Tagline: Get ready for the ride of your life. [Note: Could this tagline be more generic? Perhaps “This is a movie”?]
Curiosity: Put this one in the Queue of Shame. I’ve seen clips from Total Recall on television over the years, but I’ve never watched it from start to finish.
Plot: Quaid (Arnold Brownschwagger) keeps having these dreams where he lives on Mars. Everybody thinks that’s totally crazy and he should just ignore them, but Quaid can’t shake these memories. Luckily, there’s a company in the future called Rekall that can place false memories in your brain, thereby allowing Quaid to explore his dreams of Mars without actually going there (because fuck that, amiright?). But early into the process, technicians find out that Quaid really has been to Mars! And people are trying to kill him! It’s up to Quaid and a loveable gang of mutated prostitutes to figure out why!
Thoughts: As if Robocop wasn’t confirmation enough, Total Recall displays director Paul Verhoeven’s love of gunshots. Everybody gets shot in this movie, and usually 20 times apiece. The film may also mark either the pinnacle or the nadir of Brownschwagger’s love of making puns after he kills bad guys. I feel that shouting “Screw you!” is too generic of a one liner after taking a villain out with a giant drill. You just know that guy died without totally getting that one, which is a shame.
But that’s why I love this movie so dang much. I love it because it plays out like if Inception was a dumb action movie. Because Brownschwagger personally bankrolled it because he’s a Phillip K. Dick fan (Nerd alert!). Because the special effects hold up better than films half as old. I swear, there are so many latex Ah-nolds in this movie, and they all look great. Like Independence Day, Total Recall is one of those rare sci-fi movies that made a ton of bank but never got watered down by incessant sequels.
Reflection: I have spent at least two years thinking Michael Ironside was dead.
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