Complete Remembrance

Not so much 'based on the book', but 'based on the movie that was based on the book'. There are a lot of nods towards that original movie, and a lot of repeated scenes, only the phrase 'like the scene in that other movie, but done far worse' could be applied every time. Even more so, and it has been a while since I read the story, near the end of the movie, I was wondering, 'what does this have to do with recalling anything?'. It became such a generic sci-fi mess of 'surround the actors with steel-grey technology and have them punch each other', at times I did think 'what movie am I watching?'

In this version of the movie, there's a big elevator shaft through the world that connects the United Federation of Britain with Australia The Colony, and this is a bad thing because... er... the Colony = the slums? The 99%? A really long commute? Chinatown? It's not clear at all. We're told that the 'Fall' is a bad thing and... yeah, we're just told that. (And I don't believe the geography of where the two points connect actually does go through the centre of the planet, and even if it did the gravity switch over doesn't work like that.) Anyhoo, the slub Quaid gets bored, gets a memory change up, then things go pear shape then we have a chase scene, then another chase scene, then another chase scene (involving some of the stupidest lift moving systems in a building that I have ever seen) and then some more chase scenes and... bah, something, big fight, it ends. Along the way, we rip off several moments of the better movie, and, of course, off-screen deaths don't count. Whatever.

I do want to compare one scene in particular, minor spoilers at best here. It's the 'you are still in Recall' scene. Remember the original movie? Arnold works it out because of a logical point. [You think it wasn't that logical? It was stone-cold hard-core reasoning compared with this version!] In this version, we get the logical point for not accepting 'still in Recall'... but then completely move past it! Instead, it's a completely non-sensible emotional reason to end that scene! May as well still be in Recall for all that scene gives us! Gah!

So, Colin Farrell did a decent job, and there was a brunette woman in this with a physical role... or possibly two, only slightly differentiated by their hairstyles. (Yes, I can tell Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel apart (even if I can't remember Jessica's name), but at times the only difference between them fighting on screen is spotting the hair style difference.) Bill Nighy looked rather uncomfortable and stilted with his delivery, and Bryan Cranston played the capital of Denmark... or possibly some guy named Cohaagen, it got confusing.

Basically... go watch the original again. It's a better movie.

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