Total Recall (2012)

Total Recall

Unlike a lot of people, I have nothing against remakes, in principle.  There are a lot of classic films that are remakes - Ben Hur, Maltese Falcon, Magnificent Seven, Fistful of Dollars...I could go on.  But I am going to say right off the bat that the new Total Recall is most definitely not on this list...or even close to being on this list...I don't necessarily think it was a bad idea to remake the film, even though the Schwarzenegger Total Recall is a classic (click here to read my review of the original!).  It's a neat story, and I would be open to seeing another interpretation of it.  But 2012's Total Recall just doesn't work.  It's just bland and blah and no fun at all.

Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a factory worker in the future who is bored with his life.  Even his super hot wife, Lori (played by the super hot Kate Beckinsale) can't shake him out of his funk.  It doesn't help that he isn't sleeping well.  He keeps having crazy action movie dreams where he is trying to escape with his girlfriend Melinda (Jessica Biel).  Looking for a little excitement in his life, Doug goes to Rekall, a vacation memory business.  Can't afford to really visit the rings of Saturn?  Rekall will implant the memory for you for a fraction of the cost!  You can even buy a specialty package where you can be someone else for a short time...even someone like a secret agent!  Doug thinks that sounds like a fun vacation so picks the secret agent package.  But something goes wrong during the operation.  While implanting the memory, Rekall discovers that someone has already tampered with Quaid's mind.  He might actually be a secret agent.  Suddenly guards burst into the facility, a massive gun battle starts up, and the wild ride begins!

This is a fun science fiction concept merged with Alfred Hitchcock's "wrong man" conceit (as much as many love original Total Recall for its science fiction qualities, I happen to love it because I think it is Hitchcock on crack!).  But what follows is generally a bland movie.  There's not a lot I can point to that is necessarily bad about it.  The actors are fine, the action scenes are fine, and the special effects are fine.  Everything is just kind of fine...but nothing stands out as really cool or different or interesting.  The exception is the technology used in the film.  A lot of thought went into creating some cool science fiction concepts, such as The Drop, a giant metro train that descends through the Earth, traveling back and forth between England and Australia, which is called the Colony (for fans of the original, Australia replaces Mars).  Of course, when The Drop hits the Earth's core, gravity flips, and everyone not strapped down kinda of floats around for a bit.  When you think about it, does The Drop make a lick of sense?  Not really, but I don't care.  It's a nifty little idea.

But other than the technology, Total Recall really has nothing going for it.  I think the biggest problem is they missed the whole point! The riddle of Total Recall is that the audience is not supposed to be sure if the story is real...maybe this whole adventure is just the vacation package that Doug Quaid purchased at Rekall!  The new Total Recall kind of ignores this whole idea, despite a few obligatory throw away moments, scenes that I think are supposed to confuse the audience about what is reality, but are conceived in such a half ass way that no one could possibly believe them.  And besides, this whole adventure is just exhausting!  Doug Quaid leaps from firefight to firefight, falling off buildings, getting into car accidents...if this is his vacation package, then it is the WORST vacation ever.  I would demand my money back.  In the original film, Quaid actually goes on an adventure...despite his injuries, despite the number of times he almost dies, the whole plot is a roller coaster ride.  It's fun!  And I could easily see the original film as being a Rekall vacation package, leaving doubts in the audiences' minds even as the end credits roll.  It's pretty remarkable.  But there is nothing remarkable about the remake...it's dour, way too serious, and bleak.  And despite it's title, it definitely is not Total Recall.

MVP:
I have to go with the technology again!  There are just a lot of neat futuristic ideas in this movie.  From phones implanted in people's hands to the crowded apartment complexes in The Colony to The Drop that I mentioned above, this movie just has a lot of fun art designing the future.  Technology is easily the most interesting thing in the film, and an easy MVP!

BEST LINE:

Doug: If I'm not me, who the hell am I?

Lori: How would I know?  I just work here.

Doug: Speculate.

Lori: If I had to guess, all the trouble Cohaagan's taken to hide you from the Resistance, you must be fairly important.  And with your skill set, I think it's highly doubtful you're his gardener.


TRIVIA:
The one-shot fight scene was indeed shot in one take, and was performed by Colin Farrell himself instead of a stunt man.  It took 22 tries to get the scene right. 

Five Million Years to Earth (or Quatermass and the Pit)

Five Million Years to Earth
And it finally ends...long, long ago, TCM had a marathon to celebrate Hammer Films, the studio that dominated the horror genre in the late 1950s and 1960s.  I used my DVR to pretty much record every single film in the marathon and planned on reviewing all of them.  Embarrassingly, it took two years to get through them all (in my defense, I had lots of movies I wanted to review in between!!).  And now I am finished, at last!  I am not saying I won't review more Hammer movies.  I would love to!  But Five Million Years to Earth is the final film in that initial marathon.  And I am happy to say that I saved a winner for the end! 

While doing construction in London's Hobb' End Tube Station, workers find something metallic and huge.  They think it is a Nazi bomb leftover from World War II and immediately call in the military.  But something is a bit weird about this metallic structure and the army brings in brilliant scientist Bernard Quatermass (Bernard Lee, Dracula: Prince of Darkness) to investigate.  Alongside fellow researchers Dr. Roney (James Donald, The Great Escape) and Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley, also from Dracula: Prince of Darkness), Quatermass tries to get to the bottom of the mystery.  Pretty quickly they learn that the structure is a space ship...and that is seems to carry some sort of demonic power that could endanger the entire country.  Oh, crap! 

Let's just get the bad out of the way first.  Five Million Years to Earth is pretty good, but there are a few problems.  I know I shouldn't dock points for special effects in a film made in 1967, but the aliens just look too silly.  Look at the picture above.  The aliens look like plastic!  I just couldn't get past that!  I also had a problem with the way the military was handled in the film, as represented by the stubborn Colonel Breen (Julian Glover, For Your Eyes Only).  Despite mounting evidence to the contrary, Breen keeps insisting that the ship is a German bomb.  After the 43rd time he tells Quatermass to shut his trap and go away, you just start to get annoyed. 

Okay, that's the bad.  What about the good?  Well, that is actually the rest of the film.  This is smart science fiction, with some good ideas and with something to say.  In fact, some of the messages seem to be remarkably similar to Prometheus except they seem to be better thought out and...well, make sense.  Much of the film is spent following Quatermass and Barbara as they investigate the strange happenings around Hobb's End, and some of it is pretty creepy.  Some people might find all this talking and thinking to be dull, but I found it all very interesting.  I really wasn't sure where this movie was going to go.  And eventually there is a big, exciting climax.  You just have to be patient and wait for it!

The acting is also quite good.  James Donald, Andrew Keir and Barbara Shelley have a sophisticated, adult chemistry, and genuinely seem to enjoy each other's company.  Julian Glover is quite good, even if I didn't like his character.  And I have to say that Glover looks almost exactly the same here, in 1967, as he did in 2004's Troy, which is pretty damn impressive. 

Anyways, Five Millions Years to Earth isn't perfect, but it is smart and clever science fiction, and probably the best of Hammer's non-horror films.  I would definitely recommend it!

MVP:
I'm going to have to go with Barbara Shelley, who also won my MVP for Dracula: Prince of Darkness.  Known as the First Lady of British Horror, she really was more than just your average scream queen.  No matter what is happening on screen, she is just completely believable.  And she really telegraphs fear incredibly well, better than most actors, I think.  Her fear just seems real.  I think it is because she doesn't overdo it, and does most of the acting with her eyes.  But to be honest, the real reason she wins the MVP is because she makes such an impact despite that fact that her hair is the most dated thing in the film and does its best to distract the audience!


BEST LINE:
Sladden is a worker with a super powerful drill.  Along with Breen, he prepares to drill into the interior of the ship. 

Sladden: I reckon this little beauty will cut through anything.  Cut steel armor plate six inches thick, just like that.  Oh, it was legal!  Some bloke got stuck in a storeroom.  But I got him out.  It was a secret job, like this one.

Colonel Breen: Then I'm glad you don't talk about it.

TRIVIA:

At the Hobb's End Underground Station, there are numerous posters of other Hammer Films on the walls, including Dracula: Prince of Darkness and The Reptile.

Stranglers of Bombay

Strangers of Bombay

As everyone knows, I am a fan of Hammer Films, the British studio that specialized in horror films in the late 1950s and 1960s.  The studio was smart enough to know it couldn't depend on terrorizing audiences and tried to expand their filmography with science fiction, pirate movies, and other types of adventures.  Stranglers of Bombay certainly falls into this category, despite a promotional campaign that really plays up the more horrific aspects of the story.  What Stranglers of Bombay really wants to be is the next Gunga Din.

Gunga Din it is not.  I suppose it isn't fair to compare the film to that 1939 classic, but even taken on its own merits, Stranglers of Bombay just falls short.  There are just too many ridiculous things. There are elements of a neat film here, though, and these moments prevent the film from being a complete wash.  Even its basic storyline is pretty interesting.  Loosely based on true events when India was part of the British Empire, Stranglers of Bombay recounts the rise of the brutal Thuggee cult, vicious followers of Kali who preferred to strangle their victims.  If this all sounds vaguely familiar, it is because the Thuggees are also the villains in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

After an alarming number of missing and/or murdered person cases crop up, dashing British Captain Harry Lewis starts to investigate.  He knows something dark is happening, something that could threaten not only his life, but the lives of the whole British garrison and the innocent Indian population.  He has to get to the bottom of the mystery, despite the obstinate objections of his superior officers.  And that plot point is one of the first major problems with the film.  Despite a vast amount of evidence to the contrary, the British generals just refuse to listen to Lewis.  I know there is supposed to be suspension of disbelief with movies, but they push it a bit too far.  I was also bothered by the way Indians were treated in the film.  I guess the film was made in the 1950s and I shouldn't judge the film by today's standards, but all the Indians are either craven villains or defenseless and helpless innocents who need the British to save them.  It was hard to get past that, too.

And this is also the type of film that features characters doing stupid things after stupid things. Here's an example (with a SPOILER ALERT!).  At one point, Lewis sneaks into the jungle and finds the Thuggee camp.  Instead of going back for reinforcements, he sneaks even closer and of course he gets caught because a small shrubbery is not a very good hiding place.  He is dragged into the temple and chained to the floor before the altar, a sacrificial victim of the Thuggee's poisonous pet snake.  Lucky for Lewis, he has his servant's pet mongoose with him and the mongoose kills the snake.  A superstitious lot, the Thuggees let him go home.  First of all, this is kind of silly.  Lewis found their secret headquarters and they are just going to let him go???  And when Lewis gets home, does he go to his superiors and report that he found the Thuggees so they can go back and deliver justice?  Nope. Instead, guess what he does!  He sneaks back to the Thugee camp again - alone!  And hides behind another small shrubbery and of course gets caught again!!! Really, the characters just make some jaw droppingly dumb decisions.

And it's a shame because there is some cool stuff going on in here.  Guy Rolfe is an entertaining lead, and I wish they gave him better stuff to do.   And the villains are actually pretty neat, each with an interesting backstory and character motivation.  There is a neat scene where the Thuggee leader excuses himself after ordering someone's execution.  In the background, we hear the struggle and the strangulation, but we don't see it.  Instead we are watching the leader's sweaty and anxious face, growing increasingly agitated as the sounds of the struggle grow louder.  It's an interesting decision.  Is he squeamish about death?  Or is he growing horrified about what he is becoming?  It's an intriguing question, and I wish there had been more moments like that in the film.

Anyway, that's Stranglers of Bombay.  If these were the types of non-horror films Hammer was making, then I can see why they doubled down and focused on their horror output as the 1960s wore on.  Skip it!

MVP: 
I know I am about to sound like a hypocrite, but I am going to give the MVP to Guy Rolfe.  Despite the fact that the character does so many stupid things, Rolfe valiantly strives to save the character.  That Lewis is likeable at all has more to do with Rolfe than anything the character does.  It's not an easy MVP win, but I think he earned it.

TRIVIA:
The word "thug" comes from "Thuggee."  The meaning of the word has of course changed over the last century, but it is still a cool bit of trivia!

BEST LINE:

This exchange wins more because of a terrific site gag...now whether it was intentional or not, who knows?!

Lewis: This is a hanging, isn't it?

Guard: I beg your pardon?

Lewis: You ever see such happy people?

Guard: I think we all enjoy it a bit, sir.  That's why we're here.

Lewis: What about the prisoner?  Does he normally enjoy it a bit, too?  Look at him!

Cut to the prisoner, with the biggest, goofiest grin on his face.  I'm sorry, but it made me laugh!

Captain from Castile

Captain from Castile

My interest in Captain from Castile has a bit of a backstory.  In college, I met an administrator named Ray Tuttle, who introduced me to the finer points of soundtracks.  I liked film music before that, but didn't really get it.  I just knew that Terminator and Conan sounded cool. Among many other terrific scores, Ray introduced me to an Alfred Newman CD produced by Charles Gerhardt.  For those who don't know, Newman is one of the most important musical voices in film history.  Everyone knows his work, even if they don't realize it - it is Newman's music that accompanies the logo before every 20th Century Fox movie.  The Newman CD was pretty good, but there was one track that just captured me - a brilliant march from Captain from Castile.  I had never heard of this movie, but my imagination was inflamed.  It surely must be one of the great epics of all time.  I asked my dad about it and while he quickly tempered my unrealistic expectations, I could still tell he remembered the film fondly...it was based on a popular book that he quite liked, but the book was so long that they were only able to film the first half.  For a decade, I kept my eyes peeled for the movie, but no luck...and that music just kept getting stuck in my head...it wouldn't go away!  And finally one day Captain from Castile showed up on TCM and I immediately set the DVR.

Captain from Castile tells the story of Pedro de Vargas (Tyrone Power), who after being betrayed and condemned by the Inquisition, escapes Spain to join in Hernan Cortez' conquest of Mexico.  Accompanied by his best friend Juan Garcia (Lee J. Cobb) and peasant girl/love interest Catana (Jean Peters), Pedro leaps from adventure to adventure...but to be honest, in only a moderately interesting way.  It's not that Captain from Castile is bad.  It's certainly pleasant enough to watch, but it never really lifts off as it should.  The movie mostly seems to be a series of smaller stories strung together against the backdrop of Cortez's march through Mexico, so it is never able to build tension or momentum or even establish any sort of rhythm. This might be because the best parts of the book are in the second half, which they never got a chance to film.  Who knows...

But there really is a lot to like in this film.  First off, I found the political stance towards the conquest of Mexico to be really intriguing.  The film was made in the 1940s, so there is definitely some racism running across the film, and they certainly do play up the audacious heroism of the Spanish army.  But at the same time, the film makes it very clear that the Spaniards are only interested in gold...whether they are heroic or not, they're basically just an army of thieves, and the poor Aztecs just want them to go away.  Depending on what history books you read, the real Hernan Cortez was either a heroic conquistador or a monster...and this movie tries to tiptoe the line and show how he could have maybe been both...and I found that to be fascinating.

I also thought that the acting was fairly solid.  Cortez is probably the best role Cesar Romero ever had (even though he was certainly entertaining as The Joker in the Batman TV show).  He is greedy, generous, ruggedly charming, and unreasonably vicious all in one, and Romero is having a grand time with the role.  Lee J. Cobb and Jean Peters are solid as the best friend and love interest, respectively.  And Tyrone Power...well, I don't know him very well as an actor.  I knew he was enormously popular, and I don't quite understand why.  For the most part, he is fine, but he doesn't seem to be anything special...I've heard he could be a superb actor, but maybe he is being held back here by having to play the stereotypical heroic lead.  There are moments, though, when I do glimpse something special in his performance.  SPOILER HERE: When the Inquisition kills Pedro's sister, and a defenseless Pedro stands before the man responsible, most actors in similar situations - even the good ones - would do one of two things, they would scream and swear vengeance in an epic display of righteous fury (hello, Charlton Heston in Ben Hur!) or they would forcibly hold themselves back, ready for strike if only they could...their jaws clenched, and with eyes narrowed, they quietly swear they will have their revenge (like Russell Crowe in Gladiator).  There is nothing wrong with these approaches.  When acted well, these moments can be awesome.  But Power did something I had never seen before.  He just stared.  He didn't react.  He just coldly stared while our one dimensional villain metaphorically twirled his moustache.  As the scene continues, Power never does anything else.  He doesn't blink, he doesn't speak, he barely even seems to be breathing.  He just...stares.  Coldly.  Simply.  He doesn't need to swear revenge.  Because he is so sure he is going to kill this guy, that he doesn't need to.  It's just a fact.  And it is absolutely chilling.  It's a subtle and sublime moment of acting, and nothing else in the movie equals it.  Okay, SPOILER OVER.

All in all, Captain from Castile is an entertaining movie.  It just sort of ends without an ending, but again that is because they only filmed the first half of the book.  So I guess some allowances need to be made.  If you like old Hollywood epics or like Mexican history, I would suggest you check it out.  Everyone else can probably skip it...

...unless you too have been seduced by Alfred Newman's music...in which case, you will have no choice but to see it because it will gnaw on your brain until you do!!!!

MVP:
Is there any doubt?!  For the most part, the music in the film is fine but not special...it's fairly typical 1940s Hollywood fare.  Then the love theme makes an appearance, and it is an absolutely stunner.  And then the Conquest theme kicks in at the end of the film...and it is just as thrilling and brilliant as when I first heard it on Ray Tuttle's Newman collection.  This Conquest theme was so terrific that it is still played today by the University of Southern California's sports teams before games (Newman actually donated the music to the school, which is pretty cool).  It's one helluva piece of music...and it is probably going to keep marching away in my head for the rest of my life!

BEST LINE: 

Coatl: I think I speak to you now.  Maybe I understand better why you come here.  This is my country, senior.  These are my people, my gods.  We not come to tell you to stop loving your gods.  We not come to make you slaves.  Why you do this?

Pedro: Well, I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that.  It isn't right for men to worship idols.  There's only one true God.

Coatl: Maybe your God and my God same God.  Maybe we just call him by different names.

TRIVIA: 
This bit of trivia is awesome.  Throughout most of the film, you can see weird, dark billowing clouds in the distance...if you don't know to look, you might miss them, but once you notice, you can't see anything else.  What the heck kind of clouds are those?  Volcano clouds!!!  A volcano was erupting while they were filming the movie, shooting smoke and ashes all over the sky...it seems dangerous to me, but they kept right on filming the movie.  In fact, in the last shot, you can see the actual volcano itself in the distance, a column of smoke rising from its peak.  Check it out!