The hackery in Hollywood is reaching critical levels. This time they’re remaking Total Recall with Colin Farrell.
Yes, that’s right. According to Collider.com, the Guinness swilling Irish actor will be playing the same role Arnold Schwarzenegger played in 1990. Len Wiseman is as on board as the director.
So they’re remaking one of the best sci-fi films of all time with the director responsible for the terrible Underworld series and the PG-13 death of the Die Hard series. I don’t think it will be Colin Farrell’s fault if this film sucks.
I used to hate Farrell. I thought he was another Hollywood pretty boy known more for his rebellious public persona than his acting ability, like Sean Penn. He really changed my mind
when I watched him in the independent drama, Triage.
He showed he can be really good when he’s not asked to participate in typical Hollywood schlock films. He played an emotionally wounded man in that film and I forgot it was the handsome star and believed he was a shell-shocked photo journalist.
It is Len Wiseman who I think will ruin this movie because he’s already brought us so much mediocre crap from a creative standpoint that it seems impossible that he’ll get it together and make a better film than the original. I don’t even expect anything decent.
I don’t begrudge people for trying to make a s***load of money before they die, but I don’t much respect artists who don’t fight for the integrity of their work. The terrible PG-13 Die Hard in name only movie he made is basically an unforgiveable sin in my eyes.
You get there ready to work as the primary creative force on a kick ass action flick and then the suits tell you that you have to neuter John McClane to appeal to their target audience which is much younger than the target audiences from the original films.
The powers that be wanted him to tone down John, freaking McClane, the best, most profane, American action hero ever, just to help Arby’s sling some nasty ass sandwiches, and he agreed? No shame, eh?
I can’t imagine he needed the money that badly, some people are just in it for the money, and that’s ok. It does make me think that he is a hack and that hacks don’t care about being hacks because they make a lot of money cutting and pasting clichés on their way to glory.
I think his reimagined take on a movie that doesn’t even need to be remade is going to stink up the joint. A studio took a big budget gamble on him already and sure it made money, but people will go see a movie just because the marking blitz gets to them, it doesn’t mean that the movie is good. Live Free or Die Hard was a bad movie and they actually turned a profit.
Len Wiseman will never be as cool as the original director of Total Recall, Paul Verhoeven, the same guy who brought us my favorite 80’s movie, Robocop. Sure most of the movies Verhoeven has made are cheesefests, but he has shown way more creativity than Wiseman has.
I don’t see how the movie tycoons can justify the ever-increasing prices of their tickets when they’ve run out of ideas and are now obviously mining the dumpster at their local out of business Blockbuster for remakes to cash in on.
