Total Recall [1990 film]

An ordinary man turns into a super spy after something goes wrong with recreational memory alterations.

The Paul Verhoeven movie with a script good enough that even Paul Verhoeven couldn't wreck it - though he really tries. If it had been made by someone with any sense of taste or aesthetics, it might have been one of my favorite movies.

Concept: B
Story: A
Characters: C
Dialog: C
Pacing: C
Cinematography: D
Special effects/design: B
Acting: C
Music: C

Enjoyment: B

GPA: 2.4/4

Douglas Quaid is haunted by a recurring dream about a journey to Mars. He hopes to find out more about this dream and buys a holiday at Rekall Inc. where they sell implanted memories. But something goes wrong with the memory implantation and he remembers being a secret agent fighting against the evil Mars administrator Cohaagen. Now the story really begins and it's a roller-coaster ride until the massive end of the movie. Written by Harald Mayr (IMDb)

Amazon.com
This science fiction blockbuster from 1990 began its production life as a very different movie than the one that was released. An adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale," Total Recall was originally conceived of with Richard Dreyfuss starring as a Walter Mitty-like character who experiences a variety of artificially induced fantasies. The movie we know is a mega-budget action epic set on Mars. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a normal working man who discovers that his entire reality has been invented to conceal a plot of planetary domination. Oscar-winning special effects and violent action propel the twisting plot, in which Arnold manipulates his manipulators in a world of dazzling high show more technology. Director Paul Verhoeven (Robocop) indulges his usual penchant for gratuitous bloodshed, but the movie has enough cleverness to rise above its excesses. --Jeff Shannon show less

Ultimate Rekall Edition

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt100802/ http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/22885445