Total Recall

Intrinsically Verhoeven, _Total Recall_ is a film from my youth that I probably shouldn't have been watching quite as early as I did, but that I still love to this day. All the practical effects, exquisite violence & nudity and provocative sci-fi themes you've come to expect from this sort of thing, but twists and turns that start just five minutes in and keep running all the way through to the end. _Total Recall_ is...

Verhoeven bonkers adaptation of a P. K. Dick story. Doug Quaid keeps getting recurring dreams about a visit to Mars. In spite of his friends warnings, he decides to have a memory implanted Mars holiday. But during the implantation he remembers being a secret agent who is fighting evil Mars boss Vilos Cohaagen. Things are about to go very intergalactic bonkers indeed. Total Recall finds director Paul Verhoeven on part...

Aside from maybe "Predator" (1987) this is probably my favourite outing from Arnold Schwarzenegger. He ("Quaid") goes off to have an harmless implant of memories from an holiday on Mars (that he hasn't had) only to find that his life starts to unwind very quickly afterwards. Even his girlfriend "Lori" (Sharon Stone) becomes a would-be assassin and he is soon under attack from just about every other quarter too. Why?...

Man, it's almost like Saw with it's torture-porn thing... only the over-the-top gore actually fits beautifully into the story in the most entertaining way possible, even when it is so 80s cheese that it's almost comical. But the ultra-violence is part of the fun of these types of films. It's part of the reason why people love them... and it's over-the-top in a way that can't really be done today. It's also pretty sty...

"Total Recall" is an extraordinarily violent and gory extravaganza, but even though it is quite needlessly graphic in some places - Quaid's, Melina's, and Cohaagan's suffocation after they are exposed to the poisonious Martian atmosphere; the deaths of innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire during scenes of gunplay; the severing of limbs; the stabbings and impalings and so forth - the film is admittedly staged s...