Total Recall, Total Dud

Dudley Done Wrong

Total Recall 2070. Directed by Art Monterastelli, performances by Michael Easton, Karl Pruner, and      Cynthia Preston, Alliance Atlantis, 1999

Stylized and cribbed from Blade Runner down to the Asian style among the denizens of an unnamed city, a synth-pop knock-off of Vangelis and a purposeless "Gaff" (James Edward Olmos) clone, Total Recall 2070 also steals the basic plot of a most excellent movie. This is not that movie.

In this movie, self-aware androids want more time to -- have memories -- and thus snatch a Rekall Corp. scientist but are thwarted by our hero, David "I Kid You Not" Hume (Michael Easton) who must have been a stunt double for David Duchovny at some point in his career. The androids are sneaky and end up grabbing the Mars-bound scientist in order to hold onto their precious yet fake memories and feelings.

Meanwhile a youngster who is a mind-reader (this is the future and radiation does great things in the future) and most excellent video game player is kidnapped from two distraught foreigners with the surname of Bimboo or Sordoo or Sodoor or somesuch. This sad couple mistakenly thought they went for a nice trip to the Galapagos Islands but really had a mind-job done on them by Rekall (or someone pretending to be a Rekall rep) and had their kid snatched along with any memory of even ever having a kid. What a nasty corporation!

No new ground is covered in the pilot but there are no less than three zingers that will give viewers a chuckle and/or a deep sigh:

1. After our protagonist, good cop, Officer Hume loses his partner in a gun-battle with androids, he gets a new partner with the personality of Lieutenant Commander Data from Star Trek the Next Generation but has no clue that this cop is - gasp! - an android. I'm a complete space cadet and it was clear to me from the first scene with Mr. Roboto and his "Caesar" haircut that this was a tin man. Remember, Hume's whole professional life revolves around paying attention to what's going on.

2. Much ado is made of the lethality of a 12mm pistol that Officer Hume has snatched from the scene of his partner's murder, but when he deploys the weapon he is (a) unable to hit the back side of a barn with it, and (b) when he randomly does hit his target, the victim dies no more surely or not than the bodies that seem to fall everywhere from ray guns in the hands of most everyone. 

3. Hume's highly principled and loyal wife, Olivia, is often on the verge of getting really, really mad with David but she always falls back and melts in his arms, and supports all of his crazy antics in the end such as going to Mars with his robotic Lurch-like partner.

This one was bad. Unfortunately is was not bad enough to be bad like Sharknado. I give it two out of five velotaxis. 

The Bible in Literature: First Unit

Graham Greene, "The Second Death" 

A story about two acquaintances (one could hardly call them friends): one dying, the other living. The dying man had "died" before (perhaps it was just a dream he thinks). In that first death, a certain doctor had saved him. The dying man fears death because of his dream or experience the first time, "that other time, I thought that I'd been dead. It wasn't like sleep at all. Or rest in peace. There was someone there all round me, who knew everything....  And I saw what was coming to me too" (Complete Short Stories, page 179). Nevertheless, the dying man does die, fearfully.

The living man (though you can hardly call his life life) was once blind we learn at the end of the story. A man had put spit on his eyes and then he could see.

Without some knowledge of the gospels in the New Testament, this story makes no sense!

Three New Testament Elements

1. The title refers to an allusion of damnation (I'll have to look it up).

2. The dying man is the widow of Nain's son who is restored to life by Jesus (see Luke 7:11-17).

3. The "comforting" friend is a man healed by Jesus in Mark 8:22-26.

Approaching the story.  Read aloud the story once to see if any students get it. Give some clues. Read passages from Luke and Mark and go from there....