Total Recall

Total Recall 2012

• Director: Len Wiseman
• Based on the story by Philip K Dick
• Cast: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, Bokeem Woodbine, Bill Nighy
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Colin Farrell – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Winter’s Tale, Fright Night, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, In Bruges, Intermission
• Kate Beckinsale – Absolutely Anything, The Aviator, The Last Days of Disco, Cold Comfort Farm, The Prince of Jutland, Much Ado About Nothing
• Jessica Biel – Ulee’s Gold
• Bryan Cranston – Breaking Bad, Contagion, Little Miss Sunshine, The X Files, Saving Private Ryan
• Bokeem Woodbine – Ray, The Sopranos, The X Files
• Bill Nighy – Hotel Marigold 1 & 2, Gideon’s Daughter, The World’s End, About Time, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows 1, Doctor Who, The Boat that Rocked, Valkyria, Pirates of the Caribbean, Hot Fuzz, Notes on a Scandal, The Constant Gardener, The Girl in the Café, Still, Crazy, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Shaun of the Dead, Auf Wiedersehen Pet, Kiss Me Kate, Longitude
• Why? Colin Farrell
• Seen: 2 June 2019      

       Oh, look, Bill Nighy is in it too. Yay. He’s the resistance leader who the powers-that-be call a terrorist. In the future there are only two inhabitable territories on earth, the British Federation and the Colony.

       Lori (Beckinsale) is an anti-terrorist cop for the Federation. Her husband Doug (Farrell) is a factory worker, manufacturing synthetic cops (robots). He’s from the Colony so will never be promoted. He’s frustrated, angry and plagued by nightmares. His life is shit so he decides to take the drug Rekall and get himself some good memories. Illusion and reality. Rekall gives you what you long for. It least the memory of it.

       But it all goes horribly wrong.

       The cityscapes are fantastic. The technology is cool. Even the inevitable car chase is cool. And the class conflict and the Resistance and Bill Nighy are cool. The fist fights aren’t – they never are – but the twists and turns are.

       It has its flaws – it’s confusing at times, the abovementioned fistfights are boring, some of the dialog is stiff, the machismo is as always ho hum, and Beckinsale and Biel, with their identical long dark hair, look so much alike that it’s hard to tell them apart most of the time – but it’s a visual masterpiece. As a whole it’s exciting and entertaining enough for

3 ½ * of 5 (Hal gave it 2*. He thought it was too confusing.)

PS We’re never seen the original with Schwarzenegger, so we don’t need to worry about comparisons.