Oklahoma Gazette Film: Total Recall

Unlike many moviegoers, 17-year-old farm girl Nell Sweetzer (Ashley Bell, The Day) has no memory of the events of The Last Exorcism, a found-footage smash of three years prior. The Last Exorcism Part II finds her taking steps to build life anew, beginning in a boarding house for troubled girls, where the deeply devout Nell is exposed to such heretofore corrupting influences as lipstick and rock music and YouTube and cotton candy.

The ABCs of Death

Suspense novelist Jeffery Deaver once praised the short-story format, writing that the minimal time investment on the part of the reader allows the writer to get away with endings he or she cannot in the long form. In other words, the writer can be meaner, more devious. He's absolutely right, and the theory applies wholesale to The ABCs of Death, more or less a horror anthology depicting "26 ways to die."

Lifeforce

Tobe Hooper got a raw deal. The director of horror hits The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist didn't deserve to be sent to movie jail for 1985's Lifeforce. It's a well-crafted, well-intentioned work that was mismarketed and misunderstood, losing a bundle of money and soon sending Hooper into the lands of episodic television and direct-to-video features.

Consider that a divorce.

August 3rd, 2012

I'm not of the opinion that remakes are automatically a bad thing. Without them, we wouldn't have David Cronenberg's The Fly or John Carpenter's The Thing. The difference is that examples like those had a different way of telling the established story.

Total Recall, on the other hand, just feels like a brand-name cow Hollywood thought was due for milking.

While fondly remembered by a generation as one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's blockbustiest blockbusters, the 1990 original is only half a great movie, so room for improvement existed. The new version is better only in the department of special effects — a given, considering the leaps in technology in the two decades since, such as a little something called computer-generated imagery.

In his second remake lead in a row following last summer's Fright Night, Colin Farrell is a better actor than Schwarzenegger, but falls short in presence. He acquits himself OK enough as Quaid, the bored factory worker who longs for adventure and escape, and finds it at Rekall, a memory-implantation firm that can supply him with the secret-agent fantasy he so desires.

But just as the procedure has begun, something goes wrong, and a shootout ensues. Suddenly, Quaid exhibits action-hero moves he didn't know he had. Plus, his not-really wife (a bland Kate Beckinsale, Contraband) joins everyone else in trying to kill him. Is it real, or is it Memorex?

Who cares?

If you haven't seen the first Recall film, but have seen this version's trailer, then you've already seen the soulless flick. Watching Farrell and his mysterious accomplice (a miscast Jessica Biel, The A-Team) run, run, run is less a shot of adrenaline and more akin to watching the trailer on a loop. Director Len Wiseman, aka Mr. Beckinsale, the auteur behind his wife's Underworld franchise, shoots (no pun intended) the action at such a quick clip (again, unintended), it is to his own detriment. I found myself struggling with simple spatial orientation. As slick as it looks, it makes no visual sense.

Plus, he and screenwriters Kurt Wimmer (Salt) and Mark Bomback (Unstoppable) haven't tinkered much with the story. The tweaks that have made, like letting Beckinsale survive longer than Sharon Stone did, amount to naught. While never reaching Mars, Recall 2012 hits all the beats of Recall 1990, right down to the "If I'm not me, who the hell am I?" line and one tri-breasted hooker. It even makes direct references to its predecessor, but in a joking manner, like an elbow nudge to your side. Yes, Len, I got it — I don't want it, but I got it.

In interest of full disclosure and critical ethics, I must admit I left the advance screening of Total Recall with 28 minutes left to go (and for such an effects-heavy film, about 10 to 12 of them had to be the end credits). My early exit wasn't so much because of the film's Total disengagement with me, but more due to the theater feeling like an oven. So overheated I was, the outdoor temps, as scorching as they were, felt like relief, in more ways than one. —Rod Lott

Hey! Read This:
• The A-Team Blu-ray review
• Salt film review
• Total Recall: Mind-Bending Edition Blu-ray review
• Underworld: Awakening Blu-ray review
• Unstoppable Blu-ray review

08.03.2012 at 05:24 Reply

imautobot

Perhaps you'd do best by not basing your opinion of this version on the previous version. Instead, why not weight it againt the short story that it's based on by Philip K. Dick 'We Can Remember it for You Wholesale"? In truth, almost all of Dick's stories bomb when translated to the screen. The two I'd wager were successes were Minority Report and Blade Runner. The bad ones... Total Recall (the original), A Scanner Darkly, Paycheck, Next, Screamers, and Imposter. I don't believe this is a narrative about Philip K. Dick, I think it has a lot to do with hollywood not accurately embracing his vision. Clearly Ridley Scott understood it, but few have since.

08.03.2012 at 06:00

Rod Lott

If I did that, my review would be even less favorable! I agree with you that only two PKD adaptations were qualified successes. Earlier this summer, I read a whole book devoted to the very subject: http://amzn.to/QAiN38

But compared to the original, against the short story or standing on its own, this new film is just plain inert.

The Last Exorcism Part II

The ABCs of Death

Ninja III: The Domination

Lifeforce

Dead Souls

Total Recall

Consider that a divorce.