brothers gain wealth by becoming rum runners into Chicago he goes around flaunting his wealth with new cars, new clothes and new cameras trying to impress the daughter of an Amish preacher (Mia Wasikowska). This is just typical Labouf in his pretentious, overeager jerk that he is reprising from almost all of his films. There is the small highlight of Dane DeHaan who plays the crippled boy who the Bondurant have basically adopted and is the maker of the moonshine. He is delightfully upbeat and innocent which is refreshing from all the dark and dreary characters that litter this film.