I Red-Boxed this a few days ago and agree with every point in the article. It would have been a much better story if it had been either a prequel or a sequel to the original story - get some new characters, but reuse the memory mind-block premise that goes wrong; no big deal. Instead, we got a clumsy attempt to overlay the names and (sort-of) the plot of the original on a story that has nothing to do with Arnold’s Rekall. I spent most of my time watching this wondering why they chose to change some things (like the teardrop instead of the bead of sweat) while keeping other elements (the mutant hooker was a definite “what is she doing here if we’re not on Mars” moment!)
However, for $1.50 to spend 2 hours with high-def Kate & Jessica, it was worth every penny ;-)
Yes. This was the moment when the audience is confronted with the choices of the director and screen writers. In Arnold's version, she was a puchline, yes, but she introduced the audience to the fact that Mars was changing humans, and forshadowing that the person Quaid was looking for was a mutant.
In this version, she is the only mutant, and forshadows nothing. I was expecting that by the time we saw the rebel leader, that he would be a mutant, able to breath the toxic gas. But, no, they just had gas masks. So what was she there for? Because she was there in the last movie, and the director felt the audience would expect her. But all it did was make us realize how much had been cut out.
There is one useful thing about the Total Recalls, and that is to study how Hollywood's approach to violence has changed over the years. Arnold's version was a gore fest, but the new one is the new bloodless shootout movie where no matter how many times someone is shot, they don't bleed. They even add robots so the robots can get shot instead of the humans.