The 'Total Recall' Remake Trailer Has No Sense of Humor

The new Total Recall remake has an eagerly anticipated trailer, and it shows that this new version has absolutely zero sense of humor:

If you'll remember correctly, the 1990 original film version did. Just compare the above trailer's fight scenes between Colin Farrell and Kate Beckinsale to the 1990's fight between Sharon Stone and Arnold Shwarzenegger; same characters, completely different enjoyment level (that being, the old version is way more enjoyable). By the way, I can't embed that clip from the old film because Lionsgate seems to have gone around disabling all embedding of the old film's trailer and clips on Youtube. We wouldn't want people comparing, afterall.

It seems like the original source material, the short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale by paranoid, drug-addicted, incredibly witty and sarcastic science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick, was tossed aside for a very expensive, cheap action film. It's like the producers had a meeting in which they said, "Make it more expensive, slicker, more action-y, with lots of camera swirls. The dumb kids these days like that kind of thing. Spend millions more than you have to, also, so that the end result is insultingly slick and over-computerized. Rely less on characters and more on moment-to-moment action sequences."

I can only assume they meant the characters to have less personality than those in the original film because two of the main characters, Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale, have almost no personality, onscreen or offscreen.

Colin Farrell is a beacon of hope, as are Bryan Cranston and John Cho: they're capable of great things when it comes to creating charismatic characters. And this story offers everyone in it some great opportunities to create those kinds of characters, only...it doesn't look like director Len Wiseman (who, as you remember, directed two of those miserable Underworld sequels and practically nothing else) (and, who is clearly responsible for putting Beckinsale, his wife, in this film) bothered with characters when he had guns and computer graphics to worry about.

There's plenty of Underworld-style action and lots of slick leather and fight sequences, but this trailer provides little to make me interested. I will miss the darkly comedic feel of the 1990 original, which stayed true to the darkly comedic style of the original story. All of Dick's stories were about humans feeling displaced in an oppressive, crowded, alienating future; not about how cool action sequences can be with the right amount of millions behind the camera.

I, of course, will reserve judgment until seeing the entire film, but as far as judging the trailer? Judged and sentenced to solitary confinement until release of the film in theaters.

Well, at least Colin Farrell seems to have his short off for a bit; that's promising.