Wednesday, August 8, 2012

No More Bad Remakes!

It's official the 'Total Recall' remake has officially flopped. The film cost $125 million to make and only took in $26 million in it's opening weekend. As you know, it only goes down hill from there. Before you know it 'Total Recall' will be coming to a $1.50 theater near you.
I typically don't care how much movies make, but it gives me some satisfaction when a bad remake fails. Most (not all) remakes are not about reinventing or perfecting the film. Most remakes are about making money--at the expense of the art form. Thus, I believe the more remakes that go down in flames, the better off the audience will be.

The same 'thing' happened last year with the remake of John Carpenter's 'The Thing.' Like 'Total Recall,' 'The Thing' remake was badly written, poorly done, added nothing to the franchise, and was an overall 'hot mess.' Mind you Carpenter's 'The Thing' was itself a remake based on 1951's 'The Thing From Another World.' But 2011's 'The Thing' was so bad I wanted to wash my eyes out. 'Total Recall' comes close. Were it not for Kate Beckinsale, this film would have been unwatchable.

Despite the casting of the lovely Kate Beckinsale, the 'Total Recall' remake was off to a shaky start. The writers took out Mars, they took out Kuato, and they cast remake king, icky Colin Farrell. I wrote earlier this year that removing mars from 'Total Recall' was a mistake. I guess I was right. Does Total Recall's failure really surprise anyone? 

Save yourself the trouble and watch the original. Arnold Schwarzenegger may have personal issues, but he was a lot of fun to watch in the original film. Colin IS NOT.

3 comments:

  1. Don't worry, I won't go see it. Although with Kate in it, I will watch on NetFlix.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Kate is really the best thing in it. She's the only reason to watch.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You make your point very eloquently and I agree. Save for me The Things was a remake of The Thing From Another World 1951-one of my favourite films of all time-they don't make 'em like that anymore!

    ReplyDelete

Comments are now moderated because of spammers. If you post a comment with a spammy link in it, it will be deleted. There's no point to post your backlinks here. Try to build your backlinks the right way.

For everyone else--please feel free to leave your comments. I respond to each and every one of them, even when people disagree with me! If I happen to miss one, send me a tweet at @aspaceblogyssey. Please note this blog does not receive anonymous comments. You have to be registered with a service to comment here (i.e. Google, Wordpress, or OpenID). Also, I reserve the right to delete your comment if you troll me. I have no problem with someone who disagrees with me, but trolling comments will be deleted without response. No trolls will be fed here.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...