Total Recall

Next another science fiction film which like Prometheus is set in the future, five years earlier 100 years after 1984, a date chosen by design. Total Recall with Colin Farrell Kate Beckinsale and Bill Nighy is remake of the 1990 film with starred Arni, and Sharon Stone in which Schwarzenegger commutes between Earth and Mars,

In the latest version the earth world has been devastated by global war leaving only two habitable areas Britain which appears to be a thriving contemporary society of the wealthy and centre of government and the Colony based on Australia and the two are connected not by flight through air and space but a rocket type of cylinder travel through the core of the earth, One of the commuting factory workers between “worlds” learns of an enterprise capable of give you memory implants which give you a different and sought after identity, and in this this instance that of secret agent.

The programme only works if the character provides an honest account of themselves and background but in this instance the programme is stopped because it identifies that the subject was in fact a former spy who had been given a government version of the programme to provide his present identity as a factory worker.

The government alerted by the programme’s operation send forces to eliminate all those connected to the programme provider in addition tot he subject and when the worker escapes and returns to his wife, she immediately tried to kill him.

He learns that she is not wife but a government agent living with him since his memory change only six weeks before. Who is he and why must he now be killed? Especially as the woman he believed to be his wife now leads to manhunt to capture and kill him.

He discovers he had a telephone link embedded in his hand which leads him to discover a recorded message about himself and the apartment he owned. He removes the telephone to avoid being traced. He is helped to get to his apart where he finds he can play the piano and this leads to another recorded message about his true identity ? He was a lading agent working for the deputy leader of the state control who defects the resistance group seeking independence for the Australian colony. His capture led to the memory transfer but not his death, moreover he remembers a plot to invade the colony with robotic police troops to clear areas of people to provide more living space for the free people of Britain state. There is a way to stop the invasion but he needs the help of the resistance leader played by Bill Nighy. However the astute watchers will know that given the basic premise of the film it is impossible to establish what is true and what has been implanted.

There is then a convoluted series of incidents about who is good who is bad who is friend and who is foe and what is implanted memory and what has been real and remains real. There is confusion between dream, memory, fantasy and for one remain confused about the conclusion to the story except that he and his woman friend appear to survive, the invasion if it was ever taking place appears to be stopped and some of those who appear baddies are killed. The film is played straight with intended political, social and philosophical questioning above my pay grade, as they say.