Colin Farrell might be a better Doug Quaid than Ah-nold: he can act, and because of his wiry Irish frame, the fight scenes were tighter and more exciting. Oh, and he is handsome in a might-just-be-crazy kind of way. Always good for a double agent type, I think. It was also fun to see Beckinsale (Sharon Stone role) and Jessica Biel (in the Rachel Ticotin role) let it all go in their fights. Their fight scene was filmed as if two strong fearless women were determined to do permanent damage to their opponent. That's how women would fight if really in that position. Most film fights between women seem choreographed to appeal to some 22-year-old guy's imagination of how women would fight before they prepare to jump into bed with said 22-year-old directly after--and love it. Yuck. (But if you really are a fan of women characters kicking butt the right way, nobody beats Gina Carano in 2011's Haywire. Check that one out too.)
And car chases in the future will NOT include big clunky metal cars, either, I am pretty sure. The audience groaned when we saw that even in the post apocalyptic world, we still HAVE TO GO THE BANK. The synthetic police officers look like Star Wars stormtroopers, but are way easier to kill. What I love about the 1990 movie was the concept: everyone poor or uneducated or deformed or not white went to the Mars ghettos, and fabulously cheesy ghettos they were. The revolutionary hero Kuato is a mutant, he deviates from the norm and creates a new kind of hero. And Mars itself has a secret: the solution to the problem of enough air to breathe and food to eat is hidden in the core of the planet. Quaid is only the catalyst for the new Martians to find the solution to their own future: that's what makes good science fiction. Replacing Kuato with Matthias, played by Wiseman staple Bill Nighy, just does not work. Wiseman gives Nighy a game inspirational speech as Kuato has in the first movie, but it is incomprehensible because there is no clearly defined issue except poverty in this version. I know the story does not go to Mars, but it was a great METAPHOR.
So if you like this kind of science fiction movie, watch Total Recall 1990, Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, or Star Wars Episode 3. None of them ends with a gratuitous kiss.
N.B. regarding the conclusion of The Fifth Element, there is never anything gratuitous about Bruce Willis kissing anyone. He is middle aged, bald and short and he still acts as if he deserves Milla Jovovich. He earned that kiss. It meant that the world would go on, that we get back into the Garden of Eden.
