Nearing The End Of Summer Blockbuster Season, Total Recall Is A Fun Popcorn Thriller.

The Good: Decent effects, Good action feel, Decent acting, Initially engaging plot
The Bad: So many reversals!, Lighter on character than I generally like.
The Basics: The new version of Total Recall is appropriately action-packed, clever and fun to round out Summer Blockbuster Season in a satisfying way.


Summer Blockbuster Season follows a few very well-established patterns. After the big budget, much-anticipated special effects-driven movies have dominated the summer, August hits. August, traditionally, is where comedies and the pre-back to school romances try to lure teenage boys and women raised on fairy tales back to the theaters one more time for the summer. There is also, usually, one last big action-adventure film. A few years ago, for example, Summer Blockbuster Season was pretty much pronounced dead by G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra (reviewed here!). The last big hurrah for 2012’s Summer Blockbuster Season is Total Recall.

It behooves me to mention, up front, that I had not seen the 1990 version of Total Recall, nor have I read the Philip K. Dick short story upon which both movies are based. As a result, I offer no comparison and any references between the two films were lost on me. This is a very pure review of only the 2012 film Total Recall. (I have since seen the 1990 Total Recall, but that is reviewed here independent of this version!)

Doug Quaid works in a dismal, filthy factory in 2084 where he is frequently tired and miserable. He decides to escape for a time within his own mind through a treatment from Rekall. Rekall allows him to have false memories implanted within him in order to feel like he is living a more meaningful and enjoyable life. But when the Rekall agents discover that Quaid’s mind has already been tampered with, they become alarmed and when the building is stormed, a bloodbath ensues . . . at the hands of Quaid. Surprised at his sudden abilities, he is told that he is a spy by his wife, Lori, who tries to kill him.

Suddenly on the run, Quaid, who may or may not really be Hauser, finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy that he has no memory of. Sought by government agents and aided by a rebel underground who he hopes will be able to restore his true memories, Quaid teams with Melina to try to stay alive long enough to learn the truth.

To dispense with my usual complaints about such movies, Total Recall is light on character development because that is the nature of the beast. Because the film deals so much with identity issues and what is real and what is not, Doug does not have a huge amount of character development. He’s running for his life and trying to figure out what is going on and the nature of the conspiracy means that other characters know more about him and what is going on than he (or the viewer) does. Doug is, as a result, more often than not confused and afraid, as opposed to enlightening or even particularly interesting.

The character element, then, is mostly handled by Lori and Melina. Lori is ruthless and efficient, but as a result, she is somewhat monolithic. From the moment she turns on Doug, she is single-minded, focused and ruthless in her pursuit of Doug. Lori is played by Kate Beckinsale and the level of action the role requires is not a surprise for the star of the Underworld films. Even so, despite the similarities in levels of action, Beckinsale makes the role distinctive by infusing strange humanity in the role. Beckinsale makes Lori seem like a character with a strange sense of principles; Lori seems to actually believe in the organization she serves and Beckinsale sells the viewer on her character’s loyalty in frequently unsettling ways.

Jessica Biel’s Melinda is not at the other end of the spectrum, though Melinda and Lori are framed as opposites in how they treat Doug. Melinda comes to Doug’s rescue and wants to get him to safety, ostensibly for how he might help the resistance. Biel has done action films before and in Total Recall she is convincingly cool; while she does physical work, her character strategizes and shoots more than she smacks around the obstacles she encounters.

Total Recall benefits from having a stellar supporting cast, in addition to having great special effects. In a film filled with flying cars, robotic assailants and the obligatory three-breasted woman, what stands out the most is how the minor roles are fleshed out with actors who shine for the entire time they are on film. John Cho’s appearance is brief, as is Bill Nighy’s, but Nighy especially dominates the screen while he is on it. The most significant performance out of the main three is from Bryan Cranston. As the Chancellor, Cranston is smart, authoritative and ruthless. While at moments the Chancellor seems like a hyperbole of a capitalist, he seems like a credible leader who would inspire the violence and loyalty that he does.

But, at the end of it all, Total Recall is largely a chase/conspiracy movie and it succeeds at that. Anyone hoping for more than an action-adventure film that is hinging on near-constant twists and fast gun battles will be disappointed, but for the last popcorn effects film of Summer Blockbuster Season it fits the bill.

For other works with Bryan Cranston, please check out my reviews of:
Argo
John Carter
Contagion
Drive
Little Miss Sunshine
Clerks: The Animated Series

6.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Why Did Underworld Generate A Sequel?! (And A Franchise)

The Good: Idea, Visuals
The Bad: Acting, Character, Plot developments
The Basics: A vampire who hunts werewolves befriends one and uncovers a series of truths that should rock her very beliefs, but instead fall flat with little character and no redeeming acting.


It took me a little while, but I finally figured out why I was so disappointed when I saw Underworld. It's a pretty simple reason and for those of you who haven't seen the movie, I can save you that amount of time out of your life by telling you it straightaway: the protagonist in Underworld, a vampire named Selene is either an idiot or woefully misinformed. That is to say that in the opening of Underworld, Selene tells the audience a bit of information about vampires, werewolves, and their centuries-old war. The rest of the movie is all about how everything Selene tells us in the first moments of the movie is wrong.

Selene is a vampire who is charged with hunting down and killing werewolves, a death dealer. She does her job fairly efficiently in the underground, but when she realizes two werewolves were after an apparently ordinary man, she begins to suspect he was anything but ordinary. As she fights to protect Michael, she begins to fall in love with him, though his true nature soon becomes evident. Selene and Michael, through investigating Michael's origins, uncover an ancient conspiracy and become targeted by both sides.

The main, most powerful problem with Underworld is that it creates a mythology and then within two hours completely undermines every piece of it. When one is establishing a fictional universe, one needs to establish what the principles of that universe are. If there aren't rules to guide the nature of any given fictional universe, then you end up with nonsense and that is what Underworld feels like most of the time.

That's not to say it is all bad; no, for one it is a very easy movie to watch. Selene looks good, the fights are exciting and the computer imaging work looks good. This is a movie that capitalizes on style. The costumes are wonderful and there is a decent amount of atmosphere, making it visually stimulating.

The problem is there is little or nothing backing it up. Sure, it looks intriguing, but the plot is totally unengaging once the first conceit Selene listed at the beginning is broken. And as the movie progresses and all of her notions seem to come tumbling down, the film goes from mediocre to worse.

The problem is in the characters. The two main characters are boring, ignorant and naive. Selene seems to be a good killer, but she has no personality outside that. Thus, when she begins to learn that many of her ideas and beliefs are false, she could have a compelling crisis of character. Instead, she simply goes on killing without any real consideration of the consequences of the werewolf/vampire war and what it is becoming.

And Michael is no better. Michael is a puppet played with by pretty much everyone and tugged along by Selene for the bulk of the movie. He has no real personality, he could be anyone, it is the part - the symbol - that he plays that is important. That is to say that the writers of this piece put Michael in to fill a specific niche in their plot. Unfortunately, they did not give him actual character, so he feels more like a piece in a puzzle than a genuine individual.

Add to the utter lack of character the complete absence of quality or convincing acting. Unlike something like Buffy The Vampire Slayer, where the actors grow into their quirky parts, Underworld has no such luxury. Thus, Kate Beckinsale never sells the viewer on being either a death dealer or hundreds of years old. She seems like a young woman playing a part and she never evolves into the skin of the character.

Similarly, Scott Speedman, who plays Michael never convinces the viewer that there is anything more to his character than exactly what we see on screen. It's disappointing because what is visible on screen is little more than a meat puppet. It's unfortunate that Underworld started with such a poor script as to give the players so little to play with.

In the end, Underworld promises a dark, mysterious war with an intriguing premise, that vampires and werewolves have been waging a private war under our noses for the last hundred years. Unfortunately, it does not live up to any of those promises.

For other works with vampires, please visit my reviews of:
The Twilight Saga - Breaking Dawn Part 1
Angel
Let The Right One In

4/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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