Is ‘Total Recall’ The Least Essential Film Of The Summer?
In yet another year brimming with sequels, prequels, remakes, reimaginings, and reboots, it’s all too easy to complain about Hollywood’s lack of creativity. It’s also inaccurate.The Dark Knight Risesmay be a threequel based on a comic book, but it’s also an exhilarating, thoughtful realization of one auteur’s vision.21 Jump Streetmay very well have started out as a bottom line-obsessed exec’s idea of an quick cash grab, butPhil Lord,Chris Miller,Jonah Hill,Michael Bacall, andChanning Tatumturned it into one of the year’s brightest comedies. Artists have always stood on the shoulders of other visionaries from eras past, and the great ones have always known how to make those old templates their own.
But then there are projects likeLen Wiseman’sTotal Recallremake, which deserves all the eye-rolling its very premise inspires and more. It could be the top contender for the title of “summer’s most inessential movie.” Not worst movie, mind you — I wasn’t confused or annoyed or bored to tears. With its handsome leads, slick action, and a relatively coherent storyline, it’s not likely draw any ire. And that’s what’s so goddamn soul-sucking about it.
True, there are some nominal attempts to introduce heavier themes of inequality, consciousness, and reality, but they seem to just be left over from the original film. Wiseman’sTotal Recalldoesn’t so much grapple with those issues as it does glance at them from medium distance, shrug, and get back to its predictable path. And to be fair, the new film isn’t entirely devoid of highlights —Kate BeckinsaleandBryan Cranstonare clearly having a lot of fun with their villainous roles, though it’s still not enough to cut through all that blandness.
To sayTotal Recallcould’ve been better isn’t mere speculation, it’s fact. We know it to be true because itwasbetter, once, in the originalPaul Verhoevenversion. However, the problem isn’t that theTotal Recallremake doesn’t live up to the standards of its predecessor. It’s that it takes everything that gave Verhoeven’s movie life — really, everything that gives any movie life — and sands them down so we’re left with something pretty, shiny, and bloodless. (Literally bloodless, since it’s PG-13.) Something that looks like it might fit into the oddly tidy slums of Wiseman’s dystopia, come to think of it.
Contrast that to, say,Tim Burton’sDark Shadows, which for all its massive flaws was at least an obvious labor of love. OrThe Dictator, a maddeningly unfunny comedy that tried to make a point.Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunteris based on a pretty silly premise, but it’s a memorably strange one.Marc Webb’sThe Amazing Spider-Mancame too quickly on the heels ofSam Raimi’s trilogy, butAndrew Garfieldmade its iconic hero new again.Rock of Ageshad A-list celebs shaking things up by shaking their booties.Men in Black 3was an overdone mess, but charming turns byWill SmithandJosh Brolinmade it a lot of fun to watch. Hell, even the Hasbro adaptationBattleshiphad a jingoistic viewpoint and a dorky sense of humor.
Maybe it’s naive of me to complain about a film feeing too safe.Total Recallcertainly isn’t the only picture guilty of this, and the reason I’m picking on it in specifically is simply that it’s the last one I saw. On the other hand, I’m still wasting two of my own hours — and $12 of my own money, if I’m not at a press screening — to sit through this mush. Can you blame me for wanting to get a little something back? I’m not arguing that all movies have to be art, but all movies should have to earn our two hours and $12, whether by moving us, enlightening us, or just entertaining us. At its most ambitious, the newTotal Recallaims to meet the bare minimum of that requirement.
The two absolute worst movies I’ve seen so far this year wereChadd Harbold’s tediousRevenge for Jolly!andBradley Rust Gray’s nonsensicalJack & Diane. But those movies felt like a filmmaker’s attempt to do something, even if both failed spectacularly. I slapped my forehead in annoyance, I sighed with impatience, I rolled my eyes so far back I thought they’d get stuck there — but at least I reacted. I complained about the movies to my colleagues for several days afterward. I had nothing whatsoever to say aboutTotal Recall, because it may be the most heartbreakingly safe movie I’ve seen this year. Put another way, I hateTotal Recallprecisely because there’s nothing to hate about it.
