I like a good remake as much as the next guy. New technology and a fresh perspective on a classic story can produce a movie well worth seeing, as “Cape Fear” and “War of the Worlds” demonstrated. Unfortunately, Hollywood has gone remake and reboot crazy, and the balance of good remakes to bad ones is tilted heavily in favor of films no one should have made.
I count the new “Total Recall” among that ignoble number. It looks fantastic and is packed with action, but it lacks the humor, camp and even soul of the original, which premiered in 1990.
To prove my point, I’ll compare two scenes. At the center of both movies is Douglas Quaid, a nobody worker bee in the distant future. Day after day, he goes to his blue collar job, returns home, spends time with his wife, goes to bed and then gets up and does it all over again. Restless and dissatisfied with his monotonous life, he looks into a company called Rekall, which plants artificial memories in the minds of its customers. What would you be, or what would you do, if you could be or do anything?
Quaid likes the idea of being a secret agent, so he goes to Rekall and ponies up the money for the adventure of a lifetime. Just before the engineer slips him under for the memory plant, the police break in to arrest him and he ends up shooting his way out. Or does he? The fun of this story lies in figuring out if the police are really after him or if everything is taking place in his head.
In both “Recalls,” Quaid runs home to tell his wife what happened. In the original, Arnold Schwarzenegger is stunned when his wife, played by Sharon Stone, attacks him and tells him she’s not his wife, but an undercover agent, and that their marriage is a lie his organization implanted in his head six weeks ago. Quaid can’t believe her, to which Stone memorably replies, “What can I say? I give good wife.”
I remember the audience roaring. But when Kate Beckinsale says the same line to Colin Ferrell in the remake - nothing. Beckinsale’s timing is off, and she lacks the campy charm that made Stone the best pretend wife ever.
Therein lies the problems with the new “Recall.” It’s too serious. It doesn’t know how to have fun. And its actors - all of them good in other movies - bring no heart to their characters.
The dialogue is partially at fault. Lines like, “If I’m not me, then who am I?” aren’t the kind that inspire great performances, and there are several moments of awkward delivery. But I also didn’t care for the decision to remove Mars from the story. While that allowed the filmmakers to take the story in a new direction, it also did away with the scope and sense of adventure of the original “Recall.” Instead of going to Mars, Quaid exists in a world chemical warfare has rendered uninhabitable, save for two land masses on opposite sides of the world. A tunnel through the center of the Earth connects them, and has allowed a dictator to gain control over one of the superpowers and hatch plans to invade the other. Not bad, but as executed, not fun, either.
Thankfully, director Len Weisman fills the movie with nearly unbroken action and terrific eye candy. A hover car chase through a massive and detailed city provides a nice distraction for a few minutes, and the scenes in which people travel through the Earth’s core on a massive gravity elevator called The Fall are among the most visually impressive scenes in any movie this year.
But it’s all for naught. Even as I type this, I’m having trouble remembering the details of the plot. Despite its central conceit, “Total Recall” isn’t memorable. The action scenes are a constant blur, and the story and its characters blend into the scenery and never become people about whom we care. If only I could go to Rekall and have them plant the memory of seeing a good movie in my head.
Rated PG-13 for intense sci-fi violence and action, sexual content, brief nudity and language. Two stars out of four. Email David Laprad at dlaprad@hamiltoncountyherald.com.