Total Recall

This month, I will be looking at all the films I have seen that have Sharon Stone in it. Let’s get started with the 1990 sci-fi classic, “Total Recall.”

There may be people who overlook Arnold Schwarzenegger’s performance in “Total Recall” – who think he isn’t really acting. However, the performance is one of the reasons the movie works perfectly. He isn’t a superhero this time, but he fights like one. He’s a confused and scared innocent, a man betrayed by what he thought was reality. Roger Ebert said in his review, “And in his vulnerability, he opens the way for “Total Recall” to be more than simply an action, violence and special effects extravaganza.”

There is a lot of action and violence in the movie, and almost every shot seems to represent some type of special effect. Eber noted, “This is one of the most complex and visually interesting science fiction movies in a long time.” However, the plot, based on a story by science fiction writer Phillip K. Dick, is about an exciting idea: What would happen if you could be supplied with memories? If your entire “past,” right until this very second, could be inserted in you, replacing the experiences you had lived through? That’s what seems to happen to Quaid, played by Schwarzenegger, however sometimes neither he nor we can be completely sure. We meet him in a future society where he lives in a comfortable apartment with his beautiful wife, and goes to work every day at a construction job. He life looks relaxing, but he keeps having dreams about Mars – dreams that finally inspire him to sign up with a weird travel agency that gives him the memory of a vacation instead of a real one.

Ebert notes, “What they do is, they strap you into a machine and beam the memories into your mind, so that it seems utterly convincing to you that you’ve been to Mars and done some dangerous spying there, and fallen in love with the brunet of your specifications (Quaid specifies she be “athletic, sleazy and demure”). Before long, sure enough, Quaid seems to be on Mars, involved in some secret-spy stuff, and in the arms of his custom-ordered brunet (Rachel Ticotin).”

Ebert continued, “But is this a packaged memory, or a real experience? The movie toys tantalizingly with the possibilities, especially in a scene where a convincing doctor and Quaid’s own wife (Sharon Stone) “appear” in his dream to try to talk him down from it. Meanwhile, the plot – dream or not – unfolds.” Mars is in the middle of a revolutionary war between the army of Cohaagen, a greedy captain of industry, played by Ronny Cox, and a small group of rebels. There is a mystery involving a giant reactor that was apparently built by aliens on Mars so long ago, and has been discovered during mining operations. On top of that, can the brunet trust Quaid – even though he doesn’t remember that they were once in a relationship? “Total Recall” goes back and forth between different versions and types of reality, while at the same time giving the runtime a future world with so much detail. Ebert said, “The red planet Mars is created in glorious visual splendor, and the inside of the Mars station looks like a cross between Times Square and a submarine.” Strange aliens appear, including mutants, a three-breasted lady (Lycia Naff), and a team of hitmen led by Richter (Michael Ironside), Cohaagen’s most ruthless lieutenant.

Ebert said, “The movie is wall-to-wall with violence, much of it augmented by special effects.” Even in this future realm, people haven’t been able to improve on the machine gun as a weapon of murder, despite people thinking that every type of firearm would be banned inside an airtight dome. There are actually so many scenes where characters are sucked outside when the air seal is broken, but that doesn’t stop the movie’s villains from demonstrating the one unavoidable fact of movie marksmanship: Villains never hit their target, and heroes never miss.

Not that it makes any little difference, but the science in this movie is laughable all around. For example, so much is made of a scene where characters finds themselves outside on Mars, and immediately begin to expand, their eyes popping and their faces swelling. Ebert noted, “As Arthur C. Clarke has written in an essay about his 2001, a man would not explode even in the total vacuum of deep space.”

(What’s even more unlikely is that after the alien reactors are started and quickly give Mars with an atmosphere, the endangered characters are secure from explosion.) Ebert said, “Such quibbles – and pages could be filled with them – are largely irrelevant to “Total Recall,” which is a marriage between swashbuckling space opera and the ideas of the original Phillip Dick story. The movie was directed by Paul Verhoeven, whose credits range from “The Fourth Man” to “RoboCop,” and he is skilled at creating sympathy for characters even within the overwhelming hardware of a story like this.” That’s where Schwarzenegger is such a help. He could have followed and frowned through this movie and become a figure of fun, but instead, by allowing himself to look confused and vulnerable, he gives a sympathetic center for every high-tech display.

This is one of those Schwarzenegger movies that hold up very well today. You should see it if you haven’t because I think everyone will enjoy this and have a good laugh. There are many memorable moments, like when Schwarzenegger ripped the tracking device from his nose, and some of his lines that are the most quotable. Check it out and have a fun time.

However, I cannot be done with this review without talking about the 2012 remake. The two biggest differences between the remake and the 1990 original are that no scenes are set on Mars, and it stars Colin Farrell instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ebert said, “Mars we can do without, I suppose, although I loved the special effects creating the human outpost there.” This movie has its own reason you can’t go outside and breathe the air.

However, Schwarzenegger, now, is another matter. He’s replaced as the protagonist Quaid by Colin Farrell, who you could say is probably the better actor. However, Schwarzenegger is more of a movie presence and better fitted for the role of a wounded man going around in the realm of his memories. Ebert said, “The story involves a man who is involved without his knowledge (or recollection) in a conflict between a totalitarian regime and a resistance movement.” Both films open with him happy and cluelessly married (Sharon Stone in the original, Kate Beckinsale in the remake). In both, he is unhappy with his life. In both, he finds out that everything he thinks he knows about himself is fictitious, and all of his memories have been inserted.

Ebert said, “The enormity of this discovery is better reflected by Schwarzenegger, who seems more wounded, more baffled, more betrayed — and therefore more desperate.” In Farrell’s performance, there’s more of a sense that the character is being taken along with the events.

The originality of the plot, inspired by a Philip K. Dick story, is handled well in the remake, directed by Len Wiseman, and in Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 version. In both, there are parts where Quaid has no idea what to believe and must decide which of different characters can be trusted. Ebert said, “Both films are top-heavy with non-stop action, but there’s more humanity in the earlier one, and I think we care more about the hero. A film that really took this premise seriously would probably play more like Christopher Nolan’s “Memento,” following a man adrift in his own timeline.”

However, enough about 1990. Ebert noted, “In the new film, Earth is uninhabitable because of chemical warfare, except for two areas: a federation centered on the British isles and a colony on the former Australia. Workers from the colony provide factory labor for the federation, which sidesteps the commute time by linking them in what looks to be a tunnel straight through the Earth. That’s a lot of effort to go to in order to get cheap labor; Quaid’s factory job involves tightening two screws on the breastplates of robot soldiers being manufactured by the federation. These robots have a neat design, are sleek and shiny black and white, but are apparently doofuses. I can’t remember a single robot doing much more than marching in step and getting itself destroyed.”

Ebert continued, “The film does a detailed job of creating its cities, which in the federation is a towering futuristic marvel, and the colony seems to be countless small hovels endlessly stacked on top of one another, like the dwellings you can see clinging to the sides of other buildings in Hong Kong. Quaid gets involved in chases in both places, which require the ability to jump from great heights without breaking his ankles, or (it seems to me) his legs.” One smart chase sequence involves his character and a resistance member named Melina, played by Jessica Biel, jumping onto and off a maze of vertical and horizontal elevators. It’s somewhat an action version of 3-D chess.

“Total Recall” is well-made, high energy sci-fi. Like all stories inspired by Philip K. Dick, it deals with interesting ideas. Ebert said, “It never touched me emotionally, though, the way the 1990 film did, and strictly speaking, isn’t necessary.”

This is one of those remakes that is actually nice. You can check this out, but I prefer the original. I don’t know how many people will think the same thing, but my opinion aside, this is one remake that I recommend everyone seeing. Check it out and see which version you like.

Next week, we will be looking at another Verhoeven movie that is very controversial but is still one to see.