"Total Recall" is a first rate action flick whose only real flaw is that it has too much action. It's hard to keep track of what's going on with who when so many bullets are flying and so many people are leaping from building to building, floor to floor, elevator to elevator and so forth. Still, that's a minor complaint and one that can be overcome by just concentrating a bit more than you might want to at an action flick. A lot of ink has been spilled comparing it to its 1990 predecessor but I'm not going to go there.
The new film is an impressive dystopian vision of a world where the haves are working feverishly to eliminate what remains of the have-nots. Those 'haves' live in what is called the United Federation of Britain and the 'have-nots' are relegated to "The Colony" which is what Australia has become. The rest of the earth is largely uninhabitable with the two human outposts connected solely by a hole through the earth's center, a kind of Chunnel on steroids. The workers load up down under and 17 minutes later they arrive in London ready to be exploited.
Douglas Quaid is one of those exploited workers. He spends his days laboring to create the very machines that would oppress him. But he feels woefully out of place and yearns for something more. He's also haunted by a recurring dream where he and a beautiful lady (Jessica Biel, beautiful indeed) are attempting to escape from someone or something. The dream always ends the same, with the lady getting away, him being captured and then waking up in his shithole apartment.
Finding no peace or place either in his life or his dreams he decides to pay a visit to Rekall, a company that implants manufactured memories into your brain to give folks something else to think about while they waste their life workin' for the man. He opts for the "Secret Agent" program but as soon as the process begins things go terribly wrong. The Rekall process runs headlong into a previous memory implant and a squad of storm troopers arrive on site to take Quaid away. He escapes into the arms of his loving wife (Kate Beckinsale) though she turns out to be anything but and the search is on for his true self. Who does he believe? Those who tell him he's suffering delusions or those who tell him he's a rebel leader?
The look of the film is impressive. It's perhaps the first film that can truly be called a direct descendant of "Blade Runner" in that regard. Set design, lighting and CG work together seamlessly to imbue this world-gone-wrong future with a real-world feel. Colin Ferrell does a good job playing a man walking a tightrope between a past he doesn't remember and a present he doesn't want. Jessica Biel as his rebel comrade and paramour and Kate Beckinsale as his would-be wife turned personal tormentor spend much of the film at each other's throats. Neither is actually stretched by their roles but this is an action movie after all and the ladies have plenty of opportunity to display their action chops.
The film's climax drags on too long and has overtones of "Attack of the Clones" to boot yet the ending is smart enough not to shy away from the nagging question raised by the narrative without feeling like some cheap setup for a sequel. While it's not a film whose themes resonate like those of "Blade Runner" it's not too far from being that. A little more attention to the script and a little less to the bang-bangs would have gone a long way toward elevating this film to the level of 'important' sci-fi.
Alas, though it can't be called important it is a tightly wound, quality action flick that deserves a place of its own in the sci-fi/dystopian pantheon and represents another significant, if belated, feather in the cap of the late Philip K. Dick.
Well said!
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