Total Recall

Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, Total Recall follows Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Douglas Quaid as he and several periphery figures battle for control of the planet Mars and its atmosphere. Filmmaker Paul Verhoeven, armed with a screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, and Gary Goldman, delivers a consistently engaging and frequently enthralling blockbuster that benefits from its palpable raft of appealing, compelling attributes, as the movie, which is bursting with exciting action interludes and sequences, progresses through a surprising narrative that’s been augmented with a whole host of expertly conceived-and-executed set pieces – including a fantastic scene wherein Quaid arrives on Mars disguised as an overweight woman and a tense digression involving a villain and his attempts to convince Quaid that everything around him is a dream. And although Verhoeven has peppered the picture with eye-popping sets and first-class special effects work, Total Recall‘s complete and total success is due largely to the combined efforts of a uniformly impressive roster of performances – with Schwarzenegger’s predictably (and often astonishingly) effective turn as the affable protagonist matched by a seriously strong supporting cast that includes Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, and Michael Ironside. (The latter, cast as a deliciously smarmy henchman, is especially entertaining and captivating here, to be sure.) By the time the violent and thoroughly satisfying climax rolls around, Total Recall has cemented its place as the crowning jewel of 1990s sci-fi cinema and one of Schwarzenegger’s (and Verhoeven’s) very best movies.

**** out of ****