If
aliens were abducting people, you’d think they would opt for the best possible
specimens or at least the representatively average. Instead, they seem to have
a preference for moronic teenagers. The aliens are back again and they are
perfectly welcome to take the five bickering teens spending a weekend by the
lake in Mauro Borrelli’s The Recall (trailer here), which is now
playing in New York and on iTunes.
Rob
dragged mopey Charlie along on this weekend getaway hoping his girlfriend Kara’s
best pal Annie will help take his mind off the now deceased love of his life.
If things go according to plan, the vaguely metrosexual Brendan will be the
fifth wheel, but he is obsessed with taking Bigfoot photos. He’ll be able to
take UFO pictures instead.
As
it turns out, the aliens chose this weekend to reappear and they are making no
secret of it. There is even a War of the
Worlds-looking tentacle ship hovering above their lake. However, it is
probably not there for them. The twitchy former astronaut-abductee squatting in
a nearby hunting cabin is more likely the one they are after. However, “the
Hunter” is ready to take the fight to them. He might even help the obnoxious kids
survive, just to spite the aliens.
The
only reason to watch Recall is to
take a gander at the crazy act Wesley Snipes perfected, presumably to safely
survive his stint in Federal prison. As the Hunter, he is quite an impressive
anti-social mess, but he still has the action chops. If the film were told from
his POV, it would have been exponentially more interesting. Instead, we get the
tedious manipulation of Charlie’s dead girlfriend (you can already guess what
happened to her, right?) and slimy Rob’s ridiculously misplaced alpha male aggression.