Total Recall - Reviews, Grading, and duiscussions, SPOILERS

[Trekker4747]

JarodRussell wrote:

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The more important about this dream vs. reality thing is, in the original film: if it is a dream implanted in Quaid's brain, why do we see scenes without Quaid? He wouldn't know about them, and if it's supposed to be a "realistic" vacation experience, he wouldn't dream those moments because he would not be there.

As I said above, it's not uncommon for movies that take place as a dream or a story being told to go outside the story teller's experiences and show us things they wouldn't know about. In which cases the audience knows what's going on "behind the scenes" in story but the "dreamer" does not.

[Agent Richard07]

^ Or that part of the dream can be a dissociated dream, where the dreamer is observing something instead of experiencing it.

[Set Harth]

Aldo wrote:

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I'm not sure what Inception has anything to do with this movie. Do tell me though, as I haven't seen it.

Well, let me put it this way.

You know that dream you had, where every time a movie came out, people insisted that the ending wasn't ambiguous enough?

That wasn't a dream.

That really happened!

[Trekker4747]

Agent Richard07 wrote:

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^ Or that part of the dream can be a dissociated dream, where the dreamer is observing something instead of experiencing it.

Yeah, but in the Total Recall case it'd technically give Quaid useful information he'd need to complete the task. Assuming the dream is "lucid" and he's aware of what is happening and capable of affecting events based on choices he makes.

Aldo wrote:

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I'm not sure what Inception has anything to do with this movie. Do tell me though, as I haven't seen it.

Correct this mistake and watch the movie. Rent it, Netflix it, borrow it from a friend, something. Watch it.

[JarodRussell]

Agent Richard07 wrote:

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^ Or that part of the dream can be a dissociated dream, where the dreamer is observing something instead of experiencing it.

Yeah but that would not be a proper memory then. It's "The memory of a lifetime, Rekall, Rekall, Rekall." You're not supposed to dream your vacation, you're supposed to remember it like you've been there for real.

[Trekker4747]

If you can remember a dream it's a memory.

Memories don't have to be real events, I wouldn't let the marketing strategies of Rekall to mislead one to think they're giving you actual memories of things you've never done. Because at the very least the logic side of your mind would know you bought the memory in the first place.

[Level 2 Diagnostic]

Tosk wrote:

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He sees Melina on the monitor because he's hazy and going under, and that helps cement her likeness as part of the final implant.

I think the image of Melina on Rekall's monitors was put there by the filmmakers just to introduce enough uncertainty to make the audience wonder if the events of the movie are "real" or not. But that explanation works fine for me!

JarodRussell wrote:

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Yeah but that would not be a proper memory then. It's "The memory of a lifetime, Rekall, Rekall, Rekall." You're not supposed to dream your vacation, you're supposed to remember it like you've been there for real.

Exactly. If Quaid had memories of things that he couldn't possibly have witnessed, then he would immediately know it was a false memory, and they'd have to give him a full refund.

[Level 2 Diagnostic]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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Because at the very least the logic side of your mind would know you bought the memory in the first place.

Actually, I think part of the "procedure" is that it erases the person's memory so that they don't remember going to Rekall in the first place. So, no, you wouldn't know you bought the memory.

[Base_Delta_Zero]

I thought this was a great sci-fi actioner. The set design, SFX and costumes were all top notch. There was good world-building, tech advancement predictions, etc., and I appreciated the post-apocalyptic world that was more Bladerunner than Fallout.

The actors all did good work. Kate Beckinsale was a great villain and so insanely hot it got distracting at times. The panty shot was movie gold.

I didn't notice a problem with Colin's accent and I'm an American. If for some reason his accent wasn't as pure stereotypical American as the usual movie accent, I would say you could chalk that up to the Federation being a melting pot of survivors of WWWIII. There's no reason for everyone to have the same flawless accent. But again, I didn't even notice the difference.

The action scenes were epic, with vertical running gunfights to cool maglev car chases, an elevator chase reminiscent of something from The Cube, a zero-g shootout and plenty of knock-down, drag-out close-quarters battles.

Other than the questionable decision of the Chancellor to accompany the initial wave of invasion and a bit of monologuing/gloating by certain villains being their undoing, characters behaved logically and the plot was decent.

I had no problem with The Fall. It bent around the core and went mostly through the mantle, was built presumably before WWIII using super future tech and linked the only two territories to erect what must have been atmosphere shields of some sort to avoid the clouds of chemical poisons sweeping the globe. It was actually nice to see some different powers survive in a post-apocalypse. I figured from the previews that it would be jumping between China and the US, not a Northern Europe dominated by Britain and Australia.

Comparing this to the original Total Recall and choosing a winner is difficult for me. Arnold's was a product of the 80s (coming at the end of that decade), and revelled in dark humor and grim ultraviolence. This latest version is very 21st century sci-fi, all slick and frenetic and very pretty, with some nice homages to the original. I love them both.

Final Grade: A (Arnold's TR: A)

[Trekker4747]

Base_Delta_Zero wrote:

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I had no problem with The Fall. It bent around the core and went mostly through the mantle...

Except it is specifically said that it goes through the core and the mantle itself is still a non-solid, very hot, area that'd have an object experience tremendous pressures.

[Agent Richard07]

JarodRussell wrote:

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Yeah but that would not be a proper memory then. It's "The memory of a lifetime, Rekall, Rekall, Rekall." You're not supposed to dream your vacation, you're supposed to remember it like you've been there for real.

Our memories are made up of insights and imaginings as well as actual experiences, so having something he didn't witness wouldn't necessarily be be out of place.

Level 2 Diagnostic wrote:

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Exactly. If Quaid had memories of things that he couldn't possibly have witnessed, then he would immediately know it was a false memory, and they'd have to give him a full refund.

If he's not lucid enough to know that then he wouldn't wake up. People have dissociated dreams all the time without waking up to the fact that something's amiss.

I know what you guys are saying, but I also think there's a good workaround to this problem if one is needed.

[Brikar99]

Trekker4747 wrote:

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Except it is specifically said that it goes through the core and the mantle itself is still a non-solid, very hot, area that'd have an object experience tremendous pressures.

I won't disagree with the heat and pressures, but the diagrams I saw on the screens showed a distinct curve.

[Trekker4747]

The Nostalgia Critic takes a look at the original movie along with That Sci-Fi Guy -another contributor for That Guy With The Glasses' website.

Oh, in the new movie I did get a chuckle out of the "Obama Money" that was in the case Quaid recovered at the bank.

[Aldo]

Set Harth wrote:

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Well, let me put it this way.

You know that dream you had, where every time a movie came out, people insisted that the ending wasn't ambiguous enough?

That wasn't a dream.

That really happened!

That's true, I do recall that kind of discussion happening in the DKR thread. But here it's very relevant, since that's the same kind of things the original movie dealt with. So talking about whether it was a dream or not (in this case) has nothing to do with Inception, and all to do with the fact that the original film had that kind of ending.

[Locutus of Bored]

Brikar99 wrote:

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I won't disagree with the heat and pressures, but the diagrams I saw on the screens showed a distinct curve.

The curve would be from having to link up wherever The Colony is in Australia with the UFB capital in London. The antipodal point of any city in Australia would be in the North Atlantic to the south and west of Britain.

So there was a curve in the tunnel, but dialogue, graphical displays, and events within the film made it clear that they went through the core itself as well. In order for them to experience neutral gravity (not a lack of gravity but gravity cancelling itself out by pulling you in all directions at the same time) they would have to be in the core. In reality Earth's surface isn't uniform, and the core is wobbling around a bit, so there's no fixed point where this would happen, but when you're dealing with something as ridiculous as The Fall already that's a minor point. It was cool to see the free floating part included, at least.

Besides the problems of heat, pressure, and elasticity that would make building such a tunnel impossible (the deepest we've ever gone barely scratched the surface), the characters actually left the building-sized "train car" within the tunnel just after passing the core, which was just taking something stupid and multiplying it by eleventy.

In order to cover 8,000 miles in 17 minutes, the car would have to travel at 28,235 mph through a tunnel that was somehow pressurized and had breathable atmosphere all the way through. In actuality, because of the curve it would be more than 8,000 miles, and because the car would need to accelerate and slow down, it would have to be significantly faster than that in the middle section of the trip. So, we have people running around on the surface of a train car moving at Mach 37 just after passing through a solid metal core about as hot as the surface of the Sun (roughly 9,800 °F) with roughly 3,600,000 times the mean atmospheric pressure at sea level.

I appreciate them making an attempt to insert a fairly unique and far out scifi concept into the film, but it was pretty regoddamdiculous. It was a neat visual having a building-sized elevator moving through a tunnel, though.

As far as the movie itself, I think I would have judged it better had it ditched the name recognition with the PKD short story and the 1990 Arnie film, and just made it a straight futuristic spy movie without the memory implant story. While doing that likely brings in more money, it also invites comparison to the earlier movie, which this film unfortunately falls short of overall despite being better in some respects.

I actually think the action scenes in this film are more creative, better choreographed, and more visually interesting than the 1990 film, without Verheoven's fun but way over-the-top gore. The first fight between Beckinsale and Ferrel was great and brutal, the futuristic fevela chase was fun with the addition of sudden drops through the floor of the buildings, the hovercar chase was awesome, the 3d elevator chase with cars weaving in an out everywhere was exciting, and the zero grav fight using guns to propel themselves around the room was cool. As I said, I liked The Fall as an idea and setting for a battle, but I wish they had made it move through a vacuum tube in the crust and take a couple hours to reach its destination at least. They could have fought with lightweight environment suits on.

Apart from The Fall, the technology in this movie was pretty neat. I thought the hand phones, hovercars, genetic engineering, police/combat robots, aircraft, personal holograms, and tech-laced armor and guns were pretty realistic developments for 70 years from now. Even the memory implants are believable. The multi-layered cities of The Colony and London were visually arresting yet believable outgrowths of over-population because everyone is crowded into the two safe zones, presumably because they erected some sort of electromagnetic field or barrier to repel the chemicals which for some reason never dissipate or move and are heavier than air and stay near the ground.

The call-outs to the original were fun, especially the three-boobed girl and the lady at the security checkpoint who looked like Arnie's disguise.

Colin Ferrel is a better actor than Arnold, but he lacks the screen presence and ability to deliver a good quip as he dispatches a bad guy. As much as I like Jessica Biel, personality-wise her character doesn't compare to Rachel Ticotin's Melina. I think Kate Beckinsale was about the equivalent of Sharon Stone, however. Bryan Cranston was criminally underused, however, and not given enough scenery to chew like Ronny Cox in the original. Plus, it made no sense whatsoever to have the Chancellor of the only actual country left on Earth to lead the troops into battle or walk into the terrorist HQ.

Overall, it wasn't bad, but it pales in comparison to the original, the action sequences, while cool, were nonstop and plot/character development were sacrificed as a result, and the script leaves much to be desired. I'd give it a "B-."