“You’re going to to wish you had three hands.”

A remake of the highest unimportance, Total Recall returns us to the desecrated world first introduced by Paul Verhoeven in 1990. Hollywood continues to carry the mindset that recycled ideas are the way to go, and thanks to audiences (see: me), these tiring endeavors will continue to be made.

Colin Farrell is Douglas Quaid–substituting for Arnold Schwarzenegger–a lowly factory worker, building synthetic police officers. Thanks to some expository pre-film text, we’re told Earth has been decimated by a global chemical war. Two superpowers have emerged: the United Federation of Britain (UFB), and the less shiny moniker, The Colony (formerly Australia). Recall attempts to place a sense of ecomonic inequality between the two civilizations, but many times, the UFB looks just as shitty, and people are just as unhappy. Quaid lives in The Colony with his wife, Lori (Kate Beckinsale), and commutes on “The Fall”, a colossal elevator that travels through the ground, yup, right past the Earth’s core*, to get to work each morning.

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“You were given a Ferrari, and you people treated it like a lawnmower.”

Aaron Cross is Jason Bourne 2.0. Another C.I.A. black-ops agent, a member of Operation: Outcome. Similar to Bourne’s former club, Treadstone, Outcome seems pretty cruel. They’ve sent Cross out to Alaska to train, or perhaps it’s a mission. It’s never really explained. He swims in sub-zero temperature water, then fights off some wolves, before trekking across some mountains. Eventually, he makes his way to a cabin deep into the wilderness where he runs into Number Three, a nameless agent played by Oscar Isaac. Discourse ensues, each trying to discern the other’s identity and assignment. Agents are pretty mysterious.

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“No one cared who I was until I put on the mask.”

Batman is a thing of the past, retired 8-years since we last saw him fleeing from the Gotham PD. He was erroneously pinned for the death of Harvey Dent/Two-Face, doing so to keep the reputation of the fallen district attorney alive. Since Batman’s departure the ‘Dent Act’ has been established, essentially keeping criminals locked behind bars without the chance of parole. Mayor Garcia (Nestor Carbonell) announces that crime numbers have never been lower. Only Commissioner James Gordon knows the falsity behind Dent’s legacy. The film begins at Wayne Manor with Gordon commemorating Harvey Dent on the anniversary of his death. He holds a speech in his hand that would unveil the truth to the gathered audience. His guilt paralyzes and the words escape him once again, back in the coat pocket they reside.

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