USA 1990 Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside.

A complicated science fiction/action film which shouldn´t make any Arnold-fan disappointed. It´s roller coaster action from beginning to end. The director Paul Verhoeven tried to stretch the limits, and the result was really gory.

Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a man who has a good-looking wife and a decent job, but dreams all the time of Mars, there he meets a brunette (Mars is inhabited in this film). He finds out that the Rekall company can implant different memories in the brain, and decides to take a two weeks´ memory from Mars. It then turns out that he already has been there, and that his earlier memory has been erased. His wife Lori (Sharon Stone) is in reality not his real wife, but she is employed by the bureau that erased his memory. Quaid´s real identity Hauser, was an agent for the bureau in Mars, but went over to the resistance movement when he met the brunette Melina (Rachel Ticotin). Quaid is now a hunted man, and he flees to Mars there he tries to find his alter ego.

"Total Recall" is in its best moments very entertaining, but in the end are I´m get tired of the everlasting machine-gun rattles. And Rob Bottins award-winning special effects is good, but not especially realistic. Bottin strains his mind a little too much with the deformed monsters in Venusville, and everything are too much suggestive of a comic paper. Sharon Stone does one of her best performances, and she´s never been prettier. It´s a pity that I couldn´t see more of her.

Kent Palmgren

Thrilling Movie Review