total recall

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1386703/

given the title and the number of references to familiar topics from the previous total recall movie, it is pretty much impossible to not make a comparison between the two.  including those things was a bad move on the part of this film's creators because the new version fares...poorly...against the old one.

they really did it to themselves.  total recall--both versions--is based on a short story by phillip k dick called "we can remember it for you wholesale."  i have read it.  it is pretty good.  both film versions deviate wildly from the short story in the details.  the only part which is really borrowed is the hook, wherein a person goes to have a fantasy implanted in his brain which corresponds to a previously unknown reality, causing all hell to break loose.

the first total recall movie went nuts with this idea, adding a colony on mars, mutants, a civil war kind of arrangement, and some alien artifacts.  i rather enjoyed it.  the second total recall deviated from the first movie much in the same way that the first movie deviated from the short story, but they deviated *in the wrong direction.*  mars?  gone.  mutants?  gone.  aliens?  gone.  civil war kind of thing?  kind of...

what did they keep, exactly?  only a few references to the first movie, really.  and they sort of stuck them in there, just to let you know that yeah, they saw it.  for example, why was there a girl with three boobs?  NO REASON.  other than that there was a girl with three boobs in the first movie.  there were no boobs at all in the short story.  arnold schwarzenegger was the innovator here.  surprise!

what did they add?  three things: bad science, terrible science, and shockingly bad science.  i mean, ok, there were some boggles in the first version, but there were *zero* tunnels through the middle of the earth.  i know because both bill clinton and i counted.  zero.

if i were looking for a bright spot, i would settle immediately upon kate beckinsale's performance.  she has come a long way from pearl harbor, and she now qualifies as a genuine bad ass.  it was really too bad that her character was so unidimensional, but that is not too surprising, especially if you have been keeping up with the underworld series.  if i were looking for another bright spot, i would look for a long time and then probably bring up either kate beckinsale or the girl with three boobs again.  i do not even like boobs that much.

i rate this flop a generous one robo-enforcer, primarily on the strength of kate beckinsale's performance.  save your time and money by reading the original short story instead.