Total Recall

Intrinsically Verhoeven, _Total Recall_ is a film from my youth that I probably shouldn't have been watching quite as early as I did, but that I still love to this day. All the practical effects, exquisite violence & nudity and provocative sci-fi themes you've come to expect from this sort of thing,…

Verhoeven bonkers adaptation of a P. K. Dick story. Doug Quaid keeps getting recurring dreams about a visit to Mars. In spite of his friends warnings, he decides to have a memory implanted Mars holiday. But during the implantation he remembers being a secret agent who is fighting evil Mars boss …

Aside from maybe "Predator" (1987) this is probably my favourite outing from Arnold Schwarzenegger. He ("Quaid") goes off to have an harmless implant of memories from an holiday on Mars (that he hasn't had) only to find that his life starts to unwind very quickly afterwards. Even his girlfriend "Lor…

Man, it's almost like Saw with it's torture-porn thing... only the over-the-top gore actually fits beautifully into the story in the most entertaining way possible, even when it is so 80s cheese that it's almost comical. But the ultra-violence is part of the fun of these types of films. It's part…

"Total Recall" is an extraordinarily violent and gory extravaganza, but even though it is quite needlessly graphic in some places - Quaid's, Melina's, and Cohaagan's suffocation after they are exposed to the poisonious Martian atmosphere; the deaths of innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire dur…