Is it Good or is it Me?

Last night I went to the cinema.  Myself, my good lady and Eve Hallow.  Now I know what regular readers of this blog are wondering ‘he said he did not like the new Total Recall, so why did he go and see it?’.  Two reasons, firstly I was being paid for (which greases the wheels) and secondly I decided to be fair and after seeing extended trailers from the movie I took the chance.  Have a read of my previous posting about Total Recall 2012 for my opinions there.  But anyhoo how was the film?

Well it was actually pretty good.  Leaving aside the plot and characters the biggest impression I got from the movie was the superb and beautiful cinematography of the landscapes and an imagined future.  Hammering in the gritty dank darkness of Bladerunner and the vertical living of The 5th Element the world of Total Recall was astonishing.   Well worth fans of sci-fi seeing the film just for this.  Moving onto the plot.  It was aright, same core as the last incarnation, with bits of the original short story by Dick too.  But it did lack something..sanity.  I followed the movie closely and ended up a bit confused as to where it literally was placed.  Instead of Mars and a corrupt Earth it was sad to see it come down to yet another ‘nasty imperialistic Great Britain’ attempting to enslave the ‘Colony’ (I mean really it was two and a half centuries ago, let it drop!).  The colony was accessed by a tunnel through the centre of the Earth called ‘The Drop’.  I kid you not, a ruddy tunnel through the earth from London to…where?  Australia!  This was hard to swallow, flying cars, robot soldiers, light guns, palm phones, multi-layered cities all cool.  But really, anything is easier than drilling through the core of a planet!

The story moved along at a cracking pace and it was nice to see several nods to the previous version including the larger lady with ‘two weeks’ stay and the triple breasted hooker (yes, she was there Edward!).  Aside from some glaring holes and so on (I do not want to nit pick) I enjoyed the plot.  What about the cast?

I just can’t take to Jessica Biel (who played Melina) but I thought Kate Beckinsale was really top notch as the wife Lori Quaid.  Little was made of other characters with the plot really being Doug Quaid and his not really wife Lori  trying to kil each other.  The resistance movement and its leader were a backdrop to this as was Cohaagan, the baddest guy in the older film.  I know though that you all really want me to push on and talk about Colin Farrell as Doug Quaid / Hauser.  What can I say.  He was and still is weak as a leading man.  He played the part very well but he does not shine like say Daniel Craig does as James Bond.  The film would have been better with a different leading man.  But Farrell has buried the ghost of Alexander I will give him that.

So overall its a really good science fiction B-Movie, in that it will not be remembered as a classic, but it is well worth the ticket price and I will be buying a DVD copy in the future.  Plenty of wargaming fodder in there!

Lastly a special mention to Eve Hallow who also did not want to see the film but was convinced and lured by the promise of beer and company.  He is a splendid fellow and while he did break the cinema (I kid you not, all the lights went out and the screen cut out too, that is a first for me!) I enjoyed the evening with him.  I think he plans a blog posting of his own on the movie, I will be keen on reading it once he does.

GBS