Tron: Legacy’s Joseph Kosinski may be about to remake the Dutch director’s incisive satire. Has the forgettable Total Recall reboot taught him nothing?
Rumours of a remake of Starship Troopers, Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 incisive satire of
American fascism, have abounded for the best part of a decade. The latest suggestion is that Joseph Kosinski, director of such sci-fi non-classics as Tron: Legacy and Oblivion, could be tapped to reimagine the movie that set Johnny Rico and his cheerful militaristic pals against all those nasty space bugs. There are so many reasons that this is a terrible idea that it’s hard to know where to begin, but let’s start with Hollywood’s previous efforts to take on the Dutchman’s gilded back catalogue.
The original Total Recall, in 1990, might just be the perfect Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle, the Austrian oak’s preposterous frame and over-the-top acting perfectly complementing the movie’s fondness for cartoonish violence and wonderfully over-the-top, psychedelic sci-fi stereotypes. Next to Blade Runner, it may be the finest
Hollywood adaptation of Philip K Dick – it is certainly the most fun. Len Wiseman’s 2012 remake did not even make it to
Mars, swapping all those colourful mutants for a bland and insipid Earth-based tale in which the biggest threat is no longer Douglas Quaid’s own unreliable inner narrative but a bunch of killer robots. It’s an instantly forgettable version.