We have watched the 1990 version of Total Recall and its a nice welcome to review a reboot or a recall as you may have it. We don't know why producers would like to "reboot" cult classics, its a risky proposition if you ask us.
Now on to the 2012 Total Recall version.
This movie stars big name actors, Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsdale, Jessica Biel and Bryan Cranston. How do they fare agains the classic lead by Arnold Schwartzenegger? As heavy as this movie is compared to 1990, I like the latter better in terms of acting and story line. Cheesy as the special effects were then, I like it, most of the people liked it thus it became a cult classic.
2012 film doesn't slouch either. After 29 years, movies have come far beyond the cheesy special effects. Technology in the film industry made a great film for the 2012 Total Recall. The story line is still the same though, but the details were changed a lot. There were still a lot of similarities between the two films that one can't help compare them while watching this.
The original movie talked about humans going to Mars, yet in the reboot, we got grounded in Earth. Quaid (played by Colin) leads a quiet suburban life, working in a menial job with a hot wife (lucky him). He then suddenly gets this weird dream with Melina (played by Jessica Biel) another hot girl. This dream confuses him so much that he wants to have an experience implanted in "Total Rekall". Of all experiences, he chooses to have spy or secret agent as an implanted memory. As a warning, the implanted memory might have conflicts if his mind was already implanted (which he didn't know then). Obviously the procedure went haywire and a team of government cops come in with guns blazing. Quaid somehow overcomes the cops with Jason Bourne shit and he was surprised he knew Kung Fu or martial arts or combat skills. Along the way, he finally meets with Melina in real life and the movie goes into overdrive once again.
In the end, Quaid found out that he is really a government agent named Hauser, tasked to track down a rebel leader. In order to infiltrate the rebel stronghold, he poses as Quaid. Near the end, the antagonist wants the old Hauser back but Quaid wants to remain as Quaid so he fought back. A Good wins over evil kind of story gives us Quaid winning over Hauser.
The special effects and stunts in the reboot got us entertained so it was not a loss after all. The addition of Kate Beckinsdale (of Underworld fame) proves she can do fantastic leaps and jumps. Oh I like her better than Sharon Stone in the original film. Kate can truly kick a man's butt more than Sharon.
This film is not boring, in fact its entertaining. A nice film to watch if you ask us. In their efforts to be unique from the first one, they somehow got the story line jumbled up. Forego the mix up, just be enthralled with the special effects.
