Total Recall


Total Recall is an action thriller about reality and memory, inspired anew by the famous short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick. Welcome to Rekall, the company that can turn your dreams into real memories. For a factory worker named Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), even though he's got a beautiful wife (Kate Beckinsale) who he loves, the mind-trip sounds like the perfect vacation from his frustrating life - real memories of life as a super-spy might be just what he needs. But when the procedure goes horribly wrong, Quaid becomes a hunted man. Finding himself on the run from the police (controlled by Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), the leader of the free world) Quaid teams up with a rebel fighter (Jessica Biel) to find the head of the underground resistance (Bill Nighy) and stop Cohaagen. The line between fantasy and reality gets blurred and the fate of his world hangs in the balance as Quaid discovers his true identity, his true love, and his true fate.

Ok.  There are two ways to look at this movie.  The first is to pretend that the original Total Recall with Arnold Schwartzenegger never happened.  If you do that, this is a barely watchable sci-fi movie.  They basically had the robots from I, Robot and the stormtroopers from Star Wars make a baby and those were the soldiers chasing them.  Then they basically stole the exact look and transportation from Minority Report.  Then they told Beckinsale to pretend that she was in Underworld 17.  Unfortunately, stealing all these things from other good sci fi movies (I'm referring loosely to Underworld 1 included in that), doesn't make a good sci fi movie.  This movie had some of the dryest acting ever and was barely watchable due to the visual effects of it.  If you are watching this in the second way to see it . . . . factoring in the original Total Recall . . . . . . this movie is absolutely horrible.  The first Total Recall was one of the iconic movies of my teenage years.  I can pretty much quote it word for word and at the time, the makeup and effects were top notch.  This movie was pretty much a giant insult to that movie across the board. 

I wouldn't really recommend anyone bothering with this movie.  It's pretty much garbage either way you look at it and a total waste of time.