Release date: August 3, 2012
Directed by: Len Wiseman
Screenplay by: Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback
Inspired by the short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” by: Philip K. Dick
Cast: Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel, Bryan Cranston, John Cho, Bill Nighy
Running Time: 118 minutes
The movies have been raiding the literary oeuvre of Philip K. Dick since Blade Runner first flickered onto the screen in 1982, bending our minds with themes of questionable memory, corrupt government, alternate reality, and environmental decay. (In such critical hits as 2002′s Minority Report, 2006′s A Scanner Darkly and 2011′s The Adjustment Bureau.) Film is a particularly ripe conduit for Dick’s stories, and not merely due to the sci-fi action or visual fantasies. Rather, it’s the perfect marriage between Dick’s phantasmagorical mind and the power of the onscreen image, wreaking havoc with our experiential selves. Did we truly live that moment? Or did we see a scene years ago in some movie, inadvertently adopting it as a memory of our own? Did we walk on those particular cobblestones in Rome? Did we experience that kiss in the rain? Did we visit that beach, this café, that museum? Or have we been imprinted with such a vibrant cinematic image that we only think we lived it firsthand?
Consider the android Rachel (Sean Young) from Blade Runner who sits at the piano and performs a piece before saying, “I didn’t know if I could play. I remember lessons. I don’t know if it’s me or Tyrell’s niece.”
Which brings us to the fascinating trip down a memory lane or two in the ironically named Total Recall. (Because, as it turns out, whether we’re living in one life or another, our recall, as it were – a melding of fact and fiction as skewed by age, sentiment and retrospection — is never all that total.)
Director Len Wiseman (Underworld, Underworld: Evolution and Live Free or Die Hard) and screenwriters Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback return to Dick’s original story rather than attempting a faithful remake of Paul Verhoeven’s oddly comedic, poorly acted and clunky 1990 vehicle starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. [FOR THE FULL doddle review plus Kimberly's rating, please click here]