There are so many opportunities to make a remake better, but this film didn't attempt none of them.

| Original Score: D+ | Sep 8, 2017

We used to do the future so much better. Let's not forget that. Let's forget this instead.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Aug 31, 2012

Recalls Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Christopher Nolan's Inception, without, sadly being quite as distinctive as either.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 30, 2012

People got up, left and returned, casually, without urgency or guilt, as though passing the time between trains: it clearly did not remotely thrill them.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 30, 2012

It's escapism that is itself trapped in a prison of risk-phobic, formulaic filmmaking.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2012

Just another dumb, needless remake to add to the pile.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 29, 2012

'Total Recall' is Hollywood at its worst: pointless, witless, and so very unnecessary.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 28, 2012

Perhaps no more absurd than the Verhoeven version, but certainly less amusing.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 27, 2012

With a new generation of visual effects at his command, director Len Wiseman has the ability to paint on a broader canvas, but since we see this caliber of movie magic on a regular basis it's no longer an Event.

Full Review | Aug 24, 2012

Wiseman's style is superficially grittier, reliant on desaturated colours, whip pans and lens flare. Yet the film's dystopian setting is blatantly derivative of sci-fi classics from Metropolis to Blade Runner.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 23, 2012

The physical glory goes to Beckinsale and Biel who slug it out ferociously. The only problem is that in the clinches it's difficult to tell them apart. Not that it matters. Nothing does.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 23, 2012

Colin Farrell is an unlikely hero; Bill Nighy is a laughable resistance leader. Kate Beckinsale - who rushes around like a harpy - is director Len Wiseman's wife, but I don't think he's done much for her career.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/5 | Aug 23, 2012

Paul Verhoeven's celebrated 1990 sci-fi/thriller Total Recall [...] is neither butchered nor bested by Len Wiseman's modernisation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 22, 2012

"Total Recall" is a toned-down, smoothed-out version of an amped-up, bug-eyed classic.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 5, 2012

Warning: Excessive use of lens flares may cause confusion, frustration, facial distortion, distraction from story, and tarnishing of what could have been impressive visual effects.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 4, 2012

This is a taut, serviceable sci-fi thriller with a couple of neat visual ideas, and if you're not familiar with either the Schwarzenegger version or the original story, the brain-bending twists alone will take you a reasonably long way.

| Aug 3, 2012

I was no particular fan of the first Total Recall, but I confess that this flat, by-the-numbers remake made me a tad nostalgic for its bombastic preposterousness.

| Aug 3, 2012

Whatever tug Total Recall has on the imagination comes from the vague sense we've seen it all before. And seen it better: from Christopher Nolan's Inception to Ridley Scott's Blade Runner.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Aug 3, 2012

Director Len Wiseman is good on action, and Patrick Tatopoulus's dystopic production design is within hailing distance of Blade Runner, his chief influence. But essentially this is a big-screen video game.

| Original Score: B- | Aug 3, 2012

Where Paul Verhoeven's original was testosterone-stupid and, therefore, fun, Wiseman's film is just boring-stupid.

| Aug 3, 2012