Action fast and furious in 'Total Recall' remake

Movies, it seems, just keep getting more expensive and more violent. And that definitely goes for "Total Recall," a remake of the 1990 sci-fi slam-banger in which Colin Farrell follows in the heavy footsteps of Arnold Schwarzenegger (then in his movie star prime), and director Len Wiseman tries to pack in as much (or more) futuristic excitement and fantastic mayhem as director Paul Verhoeven managed in the original.

That earlier movie, you'll recall, was based on a short story called "I Can Remember It For You Wholesale" by the master of paranoid alternate-reality science fiction, Philip K. Dick ("Blade Runner"). It was set in the future. where Arnold, as Doug Quaid, hopped into an alternate reality, thanks to a company that implants false but desirable memories for a fee.

Pecs flexing and guns blazing, Schwarzenegger wound up embroiled in a Martian rebellion that might have been real and might not, with lots of villainy, real or not, supplied by tyrant leader Cohaagen and by Quaid's once seemingly loving wife Lori, played by Sharon Stone.

In the new "Total Recall," Farrell and Kate Beckinsale play Doug and Lori - and the Martian alternate reality has been scuttled in favor of a future Earth where the Haves live in the ultra-mechanized United Federation of Britain and the Have Nots and workers inhabit a dingy, rainy urban bad-dream called The Colony. The two worlds are connected by a huge elevator that tunnels from one side of the planet to the other, and quickly becomes an arena for fights and chases galore.

This new world, dreamed up by Wiseman and production designer Patrick Tatopoulos, also features the Dick story's main gimmick, the false-memory company Rekall, where you can hook yourself up to a vacation in your favorite fantasy. Quaid is discontent with his daily lot as a Colony worker slaving away with buddy/workmate Harry (Bokeem Woodbine) - though most of the male audience might be happy enough with Quaid's huge apartment, and his marriage to Kate Beckinsale's Lori. So Quaid takes a flier on Rekall, and soon finds himself sitting in the dream-chair, picking a fantasy. (A James Bond-style secret agent movie, the Rekall people suggest, or maybe that old favorite, a man-on-the-run thriller.)

Bad pick, whatever it was. Soon Quaid is on the run, but everything and everyone around him seems all too real: tyrant Cohaagen (now played by Bryan Cranston), rebel leader Matthias (Bill Nighy) and, as compensation, the beauteous rebel gal Melina (Jessica Biel), who supplies a desirable alternate reality to the suddenly very, very mean Lori. From then on, it's one big fight and chase, interspersed with other fights and chases.

Wiseman and Tatopoulos are experts at creating flashy fantasy-sci-fi worlds and they've really gone all out here. Their huge cross-planet elevator is a knockout, and so is the Blade Runner-ish rainy world of the Colony. But, like too many of the current action movies, the script (by Kurt Wimmer and Mark Bomback), skimps on character, dialogue, personality detail and all those things that help make our movie fantasies seem real.

The original story and the Verhoeven movie had some depth, so Wiseman's "Total Recall" has more juice than most of the recent heavy-duty actioners. The cast is pretty good. Farrell looks harried. Lori looks vicious. (A first for Beckinsale). Biel looks fetching. Woodbine looks friendly. Cranston looks unctuous. Nighy looks distracted. But it's not enough.

Once Farrell's Quaid starts running, the movie really has its action motors revved up, but characterization is stuck on neutral. Exciting as it all is, you might wish for a Rekall dream chair of your own nearby, so you could pop, every now and then, into another less explosive alternative fantasy. And, in the wake of the Colorado theater shootings, you also might wish for a little less of the almost nonstop carnage and gunplay.