Film: Total Recall

Total Recall

Uniting the director of Robocop and the star of Terminator with a record-high Hollywood budget, Total Recall was a hugely anticipated movie. Excessively graphic, acerbic and kitsch (an approach to the future taken in Robocop that director Verhoeven would develop in Starship Troopers), the film was a massive popular success despite a mixed critical reception.
The premise is taken from the Philip K Dick 1966 short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", which presents a disturbed vision of a consumerist future where even memories are for sale.

Douglas Quaid finds himself at the centre of a mind-bending conspiracy where an apparently botched attempt to buy fake memories leads to his discovery that he may not even be who he thinks he is. While being much more action-oriented than the source material, it retains the book's cynical humour and theme of identity crises, and throws in a great deal more gore.

In the lead role Schwarzenegger faced off against rising star Sharon Stone, providing enough Hollywood star-power between them to cover up the often intentional 'B-movie' support and production design. In the end, its riotous pace and slapstick carnage in the face of biting satire made it a classic blockbuster of the genre.