Movie of the Day – Total Recall

SEE YOU AT THE PARTY RICHTER!!!  Yep that’s right folks, time to get ridiculous with Total Recall.  Now I have a certain affinity, as does everyone else, with the form Governor and his macho movies.  There’s a certain “fuck it all” attitude with his movies and frankly, between the one-liners, violence, Arnold emoting, and just flat out cavalcade of villains, there is an underlying joy to his movies.  It’s not that they are bad, it’s just that you have be in the right frame of mind to enjoy them.  For me I enjoy them with lots of beer and BBQ.  Then again these are just testosterone filled movies and vehicles for ridiculous action premises, but hey to each his own.  What got me to come back to this movie is the fact that they are remaking the movie with Collin Farrel and also it’s based off a Phillip K. Dick novel, which I have been on kick lately reading his writings.  So come take a ride with me and Johnny Cab through the alien world of Total Recall.

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a 21st-century construction worker who discovers that his entire memory of the past derives from a memory chip implanted in his brain. Schwarzenegger learns that he’s actually a secret agent who had become a threat to the government, so those in power planted the chip and invented a domestic lifestyle for him. Once he has realized his true identity, he travels to Mars to piece together the rest of his identity, as well as to find the man responsible for his implanted memory.  Source

One of the standout things about this movie is that it ‘s a complex story.  The short story they adapted it from deals with the idea of false reality, false memory and real memory.  The confusion of Arnold’s character Quaid is felt by the audience since he is piecing together his past and we are witnessing things fall into place.  It’s a great script that often times gets overshadowed by director Paul Verhoeven’s over use of ultra violence.  It’s a shame really as the movie for the time was a mind bending science fiction film that actually had strong roots in the pillars of sci-fi.  It’s just that the movie was blown up with a lot, and I do mean a lot, of violence.

Some of the most memorable things about the movie is the effects and setting.  We have a society built on Mars with a unique cast of people all mingling together in hovel like city.  Sure, some people will remember the little tumor baby growing out of a guys stomach or the chick with the three boobs more than anything else, but you have to look past those things.  Admittedly it’s hard to look past a chick with three boobs cause I mean…she’s got THREE BOOBS.

Overall this is one hell of a movie that deals with some pretty deep stuff about memories and constructed realities. I think turning it into an all out action film kind of casts a shadow over the tone of the movie. Now the violence certainly isn’t unwelcomed cause there is a comical amount in the movie and having Arnold in your movie means you have to have action and guns. Still though, this is a straight forward action that could have been a deeper, thought provoking movie. But I will take a guilty pleasure, violent Arnold movie any day of the week.