3. Total Recall
That this is the only remake on the sucked list, does that mean Hollywoods love affair with re-imagining old classics is on the way out? The middling box office takings for Len Wisemans shoddy take on Paul Verhovens gory Schwarzenegger vehicle suggest in the positive. The film lifted heavily from all areas of sci-fi we had a world imbued with elements of both Blade Runner and Minority Report, robot soldiers straight out of I, Robot/the Star Wars prequels and a train through the planets core whose sole purpose was to allow for an Inception-inspired sequence without giving itself any real identity. Wiseman purported to be going back to the Phillip K. Dick short story, but as the regurgitated title (as opposed to Dicks less multiplex friendly We Can Remember It For You Wholesale) suggested, it was a thin facsimile of Verhovens film. Only this time, the fun tone was replaced by straight faced exposition; all the scenes lifted from the original had none of the tongue in cheek humour. In the 1990 version, you were left entertained, pondering if it was all a dream. In 2012, we were left bored and couldn't give a toss.