How getting a third breast implanted will get you in a movie for free

There’s another movie called Total Recall?! You’re f*cking kidding me!” Kate Beckinsale answers a journalist asking what makes the 2012 remake of Total Recall different from the 1990 (camp) classic.

This is the cue for her husband, the film’s director (and luckiest man in the world) Len Wiseman, to pick up the ball.

“The script itself doesn’t go to Mars. That’s a departure already. There were things that were brought into the script that I wanted to see in this version. I actually made a list when I was about to go see the original again. And I made a list of things that had stayed with me over the years. It has a different kind of twist. Some things are very apparent and some are a bit different. I’m actually curious if they will get picked up by some of the hardcore fans. Honestly, I don’t think you can have Total Recall if you don’t have some of those elements. I’m a fan. I was 15 years old when it first came out.”

Bryan Cranston, who plays the movie’s baddie, chimes in: “And by the way, anyone who shows up with an implanted third breast gets in the movie for free.”

It’s a nice sunny Friday in San Diego, and I’m at the Total Recall press con for Comic-Con 2012. It’s one of the more delightful panels at the world’s mecca for geekdom. What’s most striking about the Total Recall cast, apart from how gorgeous these people are, is how tight-knit they all seem. There’s an abundance of joking and good-natured teasing, and a surprising playfulness when awkward questions like “Who’s the better ass-kicker, Beckinsale or Biel?” are asked.

Colin Farrell, the movie’s star, goes into boxing announcer mode. “Celebrity death match! Comic-Con Exclusive!”

“I have to say I think Biel because I think she might have been born at the sprint and I was born sitting down reading books,” Beckinsale says.

Jessica Biel is quick to respond, “I would have to say Beckinsale.”

“Nice move.”

“It’s that neck-crotch-chop thing. She didn’t do it to me but… ouch!”

Total Recall centers around Douglas Quaid (Farrell), a factory worker who has a beautiful wife named Lori (Beckinsale) but feels that there’s something missing in his life. That void could be filled by Rekall, a company that can turn your dreams into real memories. After his procedure with Rekall, Quaid realizes that his life may be a complete lie. Suddenly he is on the run from the police, controlled by Chancellor Cohaagen (Cranston). Quaid teams up with a rebel fighter (Biel) to find the head of the resistance and stop Cohaagen. In the process Quaid discovers his true identity, his true love, and his true fate.

The film is based on Philip K. Dick’s short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale,” and one of the biggest challenges Wiseman faced was building a future world that could live up to other now-classic futures based on Dick’s work such as Blade Runner, Minority Report, and even the original (Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring) Total Recall.

“I’ve been wanting to build a future world for a long time, probably since I was 14. So in terms of how fun that was for me, it’s something I really enjoyed doing: fantasizing about what a future reality would be. I wanted to make sure that as fantastic and otherworldly as this future world would look, if you traveled down to the basic level, it’s still something familiar.”

Total Recall is a thrill-a-minute sci-fi action film. Like all of Dick’s work, however, it goes far beyond that, exploring themes of identity, paranoia, governments and freedom.

“It’s designed to entertain,” Farrell says, following that statement with an unbelievably well-thought-out analysis delivered in his swift Irish brogue: “If we can provoke thought or if there is some element of subversive commentary in the film or some idea of having an opinion of a big brother, governments, the small population of a few ruling, in a very brutal and self-serving way, the majority of the people we’re supposed to be protecting, and the idea of human beings not having as much control over our lives as we think because there are decisions made for us and there are very clear parameters but we can exist because those parameters are contained by law, religion, etc., etc., etc… any of that comes across, then that’s cool too.”