Movie Reaction: Total Recall

Formula: (Minority Report + The Game + I, Robot + The Sixth Day + Blade Runner + Total Recall) / Originality
...This is an alarmingly common story.

Cast: Oh August, you never surprise me. We've reached that point in the summer where every week brings a throwaway movie of some kind. I get the feeling that the studio that made this didn't put it's full weight behind it. The cast is comprised of a lot of people that seem like 2nd or 3rd choices for the roles. They dusted of Colin Farrell for the Arnold Schwarzenegger role and he does a good but not particularly memorable job. Kate Beckinsale plays an attractive antagonist who kicks ass. Jessica Biel plays an attractive protagonist who kicks ass less well. Bryan Cranston plays a character that is disappointingly stale given the range he's shown on Breaking Bad. No one else matters all that much in the cast as they are given about 10 lines each. 

Plot: Truth be told, I don't remember ever seeing the original so I came to this with fresh eyes.Largely, this was uninspired. It felt small in virtually every way. For a two hour movie, there was little sense of depth. Most of the speeches were trope-tacular. The world as it was built looked lived in but wasn't very well explained. For a movie that means to play on subjective perception of reality, there is very little questioning what it real and what isn't. You seen this plot done before and done better.

Elephant in the Room: Why would I see this instead of checking out that movie that's been out for a while that I haven't seen yet? You wouldn't. Simple as that. There's probably six movies in limited release I'd see over this. Granted, I saw this instead of those, so I'm pretty inconsistent, huh?

To Sum Things Up:
Don't bother. This movie was burned off not even as counter-programming in the shadow of The Dark Knight Rises for a reason. It's a 7pm Tuesday on TBS kind of movie. See Take This Waltz. See Moonrise Kingdom. See Beasts of the Southern Wild. Watch The Dark Knight Rises again. "Bland" is the best word to describe it, overall. Not bad. Just, not interesting.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend