Total Recall (1989)

Total Recall is Paul Verhoeven’s Back To The Future (1985) although, not surprisingly for anyone who knows the director’s work, devoid of any comparable charm. “Inspired” by Phillip K. Dick's sci-fi novel, 'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale', at the film’s core is a clever take on identity confusion but Verhoeven’s transposition of it to the big screen is anything but clever. Indeed it makes it manifestly obvious why Blade Runner (1982) also based on a Dick novel is so highly regarded amongst sci-fi film buffs.

Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a construction worker in the distant future . He sees an advertisement for fake memory implants supplied by Rekall, Inc. that will give him memories of a holiday on Mars without the hassle of travelling. He decides to choose the deluxe package and go as a secret agent. But during the procedure something goes wrong and he starts to think he really is a secret agent.  The operatives sedate him. abandons the procedure, wipe his memory and put him in a taxi. But before you can say “back to the future”, bad people are trying to kill him. But is this real or is it all part of the dream he is having back at Rekall?

An intriguing premise indeed although the fact that Quaid is supposed to be construction worker but lives in a swish apartment and has Sharon Stone for a wife (devices presumably pitched at the intended audience) should pretty much have alarm bells ringing from the get-go. For the first half-hour or so the film is entertaining enough with a kind of cartoonish tongue-in-cheekiness. But once Quaid boots off to Mars in search of his real self, humour evaporates and Verhoeven hands over the film to the logistics and SFX people who simply recreate the Blade Runner look and proceed to blow it up in various familiar action movie ways.

Despite DIck's sophisticated original concept forget any rumours that Total Recall is an "intelligent" action film. Verhoeven is not a director given to conceptual refinement when an explosion will do the job quicker.

 

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