I've written more than 200 of these posts, and I've rarely used this space to review movies ( with the exception of this Pixar post ). However, the Total Recall remake was so bad I just couldn't keep my opinion to myself ( and I think my wife might be getting tired of hearing me complain about it ).
Technically, I saw this movie for free ( As long as you don't count my cable TV bill, which I don't because I didn't purchase cable TV for the purpose of watching Total Recall ), so I guess I shouldn't really be asking for a "Total Refund". However, I still wouldn't mind if the producers of the movie sent me a few bucks for wasting my limited free time.
Before I dive into my complaints, I should mention that the rest of this post will have plenty of SPOILERS about both the the original Total Recall and the remake. If you've never seen the original, I suggest you stop reading right here. If you've seen the original and have never seen the remake, go ahead and keep reading. It would be impossible for me to "spoil" a movie as bad as the Total Recall remake. Seriously, if you haven't seen the remake yet, you should consider yourself lucky. Don't waste your time by subjecting yourself to this remake.
SPOILERS BELOW --- SPOILERS BELOW --- SPOILERS BELOW --- SPOILERS BELOW
Let me start by saying that the producers of the Total Recall remake squandered a great opportunity. Philip K. Dick's books and short stories are the basis of a lot of great movies, and the plots of many of the best of these movies deviate significantly from the original Dick stories. The original Total Recall was no exception. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" is the basis of the plot of the original "Total Recall", but the movie's plot goes off in original directions that make it far more interesting than the short-story. I don't say this a knock against Philip K. Dick. On the contrary, his stories are full of such intriguing ideas that they serve as especially fertile ground for creative screenwriters. The screenwriters for the original Total Recall took advantage of this fertile ground, but the screenwriters for the remake ( and the producers who approved the screenplay ) failed miserably.
They could have gone in so many interesting directions with this remake. I was actually pretty excited to watch this movie. I couldn't wait to see what they did with Dick's concept. There were so many ways they could have explored ideas like the nature of memory and the meaning of reality. The possibilities were endless. I was expecting big differences between the plot of the remake of the plot of the original. I didn't even care if the remake was as good as the first version ( which would have been a tall order ), I just wanted it to be original. Instead, remake was just a dumbed down version of the original.
The dumbed down aspect of the remake's plot was what I found most disappointing. The remake completely removed the most intriguing aspect of the original's plot, which I can only see an an attempt to dumb down the plot for today's audiences ( Personally, I don't think the audiences of today are dumber than audiences of 1990, but the producers of the remake clearly thought so. ).
To explain how the remake was dumbed down, I'll need to review the plot of the original. In the original, ordinary blue-collar Doug Quaid discovers he is really a secret agent named Hauser. He learns much of this from Hauser himself via a video Hauser had recorded earlier. In the video Hauser tells Quaid that he used to work for the evil Mars administrator Cohaagen, but that a few weeks earlier he had met a women who made him realize he had been "playing for the wrong team". He indicates that he had started fighting against Cohaagen until he was captured by Cohhagen's people and had his memory erased and replaced by the artificial memories of Quaid. Hausers tells Quaid that he has enough information is his head to stop Cohaggen, but the only way to get his memory back is to "Get your ass to Mars!"
( Embedding is disabled for this video, but you can see the entire Hauser/Quaid "Get your ass to Mars" clip here. )
We learn a few more things once he gets to Mars. We discover that the woman's name is Melina. She is a high ranking member of the Mars resistance, and it's clear that she and Hauser had become lovers. One can also infer that Hauser must have been on a mission from Cohaagen to infiltrate the resistance when he met Melina and fell in love with her. Quaid learns from Melina that the way to retrieve his memories is to arrange a meeting with the resistance leader Kuato ( Kuato has psychic powers ).
Quaid eventually finds his way to Kuato, but when he does he discovers he has inadvertently led Cohaagen's gang to Kuato. They kill Kuato and capture Quaid and Melina.
Up to this point, the plots of the original and the remake are practically identical. I was disappointed by this, but I was still eager to watch the end of the remake, because the plot twist near the end of the original was the best part of the movie.
Unfortunately, the remake completely screwed up the twist ending.
The twist near the end of the original is the primary reason why the original Total Recall is one of 10 favorite science fiction movies ( might even be top 5 ). In case you don't "recall" the plot twist in the original, here's the relevant part of the script ( sorry, I couldn't find a YouTube clip ):
Vilos Cohaagen: [after Cohaagen's team kills Kuato] So this is the great man. Hmph. No wonder he kept out of sight. Well, my friend...
[puts his hands on Quaid's shoulders]
Vilos Cohaagen: ...you're a hero.
Douglas Quaid: Fuck you!
Vilos Cohaagen: Don't be modest. Kuato is dead. The resistance has been completely wiped out and you were the key to the whole thing.
Douglas Quaid: [to Melina] He's lying.
Melina: [to Quaid] You two-faced bastard!
Vilos Cohaagen: You can't blame him, princess.
[His finger grazes Melina's face]
Vilos Cohaagen: He's innocent. You see, Quaid, none of my people could get close to Kuato. Fuckin' mutants could always sniff us out. So Hauser and I sat down and invented you: the perfect mole.
Douglas Quaid: You know you're lying. Hauser turned against you.
Vilos Cohaagen: Uh-uh. That's what we wanted you to think. Fact is, Hauser volunteered to become "Doug Quaid." It was the only way to fool the psychics.
Douglas Quaid: Get your story straight.
[Points to Richter]
Douglas Quaid: This idiot has been trying to kill me ever since I went to Rekall. You don't kill someone you're trying to plant.
Vilos Cohaagen: He wasn't in on it. You set him off by going to Rekall.
Douglas Quaid: So, why I am still alive?
Vilos Cohaagen: We gave you lots of help.
[points to Benny]
Vilos Cohaagen: Benny here...
Benny: [to Quaid] My pleasure, man.
Vilos Cohaagen: The guy with the suitcase, the mask, the money, the message from Hauser. All of that was set up by us.
Douglas Quaid: Sorry. Too perfect.
Vilos Cohaagen: Perfect, my ass! You pop your memory cap before we can activate you. Richter goes hog-wild screwing up everything that I spent a year planning. Frankly... I'm amazed it worked!
Douglas Quaid: Well, Cohaagen. I've got to hand it to you. It's the best mind-fuck yet.
Vilos Cohaagen: Oh, don't take my word for it. Someone you trust wants to talk to you.
Douglas Quaid: Who is it this time, my mother?
( Cohaagen turns on a video screen. We see Hauser on it )
Hauser: Howdy, Quaid. If you're watching this, that means that Kuato is dead, and you led us to him. I knew that you wouldn't let me down. Sorry for all of the shit I've put you through, but hey, what are friends are for? All I want to do is wish you happiness and good living, old buddy, but unfortunately, that's not gonna happen. You see, that's "my" body you have there, and I want it back. Sorry for being an Indian giver, but I was here first. So, adios, amigo!
[the screen zooms out to reveal Cohaagen, who puts his hand on Hauser's shoulder]
Hauser: And thanks for not getting yourself killed. Maybe now, we will meet in dreams, you never know.
( Hauser and Cohaagen laugh in an especially evil way. )
---------------------Woah!!!!
That's all I thought we I first saw this scene - Woah!!!
Honestly, my wind was so blown by this scene that I wouldn't have minded if the movie had ended right there.
Consider the implications of this scene ...
Quaid was Hauser's idea. That means that Hauser was never actually part of the resistance. That means he was never really in love with Melina. He pretended to join the resistance to gain their trust, so that they would trust him when rejoined the resistance as Quaid. He knew that he could never get close to the psychic Kuato as Hausser so he invented the good guy Quaid and then tricked him ( actually tricked himself !) into leading Cohaagen's men to Kuato. That plan was so brilliant I honestly wouldn't have minded if Hauser had won in the end. The guy deserved to win. He may have been a "fucking asshole", but you've got to give him props for both his brilliant plan and the way he executed it.
While I could have done without the happy ending, it did have some remarkably intriguing implications. In the end Quaid decides he'd rather be the made-up good guy Quaid than the real bad guy Hauser. Just think about that. Would you want to be somebody other than yourself? Would you want to be an artificial person with fake memories inserted by your real self? Perhaps you would if you knew your real self was a "fucking asshole", but it's still a fascinating concept. Even 23 years later, the idea still makes my head spin.
So, as disappointed as I was by the first 80% of the remake, I was looking forward to reliving the mind-blowing plot twist. After all, Colin Farrell is a far superior actor than Arnold, so there was some great potential there. But instead of trying to blow the audience's mind, the producers of the remake decided to spoon-feed the audience a watered down version of the plot twist.
In the remake's version of the plot twist, we are given the strong impression that Hauser had nothing to do with Cohaagen's plan to create Doug Quaid. We learn that Cohaagen did send Hauser to infiltrate the resistance, but Cohaagen tells Quaid he saved a copy of Hauser's memory before he "went soft" ( I believe that's the term he used. However, I can't be sure, because I deleted this crappy movie from my DVR right after I watched it, and I can't seem to find any clip of quotes from that scene. ). This strongly implies that Hauser actually did fall in love with Melina and joined the resistance before being captured by Cohaagen's men and implanted with the fake memories of Doug Quaid.
So, in this version of Total Recall, Hauser's not that bad a guy after all - and that's not good. I want Hauser to be a "fucking asshole". I want Hauser to be the brilliant evil character who manages to trick himself. I don't want want him to be some sensitive piano-playing sap who finds his soul-mate in Melina. In this version the Hausser who fell in love with Melina isn't all that different from Doug Quaid. I can barely fathom why the writers/producers of the remake decided to abandon the awesome mind-bending plot twist of the original and replace it with a plain vanilla plot twist that was barely a plot twist at all. I can only conclude that they thought that the plot twist from the original would have confused audiences too much.
On top of all that, the remake got lots of the little things wrong. The movie consistently broke both the laws of physics and common sense. Honestly, the most believable thing about this movie may have been the three-breasted woman ( Here's where I insert a gratuitous photo of the three-breasted woman in order to increase the number of hits to this blog. ).
The most egregious example of the move breaking the laws of physics was everything about "the Fall". For those who didn't see the remake, "the Fall" was a gravity train ( see the link for details ) featured prominently in the film. The idea of a gravity train isn't really new. I remember my Dad mentioning the idea when I was a kid, and the idea has its origins in the 17th century. I was excited when I realized gravity train was in the movie, but I was disappointed when I realized that the filmmakers were going to use the idea of "the Fall" to mock everything I know and love about physics and engineering. Specifically ...
1) In the movie, "the Fall" passes right through the core of the Earth. The temperature and pressure at the core of the Earth is so high, I cannot conceive of any technology that would allow you to build a shaft right through it.
2) Because "the Fall" is presumably a free-fall all the way through the earth, passengers would feel weightless ( like a passenger in a plunging amusement park ride, like the "Tower of Terror" at Disney ) all the way through the trip, not just at the center of the earth.
3) As the name implies, a gravity train ( or gravity elevator ) works by gravity only. The trains falls and is accelerated by gravity until it reaches the low point of the trip, and then decelerates on the way up. In theory, if you remove all friction from the shaft ( by removing all the air and making sure the train doesn't touch the walls of the shaft ), you should be able to get all the way to the other side of the shaft via gravity-power alone ( In practice, there would always be a tiny amount of friction ( even deep space is not a perfect vacuum ), but you could always use a power source on the train to give it a little boost at the end to reach its destination.). In the movie, "the Fall" is supposed to take 17 minutes to go all the way across the earth. A little bit of high school physics can prove this is utter nonsense. We can prove this be using the classic equation s = 1/2 a( t squared ). At the start of "the Fall", the acceleration will be 9.8 meters per second squared. By the time you reach the center of the earth the acceleration will be zero. So, the average acceleration for the first 4000 miles of the trip ( to the center of the earth ) would be somewhere behind 9.8 meters per second squared and 0. Even if we assume an average acceleration of 9.8 ( which is certainly more than the actual average acceleration ), it would take about 19 minutes to cover those first 4000 miles, and thus 38 minutes for the entire trip. The actual time ( with an average acceleration of less than 9.8 ) would be more than 38 minutes. According to the "gravity train" link above, it would take 42 minutes, which is certainly a lot more than 17 minutes.
4) As we've established, a gravity train like "the Fall" really can't work properly unless you pump all the air out of the shaft. That's why I was flabbergasted when Quaid and Melina climb on the outside of the moving train in the final action sequence. Clearly there should not be any air out there. However, if assume there is air in the shaft, things get even more ridiculous.
5) The amount of power that would be required to move a train through an 8000 mile shaft full of air is ridiculous. While it is theoretically possible with advanced enough technology, any civilization that could develop such technology would be smart enough to pump the air out of the shaft. However, if we do assume the train is moving 8000 miles though air in 17 minutes, things would not be pretty for Quaid and Melina on the outside of the train. 8000 miles in 17 minutes gives us an average speed of more than 28,000 miles per hour ( mph ). However, Quaid and Melina headed to the outside of the train near the core of the earth. Near the core of the earth, the velocity would be much higher than 28,000 mph. If we assume constant acceleration to the center of the Earth and constant deceleration to the surface, high school physics tells us that the velocity at the center of the earth would be more than 56,000 mph. I highly doubt than any material we could engineer could avoid burning up when passing through air at 56,000 mph, and any organic material out there would certainly be toast. Quaid and Melina would have been burnt to a crisp ( probably vaporized ) as soon as they ventured outside that moving train ( I believe they actually ventured to the outside of the train a few minutes after the train passes the core, but even at a speed like 40,000 mph, they would instantly be toast ( The recent meteorite that burned up over Russia was traveling at about 34,000 mph ).
I could go on ( about the fall and the movie in general ), but I think I've made my point by now. This movie failed in just about every way a movie could fail.
Hmm. Having never written a full movie review before, I have no idea how you are supposed to gracefully end one of these things ( I think I now have even more admiration for out dear departed Mr. Ebert. ).
Screw it, I'm getting tired and the Mets are on ( going for 6 in a row after sweeping the Yanks! ). Forget about ending this gracefully. Movie sucks. Don't see it. Bye.
Rich
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