Director – Paul Verhoeven – 1990 – US – Cert. 18 – 113m
***
UK Release: July 27th 1990
Arnold Schwarznegger’s mind has been stolen – and he’s got to go to Mars to get it back! The seeming perpetrator of this heinous crime is Recall Incorporated, a travel company with a difference: they implant memories of the required holiday destination and period in the client’s brain, and it seems to him that he’s having that holiday then. Recall’s latest deal even allows the client to take a break from his/her personality for the period purchased. Arnie opts for two weeks on Mars as a secret agent.
While the requirements of megabudget Hollywood film making often water down the end result, the premise of this film – fashioned after SF author Philip K. Dick’s We Can Remember It For You Wholesale – is not only imaginatively preposterous but also so utterly cinematic that it has a phenomenal amount going for it right from frame one.
Add to this not only Schwarznegger but his contractually binding choice of director being none other than Dutchman Paul Verhoeven (The Fourth Man, 1983; Robocop, 1987) plus a final price tag which might well be as high as $70m, and you can see why expectations on this movie are so high.
Moreover, given that the screenplay by Dan O’Bannon (Dark Star, 1974; Alien, 1979) and Ron Shusett has been around for some ten years now with no lesser names than Disney, De Laurentiis, David Cronenberg, and Aussies Bruce Beresford, Fred Schepisi, and Russell Malcahy working on the project at one stage or other, one’s prepared from anything from a masterpiece to an utter failure.
Although laden with impressive Red Planet vistas and technically inventive alien make-up, Total Recall as here constituted suffers from an overall lack of sets – the Martian interiors consist of little other than a few streets, a hotel room, an impressive hotel lobby, a sleazy bar and a corporate boardroom. Ronny Cox’s villain is remarkably similar to his Robocop character. Arnie himself, bar the unexplained Austrian accent, isn’t bad, but there are far more entertaining performances from two surprisingly spirited female leads (Sharon Stone and Rachel Ticotin, one of whom could well be his wife in the film) whose impressive karate-style fight steals the show.
For the rest, plot, story and character are overthrown in favour of car chases and shoot-outs likely to satisfy the average punter but leave the serious movie-goer or SF student feeling short-changed. The ride of your life? Maybe, provided you don’t require a satisfying tour of the fairground.
Originally reviewed for TNT.
Trailer (StudioCanal 4K Restoration):