By Kate Rodger
The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Total Recall has had a total re-make, this time with Irish bad boy Colin Farrell in Arnie's shoes.
They're big shoes to fill. The original has many fans, and Farrell was more than aware of that pressure when he signed up.
We don't need to be rocket scientists to note that special effects have come a long way in 20 years – all we need to do is a total recall on the original, and compare it with the new one.
Schwarzenegger and his cheesy one-liners have had a 2012 make-over, and this time Farrell is the man with memory issues.
But why was the film ripe for remaking?
"I loved the original," says Farrell. "As the much of the first one has a sense of its own irony, and it was kind of tongue in cheek, it was violent, and the themes it explored were fairly weighty as well. But this one tonally feels straighter."
Total Recall is a futuristic sci-fi tale based on a Philip K Dick short story. Farrell's character gets a bit of a memory re-boot and realises, in the words of the Talking Heads, "This is not my beautiful house .. And this is not my beautiful wife."
He's suddenly on the run from pretty much everyone, including his wife, and pretty much everyone wants him dead – including his wife.
She's played by Brit actress Kate Beckinsale, who along with her co-star was happy to lose the '90s cheese with their remake.
"It's still a fun ride and very exciting, but tonally, it doesn't have the same 1990s tone that the original one does," she says.
And with the far more advanced technological toolbox on offer, this big screen green screen outing certainly looks the part, preparing to lodge itself into audiences memories from this week.
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