The Recall (2017)
They've come to claim what's theirs.
Although something else was planned for this week, I didn’t move quick enough to get it so we get what I like to think of as “grab bag movie night” - in which case i take all the movies on Netflix and just random pick the first one with a picture that grabs my attention. In the spirit of rental store logic, tonight grants us the potential beyond this world movie with someone whose name I remember - and only some one. Been a while since I’ve caught some Wesley Snipes in a movie - let’s hope the name of this one isn’t prophetic or we are in for a bumpy road - tonight we check out The Recall.
So, I see Snipes and I immediate think action movie, so my brain turns off and gets ready for action. The movie starts off with some in space satellite fixing when a shadow of impending aliens comes in - then we cut to a planet for our main crew, a bunch of would-be teens who certainly aren’t teens but might as well be teens given their role in the movie. I am dead serious here - and it’s only cemented in by the fact when they stop at a run down looking gas station on the way out to the woods in the middle of nowhere to a parent’s cabin. This thing has a more generic horror movie start up then a generic horror movie, and I have witnessed plenty of those! I mean, I swear these ‘kids’ were supposed to be teens, until one pops up the “dramatic past” that included apparently popping the question - which I could only assume was marriage, even if it feels more like it should have been going to the prom with how they all look - and it finally dawns on me what I’m watching is a bunch of young adults with the mentality of horror movie teenagers. Stupid choices, over-blown sex drive, light on character details? I mean crap, they didn’t fall down the cliche tree they are the darn things roots! Oh, and I know what you are thinking - “Hey man, didn’t you say this was going to be an action movie?” According to the IMDB tags it is - and I guess there is action in it, but I was as surprised as you are that apparently this is much more a thriller with aliens that plays out a bit more familiar than even I expected.
So yeah, we already have a couple of pretty standout mentions that usually I’d save for later on, but it points out an important fact - the writing here isn’t exactly knocking it out of the part. To be fair, I don’t really think it ever meant to be the next biggest thing - it’s a lot like other movies where someone you haven’t seen in a long time is suddenly back in the movies, and you know it’s probably at best a bit above a budget movie and direct to video for a paycheck. Maybe it has some good stuff to offer - but the average person probably won’t even know it ever exists. Sure, they might have wrote some interesting stuff in there - but it’s also not really new. I mean, there are parts of this thing that you could call back your brains rewind switch and go “didn’t I see that in Skyline?” or “this startup is every horror movie slasher ever.” Does it immediately make the movie suck? No, it just makes it largely unoriginal. Did the stuff get done better in other movies? I wouldn’t argue with you if you said it did. Still, if a movies biggest fault is just being an imitation it’s not always an immediate garbage-bin fire sale. Just… keep in mind that when I talk about characters and events and the like, I’m leaving that leeway that it’s not entirely on the shoulders of those involved - I just honestly don’t think the writing really gave it much to do after it got put into filming and budgetary constraints and anything else that might have happened to turn an alright at best script into something less impressive.
The actors are alright at best. Look, they look younger than I would expect someone with a ton of acting chops to look - as I stated, I thought they were supposed to be generic “teen” actors until some comments later on. In turn, I think they could probably do a better job later on down the road - nothing here was really atrocious, although it’s not all good either. At least most the time, the level of acting is fine - with it occasionally dropping down into real rough or in the rare occurrence laughable. It’s pretty much exactly what you’d expect from how it opens up - some budget-restricted slasher type movie, where you aren’t even sure if you are supposed to like the characters if the actors even did do a great job. There is an exception here - Snipes. Everytime that man is on screen he’s knocking it out of the park - not always necessarily for doing a good job acting, but one hundred percent for being entertaining no matter what he is doing. Most of his lines aren’t even actual dialogue - more like dropping a series of one lines. When he finally gets some good parts though, the man is chewing it up like a hungry dude eating a burger - and it’s hands down probably the highlight of this movie when it comes to enjoyment factor. There was a straight up smile that appeared on my face at one point because of it, and I’d be tempted to make people watch it for that alone if it wasn’t for everything else going on.
About as generic a start as one could come up with.
One of those other things, of course, is that it’s an alien movie (not to be confused with an Alien movie). Science fiction has always been a hard stop for a lot of audiences - and when it’s a lukewarm kind-of abduction movie that plays out a similar thread to a movie from years ago that arguably did it better, I think it’s going to be hard to spin it off as a must watch. The plot facilitates the rest of the movie, but that doesn’t stop other horror cliches besides the run down gas station and sex-starved younger-folk from appearing either - such wonderful things as stupid decisions being made also help keep things going. When the cast dwindles, at least a good portion of stupid drops down - but you’ll also find that by the time the credits are rolling you’d much rather have had a movie where Snipes characters is the main one, instead of just a visitor with stand out parts. I will, regardless of how I’ve already seen it, give the movie props for the fact that it does spell out why the visitors do what they do - at least as far as the humans can guess. I will take away a bit of the props for that somewhat obvious sequel-bait at the end though.
Now, I keep saying there are aliens in this - because there are. This falls into everybody’s favorite department - effects! I am very pleased to announce that they are actually pretty good here. Yeah, there’s a car explosion that looks a bit lame, and some of the craft could use a bit more love to get them looking like a more realistic element that exists - but considering some of the rest of the movie it would have been real easy for it to be some Asylum crap-show. The humanoid aliens seem like a suit, and they do a good job of not over-exposing them through usage, keeping it mostly in the dark or largely obscured to help keep them looking more real or intimidating and less silly. On the note of silly, it does appear they opted for the more grey alien approach, but these greys look like they got sick of being picked on for being skinny and hit the gym something fierce. On the other relatively good front is the jellyfish. I don’t know what they are, there’s a throwaway line questioning if it’s a drone, but they look like robotic jellyfish so I’m calling it a jellyfish - either way, those look pretty good as well. Lighting could have been a bit more dynamic around them to really blend them in, but it’s far from bad and was a cool little creature to see. Alien branding tattoos also look pretty nice - largely on being a cool looking symbol, but also how it both blends in and stands out on characters who have them.
Audio is balanced well, but largely forgettable. Sad part is it even has a song that I’m pretty sure they play in it’s entirety in the generic horror movie startup sequence, but I couldn’t tell you anything about it because it was that forgettable to me. Foley is well down, and the world feels pretty lively with things movie around or making little odd noises as you would expect them too. Line deliveries are usually passable, with some of Snipes being pretty stand out. Really, that’s pretty much all I’ve got on sound - so how about we throw in a few other random notes down here shall we? Violence is actually pretty low all considering the rating - outside of the end where we get some gun shots and one interesting attempt at art from Snipes’ character. There’s a bit about “brief nudity” in the Rating tag - it’s honestly brief enough top that you wouldn’t even know if it actually was nudity or covered up, some shirtless dudes in shape = and a bunch of butts! It’s nothing to write home about, but it is in there so I guess I might as well call it out - very much lacking in the “R rated” department when it comes to something that started like a generic slasher that usually has a nudity count close to the actual body count.
The best part of this movie.
At the end of the day, I don’t think I’d recommend this one to most people. It’s not terrible, it’s just not really good enough that a wide net would appreciate what’s on offer. Snipes is entertaining as heck in here, but he also doesn’t have the most screen time of the characters, and the plot feels a little bit to familiar and better done to really merit a declaration of people needing to watch it. It isn’t a long movie, so if you got time to kill it and nothing better to watch you could do far worse though - and if you like scifi, even the mediocre stuff, it’s probably gonna entertain enough that it wouldn’t be something that’s forever regretted that you spent time to watch it.