Total Recall and our Bland Future

Someone should tell sci-fi filmmakers that there are more visions of the future than the one in Blade Runner. 

I was flipping back and forth between Total Recall and Total Recall: Recall (*rimshot*) and I started explaining to my girlfriend what was wrong with the remake.  She was barely paying attention, because I can't compete with the riveting action of "Words With Friends."  Eventually, I gave up and decided to just write it down here, where the shame of being ignored doesn't hurt as much.

It's more than just Total Recall, though.  That's just one of the latest examples.  I, Robot, Minority Report, Equilibrium, even the new RoboCop; a lot of directors seem to have the same boring vision of the future.  The same round cars, the same guns, the same tech ideas, the same dried out backgrounds.  Everyone dresses in black and gray.  And if anyone listens to music, it's gonna be some techno offshoot.  It scares me because many of those flicks take place in a year that I'm probably going to live to see.  I like colors, everyone.  And I hate techno. 

It takes away from a movie for everyone to live in a future like that.  I get why Equilibrium looked that way; it was part of the plot of the movie.  But part of the appeal of the original Total Recall was the world where it took place.  It was vibrant and colorful, the people had personality and character, and there was comedy.  The filmmakers of that movie allowed themselves to think up all kinds of crazy shit to put on Mars, and they did.  That's why there was an exploding head bomb.  That's why they had a mutant with gold teeth and a jheri curl, who couldn't remember how many kids he had.  That's why there's a guy walking around with a psychic talking fetus jammed in his stomach. 

The remake took all of that away, presumably, because they believed that the charisma of Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel would be enough to compensate.  I mean, it wasn't a bad movie.  Just not anything memorable.  I can't think of anything that really stuck out as far as characters are concerned, and they had some good actors in this.  Hell, I like Colin Farrell.  That's why I gave the flick a chance.  And who doesn't like Bryan Cranston?  But did this movie bring anything memorable to the story at all?  The score, anything?  They didn't even give it a chance to be interesting, because they didn't go to Mars.

Same with I, Robot and Minority Report.  I like those movies just fine, but I'm tired of that antiseptic and bland version of the future.  To put it simply, Will Smith shouldn't stand out because he's wearing Chuck Taylors.  And if he does stand out, it needs to be for more of a reason than the fact that he's wearing Chuck Taylors.  Unless you're trying to make the point that the world is so defeated that all it takes is a pair of sneakers to completely upend everyone's sense of conformity.  Oh, my bad, he also drives a muscle car.  OOOOH, LOOGIT.  WHAT A REBEL.

There are far too many examples of the future in movies that are interesting and exciting for filmmakers to even want to do that.  Back to the Future Part II is 25 years old, and all folks remember about that movie is the 30 minutes that they spent in 2015.  RoboCop is even older, but who doesn't remember that version of "Future-Reagan's America?"  In my mind, I'd think anyone making a movie would want to go all out to express their vision of the future, but if your vision of the future is just different shades of gray, then you're probably about to make a boring movie.

Because let's face it: Pepsi, Nike, and KFC aren't going anywhere.  Might as well put them in the movie.

A Calm, Sensible Reaction to Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor

Jesse Eisenberg is Lex Luthor, because Michael Cera is already booked.

I'm sure that's the kind of reaction that DC was expecting and I'm all too happy to give it to them.  And it's not even because I'm angry about the casting. I actually kinda like it.  I, unlike so many others, have perspective.  The perspective that comes from an reading too many comic books.  I understand that there are many different versions of Lex Luthor, and that Jesse Eisenberg fits into a few of them.  Dare I say, this casting is brave...and bold.  Please, hold your applause, because that joke was awful.

Still, you're gonna have to go through the initial shock of people saying, "The fucking dude that played Mark Zuckerberg is gonna be Lex Luthor?"

I saw a guy on Facebook that said, "Is he going to invent Facebook to defeat Superman?"  Really, that's the level of discourse DC has to face, and it's not like Jesse Eisenberg has given the fans a ton of ammo to throw back at him.  This won't go much past unfunny Facebook jokes and DC will be fine with that, because they already weathered the worst of this storm with Ben Affleck.  That was an epic tantrum, and once we got past that, it's like people couldn't really get that mad anymore.  It was like the world said, "Okay, we all know this flick is gonna suck. They really can't do any worse than this." 

And after that, Gal Gadot just got questions about her physique, mostly because no one knows who she is.  Jesse Eisenberg is just getting bad jokes, like the ones I've written just now.  It's all just been diminishing nerdrage, so we'll probably be done with this story by Monday.  No one even noticed that Jeremy Irons is playing Alfred.

I saw more outrage yesterday that Fox wants Channing Tatum to play Gambit in a future X-Men movie.  It wouldn't be a surprise that Fox was thinking about doing some more bad X-Men casting, but people were legit mad at that, I guess because Channing Tatum is too sexy or can't act or something.  As if Gambit is a character filled with such pathos that only a Shakespearean actor could capture it all.  Anyway, the X-Men flicks are filled with terrible decisions. I still believe that Halle Berry was cast because she was the only black person the producers could name.

Warner Bros. is supposed to be better than that.  Or at least Christopher Nolan is and Zach Snyder are.  And I'm willing to give it a chance, because as I've said trying to talk people off the ledge today, it all depends on what kind of Lex Luthor will be in the movie.  You got your "evil businessman" Lex Luthor (who could stomp ass), and you got your "sociopath scientist" Lex Luthor (who could not).  I think the second one is something Eisenberg can work with.  As long as he's not on there talking about being the "greatest criminal mind of our time," I think we'll be fine.