10 Movie Remakes Nobody Expected Or Wanted

There are some directors whose films have so much personality that it’s impossible to imagine them being made by anyone else. There’s a reason Tarantino films are “Tarantino films” before they’re anything else. Paul Verhoeven is that sort of director.

So what happens when you try to remake a film that is defined by a director’s style? Well if 2012's Total Recall remake is anything to go by, you get something uninspiring.

As with a lot of the other films on this list, Total Recall isn’t terrible, it just isn’t very good either. All of the style and atmosphere that made the Arnold Schwarzenegger-led original so beloved is gone, and in its place is generic 2010s sci-fi action. Most of the major changes sit somewhere between confusing and pointless, and everything that stays the same becomes a pale imitation of the original.

Nothing sums up Total Recall better than how it deals with the “Is it a dream?” plotline, taking one of the most interesting parts from the original, repeating it, and somehow making it totally uninteresting. It asks all the same questions, but never bothers to get you to care what the answers are.