Total Recall (2012)

Who would've thought that a Schwarzenegger "B" movie from the 90s would be ripe for a remake?  Like the Amazing Spider Man, perhaps some rights were set to expire if no one took action.  "B" movie remake?  Colin Farrell to the rescue!

In Total Recall, Farrell plays a working schlub in The Colony who commutes through the center of the earth to his job in the United Federation of Britain.  To escape his boring life, he heads to the local red light district not for drugs or sex, but to "Rekall" which promises his new memories, as long as the experience to be remembered is not true. Once he is strapped into the Rekall chair and lights starts flashing, the experiment starts to go horribly wrong.    Wait, is this Spider Man again?

The Rekall stirs up the opposite reaction as promised.  Instead of the schlub worker, he is transformed into a killing machine.  Combine James Bond, Jason Bourne and Justin Bieber and this new JB cannot be touched by a hail of bullets or an army of storm troopers.  His wife, played by the lovely Kate Beckinsale, turns on him, as she was just a ploy.  His real love, for whom he has just been dreaming of, the also lovely Jessica Biel is his Bond girl, and together they outrun all the firepower that can be mustered against them.

The futuristic dark world, like in Blade Runner and Batman is the real star of the show.  Also the Paul Verhoeven effect of the unsettling "reality" of the situation does make a nice transfer from the 90s to the 2010s.

* * 1/2  of 4 stars  - worth a look

Hopefully I'll find a copy of the original and post a comparison review.