ACIDEMIC Journal of Film and Media

State of Cinema: Troll 2 vs. Total Recall

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Molly Marie Wright

The diversity in mainstream movies is dwindling into pathetic categories. You have your horror flicks with the shaky camera and running. You have your romances where both contributors to the relationship are as flaky and wishy washy as watered down Pepsi at any Chinese restaurant anymore. Lastly, you have your alien movies where everyone is running for their dear lives for two and a half hours.




Even the aliens are beginning to all look alike. They look like six-foot hunchback crabs. When was the last time you saw a movie with zero special effects?

The last time I saw a real and organic alien movie is when I saw Troll 2.



I'll never look at movies the same ever again. Never. This movie was fantastic. No directors have balls anymore. These creatures looked ridiculous. You could tell the makeup and costume artists wanted to go broad, and they did. Everyone plays it safe now by covering every nonhuman character with the most ridiculous effects. Forreal.

Troll 2 was filled with so much passion. The movie makers loved making this one and you can very obviously tell. The plot itself sounds like it was written by a genius eight year-old that had just been introduced to acid. The basic idea of this movie is that trolls disguised as humans try to trick other humans into eating a green goo / strange green food. The movie insinuates that the food is meant to cleanse people of toxins and other bad things that are in our food today. When eaten, the green stuff turns you into a tree person and these trolls eat you to survive. AWESOME.




I saw Total Recall the other week. Its safe to say that it was the worst movie I have ever seen in my entire life. First of all: At the end of 21st century, the Earth is divided into two territories--the United Federation of Britain and The Colony (formerly Australia)--after the Third World War devastates the remainder of the planet. Many residents of the Colony travel to UFB to work in their factories via "The Fall", a gravity elevator, which travels through the Earth's core. Is the plotline. Ignoring the already boring and unoriginal plotline (ohhhh noo the world ended because of a third world war oh man) the movie was completely scientifically inaccurate when it was clearly trying to be so. Their lack of explanation on EVERYTHING disgusted me. Like, really? This guy walks out side of The Fall while its going through earth's core (it's supposed to take something like thirty minutes to reach the other side) and he's like, okay, no problem, not dying or anything. WHAT? You should BE DEAD. Anything going that fast, first of all, should kill you. PLUS he is so far under earth. Ridiculous.




Troll 2 shows a real effort on creativity, which is almost nonexistent anymore. I wish I could personally put my arms around everyone that was involved with the movie just so I could tell them that I love them. Troll 2 is a masterpiece. If you can understand and appreciate Troll 2, youre on a pathway to understanding raw creativity instead of a movie that has been formulated and created for the purpose of catching everyone's dollar.

Fuck Total Recall, man.


Molly Wright is a high school girl from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania who enjoys blogging on tumblr, looking up lolzcats images, and playing video games for entertainment

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