Letterboxd — Your life in film

First of all: I still haven’t seen the first movie version of Total Recall.
But I have to say … I’m not a big fan of the now glorified crappy 80s and early 90s movies as I think a lot of people confuse a cult film for a good film …
So I will focus again on this movie only and what I like and dislike exactly in this version.

What I like:
- The overall story
Even without the who-is-who-realty-stuff it’s an interesting SciFi story.
- The acting of Colin Farrell
- No shahahahahakecam
A rare good in action films from the last years. In fact: I think we have some really good camera work in this one.
- I freakin’ love the design if the future like it’s presented here.

What I dislike:
- After an incredible start the story slows down despite it’s non-stop action. I felt like there could be more character development during this periods.
- The acting of Jessica Biel. She is cute … but could be a little more … acting.

What came in my mind rewatching this:
When I first saw it I thought there isn’t enough „is this real?” guessing. But here is my point: The character accepts at one point that this is real. The viewer still sees the possibility that this is just fiction for our main character (also there is a little hint in the Directors Cut). This possibility just isn’t thrown at us all the time as it would be in other Hollywood movies.

Overall … it’s not as good as it could be. But I enjoyed it the first time and I did the second time.

I didn’t really know what to expect from this movie since most people just talked about a certain bodypart which was shown quite often.
So … yeah I’ll skip that.

For me the atmosphere of this movie is almost magical. We don’t really know much about our characters and there are a lot of quiet moments. The use of music always has a meaning.
And I think it’s amazing to notice that a lot of scenes consist of only one cut. Also the acting is just fascinating.

Really great piece of work.

Considered that it’s a very low budget film it’s quite good. It’s nice to see how much effort the makers put into this.
The story is interesting and keeps entertained though it never reached the level of suspense of comparable projects like MarbleHornets or TribeTwelve.
If you are into the Slender Man mythos this movie is worth a look, but it’s not a must-see.

The atmosphere and the ending were the really good aspects of the movie. The overall setting is really cool and it’s a different kind of haunted building. A huge plus is that nothing is really explained. I liked that.

But I have two major problems with it:
First: Where was any character development? I felt that Jack was on the edge of insanity from the very first minute of the movie so … yeah … no big surprise. And that’s something I usually get in a Kubrick movie (at least in those I have seen so far): Surprise. Development. Something really unusual.

Second: There is no really character to identify with. Normally I wouldn’t need this. An action movie or a crime noir is just fine without it. But … in MY opinion a horror movie needs such a character where you are afraid, something could happen. And what do we get? The wife … which is nothing more than an empty standard character. We know nothing about her and I didn’t care at all. The child? As mad as his father.

Yeah, I’m complaining a little bit too much. But it bothers me that everyone today says this is a great („best horror film“ bla bla) movie. And I don’t see this. And when the movie came out it got a lot of bad criticism I can absolutely understand.
I know horror is something very special. A lot of the enjoyment comes from wether it’s something you are afraid of or not. And the horror here simply doesn’t work for me.

What I think is good, MAYBE very good, about this is that it’s a very basic story (like everything from King I know) with an unusual and outstanding presentation.
And hey … it’s at least the best movie version of a Kings book I have seen so far. That’s … something … i guess.