Total Recall (2012)

So I guess my theme for March is complaining about movies due to come out this year, which are going to totally ruin things I previously liked. I intentionally stayed away from last year's adaptation of "The Thing" on the assumption that it would ruin both the original John Carpenter movie, as well as Warrior, because I would never be able to look at Joel Edgerton again without wanting him to die horribly for condoning (by starring in) such a remake. So, I've already complained about the cast of Les Miserables, now it's time to kick things up a notch and complain about the mere existence of a movie regardless of who is in it or who is at the helm: Why the fuck are they remaking Total Recall?

Now, the weird thing is, I'm not an overly massive fan of Total Recall. As far as Philip K. Dick adaptations go, it ranked behind both 'Blade Runner' and 'A Scanner Darkly'. As far as Schwarzenegger movies go, it wasn't close to 'Predator' or 'Terminator' - hell, it was more on a par with films like 'Commando' or 'Eraser'. And as far as Paul Verhoeven films in which Michael Ironside loses at least 2 limbs go, it was by far my least favourite.

Did you find that video I made about Prisoners rights funny, Rico? Because I'm not sure anyone got the fucking joke...

However, it was still an enjoyable 80s Sci-fi action romp, and it had a lot going for it. It had the classic Philip K. Dick mindfuck-style ending - what's real, and what isn't? (I still have trouble explaining to people that in Minority Report there's a good chance he's still in the prison having his brain pacified into thinking he solved everything so he doesn't want to escape, and I've only seen the fucking movie once). It has the political undertones which were present in Blade Runner, however they have been brought far more to the forefront, with a lot of the action revolving around the rights of the poor to have access to the most basic survival requirements without having to shell out for it (again, this ties back in with Les Miserables). Not only that, but it has Verhoeven's distinctive style, combined with classic Schwarzenegger - plus, Michael fucking Ironside is in it as the slimy bad guy! What's not to like?

Yes, I am just dumping my fap folder. You caught me.

And to top it all off - it was the very first movie I ever watched in which someone was shot through the head - and a woman at that! (I may have watched it at a sleepover sometime in the 90s without my parents knowing...) Seriously, up until I saw this film, I didn't think they were allowed to show that on film. I genuinely didn't.

It was also the first movie I watched which featured a woman with 3 boobs. Oh wait, the ONLY movie I've watched to feature that...

But watching the newly released teaser trailer for the 2012 "reboot" (why the fuck not call it a "remake"? Are they planning on making a whole series, or are people still trying to cash in on Batman Begins?), I really am not looking forward to this film. It looks as though it's going to be yet another CGI fest (something Verhoeven must have gone out of his way to avoid, making so much of the original using actual models and make-up effects - not that I mind when he goes CGI crazy, of course, Starship Troopers being my favourite of his films), this time taking the unused footage from "The Fifth Element" (great fucking movie) and muting the colours to make it seem "more dark and brooding"...

Tell me that's not the taxi chase scene from The Fifth Element. I dare you motherfucker, I double dare ya!

The "updated" vision of the future also looks far less interesting than Verhoeven's, with iRobot looking androids and Fifth-Element cars set over a Blade Runner backdrop, nothing here looks original. It looks as though they've just taken things they liked from decent sci-fi movies (implying iRobot is good) and tried to cram them all in, in the hopes they fit together nicely. Hell, I can even see a bit of "The One" in the gun we see Colin Farrell holding in the trailer (though the one in the poster is a little more Robocop, I'll give them that).

Unbelievably, whilst looking for an image of Robocop to add here, I stumbled across the fact they're remaking THAT film as well. un-fucking-believable.

And you know what? I know I said I wasn't gonna make this about the cast, but really? Colin Farrell in Arnold's place? That's gonna require the entire story be changed to fit around him, because there's no way he can fill Arnold's shoes. He may be a better actor on a technical level, but in a shoot-em up sci-fi action romp like this, we want our heroes to be the Arnold type character. We need Quaid to appear sympathetic towards the plight of the people struggling to live on Mars under the cruel dictatorship to the extent we can believe he would help the rebellion, true. But at the same time, we also need a guy who's happy to start a firefight on an escalator with 15 people between him and the guy he's shooting at. And you know what the absolute most ridiculous thing about this is? They considered offering the role to Tom Hardy, but cast Colin Farrell instead - because clearly Farrell will be better at taking over a Schwarzenegger role than Tom Hardy would have been.

luckily he's a bit more built now, and come out of his Michael Jackson phase...

And speaking of stuggling to fill another actor's shoes, I notice that no-one is yet credited on the IMDB page as playing Richter, which leads me to assume the part will either not exist, or will be played by the only actor to appear on the cast list who doesn't already have a designated character, Ethan Hawke:





Now don't get me wrong, even though he's a pretty boy, I accept Ethan Hawke can act. But to replace Michael Ironside? Unthinkable! Hell, since I've already used the "stepping into his shoes" analogy, I might as well wrap this up with a lame pun and say the only occasion when Ethan Hawke could possibly fill Michael Ironside's shoes is in this scene:

See, it's funny because he doesn't have legs...

As far as casting goes, I think Kate Beckinsale as Lori (Sharon Stone) is the only really interesting choice, and even then I note that the director of this new adaptation is HER FUCKING HUSBAND, which could explain why she got the part. Still, some of the other characters might yet come off, such as Bill Nighy as Kuato (same sort of territory here as we had with Baron Cohen in Les Mis, could be brilliant, could be terrible), and although I would rather see her as the three breasted woman, I suppose I can't knock Jessica Biel as Melina, since I did give the last Philip K. Dick adaptation she was in 3 stars based solely on the fact that I think she's hot.

I mean, seriously, this girl is retardedly hot, and not just because she's been photoshopped to fuck in this picture. Well, ok, maybe that is the reason. But still, it's hot, right?

The fact that the poster itself actually says "what is real?" as the tag line also really bothers me, because although that is the main theme of the film (Quaid trying to find out if he is actually Quaid, or is in fact Hauser), I preferred having this sneak up on me so you don't get the real revelation until he's sitting in the chair watching a recorded message of himself revealing the plan. Plus, it kind of hints at the twist ending as well, which you don't really want on the poster. Now, granted, it's still a step up from the tagline "Titans will Clash" on the "Clash of the Titans" poster, but what was wrong with the original tagline "Get Ready for the Ride of your Life?". Or, as an in-joke, why not put the tagline on the poster as "I'll see you at the party"?

And another thing. Here's the synopsis, straight from the IMDB page (look it up if you don't believe me): As the nation states Euromerica and New Shanghai vie for supremacy, a factory worker (Farrell) begins to suspect that he's a spy, though he is unaware which side of the fight he's on.


>Euromerica
>New Shanghai


For fuck's sake - why the fuck isn't it set on Mars? Enough with this corporations as states shit already. 1984 was enough, and Mutant Chronicles was certainly enough...





So to sum up, I don't know what they're thinking with this remake, and I'm starting to get really worried about what other films they're going to be ruining this year. I also notice that they've got no further with the Splinter Cell film which was announced over a year ago - but then again having seen what they've done to this film, I'm terrified as fuck they'd cast John Cena as Sam Fisher and Mos Def as Lambert....




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The Truth About Batman: The Dark Knight Rises

So, everyone seems to be looking forward to the release of 'Batman: The Dark Knight Rises' next year. After the awesomeness of Inception, and the fact that Tom Hardy will be playing Bane, I can hardly blame them. However, as of now, The Dark Knight Rises is officially old news. Why, you ask? Because whilst on IMDB just moments ago, I came across this:

That's right - before Nolan's Batman trilogy has even finished, there are already plans for a remake in the works. Hell, they already have a writer on board and everything.

The fuck? I mean, I know Batman's a popular character and everything, and I know that reboots are the "in" thing at the moment, what with a Spiderman reboot and another Superman Reboot on the way (by the same writer as the Batman reboot, incidentally), but Jesus - you could at least wait for Nolan's last Batman film to be released before you decide you need to reboot the franchise...

.

No word yet on who will be directing, or who will star in the new Batman, or even which villains it will include - but to be honest, the whole idea seems pretty insane to me. I mean, come on, Batman Begins wasn't that long ago - how frequently are we gonna reboot these franchises?

Batman will have officially seen more reboots than "The Punisher" by 2015. That is, unless there's another Punisher film in the works as well...

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Coming soon: Tom Hardy's training routine for The Dark Knight Rises - stay tuned.

An open message to Marvel: Enough With the "Gritty Reboots" already! (text)

Recently, I learned (from Cracked.com's Dan O'Brien, no less) that Marvel has scrapped plans for filming "Spiderman 4", instead favouring "rebooting" the franchise with a far more gritty tone.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

This is SPIDERMAN we're talking about - It's meant to be a children's character! I hate how the success of The Dark Knight (a movie which I was not a great fan of) is affecting the development of any potential comic book movies so damn much! Granted, Batman Begins was the actual Batman "reboot", but Marvel didn't take too much notice of that - and that's how it should have stayed!
There is already a "gritty" Spiderman Spin-off - It's called "The Punisher". If you want to do a Spiderman story that's a little more gritty than the previous movies, feel free to use the characters you already have - you wouldn't hear any complaints from me if you did a Spiderman/Punisher crossover (can it still be called a crossover when they started in the same comic series? More of a return to form, really...), and that would give you plenty of opportunities to up the realism and grit of the film (The Punisher being one of the few "heroes" who actually kills).
But no, instead we're wiping away the previous 3 movies we spent getting to know the characters, and restarting the story again. Don't Marvel know how frustrating that is? One of the best things about "Punisher: War Zone" was that, despite the fact it had an entirely new cast and director, it didn't bother with any of this reboot nonsense - it carried on from the series - opening 6 years into Frank's killing spree. We've already had a movie telling us the backstory on how he became the Punisher, we don't want to sit through that again - and it's the same with Spiderman!
On top of this, don't they remember what happened when the first film came out? People actually complained about the realism of the violence - the scene where Uncle Ben gets shot by a carjacker was thought to be far too real to be included in a 12 rated movie. What they mean when they say "gritty reboot" is not "a more realistic movie", it actually means "a movie with Bourne-style hand-camera work for the action scenes that won't look anywhere near as nice". Now, I loved this style in the Bourne films, and thought it was incredibly effective in "Saving Private Ryan" - but not in Spiderman! Remeber in my War Zone review when I said how I loved the fact that Lexi Alexander had pretty well just transferred the content of the comics onto the screen? Why do the opposite, and turn a bright and cheerful kids cartoon into a Bourne-style action film? I just don't understand it.
Also, these "Gritty Reboots" inevitably aren't realistic, and tend to only detract from the comic book nature of the films. Whilst The Punisher is just about believable, mainly due to his not having superpowers, how can we treat a movie as being "real" if the plot revolves around a teenager who develops superpowers after being bitten by a radioactive spider, and dons a latex outfit in order to fight crime? Trying to make this story real is just going to ruin the fun, kid-friendly nature of the Spiderman films, and make it far less enjoyable. As I've said before, I much preferred Tommy Lee Jones' psychotic turn as Two-Face in Batman Forever to the mopey, sad portrayal of the character in The Dark Knight, because I go to see comic book movies for a reason - to see over-the-top and ridiculous villains, battling our heroes in preposterous circumstances you couldn't possibly perceive as being "real".
As for the realism thing - Compare The Dark Knight to American Psycho (a choice I made based on Christian Bale being the lead in both films); which one seems more realistic? The one that takes a comic book story and tries to be realistic, with it's shaky camera work and "very serious tone", or the one that takes a realistic story and portrays it in an over-the-top ridiculous manner, and eschews shaky hand camera work for good old fashioned stationary, beautiful cinematography?

That's what I thought...

Next thing we know, they'll be turning the "X-Men" into "Watchmen", and I don't know about you - but I think Wolverine would make a crap Ozymandias...



Although, on the plus side, this may mean we'll see Evil Dead 4 a little sooner than we otherwise would have...