Total Recall Review

A remake of a cult classic is always going to be appealing for studios for financial purposes, but for the fans it can be daunting. Although I haven’t seen the original, I can almost guarantee it to be superior to Len Wiseman’s latest version. As a fan of Colin Farrell (InBruges) my expectations perhaps were too high. Nevertheless, Total Recall is a disappointing high concept cinema piece which falls flat in bringing new life to the Sci-Fi genre. 

The story starts out as somewhat confusing, but later all is explained. In a torn apart world where the most valued resource is areas to civilise, ‘The Fall’ acts as a transport from the poorest colony to the richest colony, in which the jobs exist. After Douglas Quaid (Farrell) realises how his life is a scheduled day-to-day mundane routine, he makes his way to ‘Rekall’, a machine which implants false memories; a way to cope with the daily strain. As you can imagine/guess, from here it all takes a turn for the worst…

Emerging yourself into this fiction universe proves challenging as the whole film moves at bullet speed. ’Total Recall’ is a non stop roller coaster ride without an emergency stop button allowing no time for character development or for the audience to give an ounce of thought to their circumstances. This dampens the overall experience for what could have been a potentially stunning Summer blockbuster and is further hindered by some dreary performances for example Kate Beckinsale as Lori Quaid. That’s not to say there weren’t some exceptional acting; Bill Nighy and Bryan Cranston just didn’t have enough screen time however.

‘Total Recall’ is one of this years’ biggest disappointments. It’s far from being awful though, it’s just a mildly average big named action adventure. The visual effects are impressive, so that’s one reason to go. Another being that there really isn’t a lot else in terms of blockbusters out at the moment. A film you certainly wouldn’t want to “recall” however…