While it happens just all to often that I don't like or straight out despise an amazingly popular movie, it never happened before that I was genuinely blown away by anything so critically unacclaimed as this one. Given that Total Recall is currently rated 30% on Rottentomatoe's critics-meter I am going to do intricate research regarding the parts that I apparently missed while I sat trough this movie hypnotized.
But it could be just me and I can explain that. Maybe I had the privilege to just accidentally view the movie exactly as what it really is about. The the ride that Rekall provides, optimized exactly to one man's fantasies and boy do they do a great job. I would agree that keeping this fact in mind at any time does compensate for some of the flater parts of the movie and also gives it a certain dimension that is not there if you take the trip for real. Take the undeveloped side- characters for example. Surely they could have been given more attention, but knowing, that they are merely props of this ride, with their specific little uses, there only to deliver the right impulse at the right time to the "subject", they work just fine. This is also thanks to Colin Farell who does a great job playing the buffled protagonist in the wet-dream of his life. For me - watching it that way - the mind-games, the performances and the smart, well choreographed action sequences all worked pure wonders, while the visual experience was nothing less then mesmerizing, meaning not only the mind-boggling quality of the CGI but also the amazing visual design of the new world and its technologies. There is a slight, temporary decline in quality at about the beginning of the third act, still, this does not manage to overshadow one of the most genuine, most intense movie experiences I had in my whole life.
9/10
But it could be just me and I can explain that. Maybe I had the privilege to just accidentally view the movie exactly as what it really is about. The the ride that Rekall provides, optimized exactly to one man's fantasies and boy do they do a great job. I would agree that keeping this fact in mind at any time does compensate for some of the flater parts of the movie and also gives it a certain dimension that is not there if you take the trip for real. Take the undeveloped side- characters for example. Surely they could have been given more attention, but knowing, that they are merely props of this ride, with their specific little uses, there only to deliver the right impulse at the right time to the "subject", they work just fine. This is also thanks to Colin Farell who does a great job playing the buffled protagonist in the wet-dream of his life. For me - watching it that way - the mind-games, the performances and the smart, well choreographed action sequences all worked pure wonders, while the visual experience was nothing less then mesmerizing, meaning not only the mind-boggling quality of the CGI but also the amazing visual design of the new world and its technologies. There is a slight, temporary decline in quality at about the beginning of the third act, still, this does not manage to overshadow one of the most genuine, most intense movie experiences I had in my whole life.
9/10