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Have you seen Don McKellar?

Full-length trailer for 'Total Recall' reboot finally arrives

It’s finally here: after plenty of chatter and a short teaser trailer, we finally have a full-length trailer for the new ‘Total Recall’ reboot. Starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, and Jessica Biel, the movie comes a full twenty-two years after Arnold Schwarzenegger first ventured into the world of manufactured memories.

Now, Farrell is stepping into his shoes, playing Douglas Quaid, a mild-mannered factory worker who begins to suspect that his violent nightmares might hint at a past that has been erased from his memory. Suddenly, nothing is as it seems: his wife, Lori (Beckinsale), isn’t really his wife; there’s a young woman (Biel) trying to find him before unknown enemies do; and he apparently has great hand-to-hand combat skills.

The trailer looks great—the original film won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, so this remake has a lot to live up to in that department, and it succeeds. The CGI doesn’t disappoint, the flying cars look fantastic, and the fight scene inside the Rekall center gives us a taste of the stylized action we can expect throughout the film.

While this version of ‘Total Recall’ is being billed as a remake, it’s actually not as closely aligned with the 1990 film as it is with the 1966 novelette that inspired both movies: Philip K. Dick’s ‘We Can Remember It For You Wholesale’. Like that story, this remake of ‘Total Recall’ has darker political undertones; in the script, which takes place in the dystopian future of 2084, the world has been divided into two battling countries: Euroamerica (North America and the European Union) and New Shanghai (China and South East Asia). Farrell’s character believes he is a spy for one side—though he isn’t sure which—and that his repressed memories hold vital information, though what that information is, he hasn’t a clue.

Also starring in the film are Bryan Cranston as the President Vilos Cohaagen, John Cho as the Rekall hotshot McClane; and Bill Nighy as the rebel leader Kuato. Len Wiseman (‘Underworld’) will direct; the script was penned by Mark Bomback (‘Unstoppable’), James Vanderbilt (‘The Losers’), and Kurt Wimmer (‘Salt’). With an estimated budget of $200 million, Original Film and Columbia Pictures must be hoping this remake finds traction with audiences so it doesn’t wind up in the ranks of ‘John Carter’–another sci-fi epic that cost a ton and wound up flopping at the box office.

‘Total Recall’ is slated for release on August 3, 2012.

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