Len Wiseman's (Underworld) film making is of interest to me, stylish and flashy but generic. It ought not to have pointing fingers on him if majority of his pics were either derivative or has some narrative issues however. He recently took on Total Recall, a '90's sci-fi based on a 'sixty-six short story called "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale".
As what is expected, Wiseman's version is of a lower octave than what the original director Paul Verhoeven of the Schwarzenegger version had. The difference? A lot.
Firstly, Verhoeven's Rated R pic is remembered with its indiscretion of brutality. In the '90's version (which I hooked up on video on Amazon.com), Verhoeven, besides laying on freaky images and graphic violence, he also told the story with ample mind-benders, twists that are indeed twisting. In Wiseman's PG-13, all notes are falling flat one octave (I may be repeating myself).
Colin Farell (Fright Night 3D) plays Doug (or he is really someone else), a laborer in a droid-factory. Recall is set in a dystopian future, in when earth only has two habitable settings left on hand: The United Federation of Britain (UFB) and The Colony. This is due to some bio-chems event that made other place else inhabitable.
Doug spots an advert of a company that promises successful implantation of any memory a customer wishes. Curious Doug, in addition to his tiredness about his tedious and samey life, tries on the procedure. He tells the owner he wants to be a CIA agent. Before it all could have happened, Doug finds out that he is in fact an intelligence agent working on both sides of the table: The Government and The Resistance.
Ultimately resembling on what Jason Bourne experienced in The Bourne Identity, Doug finds his safe box. Learns in fact that he is an agent, that his life as Doug is just a show by the government, and then had himself trapped in a cat-and-mouse chase with Lieutenant Lori Quaid, a woman who played as his wife.
Running for approx two hours, Total Recall felt tedious, but it stood still as being passable, if it was made a little more fleeting. Farell as Doug is what you'd expect from him, albeit his approach was a flat one, playing the part with an introvert manner.
Wiseman arguably has some heavy weight behind his back (Total Recall, I'm told was one of the most remembered Sci-Fi of the 80's-90's generation), it's no surprise. Despite this, he managed to pull out some flashy chase sequences in a supremely stylish fashion, albeit it's obvious that narrative improvement was trumped until it's dying.
Fancy fight-works and impressive visuals I have seen in cinema is at it's best in this movie, honestly. It has delish CGI work, by far one of the best in the recent memory, that kept me thinking: how great would the original be if it borrowed the latter's CGI effects?
Kate Beckinsale fights like the Devil, resembling greatly in her Underworld movies. She's effectively tenacious and evenly physique. Her was one of the few attractions worth the ticket in this remake. Jessica Biel, though not equally as knowledgeable (it seems) in action as Beckinsale, adds curves to the angular dystopian action.
Wiseman's intention is apparent here. To bring back the three-titty hooker on-screen (sorry, I had to bring her up in this, haha).
The Wiseman pic is with a refined visual, but the approach was too little that the movie as an entire piece became a tedious, drab mess.
RATING: B-
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