Total Recall
It was okay. The action was decent. From being based on a previous movie and a 20 page story, it was okay. Not cheesy like the first movie. Plot is kind of the same – false and true memories waging war in the head of a maybe spy. Significant differences, though. No Mars, for one thing.
Looks good. Looks like Blade Runner, which is a good thing since the story was by the the same author.
Main issues were with things that suspension of disbelief doesn’t cover. Tech/lack of tech/improbably tech/physical prowess/lack of same, those kinds of things I can overlook. But the supposed ruler of the entire world makes the worst decisions. So bad it is difficult to believe he could ever have ascended to his position in the first place. And if robots are so advanced, why are we shipping people through the planet to make them? Why not have robots make robots and save the cost of wages? If they’d explain it somehow, that’s fine. But they never did. If space is at such a premium why is there anywhere – even unused subway tunnels – without people? The 3 breasted chick from the first movie is in this one as well (not the same actress). Why? Simply as a nod to the fans of the original movie I assume. She’s completely out of place. There are no other mutants seen or discussed or even mentioned.
I’ll give them props for directly referencing the story and almost directly quoting it. Nice nod to the source.
Eh. If you can see it at a matinee and ignore anything but the overall action and feel of it, go for it. :)
If you’d rather read an atypical Phillip K Dick story that reads more like Bradbury and takes less than an hour to read even for slow readers, download the 99 cent Kindle version. They have retitled it Total Recall instead of We Can Remember It For You, Wholesale.
I had enough problems with the first Total Recall movie. Sure, it’d been more than 20 years since I’d read Dick’s story, but the feel was just off. Re-read the story and was less pleased. Still, it was moderately workable.
The way you describe this one, I’m likely to be less generous as I watch–if I do. Action sequences? I can only take just so much CGI (assumed) “ballet”. *heh*
Well, the CGI stuff was things like the car chases and the robot fights. The hand to hand person stuff I think was choreographed people.
Son went this afternoon and came back raving about it.
He’s 15 years old, though ;)
The target audience. :)
Probably not going to see it. I liked the original short story by Dick, but I also enjoyed the original movie. Yeah, it had cheese, and all the typical Schwarzenegger stuff, but so what. I was, and still am, a Schwarzenegger fan. Of the movies. Not the politics.
Plus, the original had some great fight scenes with Sharon Stone and the other chic. :D
That would be Rachel Ticotin ;)
The cheesiness of the first movie was part of its charm. I’ve seen it twice and wouldn’t mind seeing it a few more times. The new one? I don’t know.