Total Recall: from mindfuck to mindless

Colin Farrell: You, sir, are no Schwarzenegger.

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IN A NUTSHELL

 

What it is: A more or less straight adaptation of the 1990 sci-fi camp classic, minus the camp.

Target audience: Blockbuster fans who find Paul Verhoeven too subtle or intellectual.

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When the new Total Recall was announced, a number of people questioned the need to remake a movie only 20-some years old. I gave it the benefit of the doubt. After all, it’s nice to think that a Paul Verhoeven film is considered classic enough to revisit. After watching the new version (directed by Underworld series hack Len Wiseman), I can’t help but feel that the question still lingers.

Colin Farrell fills Arnold Schwarzenegger’s steroid-soaked shoes as Doug Quaid, a working stiff in a futuristic world who signs up for Rekall, a company that implants exciting fictional memories in its clients’ brains. Things go haywire when it turns out Farrell has already had his memory erased — he’s really a double agent, working for both a fascistic government (led by a scenery-chewing Bryan Cranston of Breaking Bad) and a resistance movement. Or is he actually imagining the whole thing?

The film incorporates some key parts of the original, including the memorable line “If I’m not me, then who am I?” It also cleverly subverts some of the Verhoeven version’s scenes, setting the situation up so that you think you know where it’s going and then adding a twist. And yes, there is an appearance by a three-breasted woman.

With support from two rival ass-kicking ladies played by Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale, the women’s roles are considerably stronger than in the original (although as with many Hollywood films, you get the sense that badass chicks are thrown in out of a sense of obligation, like token black characters in ’80s comedies). The new script also has a political angle, incorporating bits and pieces from historical and contemporary issues, though it doesn’t add up to much.

The special effects are top-notch, with some sweet dystopian set decoration (though the camera rarely lingers long enough to truly let it sink in) and a flying-car chase scene that’s really quite spectacular. And as long as you bring a weapons-grade suspension of disbelief to Farrell’s ability to evade his pursuers, the constant sense of paranoia is satisfying.

The bottom line is that between Schwarzenegger and Verhoeven, the original Total Recall had a lot of camp value, and when you take that away without adding to the core Philip K. Dick mindfuck angle, there isn’t much left but a competently executed action blockbuster. ■

Total Recall opens Aug. 3.