Total Recall: Yet Another Remake...

I really want to see this movie for the Minority Reports-esque futuristic schtick.

farley3k wrote:

Getting hammered in reviews. Only 15% on Rottentomatoes so far.

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SpacePPoliceman wrote:

IMAGE(http://aroundthesphere.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/simpsons_nelson_haha2.jpg)

Yep.

Stele wrote:

Ouch. $26 million opening.

Well, according to that article, that's right in the range that Sony was hoping for this movie. So not that ouch. The Aurora shootings are still making movie watchers skittish, and they're staying home to watch the Olympics instead.

The Dark Knight Rises must be getting outstanding word of mouth to continue to do so well in its 3rd weekend.

I don't think that has anything to do with it. I think 30% on rotten tomatoes is more reason no one saw it.

And I thought that article (or maybe another one) said the budget was $130 million. Considering the usual 50% dropoff in the 2nd weekend and normal revenue patterns, it's not going to make that back in theaters. Maybe on DVD/Blu... maybe...

Stele wrote:

I don't think that has anything to do with it. I think 30% on rotten tomatoes is more reason no one saw it.

I dunno, GI Joe was an 80's comback with 34% and it made $54m on its first weekend. The movie-going masses pay very little attention to review aggregates, see also: Transformers 2 and 3.

I think the Olympics, the Aurora incident, and the film seeming pretty far from the original all contributed. I didn't expect any more, though, and apparently the studio didn't either.

I saw it, and I don't really understand the critical drubbing. I thought it was a perfectly competent sci-fi/action thriller. Maybe having never seen the original made me react more positively?

I also saw the original. In the theater. Three times. I was 14 so I was definitely the target audience for the original.

The remake is a better action movie but a worse comedy. I know that sounds odd but the outright cheeziness that Arnold brought to the role along with the over the top special effects made the original campy and funny. This one plays it straight.

This one also spends a few moments actually pondering the loss of a previous life like Quaid has undergone. There is a piano involved...for an action movie it was kind of poignant.

I would also like to state for the record that a 3 boobed lady does appear in the film and you can see all 3 boobs.

I saw it last Friday. I thoroughly enjoyed it. It doesn't have the charm of the original, but most part of it was due to the kitchy absurdism of Paul Verkhoeven's trademark dystopias. Given that we're largely ALREADY living in that scary future world he envisioned, evoking the same emotion is considerably more difficult.

This just came out on DVD and I watched it. It was very good. All things considered in the world they created nothing was particularly out of place, the action was good, the story was fine.

The stupidest part to me was tying it to the original. There have been lots of "hidden" memory type movies and with a few tweaks they could have made this different enough no one would compare the two movies. I think it would have been better without that comparison.

farley3k wrote:

This just came out on DVD and I watched it. It was very good. All things considered in the world they created nothing was particularly out of place, the action was good, the story was fine.

The stupidest part to me was tying it to the original. There have been lots of "hidden" memory type movies and with a few tweaks they could have made this different enough no one would compare the two movies. I think it would have been better without that comparison.

I think farley has the right of it... It's a good movie but tying it to the original makes no sense.... I have to say that they could have explained the "world war nuclear fallout" a bit better too.... though I don't know why Australia was less affected by it!!

Personally I wish they'd done either more or less with the memory stuff. As it was, there were a few scenes intended to make you doubt that Hauser was experiencing reality, but it was always done in this really obvious, ham-handed way that never really succeeded in creating the sort of ambiguity that a film like Inception managed. It all seemed more like a nod to the source material rather than a genuine attempt to raise any doubts about what is and isn't real.

Other than that, it's a fairly fun sci-fi action thing.