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Total Recall (2012) -vs- Total Recall (1990)

August 2, 2012 Eric Volkman 11

Welcome! Sit yourself in this chair and don’t worry when we strap your limbs down securely and tape electrodes to your head. There’s nothing to be worried about!

In the both of the Total Recalls we’ll be comparing in this review, a visit to such a patient’s seat launches a mind-bending sci-fi espionage adventure for the seemingly ordinary Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1990 original, Colin Farrell in the just-released update). Both big-budget movies unspool roughly the same story and feature plenty of slam-bang action, a nightmare vision of a bleak future, and not a little violence. They also play with the idea of implanted memory. Can we really be sure we’re truly experiencing the here and now? […]

Men in Black 3 (2012) -vs- Mars Attacks! (1996)

May 24, 2012 Eric Volkman 6

The earth is about to be destroyed! And the devastation will be funny and entertaining to watch, at least by Hollywood standards.

In this winner-take-all battle, we’re pitting two satirical world-on-the-brink-of-destruction films against each other. The new release is Men in Black 3 (or Men in Black III, depending on whether you believe the official Sony Pictures site or IMDB), the latest offering in the popular string of sci-fi comedies. This installment features the franchise’s first time-travel plot, with our protagonist vaulting backwards by several decades in order to save his partner from being murdered and, consequently (of course) earth from being destroyed. Mars Attacks! also harkens to the past. It’s a wild, Tim Burton spoof of cheesy 1950s alien invasion movies, featuring a giant cast trying nearly in vain to defend our planet from interstellar bad guys. […]

John Carter (2012) -vs- Avatar (2009)

March 8, 2012 Sarah Harding 9

In the genre of 3D outer space shoot-’em-ups, there are two ways to go: Either you’ve got your humans ruthlessly exploiting oddly shaped locals on some distant planet, or vice versa. John Carter chooses the less common scenario, an Earthling being used and abused by aliens for their own purposes, while the defending champion Avatar presents a classic story of corporate greed morphing into cultural affinity. […]