Reviews

I will admit I had unreasonable expectations, having started the books when 6 were still unwritten, and rereading the series before each release. But this is absolute trash.

From scenes that look cheap and fake, right after great looking CGI scenery and backdrops, to the awful cookie cutter soundtrack getting some tribal drums going during Egwene's Women's Circle ceremony, to the opening scene ripping pages out of later books as some Reds chase down 2 Californians in manbuns, to Rand getting all up in there the moment he speaks to Egwene, to Lan getting in a hot tub with Moraine and giving a piggish smile after complaining it's not hot enough, and she uses some distant sparkly bell magic inspired by teeny bopper cooking magic shows to warm him up.....

Really, it's bad. It's not just a horrible adaptation, but it's really not an adaptation at all, and just a bad show with some things stolen from the books. It could definitely get better, but this level of storytelling and scripting is infantile. They are just throwing in sex/nudity to keep people watching. I just can't even.

First, I enjoyed this flick. I love sci-fi, and this delivered. Visually it's good, the action is good, the plot is even decent, but where did it go wrong? I'm not sure what was at fault; the directing, the screen writing, who knows. But at some point, you hear the "he wants to see him alone" line and you just lose all hope. The story was never fleshed out, the characters were never fleshed out, and in turn it cheapened the visuals, the endless robot army, the occasionally-incredibly-cliché lines. It felt much like an Underworld flick, but instead of having vampires and werewolves to fall in love with, we're left with bad humans, good humans, and the central theme of the story; a guy who's lost. Regardless of how many times it's been done, I still think it's possible to do it.

This reminds me of a recent woody allen film, which my brother described as "the most entertaining terrible film ever." That's sort of how I feel about Total Recall, though it's not terrible. There's so much going for it. Colin Farrell really does about the best job he could possibly do, Kate Beckinsale is about the greatest female villain ever, Jessica Biel gives an incredible performance, I really respect how understated she played the role. But it seems like the director/writers decided to make a film with very little time devoted to plot, but do everything you can do with that little time. The problem is that none of it was done well; none of the characters were fleshed out, the story was actually probably explained too much, certain points were hammered home over and over, then the juicy things never got explained.

Such a shame, it could have been so much better, and I wish I could say with just a few changes, but in reality, almost the whole concept of the movie was doomed to summer action flick status. That's not horrible, but my mind just couldn't accept this reality. There were too many cliché lines, a scene with at least 50 bad guys with automatics unloading on 2 people 50 feet away (spoiler:!!! they all missed), no way to feel for any of the characters, and anytime we finally arrived anywhere, feeling that a situation had some sort of gravity, we were promptly whisked away meaninglessly.

Ladies can stop reading. On a lighter note, I feel compelled to say that both Kate and Jessica (yeah we're totally on a first name basis) have my deep and abiding love. They were so incredibly hot. I went with 2 expectations; to see Kate Beckinsale, and to see Jessica Biel. Both were very fulfilled, so for me, great success.

Anyways to close it out, it's worth seeing if you have the time, not if you'd have to make the time. Good film, but the worst part is knowing what could have been.