“Total Recall” is based on the Phillip K. Dick short story, “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”. First filmed in 1990 during the heydays of Arnold S as an action icon, it was directed by Paul Verhoeven who did “Robocop”. Honestly, we prefer Colin to Arnold, who’s easily a man mountain that’s indestructible. Colin interprets the same role with more believable vulnerability and intensity.
They both play Douglas Quaid, an assembly line worker in a factory that manufactures robot cops called synthetics. He’s married to Kate Beckinsdale but he has recurrent dreams with Jessica Biel in it. Set in the distant future after a devastating chemical war, only two places are left livable on Planet Earth: the United British Federation in Europe led by Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) and The Colony down under which he plans to invade, with Matthias (Bill NIghy) as the resistance leader. Workers come from The Colony and they travel through the earth’s core through a super vehicle called The Fall.
When Doug goes to Rekall that offers fantastic armchair vacations through virtual technology, his procedure hasn’t even started when cops suddenly barge in to kill him. He easily subdues them all and goes home only to find out that even his wife is out to kill him. He manages to escape and is rescued by the woman in his dreams, Jessica Biel, who turns out to be his girlfriend in the resistance movement. He then starts to dig up his past and his real identity.
The first amazing aspect of the film is the production design. The Colony is designed as some kind of futuristic slums where survivors from various nations live in crowded ghettos. There are so many elevated highways with flying hover cars and an elevator system with the elevator cars going up and down all over the place. A hover car chase sequence is breathtakingly staged, with Kate in pursuit of Colin and Jessica. There’s also an exciting foot chase where Colin and Jessica have to dodge elevators going up, down and also on their sides. These frenetic sequences alone are already worth the price of admission.
There also many energetic fight scenes that are thrilling to watch and well staged by Director Len Wiseman, best known for the “Underworld” series which starred Kate Beckinsdale, his wife. Kate’s role is actually a combination of the characters of Sharon Stone and Michael Ironside from the first movie to give her more action exposure on screen.
The film can delve into serious issues like the manipulation of memories and its consequences in the mind and feelings of those manipulated, but it wisely avoids that. It just dwells on the level of a sci-fi futuristic action thriller and in this, it no doubt successfully achieves its intentions.
