You know you’re getting old when everything you loved as a teenager starts getting the remake treatment. It’s already happened to me with music (Have you heard that horrible cover of The Cranberries' "Zombie"?), now it’s happening with movies. The latest on the too young for a remake shelf is Total Recall, which according to Moviehole may soon be getting a makeover.
They say that since they can’t do a sequel without Arnie (and these days Arnie only does politics), the Weinstein’s are doing the only other thing they can do with the Total Recall property and doing it all over again. Because I suppose if it’s just sitting there they aren’t making money off of it. Capitalism is great and all, but it’s not without flaws.
The original Total Recall hit theaters in 1990 with gore hound Paul Veerhoven in the director’s chair. It’s an adaptation of a Philip K. Dick novel about a future in which a man goes for a virtual vacation on Mars only after a harrowing series of events he finds himself actually on Mars… sort of. Things get complicated. Sharon Stone and Arnold Schwarzenegger star and the movie’s a pretty solid sci-fi, future-thriller. The old Nintendo game based on it isn’t half bad either, even if you do seem to spend most of your time fighting guys who can throw their hats.
Total Recall is the future-thriller that all modern future-thrillers wish they can be and so often end up falling short. I’m not a crazed fan of the original, but it’s good and it’s practically a classic at this point. Worse, it’s not even a very old one. Come on, at least let the movie have two decades before you ruin it with an inferior, inevitably Paul W.S. Anderson directed remake fellas.
