About:
Total Recall is an adaptation of the 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie of the same name. This new version has substantial changes to its story line. The movie is set in the late 21st century on Earth. There has been massive chemical warfare that has rendered Earth uninhabitable everywhere but the United Federation of Britain (UFB) and Australia ("The Colony"). War survivors from all over the world now live in the UFB, and they are connected to The Colony via a giant long-distance elevator that travels straight through the Earth's core, with outlets on the surface of both countries.

Above: A sketch inspired by the movie Total Recall (2012) depicting "The Fall" — an elevator penetrating through the Earth's core. Above image copyright: SceneBank.com, 2012

One man, Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) lives in the UFB, but commutes via The Fall everyday to his workplace in The Colony where he makes 'synthetic police officers' (robots) that are used by the UFB for law enforcement, and to help prevent recent terrorist attacks. Quaid is unsatisfied with his mundane work life, and his nightmares each night aren't helping his married life much. He's had bad dreams of being some sort of secret agent. One possible way to help him get through his sleep troubles is to try a recreational fantasy memory implant company called "Rekall" which has advertisements on billboards everywhere.

On the advice of a co-worker, Quaid gives Rekall a try. He visits a shady part of town where a 3-breasted streetwalker tells him where to find Rekall. Quaid gets strapped into a special chair, and the Rekall technicians administer an injectable drug that helps prepare Quaid's mind for the artificial memory implants. But as the technicians do a standard psych profile, they detect that Quaid has suppressed memories and secrets, making him a bad candidate for the Rekall experience. Suddenly, federal police officers break into the room. Humble Quaid, the factory worker, somehow starts killing all the police with his newly-emerged hand-to-hand combat skills. Quaid flees to his home, where he finds his actions are all over the daily news broadcasts. He tells his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) that he was the killer in the news program. Lori tries to convince Quaid that this can't be, and that he needs some sort of medical help. But Quaid is convinced that what he's been through is real, and sets about trying to rationalize things. Could she be right? Did Rekall's drugs make him delusional? Suddenly, his wife tries to strangle and kill him. Quaid fights her off and escapes into the streets of his futuristic city. Suddenly, he gets a phone call through a device in his hand, a device he never knew was there. On the phone, another agent informs him that he's not really Quaid but a man named Hauser, the same Hauser who is a terrorist leader from The Colony who allegedly exploded bombs all over the UFB. Quaid is even more confused. The phone call ends, but he has another message — apparently from himself! The message says that he has a safe-deposit box at some bank.

Quaid needs answers. So, at the bank, he finds cash, and a bunch of spy gear, like a holographic halo device and some fake passports. Also in the deposit box is a black bar with an unknown purpose. Quaid takes all the items and goes out into the streets. Quaid is a wanted man for the Rekall killings, and he flees from police that seem to find him wherever he goes. Just as the federal authorities are about to capture him, he is picked up in a maglev car driven by a stranger named Melina (Jessica Biel). They flee through the city in a car that levitates on a magnetic track, chased by similar hovering maglev police cars. Pursued by Quaid's ex-wife Lori, who was really a senior government agent, Melina gets injured during the police chase. Quaid takes the unconscious woman to an old apartment.

Although Quaid doesn't know how to play the piano in the apartment, the buried musical skills within him suddenly express themselves. As he plays the piano, he finds that one of the piano keys sticks, and he removes it, replacing it with the mysterious black bar object from his safe deposit box. This activates another holographic message from Hauser again. The hologram tells the real-life Quaid/Hauser that it was his original self that set up the program, and hid the safe-deposit box items, and that he must find the rebel leader, a man named Matthias. Quaid is still unwilling to let go of his original factory-worker self, but is confused by all the resurfacing memories and latent skills. He wonders if, indeed, he could have been secret government spy in a past life and if Quaid is really his true identity. The fact that he has been through Rekall's chemically induced mind-warp is not helping him distinguish reality from fantasy.

Melina recovers from being knocked out, and eventually tells Hauser how to find the rebel leader, apparently someone he has met in the past. They go to an old-fashioned underground city subway car that takes them to the war-chemically polluted "No Zone." They don gas masks to breathe, and eventually make it to the rebel hideout that is sealed from the polluted outside air. Up until now, the rebel leader, Matthias, has evaded all federal government attempts to find him and his hidden rebel cells. The leader tells Hauser that it was the federal government that was behind so-called 'terrorist' bombings, and not the rebels. Just then, the federal government's human and robot policemen burst into the rebel hideout, and kill Matthias. Hauser had been tracked by the federal forces, and had unwittingly led the police right to the rebel HQ.

Quaid now accepts that he's really Hauser, but is sympathetic to the rebel cause and not the government's. He flees with Melinda and sneaks onto the giant Earth-penetrating elevator car of The Fall. They descend through the Earth's core, and Hauser plants explosives all around the building sized elevator car. The car is chock full of robot and human police officers that are being sent to The Colony to kill its inhabitants since they have been deemed "terrorists" by the UFB government leader, Cohaagen. Cohaagen wants to take all of the land of The Colony, and use it for settling the populace of his over-populated UFB. Cohaagen is on the giant elevator car along with Lori, Hauser's ex-wife. They chase down Hauser and Melinda who manage to escape to the Earth's surface, just as the elevator car explosives go off, destroying the giant elevator car and all its passengers — including Cohaagen, Lori, and the UFB police officers. Although the explosion has separated the two nations, it saves The Colony, and protects the citizens of both The Colony and UFB from any war, since The Fall will be out of commission for a while.

Since Cohaagen is gone, so is the potential threat to humanity. The movie ends with Hauser fully accepting that he is Hauser and not Quaid. He accepts that the original 'bad' Hauser had sent himself on a contorted quest to find the rebel leader, and that the original Hauser was really not such a nice guy. New Hauser is sympathetic to the lives of people in both The Colony and the UFB.

Menacingly, the movie ends with an advertisement for Rekall, which has a billboard in The Colony too. It's one last reminder making the viewer question the reality/unreality conflict inside Hauser's head.

Negatives:
The film is set in the "late 21st century", which seems too near in the future to be plausible. Synthetic robot policemen, and sky-high cities seem way longer off. Cities grow upward much slower than that. Also, the Earth-penetrating elevator shaft would need amazing engineering skills that wouldn't be available for a long time.

One filmmaking effect is to shake the camera when an explosion is supposed to be happening nearby. Instead, the filmmakers of Total Recall appear to have shot the live-action scene with actors, then after the film was shot, digitally introduced some shakiness. This digital effect was used several times, and seemed less convincing than actually shaking the film camera.

Perhaps it was the theater that I was in, but there was heavy use of vibration sounds using the subwoofer speakers. It's hard to tell if the filmmakers designed the sound that way, or it was just that theater's sound system, but subwoofers can be overdone.

In one scene, the two actors are on the outside of the giant elevator car that goes through the center of the Earth ("The Fall"). That elevator car travels through the Earth for 15 minutes over incredible speeds through a tunnel. It seems unrealistic that humans could survive the wind shear forces outside the car going at such rapid speeds.

A possible mis-casting is having actor Bryan Cranston portray the evil Cohaagen. Cranston ably portrayed a bumbling father in the TV comedy, Malcolm in the Middle, which is still a pretty fresh memory in the minds of many TV-watchers. A person who had seen that TV show would find Cranston less convincing as a bad guy. Someone who hadn't seen Malcolm would find Cranston's villain portrayal more convincing.

Unexplained and unclear was why the No Zone was uninhabitable, and the other zones were safe. If chemical weapon gases were used in the past war, then wouldn't the gaseous chemicals have dissipated evenly into the air everywhere on Earth? This disparity in regional air quality was not explained. Also unclear: why was it necessary to travel in an elevator going through the Earth? Even if most of the Earth was ruined, there would still be an atmosphere to fly in, so why couldn't they just fly with airplanes instead of building a hugely expensive elevator through the center of the Earth to go from Britain to Australia?

Positives:
The opening credits of Total Recall were cool. They explained the background story about the chemical war, and that the UFB and The Colony were the only safe zones, connected by The Fall. The captions were similar to the opening credits of The Matrix, except the evolving words were confined to a horizontal line.

There was a Blade Runner influence in Total Recall. This was apparent in the gritty streets and the Chinese neon signs everywhere. Even some raincoats were clear flexible plastic, Blade Runner style.

For the production design, there was good costume style for the human police uniforms, and the CGI robot policemen.

One humorous moment was when Quaid/Hauser opened up his safe deposit box. Inside, there were several bundles of printed currency bills. On one stack of bills was U.S. President Obama's face!

Acting:
Jessica Biel, who portrayed Melinda, is a hotty. There was only one moment in Total Recall where she was unintelligible and almost seemed to be speaking with an English accent. This was when Melinda was hugging Hauser (Farrell) for comfort and speaking into his ear. Biel is a very beautiful and capable actress who was a pleasure to see on the big screen.

Bill Nighy was the English actor who portrayed Matthias, the resistance leader. He did a good job of sounding like an American. He also conveyed a very thoughtful, intelligent leader rather than a passionate fighting man.

Colin Farrell did mostly a good job as an action hero. There was one scene where the movie illusion broke down, when Farrell looked into the camera in an introspective connect-with-the-viewer sort of way. But otherwise, Farrell did a decent job.

Directing/Producing:
Len Wiseman did an okay job with such a complex action sci-fi movie. Any faults in Total Recall were more in the storyline, and not as much in the directing.

Special Effects:
The special effects were very good. The computer-generated effects were convincing, although there were times when the actors and cityscapes seemed highlighted excessively by artificial contrast.

Music:
The music was by Harry Gregson-Williams, and differed from the usual orchestral symphonic scores of such action movies. His music was less orchestral, and more synthetic, but without sounding like a 1980's synthesizer. The music worked at setting the mood in the right places.

Favorite Part:
My favorite part of Total Recall was the magnetic levitation (maglev) police car high-action chase scene. Many futuristic films have flying cars that hover by some mysterious force, and travel through mega-cities on 'highways in the air.' The maglev cars in Total Recall differed from those in the sci-fi movie Minority Report since they could not only hover above the magnetic streets, and rise or fall vertically, but they could ride underneath the maglev streets, effectively doubling the amount of car traffic on a highway.

Summary:
Despite some plot inadequacies, Total Recall is an entertaining spectacle, with cool production design and special effects. The car-chase scene on the maglev tracks was exhilarating, and the elevator journey through the center of the Earth was an interesting concept. The action kept going, and the plot twist of a secret agent who realizes his original self was a bad guy is a mind-bending, interesting ride. I enjoyed Total Recall.