... It makes Total Recall sound like an intellectual behemoth of twists, turns, illusions and mirrors as Quaid journeys to Mars (or not as the case may be) to find himself, but whilst it uses the template of Dick's short-story 'We Can Remember It For The Wholesale' it's nowhere near that smart. ... Read review
Total Recall, director Paul Verhoeven's mega-budget sci-fi action blockbuster from 1990, ... more
began its production life as a very different movie. An adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale", it was originally conc...
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Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Douglas Quaid, a tough construction worker with a beautiful ... more
wife, a good job and great friends. Haunted by recurring dreams of another life on Mars, Quaid is drawn to Rekall Incorporated, a travel service specializing in implanting fantasies in the minds of those who wish to turn their dreams into reality-dreams as real as a memory in your mind. But something goes wrong and the procedure unlocks memories that were supposed to be left hidden suddenly his every move is dogged by would-be assassins and he discovers a mirror image recording of himself which says ?Get ready for a big surprise. You?re not you. You?re me.? As his reality shatters around him, Quaid journeys to Mars to solve the mystery of who he is. It's A Journey Of Non-Stop Action And Extroadinary Special Effects On Which Quaid Must Contend With Strange Mutants, FuturisticVehicles And A Staggering Array Of Weaponry.
Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as Douglas Quaid, a tough construction worker with a beautiful ... more
wife, a good job and great friends. Haunted by recurring dreams of another life on Mars, Quaid is drawn to Rekall Incorporated, a travel service specializing in implanting fantasies in the minds of those who wish to turn their dreams into reality-dreams as real as a memory in your mind. But something goes wrong and the procedure unlocks memories that were supposed to be left hidden suddenly his every move is dogged by would-be assassins and he discovers a mirror image recording of himself which says ?Get ready for a big surprise. You?re not you. You?re me.? As his reality shatters around him, Quaid journeys to Mars to solve the mystery of who he is. It's A Journey Of Non-Stop Action And Extroadinary Special Effects On Which Quaid Must Contend With Strange Mutants, FuturisticVehicles And A Staggering Array Of Weaponry.
They stole his mind: now he wants it back! In a futuristic world construction worker ... more
Doug Quaid obsesses about taking a vacation on the planet Mars. His wife objects so Doug instead opts to have an artificial memory of a Martian holiday implanted into his mind. The trouble is during the implantation procedure Quaid suffers a strange reaction. Why? It seems as though he has already been to Mars but his memories of his journey have been wiped... Now secret agents and the cohorts of a megalomaniacal industrialist are out to get him. Can Quaid experience total recall and finally figure out just why everyone is trying to stop him from reaching the red planet?
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Arnold Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast as Quaid, a 2084 construction worker haunted by ... more
dreams of Mars in this crowd-pleasing science fiction spectacle. Against the wishes of his sexy blonde wife (Sharon Stone), Quaid goes to Rekall, a company that implants artificial memories, so he can remember visiting the red planet that is now being settled by human inhabitants. However, Quaid is actually an amnesiac secret agent from Mars--or is he
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Advantages: Visceral action, violence and gore in the Verhoeven fashion makes for a joyous flick. Disadvantages: Not as smart as it could have been...
TOTAL RECALL
There is a fairly unique equation that, rather sadly, is not used often enough in the movie business. When it is, however, it provides for some rather fabtastic cream-in-your-jeans results. It goes a little something like this: Arnold Schwarzenegger times Paul Verhoeven divided by Philip K. Dick = three breasted mutant alien women, a midget prostitute with a knife fetish, exit wounds the size of one of Jupiter's moons, ... ...of a cheat. It makes Total Recall sound like an intellectual behemoth of twists, turns, illusions and mirrors as Quaid journeys to Mars (or not as the case may be) to find himself, but whilst it uses the template of Dick's short-story 'We Can Remember It For The Wholesale' it's nowhere near that smart. Sure, Verhoeven induces some ambiguity from proceedings at certain junctures, playing on those threads of Dick's curious interest in branching realities, ... more
TOTAL RECALL
There is a fairly unique equation that, rather sadly, is not used often enough in the movie business. When it is, however, it provides for some rather fabtastic cream-in-your-jeans results. It goes a little something like this: Arnold Schwarzenegger times Paul Verhoeven divided by Philip K. Dick = three breasted mutant alien women, a midget prostitute with a knife fetish, exit wounds the size of one of Jupiter's moons, Arnie beating the living crap out of anything that moves, Martian time-slips, shitloads of gore, eye-stalks popping out of eye sockets and, rather incredibly, some deftly handled sci-fi ambiguity. It's a cocktail cornucopia of bizarre delights that just can't fail to be made of win and success...
Douglas Quaid (Arnie) leads a fairly bland life as a construction worker, yet constantly dreams of travelling to Mars and of a mystery brunette (who may or may not be sleazy, athletic and demure). His kinky wife (Sharon Stone) is both unimpressed he is dreaming of another women and hates the idea of going on holiday to Mars. Yet a chance advertisement for 'Recall', a facility that can implant memories providing the perception of a whirlwind Mars romance, gives Quaid the ideal chance of escape from his mundane existence to live out his personal Mars fantasy. Yet the implant procedure has barely begun and Quaid is having a schizoid embolism - he's been to Mars before, he just doesn't know it. That a work friend and then his wife try to kill him, before being head-hunted by rent-a-baddie Richter (Michael Ironside), suggests that something is desperately wrong. Things get even more bizarre when a video recording of himself tells Quaid he's not who he thinks he is, he's actually Hauser, and he needs to get his arse to Mars. Or is this all a paranoid delusion, part of the secret agent package Quaid requested at Recall, and the realms of reality and fantasy have begun to merge and become helplessly entwined?
To be perfectly honest the above is a bit of a cheat. It makes Total Recall sound like an intellectual behemoth of twists, turns, illusions and mirrors as Quaid journeys to Mars (or not as the case may be) to find himself, but whilst it uses the template of Dick's short-story 'We Can Remember It For The Wholesale' it's nowhere near that smart. Sure, Verhoeven induces some ambiguity from proceedings at certain junctures, playing on those threads of Dick's curious interest in branching realities, but he has essentially ripped out the guts of such a tale and added his own stamp of approval. Which mostly involves carnage. Lots of carnage! For instance, where else are you going to see Arnie use a civilian as a bullet shield whilst riding an escalator from his pursuers? Or a pair of arms lopped off by an elevator shaft leaving Arnie holding onto the soggy ends?
Indeed, Total Recall is the film you'd expect as the follow up to Verhoeven's masterful Robocop, just not quite as nasty. There's no excessively brutal execution sequence as in the latter, but you do get Arnie's eyeballs popping out of their sockets in one pretty grim (albeit ingenious) sequence. Yet whilst Total Recall does have the Verhoeven mark all over (a three breasted women - I'd say!), it manages to share equal space with Arnie's own action hero dynamic. After all, this is also your typical Arnie flick, with Arnie in nondescript lumbering hulk mode (well, to be fair he's actually really good in this), cracking the odd one liner whilst meting out his own brand of destruction. The mixture of the two makes for quite a compelling ride and, similar to how John McTiernan got the best out of Arnie in Predator, Verhoeven manages to do likewise here. It may compromise his excessive style slightly, but it does make for one enthralling, joyous and darkly humourous action adventure ripe for the mainstream adult audience.
With the carnage and mayhem at the forefront, though, perhaps the one disappointing thing is that unlike the neo-facist piss-take of corporate gung-ho America, which was evident in Robocop and Starship Troopers (Verhoeven's other sci-fi classics), Total Recall is somewhat less cerebral. The removal of this undercurrent of anti-American sentiment and sardonic wit, along with Dick's musings makes Total Recall, in some sense, a science fiction flick without the 'core' science fiction. Which seems like a missed opportunity to raise an otherwise highly competent action-thriller above its basic genre hall-markings. Dick's text is there for sure, but it's hanging around in the background looking a bit sad and lost. His themes are cherry-picked and inserted into the quieter moments (of which there are few due to the film's relentless pace) to serve some confusion as to what's really going on, yet this mild ambiguity only proves that the third element of the equation seems slightly overlooked in the face of such spectacle.
For instance the Mars landscape, even today, is wonderfully realised. A vast mining community of domes and structures running along the canyons of Mars' red surface is probably still the finest visual encapsulation of the planet in film. Indeed, some of the visual effects still stand up incredibly well. Arnie pulling a bug out of his nose with a nasty drill/screwdriver contraption, along with the removal of his disguise as he passes through Mars customs are superb, even if the dress sense of the future is still stuck unconvincingly in the eighties. And then there's the reveal of the mutant Kuato, which along with his Garfield sounding voice, is rather stomach churning...
Despite the pretence of being a smart sci-fi flick, Total Recall is instead stupidly great fun. A pinch of Verhoeven along with a smidgeon of Arnie ensures there's plenty of relentless visceral action, a good dollop of blood and gore, along with a hint of the bizarre. It's all about spectacle and to this end the effects are still admirable in these CGI bloated days and the pacing is deftly handled to make for one hell of an enjoyable ride (although it does seem to run out of steam just before the end). And, to be honest, who doesn't want to see a kick arse girl-on-girl punch up between Sharon Stone and Rachel Ticotin (calm down lads) or a midget prostitute with a machine gun blasting the hell out of bad-guy scum left right and centre? Ever so typically Verhoeven, Total Recall is filled with such bizarre and memorable moments and that is what really makes it a must see!
Overall - Your enjoyment of Totall Recall can probably be dictated by the following little survey based on Verhoeven's previous sci-fi opus, Robocop. Question 1 - did you enjoy the scene where the young executive was turned into fishpaste by the two mini-guns attached to the under-side of ED-209? Question 2 - did you laugh out loud when the guy melting from toxic waste exposure was hit by Clarence Boddickers car and his head splats green stuff across the wind shield? If your answer is 'hell yes' to both these questions, you'll love Total Recall!
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Screenplay: Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon and Gary Goldman
Cast:
Arnold Schwarzenegger... Douglas Quaid / Hauser Rachel Ticotin... Melina Sharon Stone... Lori Ronny Cox... Vilos Cohaagen Michael Ironside... Richter Marshall Bell... George Mel Johnson Jr.... Benny
Advantages: Arnie at his best Disadvantages: Nothing springs to mind
Total Recall.
==========
Introduction
=========
An uprising on Mars calls for a special kind of hero to step in, even one who doesn't know his own name!
Synopsis
========
Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) keeps dreaming of the wonders of Mars, much to the annoyance of his beautiful wife Lori (Sharon Stone). She is more upset because he keeps dreaming of a dark haired beauty, Melina (Rachel Ticotin), with whom he is obsessed.
Doug decides ... ...Subtitles: Dutch, English, German, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish Region: Region 2
Number of discs: 2 Classification: 18
ASIN: B000056IFT Amazon Prices: £6.97
Run Time: 108 minutes
Also included are:
Trailer Teaser Trailer Making of Total Recall Featurette All are standard features.
Greg. ...
Maximus-Qualitus 25.10.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Total Recall (DVD)
Advantages: great action packed entertaining movie with Disadvantages: none really
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Producer: Mario Kassar
Writers: Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, Jon Povill and Gary Goldman.
Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Rachel Ticotin and Ronny Cox.
Released in the summer of 1990 this near two hour movie takes you into some futuristic and rather frightening scenarios involving the big red planet…
* BRIEF PLOT *
It is the year 2084 and Douglas Quaid, (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger), ... ...(Played by Sharon Stone)… unfortunately for him his life begins to take a turn for the worse when he starts to have some rather strange dreams about a life on Mars… the dreams being almost life like.
When a trip to a somewhat unconventional travel agents,(of sorts) goes slightly wrong he realises that his entire life may not be what it seems as he runs for his life… in the hope of unearthing the true secrets in his mind, together with the hidden ...
blissman70 18.11.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Total Recall (DVD)
Advantages: Arnie in his prime, an intriguing premise Disadvantages: Dating badly
Total Recall (1990)
113 mins
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Rachel Ticotin, Ronnie Cox, Michael Ironside.
Ah, the memories..
On the morning of my 15th birthday, I received this on video as a gift from my parents and I was thrilled. Over the previous couple of years, me and my friends had been introduced to the likes of everything from The Terminator to Twins. We loved the one liners, our imaginations ... ...to what he wears in Total Recall..except I doubt HIS had padding in it, of course…
Anyway, I digress. Totall Recall is a film which features towards the end of Arnie’s 80s hot streak of Box Office success. Terminator 2 followed, then a string of soulless big budget turkeys like Last Action Hero and True Lies which effectively torpedoed his megastardom for good. With hindsight you could say he reflected American sensibilities about their place in ...
runningman77 23.03.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Total Recall (DVD)
Advantages: Arnie, concept Disadvantages: Scenes on Mars
A brain implant for Arnie? Now there's an interesting thought ... a man who comes across as all brawn and no brains, although he's reputed in real life to be a diamond geezer, witty and quite intelligent ... but here it's to give him another life, not to bring his intelligent quotient up to a decent level. It also sees him looking very demure in a lovely twisted tea towel. Very cool, my friend...
Mr Schwarzenegger shares top billing here with Sharon ... ...just having a sweaty cameo role as the surrogate, make believe wife in Arnie's invented new life. She's not very good in the bits she's in, although it's always nice seeing a woman get hot and she does that in a high kicking tussle to (miles away from) the finish.
Arnie's the master of this sort of all action role and he does it so much more intelligently and wittily than old dough head Stallone. This film isn't really very witty and comes over ...
dave27 12.08.2001
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Total Recall (DVD)
Advantages: Sharon stone, well put together story Disadvantages: was abit short !
One of Arnold Schwarzenegger's (hope I dont have to spell that again!!) early renditions still packs a punch even in today's filming industry. Double identities, mind assassination, chases, Mars, Aliens this film has it all!
Douglas Quaid, Houser who is Arnold Schwarzenegger? Is he Douglas the construction worker with a beautiful wife Lori (Sharon stone)? No! His future must be in Mar as he dreams about it every night!
Douglas soon finds himself ... ...Mars. Why is this making people edgy? It seems like somebody has been messing with Quaids head literally. Who is Lori, is she his wife? Why does it seem like she wants him dead!
Quaid is told by himself or should I say Houser (and yes you heard me I did say by himself) that he was once a bad guy but has had a change of heart because of a woman, who is this woman? Is he lying? It must be the woman in Quaids dreams is her name Melina? Has Houser really ...
NEO_TECH 02.08.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Total Recall (DVD)
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It took me the best part of fifteen years to understand what the hell was happening in John Verhoeven's futuristic, mind-tampering action flick TotalRecall. Based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, the film presents the concept of artificial memory implants that [apparently] will wipe out any previous identity. A person then has the option of living his/her life with a chosen fantasy, as if it were a reality.
Of course, the execution of this idea doesn't run as smoothly as the company in the film- "Rekall Inc." -would want. Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) is an everyman: a construction worker, with the trademark blonde wifey (Sharon Stone). Strangely, he has frequent dreams about Mars (in 2084, the planet hosts an airtight city, which is inhibited by humans). So, one day he decides to visit Rekall, in a bid to make his dreams come true ...
Advantages: Groundbreaking FX, great direction and acting Disadvantages: Over the top violence
In 1990, TotalRecall was released to the public, giving us a vision of the future with an exceptional plot and wonderful direction and performances all round. The sci-fi film is set in 2084, and is a masterpiece of a twisting tale, which will make you think and watch it over and over. It is an Academy Award winning film, and for good reasons.
The Plot
Rekall is a company selling false memories by way of an implant in the brain. Douglas Quaid, dreaming of spending time on Mars with a sexy brunette, buys an implant, and launches himself into a world of paranoia, where the government is out to get him and he is a secret agent, forcing him to actually travel to Mars for real. His only question is: what is real and what is not? Is he a regualr guy, or is he really a secret agent? Which came first, and how can he find out the truth ...
This is a nice little addition to the Schwarzenegger fan's collection but is perhaps a poor man's compilation of Arnie's films.
The pack is presented in a nice silver card box with individual dvd boxes for each of the films. The individual dvds are commented on in summary below (refer to my individual reviews for a more detailed look).
TotalRecall
This is the real gem of the compilation it terms of both the movie and the features on the dvd. Its a high budget sci-fi where Arnie is Doug Quaid- a lowly construction worker whoi dreams of going to mars. His wife wont let him so he goes for the new fangled memory implant on offer for a company called RECALL. Big mistake- Arnie is an undercover operative who has had his identity changed by 'the agency' and is briefed to infiltrate rebel forces on Mars. Doug Quaid, has different ...
Trailer, Teaser Trailer, Making Of Total Recall Featurette
Aspect Ratio
1.85 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Digital Surround
Dubbing Sound
Dolby Digital 5.1 English Dolby Digital Surround German Spanish
Professional reviews
Review
"...A thunderous tribute to its star's determination to create, out of the unlikeliest raw materials, a patently synthetic yet surprisingly affable leading man..." (New York Times, p.C10, 01/06/1990)
"...TOTAL RECALL is a gut cruncher on a grand scale..." (Rolling Stone, p.42, 12/07/1990)
DVD Description
Arnold Schwarzenegger is perfectly cast as Quaid, a 2084 construction worker haunted by dreams of Mars in this crowd-pleasing science fiction spectacle. Against the wishes of his sexy blonde wife (Sharon Stone), Quaid goes to Rekall, a company that implants artificial memories, so he can remember visiting the red planet that is now being settled by human inhabitants. However, Quaid is actually an amnesiac secret agent from Mars--or is he
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