Line #54 Film/TotalRecall2012


1	[[quoteright:292:[[DesignStudentsOrgasm https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/TotalRecall2012Poster_9153.jpg]]]]
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3	A remake of ''Film/TotalRecall1990'', loosely based on Creator/PhilipKDick's short story "Literature/WeCanRememberItForYouWholesale", starring Creator/ColinFarrell, Creator/KateBeckinsale, Creator/JessicaBiel, Creator/BryanCranston, Creator/BokeemWoodbine, Creator/BillNighy, and Creator/JohnCho.
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5	Douglas "Doug" Quaid (Farrell) is a factory worker suffering from violent nightmares who is deeply unsatisfied with his current life. As a solution, he visits a corporation called Rekall, which can implant artificial memories of a life he never lived. The procedure triggers what he believes are latent skills and memories from a life that was erased, leaving him unsure who he is and what side of the conflict he's really on.
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7	The film has less gore and gruesome imagery than [[Film/TotalRecall1990 the original]], but also takes itself more seriously.
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9	----
10	!!''Total Recall'' provides examples of:
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12	* AdaptationalHeroism:
13	** Unlike the original movie, this Hauser truly did turn against Cohaagen.
14	** The resistance is stated to not be responsible for the terrorist attacks here, unlike the rebels in the original who do regularly attack Cohaagen's men.
15	* AdaptedOut: Benny the taxi cab driver is eliminated from this adaptation.
16	* AdvertisedExtra: [[BestKnownForTheFanservice The three-breasted prostitute]] is back, and in one of the trailers, with some AdaptationalAttractiveness thrown in.
17	* AerialCanyonChase: A variant with flying cars and massive skyscrapers.
18	* AfterTheEnd: Following a series of wars, the only parts of the world not rendered a biohazard wasteland are the United Federation of Britain (a chunk of Europe controlled by Britain) and the Colony (Australia).
19	* AmnesiacDissonance: Doug is a factory worker ground down by life. His previous personality? Not so much.
20	* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
21	** "The Fall", a massive elevator that runs through the earth between Europe and Australia, is capable of making said run in just over fifteen minutes (which means a minimum average speed of ~32,000 miles per hour). However, the heroes have no problem breathing, moving, climbing outside the train and fighting on top of it. Even more implausible is the idea that it has been built through the center of the Earth, most of which is liquid/semi-liquid magma and thousands of degrees Celsius. How does one build something that can withstand that kind of temperature and resist being crushed by the entire mass of the Earth? Almost as if to make this even worse, the movie explicitly states in the opening that "The Fall" is the only means possible to travel between Europe and Australia. Somehow it's possible to achieve an engineering miracle like building an elevator through the center of the Earth, but it's become impossible to fly or sail across the Earth (despite the movie showing that traveling and living through these dead zones is still possible).
22	** The Earth has been stated to be mostly uninhabitable due to global chemical warfare. If this were true, then air currents would have inevitably carried these gasses across the habitable zones at some point. Not to mention, chemical weapons degrade at incredibly quick rates, and the idea of these zones being uninhabitable for so long is ludicrous.
23	* ArtisticLicenseGeography:
24	** Mathias' base is apparently located in the "dead-zone" of London, an uninhabitable area made deadly toxic during the wars that no one visits and is only accessible via disused tube tunnels. The problem is that the presence of the Telecom Tower reveals this location to be only about 1.5 miles ''max'' from Big Ben, which is seen to still stand (albeit over-shadowed by massive floating skyscrapers) in the habitable zone.
25	** No part of England or Australia are antipodes of each other.[[note]]The closest antipodes to those landmasses that actually are land on both sides are in Spain and New Zealand.[[/note]] This means a tunnel straight through the Earth from either origin would come out the other side into the ocean floor. But if one wants to suppose the Fall isn't a perfectly straight tunnel, then the only HandWave given as to how the whole thing works is shot.
26	* AsianAndNerdy: The Rekall boss and head technician are Asian. Justified as the place is actually in a Chinese ghetto, complete with [[BilingualBonus signs in Mandarin.]]
27	* ATeamFiring: Semi-averted by the Synth soldiers. With the exception of Cohaagen's custom bodyguard, none of the synthetic soldiers seem to have much in the way of targeting programs and they always miss the heroes. They do shoot at least a half dozen innocent people on accident though.
28	* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: This version of Cohaagen is an ex-military GeneralRipper turned politician, who's not afraid to lead from the front and can actually hold his own rather well in a fight.
29	* BattleCouple: Melina and Quaid form this.
30	* BettyAndVeronica: Lori's the Veronica to Melina's Betty.
31	* BigBad: Chancellor Cohaagen.
32	* {{Bizarrchitecture}}: All the major cities on Earth appear to have been relocated to the two habitable zones left and stacked on top of each other.
33	* BottomlessMagazines: {{Averted}}, for the most part, but played straight with Lori's six-shot revolver.
34	* TheBrute: Cohaagen's black-painted custom Synth bodyguard, who's seen capturing Doug in the opening flashback and the one he fights brutally during the final fight.
35	* BulletproofHumanShield: [[spoiler:In Doug's first fight with the Federal Police, he grabs one of the troopers and holds him as a shield while he shoots the rest of the squad. Justified in that the troopers are wearing body armor]]. Lori utilizes a variation of this trope with her synth detail by hiding behind the very resilient RidiculouslyHumanRobots during firefights.
36	* ChekhovsGun: When Lori [[spoiler:picks up the disguise device.]]
37	* ChekhovsGunman: Expanding his role from the original film, [[spoiler:Hammond (Hauser's old friend who contacts him after his recall) not only tells Quaid where to go get some HiddenSupplies as in the original (where he does so [[WhatHappenedToTheMouse and then disappears]]), but infiltrates the soldiers that stay behind in the Resistance stronghold to restore Hauser's memories [[BigDamnHeroes and saves Quaid]] ([[HeroicSacrifice and gets shot for it]]).]]
38	* ChekhovsSkill:
39	** A fairly neat example in the final fight, [[spoiler:Hauser's elite hand-to-hand combat moves prove utterly useless against Cohaagen's Synth bodyguard. However, Quaid's training as a factory worker allows him to disassemble the Synth's power supply and shut it down.]]
40	** His ability to stay calm and act methodically during a gravity switch due to frequent Fall trips also comes in handy.
41	* TheChessmaster: Cohaagen. [[spoiler:He performs terrorism and blames the Resistance for it, and manages to amass and send an invasion army to the Colony as well as annihilate said Resistance with Quaid acting as an unwilling mole. The whole thing would have gone well except [[SpannerInTheWorks Quaid sneaked into the Fall elevator]] in a RoaringRampageOfRescue.]]
42	* CompositeCharacter:
43	** This version of Lori is a mix between Creator/SharonStone's Lori (ruthless secret agent posing as caring wife), and Creator/MichaelIronside's Richter (AxCrazy ''way'' above and beyond the requirements of the job).
44	** The film's version of Harry also takes the role of Dr. Edgemar by trying to convince Quaid that he's still in Recall.
45	* ContrivedCoincidence: London is a ''huge'' metropolis as it is today. What has become of it in the movie is orders of magnitude larger, yet of all the places Doug and Melina could've dropped off the suspension freeway during the car chase, they happen to do so close enough to [[spoiler:Hauser's]] apartment that he can carry her there no problem.
46	** [[JustifiedTrope Possibly justified]], as a significant portion of London appears to be uninhabitable, and what is habitable is ''very'' tightly-packed.
47	* CrapsackWorld: The colony, especially in contrast to the United Federation of Britain. However, at least it's livable, unlike the other parts of the world which can no longer be safely inhabited.
48	* CyberPunk: Takes place in a CrapsackWorld in a grimy underbelly of society and the heroes go against a government conspiracy? Yes.
49	* CyberpunkIsTechno: {{Dubstep}} specifically, with a song by producer duo Foreign Beggars playing over a scene Doug walking through the town square.
50	* DarkerAndEdgier: The more fantastical elements from the original are nonexistent, it's AfterTheEnd with only ''two'' places on Earth where people can live, yet still maintains a large degree of BloodlessCarnage.
51	%%zce* DarkActionGirl: Doug's "wife", Lori, much to his surprise.
52	* DeadlyHug: Lori to Quaid, after he tells her he's been to Rekall.
53	* DeathByAdaptation: [[spoiler:[=McClane=]]], the rest of the Rekall staff and [[spoiler:Hammond]].
54	* DesignatedGirlFight: When the villains catch up to the heroes in a confined space, an elevator, they split off into pairs. One is Quaid verus a Robot the other is his love interest and former wife.
55	* DiggingToChina: The Fall, a giant [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_train gravity train]] running through the Earth.
56	* TheDragon: Lori more or less fills the role, due to being the most seen UFB agent.
57	* DragonTheirFeet: Lori doesn't participate at all in the final fight, [[spoiler:and ends up outliving Cohaagen by a couple of scenes. Then she decides to make one final attempt at killing Quaid and gets killed for her trouble.]]
58	* ElevatorActionSequence: Two or more depending on how you count.
59	** There's a fight sequence halfway through the film that takes place in and around a 3D "turbolift" system.
60	** The climax takes place on the seventy-story through-Earth "Fall" elevator, and features a zero-gravity gunfight.
61	* EvilBrit: Lori. The UFB in general seems to be playing this trope, with many other UFB personnel being British and their capital being London.
62	* FalseFlagOperation: Cohaagen engineers a series of bombings that he blames on the Resistance, in order to justify building more and more Synthetics, until he has enough to mount a full-scale invasion of the Colony.
63	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
64	** Doug reads an Creator/IanFleming novel on the Fall. He later opts for the secret agent package at Rekall.
65	** Everything the Rekall boss says about the Rekall "secret agent experience".
66	* FuturisticSuperhighway: The United Federation of Britain depicts London with an additional metropolis built on stilts above it, with a multi-layered system of roads threaded around. Ascending and descending between tiers seems to be via special elevators, and the cars can either float slightly above the surface of the roadways or hover suspended from the underside, doubling the capacity. This is in addition to the normal roads below and {{FutureCopter}}s around.
67	* GambitRoulette: [[spoiler:A lot of Cohaagen and Hauser's master plan comes across as overly complicated and dependent on luck, although a large part of this is due to the gambit being triggered prematurely by Quaid's visit to Rekall.]]
68	%% * Getting Crap Past The Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.
69	* GreenEyedMonster: Lori's taunt to Melina about her sexual past with Quaid is the impetus for their subsequent fight.
70	* ImposterForgotOneDetail: [[spoiler:Lori impersonates Melina in the last scene, only for Doug to notice that she's missing the bullet wound scar on her hand.]]
71	* KeystoneArmy: [[spoiler:Cohaagen's Synth army apparently has a global shutdown code which is the big secret stored in Quaid's head that the Resistance needs. However, it turns out there is no global shutdown code; it was all a ruse by Cohaagen and Hauser to entrap the leader of the Resistance.]]
72	%%* LayeredMetropolis: See AerialCanyonChase.
73	* LeaveHimToMe: [[spoiler:In the finale, Cohaagen decides to confront Quaid himself.]]
74	* LighterAndSofter: This movie isn't as gruesome as the original.
75	* MechaMooks: The Synthetics. The movie is somewhat original in that they're used more as bulletproof EliteMooks rather than guilt-free disposable cannon fodder.
76	* MissedHimByThatMuch: When Quaid ditches his phone he walks right past Lori while escaping.
77	* TheMole: [[spoiler:Quaid/Hauser, though it's not that simple. While Hauser, the original, is the one who engineered the "mindwipe" plan in the first place and was thus a double agent, Quaid joins the resistance both out of agreeing with their cause, and because they aren't the ones shooting at him.]]
78	* MythologyGag:
79	** A number of them; the three-breasted hooker, "I don't know, I just work here", the "two weeks" woman, the severed arm scene.
80	** Like the original film, they cast an actor who had previously been best known for playing hapless Sitcom Dads to be the ruthless BigBad, and both played [[Film/RoboCop1987 horrible]] [[Series/BreakingBad people]] shortly before this movie was made.
81	** Doug mentioning that he'd like to go to Mars.
82	* NeckLift: One of the Synthetics reaches a bit higher and picks up Quaid by the head.
83	* OrWasItADream: [[spoiler:At the end, Hauser/Quaid notices the mark tattooed on his skin between his arm and forearm during his visit to Rekall is missing, and a single glance at a billboard for Rekall right before the end. Rewatching the film with the assumption that everything after Quaid arrives at Rekall is just part of the scenario - including the assault on Rekall - leaves the viewer wondering: was any of it true?]]
84	* TheParalyzer: Guns that shoot glowing rope that wraps around/incapacitates the target and drags them back towards the guns holder.
85	* PostApocalypticGasmask: The resistance all wear gas masks when outside their sealed base in the "dead-zone" of London, an uninhabitable wasteland made toxic from the use of chemical and biological weapons.
86	* RaceLift: The three-breasted woman and Harry, who were both white in the original, are Asian and Black respectively. [=McClane=] was also white in the original, but is Asian here.
87	* TheRemake: Of ''Film/TotalRecall1990''.
88	* LaResistance: Given a bit of AdaptationalHeroism compared to the original since they aren't responsible for the terrorist attacks, but the group is still armed and wants to stop Cohaagen's evil plans.
89	* PresidentEvil: Chancellor Cohaagen. He commits an awful lot of murder [[FalseFlagOperation to have a casus belli]] to conquer the Colony, which will definitely involve an awful lot of additional murder.
90	* RecoilBoost: How else would you move around in zero gravity?
91	* RedLightDistrict: Here, it is quite diverse -- there's an android, the three-breasted woman, aliens, and [[MurderArsonAndJaywalking even humans!]]
92	* RidiculouslyHumanRobots: The synth troopers not only look and move disturbingly human-like (what probably comes down to motion capture for their animations), they even frequently ''act'' like humans in ways and situations where they really shouldn't. They stop in the middle of firefights to look annoyed when they got hit, going as far as giving the offender a slow, menacing DeathGlare before resuming their attacks. Their marksman skills also [[ATeamFiring leave a lot to be desired]] for [[KillerRobot machines]] whose main purpose is to shoot guns. Finally, the synth that discovers [[spoiler:Quaid's bomb in the Fall]] really gives off an OhCrap impression before his unscheduled disassembly, which is quite a feat for a robot whose "face" is nothing more than a flat helmet-like visor displaying its combat status.
93	* SceneryPorn
94	* SchizoTech: They can drill a huge tunnel through the center of the earth, but somehow they can't get a couple thousand troops to Australia the old-fashioned way.
95	* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: [[spoiler:Quaid eventually sides with the Resistance partly after seeing how bad they have it, and also because the UFB police and soldiers are constantly shooting at him.]]
96	* ShoutOut: ''Film/BladeRunner'' (the design of the cities), ''Film/IRobot'' (the Hauser hologram telling Quaid to "please rephrase the question, my responses are limited"), ''Manga/GhostInTheShell'' (the successor to the Mateba revolver used by Togusa).
97	* SparedByTheAdaptation: [[spoiler:The three-breasted hooker]].
98	* SpentShellsShower: The zero-g scenes have shells drifting around slowly as the character fire. Given the Vector's insane rate of fire, it's not surprising that many other scenes involving them also include lots of brass flying about; the police assault on [[spoiler:Rekall]] is a good example.
99	* SpottingTheThread: [[spoiler:Quaid realizes Melina isn't herself at the end because she doesn't have the bullet scar on her hand.]]
100	* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture
101	* UglyGuyHotWife: Lampshaded by Lori when she reveals her true nature to Quaid, asking if he really thought a girl like her would ever really be married to a guy like him (although Colin Farrell is hardly ugly, and it's more along the lines of Quaid's status as a low-level factory worker coupled with living in a dump of an apartment).
102	* UsedFuture
103	* VillainRespect: [[spoiler:Cohaagen has a deep respect for Quaid and is extremely reluctant to kill him.]]
104	* WaifFu: Averted with Lori. Despite her SheFu skills, she still gets roughed up and bruised in her fights with Quaid.
105	* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler:Cohaagen's motive for exterminating the population of The Colony is the crippling overpopulation issues facing the United Federation of Britain.]]
106	* WhamLine: "[[spoiler:Your name is Carl Hauser.]]"
107	* WhyDontYouJustShootHim:
108	** Averted. [[spoiler: Cohaagen personally shoots Matthias almost immediately after capturing him.]]
109	** Played straight by Lori, who [[spoiler: practically has Quaid's life in her hand near the end, but chooses to disguise herself as Melina and then wakes Quaid up just to mess with him.]]
110	* WouldHitAGirl: Doug fights back when Lori tries to kill him.
111	* YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters: The Resistance are viewed by the public as terrorists after a bombing in a public transit unit. However, the Resistance aren't really terrorists, and [[spoiler:Cohaagen was responsible for the bombing.]]

Context Film / TotalRecall2012