Total Recall

I never had a strong attachment to the first film, or the short story it was based on, Phillip K Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, so I wasn’t against the idea of doing another film and one that is similar to the other at the original.

As with other films based on Dick’s writings, there are a lot of ideas, or at least potential ideas and a far bit of scope in which to ask various questions. In Total Recall the questions are most commonly dealing with identity and memory, a vast area in which ideas can be put forward and questions asked. Such as Blade Runner, which dealt with what is was to be human or Minority Report, which deals with the ideas of fate or chance and controlling/sensoring the future.

The basic story, I will try to avoid spoilers, is that Quaid (Colin Farrel) is a worker in a factory and pretty unhappy with how his life has turned out so far, so he goes to Rekall, a company that can give you the memories of being whatever you wanted to be. However when Quaid goes, it triggers something in his mind and he is suddenly capable of doing many things, the first being killing an entire police unit who have come for him. From there we follow Quaid as he tries to find out who he is, avoid being killed and being part of a large conspiracy.

After the first act, which is where the majority of the character work and story is told we are quickly taken at break neck speeds through the rest of the film to the climactic battle. We move from action sequence to action sequence, broken up with a short set of scenes that tell us something that just about moves us forward. Only when Cohaagen (Cranston) appears in the flesh, do we get any kind of extended dialogue scene that adds to the characters or the plot, this occurs at the start of the third act and serves mainly to set up the finale.

Farrell definitely gives a more rounded and confused performance than Schwarzenegger did in his portrayal, but this new version of the character lacks the wit, be it intentional or unintentional (for both films) and it does take the fun out the film at times, as we move from action scene to somber down time, with little build up or variety as the gears change. Farrell certainly comes off as more of a normal guy in the beginning, who is confused about where all this knowledge and the abilities are coming from and handles the transition well with the little, as mentioned before, character developments that happen during the second act.

The two female characters played by Jessica Biel and Kate Beckingsale seem for the most part to mere story devices, one Quaid is running from and the other he is running to, serving as a motivation and an antagonist. The roles aren’t forgettable, but the actresses do their best with fairly limited characterization. It would have been nice to have given them more than one note to play throughout the film, as neither one shows any doubts or sign of questioning what is going on around them.

Wisemans direction is good and does well with what he has, the action scenes, while long, are not interest killing, but it would have been nice to have seen more variety in them, than just chase scenes, especially earlier on. The world that these characters inhabit has a clear Blade Runner feel to it, not that it is a criticism, it looks great and the idea of the floating or different levels of the city adds and interesting look to the city, although there are one or two obvious nods to Scott’s film, specifically the running through the glass scene, which after the initial smirk is quite enjoyable.

If you liked the original one and it’s wit and humour, you may not like this slick and efficient version, which focuses more on its plot and the large visuals. But for a bit of entertainment that doesn’t ask too much, that being my only real criticism of the film, then it’s certainly worth two hours of your time. Whether you remember it in a week, who knows.

Sequel Bait

They largely dominate the cinemas between late April and early September, filling the large screen with another instalment in a series that made a lot of money or was very well received, sometimes even both, but more often than not it comes down to the previous films box office.

The biggest criticism with sequels is that they show a lack of originality and imagination, for the most part this is a fair arguments, a fair majority of them exist solely to cash in, such as the Saw series or the later Terminator films. It’s true that these films do take away from the more original summer films that come along every couple of years, or the smaller films that populate awards season, taking up screens and distributors or studios money, because these sequels are a safer bet.

But not all sequels are purely money grabbing, vacuous rubbish, one of the greatest films of all time is a sequel, I am talking about The Godfather Part II, which carried on the story of Michael Corleone from the first film, building upon it whilst also bringing back decisions and plot threads from the first film, mainly the answer he gives to his wife at the very end. Also 2010’s Toy Story 3 was a fitting finale to that great series, taking us and it’s characters on an emotionally draining and simultaneously uplifting journey, completing the story of these loveable toys.

But in recent years we have seen further instalments in a film franchise move backwards into a prequel such as Prometheus or Hannibal Rising or sideways into a sidequel(?) such as The Bourne Ultimatum, both of which have their own good points and bad points. The prequel offers the chance to go back and spend time with characters who stories either finished, were left ambiguous or died. But the risk is that something has to be changed, or a something omitted that could damage the original.

With a sidequel you face a similar scale of problems, the good points are that it allows you to add to the world that was already created in the first film(s), and bring in new characters and even show the affect that the original had on the wider world. But the problem is that you may not have the main characters from the original and risk the audience asking why they should bother to see it, when they have no emotional attachment to these people.

A film that did the prequel idea well(at least in my view) was Prometheus, choosing to go back and focus on the Space Jockey, a character that is only seen briefly in Alien, but which forms the basis for this film. Going back thirty years before the original, we know we aren’t going to get to see Ripley or Dallas, most of them haven’t been born or are very young, so we meet a new cast of characters and follow them as they search for these Engineers/Space Jockeys. The film is also careful not undermine anything from the original, instead only loosely linking it with Alien through one outcome of the finale, while the main conclusion sets up to take a sequel into a different place entirely.

A film that attempted the sidequel was the very recent The Bourne Legacy, the review of which should be just below this article, which showed the affects that The Bourne Ultimatum had on this world. It was a good idea and attempt but never seemed too linked with the other film, which some people may like, but it would have been good to see even more of the affects of what Jason Bourne, especially with the political side and what conversely affects Aaron Cross’s actions had on that world going on, as that side of story never really felt developed enough.

There are always films that wish had sequels, so that we could either spend more time with the characters or just enjoy the world that they live in. For me, a few examples of this would be Inception, The Departed and Blade Runner. The reasons for choosing these three, is that they all left me with the same question, “What happens next?” One of them offers a fairly ambiguous ending, the other a very traditional type of ending and the last asks one of the most fiercely debated questions in cinema.

What is the likelihood of seeing any of these films get a sequel? Well at least one in three at the moment, as Ridley Scott (along with original screenwriter Hampton Fancher) are working on a sequel to Blade Runner. While there were rumours of sequel to The Departed (that in it’s self based on the Infernal Affairs trilogy from Hong Kong) about a year after it’s release, nothing has happened in the last five years and it looks less likely that it will. Finally, the closest we will probably ever get to a sequel to Inception from Christopher Nolan at least, is going to be in a video game, something he himself has talked about doing.

With the difficulty of producing a sequel for these films becoming evident, it highlights the completeness of the films themselves, whereby a second film is not necessary as everything we need to know plays during the film. But for the sake of a bit of fun, let’s try and imagine a sequel to each of these films. Spoliers from here on out. With Blade Runner, I will detail the few bits and pieces of news that have come out (believe at your risk). Firstly, it will feature a female protagonist and that Deckard may or may not appear, but Scott has said that he would like Ford to return, how likely that is to happen, I don’t know. If they go this way they will probably have to answer the “Is Deckard a replicant?” question, which I would prefer not to have answered.

For my own idea, a film focusing on the Tyrell company would be interesting, especially considering how powerful it is and the state that it would be left in after the climax of the first film. Blade Runner offers us a complete world, one that is full of ideas and people that could be developed into a film that is as interesting as the first. One suggestion would be to minimise Deckards role (if they do use him) and set it shortly after the originals end, so we don’t have to answer that question.

I know that The Departed is based upon the first film in trilogy, but as I haven’t seen any of the original trilogy I will try and put forward a reasonably interesting idea of my own. At the end of the first film, all but two or three of the significant characters are dead, so this poses an interesting problem as you are faced with carrying over the story, but with hardly anyone left to continue the plot threads on. The storylines left were about Dignum (Wahlberg) and what he does after he kills Colin (Damon), there is also Madolyn (Farmiga) and her child. While the child storyline is nothing more than secondary plot thread, following Dignum, especially in the way he was portrayed would certainly be engaging, but a man on the run, which is presumably what he would be doing, can only fill so much time. But I would like a film that looks at the fallout of the events of the first film, as no doubt a lot of questions would be asked after everything that happened and someone would have to go in and sort out the mess and with only a few people who knew the truth alive that would prove difficult, but with those characters also having done questionable things and possibly not wanting to come forward, there is a lot of conflict to get through both in terms of plot and character.

With Inception, the final shot asks us to make our own mind up about where Cobb (DiCaprio) is and it was a great way for Nolan to end the film. So how do you get another film out of this world? I have two, or albeit brief ideas. The first is a prequel, not based around Cobb or any of the team from the first film, the only character who could appear is maybe Miles (Caine) but played by a younger actor, which would follow the development and breakout of the dream technology and the PASIV machine in particular from the military where it was developed. As the technology is still new at this point, faults and weaknesses with the technology would play into the use of it and as a result create the danger for someone using the machine.

The second idea would act as a sidequel, another job in the same world, but completely unrelated to the first film. One criticism of the first was that the dream world was too real, a pointless criticism when the team are trying to ensure that the mark doesn’t know he is dreaming initially, as well the world being two rigid and filled with hotels and skyscrapers, all solid structures, but again that is linked to the mind of the mark, a businessman. To change this, the mark could be someone of a creative disposition, whose mind would be more fluid and potentially Salvador Dali-esque.

Only brief ideas explained in broad strokes, some are not as interesting as others and more than likely, none will ever happen. But we will still be left with the entertaining and enjoyable originals that built worlds that we can continue on in our minds.

My Top Ten Films

Everyone has their own list of favourite films, some only have two or three, others have lists that rival IMDB’s top 250, so I thought I would have a go at naming a top ten of mine, a number that gave me sort sort of wiggle room to include a few more great films on this list and allowed me the opportunity to think back about some films that I hadn’t seen in a while.

As with any list there has to be some rules and this one is no exception, although I only laid down two concrete restrictions.

1. None could have been released since the start of the year (So no The Dark Knight Rises or Prometheus here).

2. Only one film from a director was allowed in, so as to introduce more variety.

There will be a few in this list that won’t surprise and some I hope will, there may even be a film you haven’t heard of or seen in here. So with that, I hope you enjoy the list.

10. Twelve Angry Men (1957)

One of the most engrossing courtroom/jury films every made, simply because it doesn’t rely on the revelations of the courtroom or the manipulating words of lawyers. It relies solely on the individual personalities and histories of the men in the jury room, who are all too ready to pronounce the defendant guilty. But one member believes that they should at least talk about it, even if he isn't complete convinced of his innocence. Over the course of the next ninety minutes, we see how these variables play into their own fluid ideas about the defendant an how they have affected their decision. Given that the film is set almost completely in the jury room, Sydney Lumet and writer Reginald Rose ramp up the tension, both with the case and the character dynamics, building it to a frantic revelatory climax.

9. The Social Network (2010)

When a facebook film was announced, a lot of people assumed it would be some kind of romantic comedy or drama based around the website, not really anything worth giving a second look. The Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher got involved and everything changed, we weren’t getting a film about how people use facebook to meet and socialize, this was about the meteoric and painful rise of the website and the betrayals that occurred during those initial years. This film is driven by two greats of modern filmmaking, Sorkin and his rapid dialogue and Fincher with his meticulously and beautifully shot visuals that really help bring the world in which these men lived in and some of them schemed in. Thankfully there isn’t a poke anywhere in this film, but it certainly gets a big ‘like’ from me.

8. The Fountain (2006)

For a film about the acceptance of death this film left in a good mood, I watched about a year after the death of my father and helped in a way to “move on” as they say, it felt personal to me, like I am sure it does to a lot of people who give it a chance, dealing with issues of accepting death and not allowing the death of a loved one to consume your life. Director and co-writer Darren Aronofsky gives each time period it’s own look, moving from the time of Spanish inquisition to the far future and travelling through space. The Fountain is a film that asks a lot of questions that don’t really get answers, but it’s more about ideas within the film that makes it really interesting. It won’t be everyone’s kind of film, that much is clear when you talk to anyone about it, it really is a love it or hate it film, but which side you fall into, it’s 90 minutes that deserve you attention.

7. LA Confidential (1997)

The first of three crime films in this list, this film pretty much became an instant crime classic when it was released 15 years ago, in which we follow three LAPD police officers as their separate paths bring them together in a case involving corruption, prostitution and organized crime all set in the 1950’s. Based on a mammoth novel by James Ellroy, the fact that writers Curtis Hanson (also director) and Brian Helgeland were able to even get the story to manageable length is an achievement in its self. But to then produce an emotionally engaging piece as this is true cinematic accomplishment, backed up by some unforgettable performances, specifically Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce. This film set many standards for the genre, which most films still struggle to reach.

6. The Secret In Their Eyes (2009)

Another crime film, but this time focusing on the impact of an unsolved crime, caused by the system of the time, that being the mid 1970’s in Argentina. Focusing on the investigation in a rape and murder of a woman, we follow a department as they try to solve the case despite various interference from outside influences, but it is the affect that it has on the people where this film thrives, showing us the lengths that some people will go to, to get revenge on another or the toll an event as significant as this can have on people for the rest of their lives.

5. Barry Lyndon (1975)

Released between A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, Barry Lyndon is an often overlooked Kubrick classic, focusing on rise and fall of Redmund Barry a poor Irishmen who is tricked out of his home town by the influential and sent on his way out into the wider world, where he fights in a war, turns spy and travels the world in luxury. While is the plot is fairly easy to follow and doesn’t ask much of the audience but to invest in these characters and their tragic stories, it is in the visuals that this film stands out. Each shot looks like a classic painting, shot widely, showing the viewer the splendour of the lives that these characters live. Quite simply, every image in the film is a complete joy to behold. Like other films in this list, it’s quite long, around three hours, but with any Kubrick film, once you start watching it, the characters, visuals and story hook you in and don’t let go of you.

4. Blade Runner (1982)

Which version you prefer is a really interesting topic, especially given the varying ideas and answers that each version asks. But all ask a central question, “What is it to be human?”, it is the question of all great science fiction and is very important considering Blade Runner and it’s story. The main narrative follows a detective, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), as he searches for four replicants who have returned to earth, killing people as they did. But along the way we are asked by director Ridley Scott and his writers many more interesting questions, the above mentioned in the forefront, the others I won’t mention so as to not spoil the film. The most recent Final Cut offers the most complete visual version of the film, but to really understand this film in all it’s complexities, it’s worth working your way through all three cuts.

3. Heat (1995)

One of, if not the best heist film ever made and that is a very high accolade to say of any film within that genre. Heat features some of the most engrossing and spectacular sequences shot during the 1990’s, one a ten minute long bank robbery and the other a five minute conversation between Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. I had heard about the heist from people but never truly thought it could live up to it, but as the dust settled on downtown Los Angeles after it had finished, it was hard to argue about just how close to perfect the sequence is.

But it’s not the action that defines this film, there probably only four or five big moments in it’s two and a half plus hour run time, it’s in it’s character development, especially the relationship and lives of the two central characters, a detective and a professional criminal, Hanna and McCauley (Pacino and De Niro) who are almost completely identical but at the same time very different, and it is for this reason that the film is so highly revered, it gives us the lives and motivations of the people we normally don’t get to spend time with.

2. Magnolia (1999)

I was introduced to Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic drama as part of a course presentation, I didn’t realise the run time when I chose it, but three hours later I was so thankful I did. Giving us a snapshot into the lives of about nine characters over the course of a day, each of who is subjected to a painful life changing experience. While the plot is relatively straight forward, something that often has to be the case for these ensemble films, it’s the complexity of the relationships between the characters where Magnolia comes alive, with some career best performances from most of the cast. The main theme of the film looks closely at the randomness of life, demonstrated perfectly in the films prologue, which is central to the unfolding stories, each one affecting the next. As I have said before, this film is three hours long, but if you give it that time, you will be deeply rewarded.

1. Memento (2000)

Christopher Nolan’s first film that didn’t have a budget that equated to the price of a decent second hand car and arguably still one of, if not his finest films and I am an avid fan of all his work. Following a few days and nights in the life of amnesiac Leonard Shelby (played by Guy Pearce) who is searching for his wife’s killer, but is only able to remember a few minutes, before his mind wipes, unable to commit short-term memories to the long term. Away from the more obvious plot of the film, Memento delves into ideas of subjective and objective information and obviously, memories. 

Unable to remember for himself Leonard has to rely on facts that he has found and committed to writing down, even on himself, so that he will be able to recall them later as he hunts for the man. As the film runs it to tense beginning (for those of you unaware, the film runs backwards, flicking through two different time frames, one forwards and the other backwards, moving through time frame that Leonard remembers before he resets, the film explains this better than I do, you begin to question what not just Leonard remembers, but what he is happy to forget.

So there were go, my top ten. There are a few big omissions, both in terms of films and directors, but I found this list harder to write that I honestly thought it would be, and I ask anyone who reads this to do the same, then write it down to give it a sense of permanence. Then come back in five minutes and see if you still agree with your own decisions.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this and feel free to send your comments or abuse in whichever way you feel most comfortable.

Blade Runner

NB: This is a review of The Directors Cut originally released in 1992, the reason for this is that I have yet to see both the Original Cut or Final Cut.

Ridley Scott’s 1982(Original Cut) Sci-Fi masterpiece was released to average reviews, with some critics critising the pace, Sheila Benson of the LA Times refered to it as “Blade Crawler”. But with the release of the Directors Cut (1992), Blade Runner received considerably more positive reviews, and catapulted the film from being a cult film, up to a true classic.

Blade Runner’s main plot is fairly simple, it follows Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) as he searches for five replicants (Androids, who look just like humans), after one of them killed another Blade Runner (The title for people who chase Replicants) during an interview. Deckard is then brought back , or forced back by his superior to  find these replicants and retire them, another of saying killing them.

Structure as far as Blade Runner goes is similar to the classic Three Act Structure, and without giving away major plot points they do come at the right time to keep the pace of the narrative moving. Despite some criticisms of it being slow, I personally find this to be inaccurate as not once did it feel as though the film was lagging or struggling to carry on. In fact the last 45 minutes of Blade Runner are very quick as the story begins to reach it’s memorable climax.

The whole story is told almost exclusively from the point of Rick Deckard, as is the style of film noir’s, which is essentially what Blade Runner is. Deckard plays the part of the detective perfectly, living alone concentrating on his work, whilst also having the classic brash and to the point personality that is synonimus with noir detectives.

Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer) is the films antagonist, if he was to be classified. However, in the second half of the film, Batty’s apparent obviousness as an antagonist starts to fail, as we realise that all he wants is to live beyond his predetermined four year life span, that all of his model of replicants have. So is his desire to live a “bad” thing, or is it just in the way that he is going about seeking out a longer length of time to live.

Blade Runners weaknesses, are that some viewers may find it to be slow, although crawling is undoubtedly harsh. Also, the conclusion and the paper unicron has left a number of people confused over whether Deckard could possibly by a Replicant also, maybe so much a weakness, but a big piece of the plot left open.

Score: *****(5/5)