Total Recall (2012)

In 7 words or less: Sci-fi Colin does sci-fi Arnie

What's it all About? Set in the future where there are scant few habitable locations, The United Federation of Britain is fighting constant battles with a resistance movement intent on bringing the corrupt corporation to it's knees. Enter Doug Quaid, a factory worker who unlocks hidden knowledge on a visit to memory implant centre.

Best bits? This film looks great. Very nice futuristic feel and some quality special effects. 

Did it make you think thoughts? Sure did. I expected to hate this. A tacky remake with the annoying Colin Farrell and no doubt rubbish special effects and plotting. To my surprise none of that was the case. It rattles along at a good pace with well choreographed fight scenes, a functional script and exciting action pieces.

This doesn't happen

Some might say it's pretty much a direct 'copy' of the original 1990 Arnie flick but that's not a bad thing. Yes, a lot of the scenes are the same and at first I was thinking, 'Man, this is just another one of those pointless remakes of ye olde classics' but after a while I got right into it. Good stuff.

This does

There's a nice bit of eye candy as well in the shapely forms of Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale which never hurts.

Women driver, look out!

Would you watch it again? Yeah I really liked it.

Rating (out of 100%): Miles better than Looper, this is definitely worth a watch. I give Total Recall a stuck-in-the-memory 75%

Looper (2012)

In 7 words or less: Need someone offed? Use time travel

What's it all About? Crims in the future use illegal time travel to send people into the past to have them disposed of by 'loopers'. Joe (Levitt) is one such looper who freaks out when his future self appears before him ready for execution.

Levitt doing his best Bruce imperssion

Best bits? Jeff Daniels is good in his all-too-brief screen time

And again....what a jawline

Did it make you think thoughts? Wow, sure did. How can so many reviews be so wrong? Everywhere I look I see high praise flinging reviews. Everyone I know who's seen it says 'this film is amazing'. The one residing factor I can take away from this is that my belief that the public cannot be trusted has been confirmed. 

Here's another one

I knew I was onto a loser in the first 20 seconds when the lead character explains that future criminals need to use time travel to dispose of dead bodies. Wait a minute, huge criminal empires can't dispose of bodies? What kind of joke outfits are they running? Also, if they persist in this time travel looping nonsense why not either kill the person before they send them back in time to avoid the 'oh no he's run away' dilemma or even better why not just send them back to the Jurassic era and have a T-Rex munch them up. 

One more

Aside from Jeff Daniels, the one tiny bright spot is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt does an ok job in the acting department but why oh why did the makers decide to add those facial prosthetics to make him look like a young Brucie. He looked awful and it really put me off. Add in the fact that his character is wildly unlikeable and we're left with an odd choice of 'hero'. 

Oh yeah, Bruce seems to feel, physically, anything that happens to Joey but how come when Joe falls 50ft out of a top floor window onto a car, Bruce is absolutely fine? Hhhmm.

Other notable flat spots. The middle section is flabby, the end unsatisfying and the 'kid' part of the plot terrible.

Here's Bruce to show us how it's done

Would you watch it again? Nope

Rating (out of 100%): A message for film makers everywhere. Unless you have the words Back to the Future in your title, don't bother including time travel. I give Looper a dismal 25%