Total Recall

A remake of the 1990 Schwarzenegger movie from director Len Wiseman (Die Hard 4.0), Total Recall, centres on a confused but dishy Colin Farrell (Miami Vice) who spends most of the movie battling an existentialist fug as to his real identity, not to mention innumerable, heavily armoured police robots.

It's set in a fairly typical dystopian future, where there are only two inhabitable places left on Earth; The United Federation of Britain and “The Colony”. Yep, it might only be the two of us left, but at least we'll still have the Ashes to look forward to. As a sci-fi/action movie, the science is rehashed and very familiar. The action is the real selling point; unrelenting, inventive and finely polished – there are a number of memorable sequences, including some seriously cramped elevator combat and a zero G firefight.

The writing is fairly pedestrian, packed with exposition and near-constant reminders of the film's basic premise. But the concept of Total Recall still works, as any underachieving Joe who feels their life should've been far more spectacular and explosion-filled can slip into the fantasy that they're secretly destined to save the planet, or at least “The Colony”.