The original Total Recall (1990) is definitely a classic but this movie goes in a different direction entirely. No one goes to Mars in this version. There’s still the main plot of “is he really a special agent or was it an implanted memory” but otherwise there’s very little overlap between the two.
I personally enjoyed this remake, but mostly because the first half is straight-up cyberpunk. The rich live in Europe while the poor live in Australia and have to commute via an elevator that goes through the middle of the planet. So the first half of the movie has great high-tech low-life visuals but then by the second half of the movie it’s just a straight-up action flick where most of the remaining runtime is spent on that elevator. So it’s not that the movie is “bad” in my opinion but it does turn into a mindless action movie.
The original Total Recall (1990) is definitely a classic but this movie goes in a different direction entirely. No one goes to Mars in this version. There’s still the main plot of “is he really a special agent or was it an implanted memory” but otherwise there’s very little overlap between the two.
I personally enjoyed this remake, but mostly because the first half is straight-up cyberpunk. The rich live in Europe while the poor live in Australia and have to commute via an elevator that goes through the middle of the planet. So the first half of the movie has great high-tech low-life visuals but then by the second half of the movie it’s just a straight-up action flick where most of the remaining runtime is spent on that elevator. So it’s not that the movie is “bad” in my opinion but it does turn into a mindless action movie.