Review by Matt Finley
Amid a mess of digital clatter and
bang, the trailer for the shiny new TOTAL RECALL asks, “What
is real? What is recall?” It seemed to imply that the film’s many
narrative omissions – Mars, mutants and Paul Verhoeven’s devilish
humor are all M.I.A. - would be compensated for in intricate
storytelling. While there’s some tossed-off adequately Dickian talk
about objective and subjective realities, and physical experience
versus the mind’s chemical reproduction thereof, the film fumbles
the story’s labyrinthine potential into a single, endless corridor
of gunfights, car chases and limp political rhetoric.
Limiting its setting to a
chemical-ravaged, overpopulated Earth, RECALL splits its time
between the world’s two remaining habitable regions: The WASPy,
upper-crust United Federation of Britain (UFB for short), and The
Colony (Australia), a working class melting pot comprising the
marginalized working class.
The rest is pretty similar to the
RECALL you remember – Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) and his
expanding, iron-fisted UFB are at war with a revolutionary faction,
who are fighting to maintain the civil rights of the workers. Caught
in the middle is Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), a discontent
nine-to-fiver who, after visiting a recreational memory implantation
business, discovers he may or may not be a double-agent super spy.
Commence ‘splosions.
Directed by Len Wiseman (UNDERWORLD),
the film’s world feels expansive, but also hopelessly familiar. The
rainy, pan-Asian sprawl of The Colony is lifted straight from BLADE
RUNNER, while the UFB’s sleek, flying cars and glittering
geometry are futuristic in the most broad and anonymous sense.
Hologram generators, pervasive touch screens,security robots... Why
such a bland palate of sci-fi standbys?
The Internet hive-mind has written
exhaustively on Hollywood’s post-DARK KNIGHT fascination
with earthbound genre storytelling, so I don’t need to mount that
particular soapbox. But seriously… Screenwriters Mark Bomback
(UNSTOPPABLE), James Vanderbilt (ZODIAC) and Kurt
Wimmer (SALT) seem to have done everything in their power to
prevent this movie from being fun. I’m not cheesed off that they
did away with the bug-eyed suit depressurizations, the latex-laden
Mutantville or Kuato (here the revolution is coordinated by the
intensely Laconic Matthias [Bill Nighy])… but I've got significant
beef with their idea of suitable replacements.
We get two major female characters:
Quaid’s wife, Lori (Kate Beckinsale), who fares better than her
counterpart in the previous film, and Melina (Jessica Biel), one of
the revolution's higher ups. However, the movie is so devoted to
elaborate, overlong action sequences that we leave the theater far
more familiar with their fists and elbows than their actual
personalities. It’d be partially forgivable if any of the fights or
setpieces were worthy of their ubiquity, but even the extended
elevator chase sequence, which lots of folks have praised, isn’t
original enough to earn its runtime.
The movie also calls repeated times out
to dally in ludicrously simplistic politics. The whole reason most
action movies depend on classic idealogical binaries – like the
corrupt government vs. the oppressed, powerless citizenry - is to
create an easy emotional hook without having to cut into the action.
Armchair cries of “power to the people” do not a manifesto make,
yet RECALL blusters on without nuance, subtlety or even a hint
of humor. Perhaps if Cranston’s Cohaagen were onscreen long enough
to evoke a true sense of villainy they wouldn’t have to spend so
much time explaining the injustices he's allowed. Still, did
the filmmaker’s really think something so facile could be
intellectually engaging? If I cared enough, I might be offended.
Obviously, that concerted lack of
complexity isn’t limited to the movie’s political fixations –
it also dogs the characters and the story. Art that questions the
nature of reality and perception needs to be challenging. Otherwise,
it merely reinforces our standing passive relationship with
identity, time and place. And there are works that challenge us:
Cronenberg’s EXISTENZ, for example, or Martin Amis’
heartbreaking novel Time’s Arrow… much of the writing of
Philip K Dick, for crap’s sake. If TOTAL RECALL challenges
us to do anything, it’s stay conscious. (1 1/2 out of 4
stars)
I know David Cronenberg worked for years on a draft of TOTAL RECALL before Team Verhoeven dumbed it down for Arnie fans; I don't suppose this "reboot" owed anything to him and the original PKD "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" short story?
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