Film review: Total Recall

Colin Farrell puts on his Arnie shoes and shacks up with Kate Beckinsale. They live in Australia and take a big tube like thing through the middle of the earth to work in Britain where all the oppressive douchebags live. Colin wakes up from a weird dream and wants to have some memories injected into his brain until Kate tells him 'stop being stupid and get to work'. Colin doesn't listen and ends up finding out he may or may not be a spy for some aussie resistance. Turns out that Kate is a bit of a bitch and actually wants to give Colin a right old spankin' and not in a dirty way. We then get to watch Colin meet Jessica Biel and the both of them run around a lot and travel through tubes with Kate and the dad from Malcolm in the Middle hot on their heels. After they have run around the film ends reasonably predictably, almost like I have seen it before, mmmm............

Remakes don't work, full stop. The big problem with them is either the original was rubbish and wasn't worth making again or the original was awesome and a remake just doesn't add anything we haven't seen before, this is the latter. The original Total Recall was great and was one of Arnies best and lets be honest weirdest. The makers of the new version obviously feel the same way as I do about the original as there are tons of references that show a true love of the film. The problem here is that they can't decide whether to change the film a lot or keep it the same. As a result we get some major changes, removing Mars completely from the scenario and replacing with Australia, and some exact repetition of the original script. All this leaves you to do as a viewer is sit and say 'that bits the same, oo no wait that bits different, yeh that bits the same aswell' and you never really get into the film itself. Its a shame because I get the feeling if the old version didn't exist then this would be a really good film. The acting is good, with particular props to Kate Beckinsale who plays sadistic bitch quite well, the action sequences are exciting and the premise works well but you cant stop thinking I have seen this all before and the story is ruined because of it.

Verdict: 3/5