By the end of the 21st
century, the use of global chemical warfare has left most of planet Earth’s
vast land masses uninhabitable. Mankind has been reduced to only two
territories, the first of which is now called The United Federation of Britain
(UFB) and it predominately consists of the United
Kingdom, Ireland
and the northern coastal regions of France. The second of which is now
called The Colony, otherwise known as Australia. Workers from The Colony
travel through the planet each day on the only transport possible, an
underground shuttle known as “The Fall”.
Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston)
presides over both territories along with his military police force and
enormous brigade of robot sentinels. Cohaagen is in a continuous battle against
Matthias (Billy Nighy), terrorist leader of the resistance movement that is
fighting for equality of The Colony. Douglas Quaid (Colin Ferrell) and his wife
Lori (Kate Beckinsale) live in The Colony and both commute to the UFB where
Lori is an emergency medical technician and Douglas
works in a factory with his close friend Harry (Bokeem Woodbine); they build
the defense robots for the UFB’s synthetic police force.
Recently, Douglas
has been plagued by reoccurring nightmares of being chased by UFB sentries
while attempting to escape from some strange building with a mysterious woman.
Although Lori knows about these dreams, he doesn’t seem to feel completely
comfortable discussing details with her, or anyone else, for that matter.
Unable to shake the dreams, he’s decided to pay a visit to Rekall to explore
the options of creating a new memory, and his fantasy: well of course, is to be
a secret agent. Ahhhh, but something went wrong during the implant process and
what started off as a friendly sales pitch has now ended in a confused
confrontation with a gun pointed in his face followed by Federal Police bursting
into the Rekall parlor and killing everyone except Quaid. But the confusion
doesn’t stop there. See, the police intended to apprehend him before he could
become implanted and although it seems they may have been at least partially
successful, something inside him has been triggered. And while they attempted
to take him into custody, he snapped and turned tails on them by grabbing a gun
and shooting every officer in sight (the room was full). He managed to escape
the parlor and return home where Lori was inside watching the news on TV while
waiting for him. In a panic, he began to explain his version of what just
happened; she quickly calmed him down and claimed that Rekall had screwed up
his mind by giving him some kind of paranoid delusion. Suddenly her warm and
gentle embrace becomes a crushing death grip around his neck, OMG she’s trying
to kill him too! He escapes her grip and during their struggle she’s explained
that she’s actually UFB Intel, and that everything he’s experienced over the
past 6 weeks has been the product of a memory replacement, “What can I say, I
give good wife…”
Lori’s explanation has only
created more questions and without killing her, he’s escaped once again; now
he’s on a mission to find out who he really is. Turns out, the girl from his
nightmare, Melina (Jessica Biel) is far more than just a mysterious woman. And
in the end, he’ll have to decide whether to return to the boring life of a law
abiding, happily married factory worker: Douglas Quaid, or remain as Hauser and
continue the fight with Melina to free The Colony from Cohaagen’s corruptive
evil plans to use his synthetic army to completely enslave all the people of
both territories.
