Spider-Man: Homecoming

Total Recall (2012)

Directed by Len Wiseman.

2012. Rated PG-13, 118 minutes.

Cast: 

Colin Farrell

Kate Beckinsale

Jessica Biel

Bryan Cranston

Bokeem Woodbine

Bill Nighy

John Cho

Will Yun Lee

Mishael Morgan

Natalie Lisinska

In this version of the future, there are only two inhabitable places left on our great planet. To oversimplify, the more affluent folks live in Britain, also where the good jobs are, while poor people live in Australia, known as The Colony. In true dystopian fashion, the government is engaged in a bloody war with rebels from The Colony. Our focus is on Douglas Quaid (Farrell). He’s a regular joe from The Colony who works in Britain assembling automated police officers. Yes, it’s one helluva commute. He’s married to Lori (Beckinsale), a real-live cop. Despite all the chaos of the world around him, Doug’s biggest concern is the recurring nightmare he has and what it means. He decides to do something about it and finds himself at Rekall. They inject you with memories of whatever it is you want. Just about the time he gets strapped into the chair, the law bursts in shooting. Much to his own surprise, Doug manages to kill a bunch of flesh and blood cops plus some synthetic ones and escapes. Now, he really has to find out what’s going on. Yup, it’s a remake of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie of the same name. Both are based on the Phillip K. Dick short story We’ll Remember It For You, Wholesale.

For those of us old enough to remember, or with a hankering for old sci-fi and/or Governator flicks, the muscle-bound Austrian in the room is that original. This one keeps the action here on Earth as opposed to Mars, does away with mutants with one three-boobed exception (one of a few homages to the first movie) and the limited oxygen supply. Vibrant and varied colors are traded in for a fairly monochromatic look. It also combines a few different characters into one and ramps up the action. In fact, there are times when it feels like one continuous chase scene. While this is fun, it’s not always filling. For starters, our hero’s motivation for going to Rekall in the first place is misguided. In Arnold’s version, it was clear. Doug dreams about Mars all the time and wants to go, but can’t afford it, so he goes to Rekall for the next best thing. Farrell’s Quaid should be walking into a psychiatrist’s office, not a place where reality is manufactured. Nonetheless, that’s where he goes. Okay, fine.

From there, thankfully, much is the same between the two films. Most of the plot points from the original are hit, sometimes in a different order, but they are there. Farrell gives us a wild-eyed, bewildered performance that serves the film well. He gets plenty of help from some pretty awesome special fx, the hyperkinetic pacing and he two ladies fighting over him. Kate Beckinsale is in her cold-blooded Selene mode, sans vampire teeth and tight black leather. Biel is her more compassionate, but equal, opposite. The two provide more than their fair share of the action including some knock-down drag-outs with Farrell and each other. If there is a clear advantage for this movie over its predecessor they are it. Together, they dwarf what Sharon Stone and Rachel Ticotin were able to accomplish in the original.

That said, Total Recall still falls well short of Arnie’s film. It forsakes storytelling in favor of being bigger and brawnier. The result is a movie that’s fun to sit through but seems to be lacking all the little touches that make the first movie special. Of course, if you haven’t seen the original, this is irrelevant to you and this version will probably work just fine. In fact, if you go back and watch the older movie after seeing this one, you might find it dated and think I’m crazy. Still, I’m not quite on the bandwagon with all those folks calling this a horrible picture. True, it lacks the nuance of its predecessor making it feel emptier. However, I don’t think it is a bad movie. It’s just not my Total Recall.

MY SCORE: 6/10

Devil

Directed by John Erick Dowdle.
2010. Rated R, 80 minutes.
Cast:
Chris Messina
Bojana Novakovic
Bokeem Woodbine
Geoffrey Arend
Jenny O’Hara
Jacob Vargas
Joe Codben
Matt Craven
Logan Marshall-Green
Joshua Pearce

One of the elevators gets stuck in a Philadelphia skyscraper and all hell breaks loose, literally. Watching from the viewpoint of the elevator’s camera, one of the security guards figures out for us that one of the stranded passengers is actually the Devil. Woah, let’s back up. The security guard doubles as our narrator. Right off the bat, he tells us that suicide opens the gate for the Devil to take human form and kill up some folks. Of course, the first actual happening is someone presumably jumping to their death from said skyscraper. Just never you mind who that is, or why. All you need to know is this not only lets the Devil in, but also gets Detective Bowden (Messina) into the building. Five years ago, his wife and son were killed in a hit-and-run.

Oh, you wanna know who’s in the elevator? It’s the standard Hollywood rogue’s gallery. We’ll start with the pretty girl (Novakovi), because there’s always a pretty girl. Next is the token black guy (Woodbine) because there’s always a token black guy. Actually, he fulfills both the quotas for a good black person and a bad one. He’s a thuggish security guard. There’s also the creepy guy who talks too much (Arend), the creepy guy who doesn’t talk nearly as much but seems to know way too much about the wrong things and an ornery old woman. Periodically, whichever one of them is Satan makes the lights go out and kills one of the others.

It’s an interesting setup. The execution of it runs on a pretty standard loop. The lights go out, we hear a lot of ruckus. When they come back on, we discover someone’s been hurt or killed. They all yell accusations at each other until the next time it goes dark. Meanwhile, Detective Bowden tries in vain to keep them calm by talking to them through the security system as others try to either get the elevator moving or the people out. Rinse, repeat.

Overall, it is not necessarily a bad watch, just philosophically confusing. Is the devil’s ultimate purpose here to do good? Either way, our fallen angel suffers from movie-villainitis. All movie long, Satan acts swiftly and offers no explanations. However, when we get to the end of our tale it’s suddenly time to talk, hiss, seeth and otherwise try to act all scary. It feels hokey and also leads us back to the question of what the devil is the Devil here for. It only makes sense that M. Night Shyamalan wrote and produced this. Still, while it’s not a bad watch, it’s not a good one, either.

MY SCORE: 5/10