Total Recall

Memories of films about unreliable memories are, obviously, unreliable. Some scenes and special effects have dated, we realised when we took another look at Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall, which features a muscle-bound Arnold Schwarzenegger unable to tell whether he is real or virtual. It is still an entertaining film, thanks to its combination of extreme violence, pure Schwarzenegger, a serious subject based on Philip K Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale”, humour that puts things into perspective, and all-round over-the-topness. If we can believe interviews with Len Wiseman and his acting wife Kate Beckinsale, their remake has remained free of subtexts and tongue-in-cheek humour. Here’s hoping. The woman with the three breasts appears again and a catfight has been budgeted for again. Fans need not despair. Colin Farrell has taken on the impossible task of making us forget Arnie. His Doug Quaid is a frustrated worker who has a life as a superspy implanted. The procedure goes wrong and he gets caught up in the conflict between the new world powers, without knowing the difference between fiction and reality.



RELEASE 15/8 ¦ By Len Wiseman, with Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale