I’ve been meaning to rant about this for a while, but I was too busy living out my dreams on Mars, and my fists have been too tightly clenched in fury to hit the keys accurately enough to make words. Not that this sort of handicap presents a problem to a lot of the talentless titbrains hammering out their vomitorious face-kicking garbage down in Movieland.
VAPID ASSBUCKET PRODUCES TURDGUZZLING EYEWASTERS
A rat infested mechanical bird whispers in my shell-like ear that Len Wiseman is to direct a remake (or “contemporized adaptation” according to the press release) of Paul Verhoven’s gloriously lurid and over the top pulp sci-fi classic Total Recall (7.8/10), or perhaps even returning to the original source, Philip K Dick’s short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. What “contemporized adaptation” means is anyone’s guess, but the fact that Len Wiseman’s name is attached to the project suggests to me that it’s a synonym for “totally unimaginatively ham-fisted derivative waste of time for pricklets” or something similar. After all, this is the vapid assbucket that gave us such turdguzzling eye wasters as the execrable Underworld, the excretory-flavoured classic Underworld: Evolution, and the turgid, seemingly unending, exploding dross-like masochism of Die Hard 4.0 (or Live Free or Die Hard if you prefer the even worse title and need putting out of your misery at the earliest opportunity). Quite why this Wiseman individual is still allowed to make movies is perhaps a matter to rant about on another day, but why he has been allowed anywhere near a remake of Total Recall is beyond anyone with reason’s comprehension. Fine, by all means do a remake (although I’m 99% sure it would be unwatchable tossvomit), but surely they can find a more suitable/talented director than this? You could throw a dart into an oil-slick devastated trough of seawater and find a better choice rotting in the sediment.
TYPICALLY NEBULOUS
In the press release there is a typically nebulous statement from Wiseman, “I’ve always been fascinated with Philip K. Dick’s short story, and I’m excited at the prospect of diving even deeper into the type of world it evokes and the questions it asks. I love that the most crucial mystery our character is trying to solve is the one of his own soul.” Yeah, me too, Len. Yep- that’s a pseudo deep statement that demonstrates only that someone’s given him a two minute briefing on what to say, and that the movie is based on a printed text he almost certainly hasn’t read. We all know that really he’s itching for some vapid bullet time action and some sub Michael Bay clanking explosions. No doubt this sort of quote is supposed to alleviate our doubts that he is the right man for the job. Instead what it does is hammer home the fact that this is a clueless twat-peddler with all the depth and insight of a mid-teen poet and all the wit of an Adam Sandler cast off.
WASH YOUR EYES OUT WITH SOAP AND HELL
To add insult to injury, they’ve hired Kurt Wimmer to write the script. Although with this doofus involved it’s probably just going to be a few muddled squiggles written on the back of a toss-stained fag packet, with a side order of dead-eyed machismo punch pus. You may know Wimmer (although you’d have more credibility if you didn’t) as the genius scribe who penned such luminously lobotomised works as Equilibrium, Ultraviolet, and the testosterone pumped, braindead violence carnival and lifestyle affirmation movie for imbecilic thugs/thieves/wife beaters/rapists/idiots we know as Law Abiding Citizen. He also managed to learn enough letters to write current idiot-friendly guns/girls/explosions favourite Salt with Angelina Jolie playing some twat trapped in a tediously deadly world of prickishly unlikely idiocy and no doubt being plagued by exploding cars and whatnot. I haven’t bothered to confront the boring genius of Salt until now, but that’s down primarily to the fact that it’s not worth mine, yours, or anyone else’s time. It pours salt into the wounds already given us by a million lacklustre waste of time movies. Don’t go and see it. And if you have done then go wash your eyes out with salt and soap and hell.
LURID BRAINMELTING SMASHFEST
Anyway, with Wiseman going on about how much he loves the Dick short story (which I’m sure he hasn’t read) then maybe we are to expect that this remake will be a totally different beast than the lurid brainmelting smashfest of Verhoven’s vision, which feels like being agreeably punched in the head whilst copulating wildly with your favourite hooker and riding a rollercoaster with a brain full of speed. In other words, it’s a deliriously pleasurably dumb experience, with odd moments of thought-gathering intelligence (for an Arnold movie). Since Dick’s book is a far more cerebral and slow-paced proposition, with a totally different ending, perhaps Wiseman will go a different route. I’d prefer that route to involve quitting the project and marching straight into development hell without passing go though.
Dubiously, the studio bigwigs also say in their press release that ‘Len is terrifically talented and we know he is the right director’ blah blah blah, which either means they are totally deludedly insane or else have totally misunderstood the meaning of the phrase ‘terrifically talented.’
DREAMS BECOME NIGHTMARES
The popularity of the Verhoven Total Recall, which by the way is still fresh and vital enough to succeed even twenty years later and doesn’t need remaking/replacing, spawned a short-lived Canadian TV show in the 1990s that was axed pretty swiftly but was enjoyably daft and interesting at the same time (http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall_2070). It’s tricky to track down online, but there are a few sites that will stream you episodes and there are a few clips on Youtube that will give you a feel for it if you so desire. It was more similar in tone to the revived Outer Limits show of about the same time, and I think it’s a good bet that if Wiseman’s version sees the light of day it will be more in keeping with this TV series than the Verhoven movie we know and love. That could be no bad thing in itself, as we don’t just want a retread, but I only hope that they drop Len Wiseman and his equally untalented writer and find someone capable of delivering us a decently interesting and idiosyncratic movie that isn’t constructed from a dumbo paint by numbers movie kit.
I’ve had enough painful pokes in the eye at the cinema recently. The last thing I need is any more.
Please, let’s live out our dreams on Mars- not our nightmares.
Identity Crisis Related Regards
Biolab
Pablum from the (bio)Lablum 