Total Recall

What movies are out – Two months ago I saw the trailer of Total Recall that  starred by Colin Farrell, at the time I remember a movie with the same title but have starred by different actor. When got home I start to browse in the internet about Total recall and got information that there is different Total Recall. First Total Recall movie is released in 1990, this movie starred by Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone and Rachel Ticotin. First Total Recall is directed by Paul Verhoeven, this science fiction movie managed to steal the moviegoer’s attention from all over the worlds. The stories contain fresh satire humor, future-based storyline that feels weird for the time but also interesting and the visual appearance that very convincing. Finally Total Recall managed to get three Academy Award nominations and won one of them, Best Visual Effects.

The second Total Recall is the remake of first Total Recall, released yesterday, August 4, 2012, for theatres in USA. This movie starred by Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale and Colin Farrell; and directed by Len Wiseman. Beside this Total Recall Len Wiseman is director for Underworld, Underworld: Evolution and Live Free or Die Hard. Both of Total recall movies are adapted from a short story with title “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” wrote by Philip K. Dick back in 1966. In 2009, Kurt Wimmer, who is known as a screenwriter for films Sphere (1998), Equilibrium (2002) and Ultraviolet (2006) had the bright idea to write the script for the story version of Total Recall remake and Hollywood approve the plan.

Assisted by Mark Bomback, story text of the latest version of Total Recall is still adapting the same short story by Philip K. Dick and use some elements from Verhoeven's Total Recall but did drastic changes in some parts of the story. As the time goes by so does the technology, of course the latest version of Total Recall has more remarkable visual effects but unfortunately, in terms of storytelling, Total Recall 2012 lost so much appeal that should be able to make this film look impressive.

As pointed out in the Underworld (2003) and Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Len Wiseman is a director who knows how to execute a series of action scenes into a dish that is so thrilling. In Total Recall, Wiseman was even able to improve the quality of the action scenes he produces - though sometimes these scenes feel like the telling of The Bourne Trilogy (2002 - 2007) in the future. Total Recall production design also comes with high quality, with detailed pictures of each pictures presented with so accurate; coupled with the visual layout, the good music also able to revive every scene in the storyline. The latest version of Total Recall is clearly able to take advantage of technological developments to provide better production quality when compared with Total Recall by Paul Verhoeven.

Unfortunately, Total Recall just lost so much element of entertainment story in the manuscript. Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback seem want to bring Total Recall as a pure action without ever consider to bring the drama as binding element. As the result, the characters in this film never feel well developed. Many of them even come in the story with unclear position. Total Recall plot was moving too seriously and never managed to build up a good rhythm of storytelling. Simply put, Total Recall looks fantastic when presenting the action scenes but so boring when they lose the action scenes in the story.

IMDb All Time Box Office Rank: -.

Rating: 6.2/10.Duration: 118 minutes.
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi.
Stars: Colin Farrell (Douglas Quaid/ Hauser), Kate Beckinsale (Lori Quaid) and Jessica Biel (Melina).