Like a novelty cover band, Wiseman’s "Total Recall" [goes] through a checklist of "things you have to do if you do a 'Total Re...
It’s big and it’s loud, but ultimately not much more than that.
Shockya.com August 4, 2012 Warning: Excessive use of lens flares may cause confusion, frustration, facial distortion, distraction from story, and tarnishing of what could hav...
Rolling Stone August 2, 2012 The Total Recall reboot is a futuristic fiasco, two hours you’ll never get back – and every minute is a bad memory.
CinemaBlend August 2, 2012 Farrell is a bland presence at the center of a surprisingly bland movie.
Its only evident passion is for excessive lens flares.
Yes, there is a triple-breasted hooker in Len Wiseman’s Total Recall remake.
The effects look great, but is that even worth noting when smart high-schoolers can make monsters on their laptops? What movie’s effects don...
"Total Recall" is a doggone good time, with a bunch of nifty technical and visual flourishes, competently managed plot twists and el...
Director Len Wiseman is good on action, and Patrick Tatopoulus’s dystopic production design is within hailing distance of Blade Runner, his c...
Recalls Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Christopher Nolan’s Inception, without, sadly being quite as distinctive as either.
Slant Magazine August 1, 2012 Len Wiseman’s Total Recall’s a trifling mess, as superfluous as a third breast.
Wiseman’s film dispenses with the pop-culture-laden irony in favor of blazingly fast action and a disorienting editing style that – more...
Financial Times August 30, 2012 People got up, left and returned, casually, without urgency or guilt, as though passing the time between trains: it clearly did not remotely thrill...
RogerEbert.com August 2, 2012 "Total Recall" is well-crafted, high energy sci-fi. Like all stories inspired by Philip K. Dick, it deals with intriguing ideas. It never...
The Atlantic August 3, 2012 I was no particular fan of the first Total Recall, but I confess that this flat, by-the-numbers remake made me a tad nostalgic for its bo...
'Total Recall' is Hollywood at its worst: pointless, witless, and so very unnecessary.
Questions, questions nip at Len Wiseman’s Total Recall like so many rats at the feet of a sleeping hobo. The big Why is Why bother?
Director Len Wiseman is good on action, and Patrick Tatopoulus’s dystopic production design is within hailing distance of Blade Runner, his c...
There’s something sadly poetic about a movie dealing with disappearing memories that vanishes from your mind while you watch it.
askmen.com August 3, 2012 Buried in the plot are Dick-ian themes of class mobility, where new memories offer an alternative past and a whole other identity. But Wiseman...
Casting and visuals are an upgrade, but we get far too many action sequences and not enough of the mind games.
The fun is fun while it lasts, it just doesn’t last long enough.
New York Post August 3, 2012 I kept thinking: "Yes, that was surprising to me in 1990."
The physical glory goes to Beckinsale and Biel who slug it out ferociously. The only problem is that in the clinches it’s difficult to tell t...
A sci-fi adventure that first seems rather harmless and mediocre until one realizes that it completely fails one of the most important tests of&nbs...
We used to do the future so much better. Let’s not forget that. Let’s forget this instead.
After a rousing setup, this visually striking remake falls back much too heavily on its action roots, with one chase scene after another and a...
Just another dumb, needless remake to add to the pile.
Reel Talk Online September 8, 2017 There are so many opportunities to make a remake better, but this film didn’t attempt none of them.
The new Total Recall is a series of set pieces whose CGI environments trump narrative logic.
Daily Telegraph August 29, 2012 It’s escapism that is itself trapped in a prison of risk-phobic, formulaic filmmaking.
ScreenCrush August 2, 2012 Wisemen is totally uninterested in the very thing that makes Total Recall interesting.
Slicked-up and dumbed-down
Boston.com August 2, 2012 In the end, here’s the worst sin of this slick, high-octane memory play: It’s forgettable.
Strip away the video-game visual effects, the endless chases and zero gravity shootouts, and Total Recall comes down to this: What is reality?
MSN Movies August 2, 2012 Wiseman directs his film as if it’s a shark… But really, it’s more of a carp, shiny and pretty but fat and dopey, fed on noth...
Engaging enough, although not entirely satisfying from either a genre or narrative standpoint, lacking both substance and a degree of ima...
Globe and Mail August 3, 2012 Today’s Total Recall does nothing to tarnish the image of yesterday’s - 22 years from now, I expect it to be hailed as a...
"Total Recall" is a toned-down, smoothed-out version of an amped-up, bug-eyed classic.
One of the great advantages of remaking a movie is being given the opportunity to correct problems – something not attempted here.
Chicago Reader August 2, 2012 The new version, with its humorless dialogue and Farrell’s smoldering performance, suffers from a self-seriousness that undercuts any ge...
Wiseman’s style is superficially grittier, reliant on desaturated colours, whip pans and lens flare. Yet the film’s dystopian setting i...