Total Recall Review

Release Date: 29 August 2012

Age Certificate: 12A

Running Time: 118 mins

Director: Len Wiseman

Writers: Kurt Wimmer

Stars: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale and Bryan Cranston

When the first trailer came for the new Total Recall I was interested. This is because I didn’t really like the original Total Recall, I found it ridiculous, corny and silly. But if you have Arnold Schwarzennegger in an action film it has a licence to do that. So I went into the cinema hoping I was going to walk out a happy man. If you have seen the trailer you know what it is about and if you haven’t; a man goes to a place called Recall and he has a plan to make his life more exciting. There was nothing wrong with his life before it was just that he was bored with it and wanted a change. They do this by implanting memories into his mind. However, when they do this he is surrounded by the army, as if he was a spy. He then takes them down with some badass moves but he doesn’t know how. It escalates from there on in. To finding out his wife wants to kill him. Finding Melina who wants to help him and then finally meeting the villain Cohaagen played by Bryan Cranston, who seems to be in EVERYTHING recently, but I’m pleased with that because he is an amazing actor.

Colin Farrell plays Douglass Quaid/Hauser, he does this really well. He fits into these kind of films well, Colin is also not cheesy like Arnold, which I love. Kate Beckinsale plays Douglass’s wife, she makes the audience believe that she can kick her husband’s behind, she is evil and dangerous. And finally there’s Bryan Cranston, who like I said has been in everything recently. This is certainly not a bad thing because he makes the characters believable and usually sinister. 

The action sequences are amazing; the film is directed by Len Wiseman, who has also directed Die Hard 4. The scenes are well choreographed and there’s no shaky cam. So this didn’t give me the headache I had after the film. The noise gave me the headache; the film was very loud. Another thing I enjoyed, apart from the noise was that it wasn’t converted into rubbish 3-D it was good old 2-D.

Before I went to see this film it had very bad reviews, I believe critics just hate remakes just because it isn't the original. There’s no reason why they hate it, they just do. I wouldn’t say it was a terrible film, I never got bored with this film, but it wasn’t a great film. You can’t really compare it with the original Total Recall apart from the cheesy Arnold. This was an average film, when it becomes available to rent and you want to watch a brain numbing action go and rent this. Oh, I almost forgot a woman has three boobies in this film.

7.0/10

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