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.