Total Recall Extended Director's Cut [Blu-ray]

I would consider the original Total Recall as one of my top five favorite films of all time. I gave the movie five stars. You can even read about it, if you have the time. So, you already know the original film is very close to my heart. And, as with most films that are close to my heart, it was of course redone into a super glossy, vapid remake.

The Movie:

Just how super glossy and vapid is it? Well, pretty much as super glossy and as vapid as you could get. Where the original was the thinking man?s sci-fi film (yes, even with Arnold Schwarzenegger), this is science fiction for dummies. It stinks, and worse, it?s a colossal waste of time. The original is just so much better--dated special effects and all.

The biggest problem with this film is that it?s all action and no thought, and the action isn?t even that enjoyable. When this remake came out earlier this year, a lot of people noted that it was like a video game. But you know what? I love video games, and many of the video games of today can be very thoughtful and introspective (just play Journey if you don?t believe me). In reality, this movie is actually an insult to modern-day gaming. If anything, it?s like video games from the early 90s, which feature a lot of bang bang and who gives a shit? Whereas the original film was ambiguous and made audiences really question whether scenes were reality or recall, this movie isn?t smart enough to be ambiguous, making pretty obvious which is which. I?m not going to spoil the film for you, but by the end of the movie, you just might find yourself shaking your head. It?s all so contrived that it makes me sick.

But I digress. For those who haven?t seen the original, the story in this one is about a factory worker named Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) who isn?t pleased with life, even with a smoking hot wife (Kate Beckinsale). So he visits Rekall, a company where your dreams can become reality through implanted memories. But something goes terribly wrong, and Quaid becomes hunted because of something unlocked in his brain during the procedure. Plotwise, it?s very similar to the original.

Despite the similarities, this movie takes place on Earth instead of Mars. But it doesn?t really make any difference, since Earth is such a fantasy world in this film that it might as well take place on Mars. I mean, really, what was the point of keeping the film on Earth? The only reason I could think of that the filmmaker made the decision is because he wanted to separate this film from the original. But there are so many homages to the original that you kind of wonder if director Len Wiseman got confused along the way. It doesn?t make any sense. Is this a remake or a reimagining? Either way it sucks.

The biggest offense, though, is that there?s no charm to this film whatsoever. There are no cheesy (but endearing) one-liners. None of the characters have any personality, not even the wonderful, Bryan Cranston. And the chemistry between Farrell and Jessica Biel's characters is as about as plastic as the box this disc comes in. The whole production is just blah, and I really can't recommend this film to anybody.

The Disc:

Ok, so as you can tell, I hated the film. But I?ll try to be as objective as possible on these special features, since there are quite a bit of them. First, let?s look at the extended director?s cut of the film. It?s weak. All the added stuff is so miniscule that you won?t even notice it unless you?re listening to the audio commentary. It?s useless. And speaking of useless, the commentary is terrible, too. The director, Len Wiseman, seriously doesn?t think much of his audience, as he constantly talks about whether the audience will be confused by the plot. He seriously thinks we?re dumbasses. Hello, most of us saw the original. If we understood that one, we?ll understand this one. Stop belittling us.

?Total Recall with Insight? is your typical, behind-the-scenes look at how key scenes were shot. It features everything from discussions on action scenes and shots of the orchestra playing the score, all while the movie is playing. It?s?just whatever. ?Science Fiction vs. Science Fact? features a guy who goes on a tangent about nonsense, and it?s all drawn-out and ridiculous. He sounds like I used to sound when I?d bullshit in my college papers. It?s laughable.

You know what?s not funny, though? The gag reel. It?s boring. ?Designing the Fall? features a discussion on the creation of the CG heavy world in this movie, and it?s uninteresting, to say the least. ?Total Action? features actors and the production team talking about the lackluster fight scenes. And ?Stepping into Recall-Pre-Visualization sequence? shows key action scenes in their early phase when they were still just pre-rendered models. It practically put me to sleep.

In fact, the only moderately good special feature on here is the early demo of the upcoming Playstation 3 game, God of War: Ascension. It?s pretty much just a playable version of the trailer we gamers have already seen. It?s fine and all, but it?s also unimpressive. I mean, it?s God of War, which is getting tired, just like this Blu-Ray itself.

Distributor: Columbia PicturesStarring: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, John Cho, Bill NighyProduced by: Neal H. Moritz, Toby JaffeWritten by: Ronald Shusett, Dan O?Bannon, Jon Povill, Kurt Wimmer

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Total Recall: Mind-Bending Edition [Blu-Ray]

With the Curiosity rover recently landing on Mars, it seems like the red planet is a hot topic again. So what better movie is there to watch than the mind-bending classic, Total Recall, which is Arnold Schwarzenegger?s best film of all time? You?re right, there is no better movie. So Total Recall it is! God, I love this film.

The Movie:

Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, and Total Recall are my three favorite movies of all time. And while Total Recall never gets the respect that the first two films receive, it should, since it?s one of the smartest movies Hollywood has ever produced. And while you may think that that comment alone throws all of my credibility as a film critic right out the window, you need to stop. The only reason you think that way is because it stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, who most associate with lines like ?Get to da choppa!? and ?I?ll be back.? Sure, the movie does verge on being outright silly, with Arnold S spouting one-liners like ?Consider dat a divorce,? but that doesn?t keep the film from being a heady wonder, rivaled only by a film like Inception in the past few years.

What makes Total Recall so good is its ambiguity mixed in with its suspense and action. Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) is a construction worker on Earth who dreams of a life of adventure on Mars. Most people would have to be content with their dreams, but in the world of Total Recall, which was loosely based on Phillip K. Dick?s short story ?We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,? there?s actually a way to live out those dreams, and that way is through a company called REKALL. The company will implant memories of pretty much any experience you could want, and Quaid opts for an adventure as a secret agent. But something goes terribly awry, and all throughout the film, you're left to wonder if Quaid really is a secret agent, or if he's simply living out the experience Recall implanted in his mind. There are hints that suggest either possibility (unlike in the abysmal recent remake, but I won?t get into that), but the ambiguous ending refuses to give you a simple answer. In fact, it makes it all the more perplexing. This is a thinking man?s picture. This is not Red Heat or Commando. This is a work of smarts! It?s a masterpiece of bullets and brains.

That?s why Total Recall is amazing. It?s as thought-provoking as it is action-packed. There seriously isn?t a more violent film I can think of that left me totally spellbound at the end. Along with Robocop and Starship Troopers, director Paul Verhoeven really hit his stride with these films, and they?re probably the most cerebral motion pictures of the '80s and '90s. I?m dead serious. And Total Recall is the best out of the three. So, what are you waiting for? ?Get your ahss to Mahs? and pick up this excellent picture.

The Disc:

I love Total Recall so much that I probably would have given the special features four stars even if they only consisted of a scene selection. But fortunately, these special features are pretty damn good. Unfortunately, though, most of them are from the previous DVD release. So really, I don?t know what?s so "mind-bending" about it. Perhaps it?s the fact that the only truly new feature that I can see here is the ?Restoration Comparison.? Other than that, I?ve seen pretty much all of these before. A few more additions would have been nice, but oh well. It?s a 22-year-old movie. What more could I really expect?

The highlight is definitely the commentary with director Paul Verhoeven and Arnold Schwarzenegger. They basically describe every single thing that?s going on in the movie at the time that it?s playing, so it?s hilarious. It?s also interesting to hear them discuss whether they think the movie is a dream or not, with the director definitely leaning in the ?It?s a dream? direction. ?Interview with Director Paul Verhoeven? is just that, and it?s pretty candid, with him even saying that while Arnold wasn?t all that great of an actor during filming, he had a lot of charisma, which is all they needed to get by at the time. A ?Making-of Featurette? shows just how special the effects were back in 1990, and ?Models and Skeletons: The Special Effects of Total Recall? goes even more in depth with some of the more amazing scenes in the film. They look simplistic today, but they were also more organic back then, which makes it better in my eyes.

?Imagining Total Recall? is a great documentary talking about how hard it was to get the movie made, as it was once plagued by a terrible third act that took forever to get fixed. The ?Restoration Comparison? mentioned earlier shows just how far Blu-ray can push a disc. Rounding it off is the trailer and a photo gallery. It?s all good stuff, but I just wish more of it was new. Overall, it?s a great disc, but reconsider if you already have the movie on DVD.

Total Recall: Mind-Bending Edition [Blu-Ray] DetailsDistributor: Lionsgate Home EntertainmentStarring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny CoxProduced by: Mario Kassar, Andrew G. VajnaWritten by: Ronald Shusett, Dan O?Bannon, Gary Goldman

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Total Recall

Colin Farrell's career took off 10 years ago, when he starred in the very good Philip K. Dick adaptation Minority Report. Now in Total Recall, another Dick adaptation but also a remake of a 1990 film of the same name, Farrell has kind of come full circle, though not in a way that does anyone any good. A fireplug of a performer with the right material (including his villainous Minority Report performance), Farrell is a bland presence at the center of a surprisingly bland movie, which sets up any number of nifty sci-fi ideas in the service of a story that's intriguing at first, then repetitive, and then out-and-out goofy.

Director Len Wiseman, of the sturdy Underworld series, uses Total Recall's huge budget to great effect at first, establishing the richly detailed future earth, where the wealthy citizens live in the relatively humane United Federation of Britain, and the poor are stacked on top of each other in slums known as the Colony, a.k.a. Australia. Workers commute from the Colony to the UFB via a train that bores through the center of the earth, called The Fall-- a glitzy, futuristic invention that's probably the coolest offering. Farrell plays Quaid, a lowly factory worker married to some sort of future FBI agent Lori (Kate Beckinsale), who is lured in by the company Rekall, which promises implanted fake memories to make his everyday drudgery more bearable.

Of course, Quaid is no worker drone-- once inside Rekall he discovers he's actually Hauser, a high-level leader of the resistance movement who was fighting to bring down the totalitarian corporate government led by Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) when he was captured and his memory wiped, supplanted by a fake one. The woman he once knew as his wife and the rest of the government are suddenly after him, but so is his former love Melina (Jessica Biel), who swoops him up in a daring hover car rescue and takes him on the run.

So far so good, in its own generic way-- Farrell does nicely with Quaid's early bewilderment, and both Beckinsale and Biel are convincing kick-ass women, even if Beckinsale's Terminator-esque determination to kill Quaid borders on cartoonish. But even a plot as simple and familiar as Total Recall's falls constantly into logic holes, whether from evident tinkering in the edit room-- the Colony's name was originally New China, for just one example-- or a blithe disregard for continuity when there's another huge action scene to show.

And there's a lot of action to get through, some of them inventively staged like a platform-hopping video game, but many of them fight sequences chopped into pieces, like every other modern action film that's driven you crazy when you can't tell what's happening. Total Recall moves at a relentless pace, but eventually the action and gunfighting and jumping out of windows starts to blur together, becoming dull in the way only an action movie can when it's trying so hard not to bore you.

Usually a noisy sci-fi movie with more action than ideas is harmless, a staple of summer and early fall, the kind of thing that fills up the space between The Dark Knight Rises and September. But as a remake of a movie that was perfectly fine, and also a phenomenal waste of Colin Farrell, Bryan Cranston and a promising premise, Total Recall feels more insidious, and will remain so even after I've completely forgotten I ever saw it. It's one thing to make a mediocre movie, but another to do so with something that could have been much more.

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