I've seen this movie. Several times in fact, and it has aged surprisingly well considering the reliance on 22-year old special effects and a lead performance from an action star not known for his thespian skills. So while Len Wiseman and company may have claimed that they were merely re-adapting the original Philip K Dick short story (titled "We Can Remember It For Your Wholesale"), this trailer reveals the fraud of that argument. This is a bloated, ugly, and seemingly weightless remake of the original Paul Verhoeven film, plain and simple. There is quite simply no reason to remake this particular film because it has barely aged a day. If I want to watch Total Recall, I'll damn-well watch the 1990 version in all of its head-spinning and gore-filled R-rated glory (has there ever been a more grotesquely violent R-rated film outside of Verhoeven's own Starship Troopers released by a major studio?). The story beats in this remake seem identical, the characters seem pretty similar (except a love-interest character who was once played by a racial minority is now lily-white), and the $200 million (!!!) future world seems like a mash-up of Minority Report and The Fifth Element. Even the big 'single-take' shooting sequence looks *exactly* like a moment from the Dead to Rights video game series. Why bother even spending such an obscene amount of money if you're not going to actually try to create anything new or unique? You want to play around with the story? Great! You want to create an original future world using state-of-the-art special effects? Fine! But Sony and the filmmakers seem to have merely decided to remake a popular and continuously-relevant genre film purely because of its built-in brand awareness and then spent $200 million merely ripping off the future worlds from other original pictures. This one drops August 3rd, ironically against The Bourne Redundancy. Maybe I'll take my daughter to Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days instead (or perhaps just read a book). Your turn, folks. Am I being too hard on this one, or is the lack of imagination depressing to you as well?
Scott Mendelson
Scott Mendelson
6 comments:
The one moment where the car is in free-fall and they activate its gravity cushion just in time is cool and new. But it's about the only part.
i think this film looks bad, i think the casting is really bad, i cant believe kate bekinsale is playing sharon stone's character which to me is horrible, everything looked to cheesy to me.
Well Colin Farrell is much more tolerable than the governator.
Did you say $200M. Is this John Carter 2?
The lack of new and original ideas is a bit depressing. I'm sick of seeing the same old reboots and remakes. The original 'Total Recall' is still great. I'd not have been fine with this reboot if it didn't have the gorgeous Kate Beckinsale & Colin Farrell.
"We Can Remember it For You Wholesale". That's the book the movie your complaining about being ripped off is based on.
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