#3 - Total Recall

As I mentioned on a few ocasions I am not a friend of remakes, but in this case I wanted to give it a shot, as the story is fantastic and I assume with today's CGI the result would be quiet stunning. 

Let's start with the good parts as usual: Colin Farell is back and in my opinion he is better than ever. He walks the line between character development and action scenes and does so flawless. One only wished he would have gotten a little more to work in the character development department, but the script wouldn't offer more. But Colin Farell is much better as Doug Quaid than Arnold Schwarzenegger. Kate Beckinsale is convincing in the action scenes as well. 

The general looks of the movie is much darker than in the original and reminded me a lot of "Blade Runner". Considering both movies are based on stories by Philip K. Dick this is acceptable as it also fits the story. 

Unfortunately the movie has also some significant weaknesses. While Jessica Biel might be a good actress in this movie her character remains flat and simply looks bored. Also the chemistry between her and Colin Farell is almost none existent, which is not an error of the actors but of the people who cast them as lovers. 

*spoilers*

As for the story: A lot of alterations were made from the original movie and the original short story. Unfortunately most of them were not for the good. "The fall" is the most significant plot hole, which is frustrating as it wasn't in any way neccessary to the story and just added a cool location for the action scenes. 

For my taste it would have been preferable if the movies actions scenes would have been a little less promitent to make room for some addditional character scenes (or they should have just added another 20 minutes to the movie). 

While the movie's "looks" was great it was partly inconsistent with the story e.g. We learn that living space is getting tight yet we see ridiculously large hallways. 

Kate Beckinsale's character "Lori" unfortunately never receives any real character, for she is only portraited as "the villain" not being allowed any shades in her personality she reminds me more of a Terminator than a human being. 

All in all I felt well entertained watching this movie but thought is was a pity that its full potential was not explored. 

Point 6/10