Total Recall

I always get pumped for science fiction movies. Why? Who knows. Most of them are pretty bad. There's something about the future that will always fascinate us. How will we live? How will we interact? What new, exciting ways can we come up with to kill someone? Can we remake a movie from the 90's that was widely considered pretty great and hope that it stands on par? Not in this case, but that doesn't mean that Total Recall didn't do some things right.

Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is an average, if distinctly better looking, regular dude. He lives in Australia, also known as the colony. After some crazy war, the only two places on Earth that are inhabitable are the United Kingdom, known as the United British Federation, and Australia, the colony. Everyone who lives in the colony is your working class blue collar poor people that has surprisingly Asian tastes. They all basically work for the UBF. The only means of transport between the two places is a giant train that goes through the center of the Earth between the two every day, which you have to admit is pretty dang cool.

Well, Quaid is pretty unsatisfied with life, even though his wife is a super hot Kate Beckinsale. He decides to go to Rekall, a place that can put imaginary memories inside of your head so it feels like you lived as a spy or a supermodel or something else cool. Quaid goes and right as he's being plugged in, the machine freaks out and cops break in and kill everyone. And then Quaid kills all of the cops. Now he's running around the colony and UBF trying to figure out if what he is experiencing is real or fake while at the same time uncovering a conspiracy and stopping the war.

I don't want to ruin too much more but its pretty obvious from the get-go that he is not suffering from recall memories at all. Sorry to burst that bubble but the movie doesn't really care about that. It cares about action sequences.

And boy, does it have action sequences. Car chases, lots and lots of bullets, elevator chases, and a final badguy vs. hero showdown. It's all pretty fun.

Oh and BRYAN CRANSTON IS THE BAD GUY. And it's amazing. Non Breaking Bad fans are really missing out on this man right now. But seeing him on the big screen growling and kicking ass just makes me want more of him all the time.

The problem with Total Recall is its predecessor. It just doesn't compare. It's not groundbreaking, it has a few cool ideas, but at its core it is just a slightly above average sci-fi big budget action flick. And that is fine, everyone should stop complaining about it because it is way better than the Bourne movie.

2.5 out of 4 stars

P.S. Where's the accents? Only Kate Beckinsale really uses hers and it's based in Britain. Colin Farrell is literally Irish. Use the accents, would have been way cooler.