Yes it’s that time again, due to popular demand I am back to review yet another movie. Thank you, you are too kind, but please stop with the endless compliments, I must get on with the review.
Anyways, a couple of people, including my housemate Tom thought my review of The Expendables was rather harsh and unjustified. I disagree wholeheartedly, but just to show that I am not completely against the typical action film, I have decided to review an Arnie classic. Paul Verhoven’s Total Recall !!!
I just described this as an Arnie classic didn’t I? And what does that mean I hear to ask. Well what one can expect from this type of movie are plenty of bulging muscles, ridiculous gun fights and so many one liners you will lose count; the result however is one hell of an entertaining movie.
What of the plot, well that aspect of the film is rather well thought out. Doug Quaid (Schwarzenegger) is just a typical average joe, albeit an average joe with biceps the size of my legs, but no matter. Quaid is nothing but a simple construction worker, who one day dreams of going to Mars, however these plans are continually scuppered by the fact that there is currently a war taking place on Mars between the forces of evil businessman (did I hear you say cliché? Well, stop it!). Vilos Cohaagen played by Ronny Cox and the rebel alliance led by a mysterious mutant know as Kuato. Despite this Quaid is still not discouraged and decides to visit a company called Rekall which can implant memories into the brain, for instance they can make you believe you are a secret agent on Mars, who fights for the rebels and saves the day, gets the girl, all that jazz. Uber hint here, that’s the memory Quaid chooses, if you hadn’t guessed that already. Everything appears to be going just fine and dandy up until this point until during the process of implanting the memory into Quaid’s brain; he seems to have some sort of fit and begins to make faces that would indicate he is shitting a porcupine. We now realise that Quaid is in fact not Quaid and that his memory was erased only to have his old memory come back as a result of the procedure.
And so our heroes journey begins, after barely escaping Rekall, Quaid is set upon by his buddy and a gang of large adversaries, what does Quaid do one may enquire? Well Quaid destroys them with his fists of awesomeness and breaks many necks in a variety of ways. This particular scene made me laugh no end, but all the same it was pretty cool and just what you would expect from this type of movie. In the midst of all the chaos Quaid manages to escape the clutches of our main villain Richter played by Michael Ironside. Plenty of god dammits and you son of a bitches later, Quaid sits in his hotel room when he receives a phone call from an ‘old friend’ who leaves a suitcase for Quaid, which contains important information about something or other, so Quaid then puts a wet towel on his head and leaves (oh yeah, he has a chip in his brain that helps the bad guys to track him, and a wet towel scrambles the signal, God do I have to explain everything to you?). It later transpires that Quaid is in fact somebody else and as Arnie himself puts it ‘you are not you, you are me’ yes that’s right Quaid was in fact a member of the rebels who was sent to earth to protect or something like that, anyway, sorry I wasn’t really paying attention to this part that much as I was still laughing at the line ‘you are not you, you are me’ Anywho, Hauser, the supposed real name of Quaid tells him to go to Mars and in the suitcase there are a number of things to help him blah blah blah.
Hooray, we have finally made it to Mars, shame it’s full of mutants and is a bit shit, but oh well. Quaid manages to get onto the planet relatively unscathed and narrowly escapes his pursuers once more by wearing fat lady costume, why are you sniggering? I’m being serious ! Moving along swiftly Quaid realises that he must head to a strip club/brothel in the mutant part of town, he is helped there by our obligatory black man, cab driver Benny (Mel Johnson Jr.) Upon reaching his destination and encountering a woman with three boobs (it’s not as hot as it sounds sadly) Quaid finally meets the woman he has been seeing in his dreams Melina played by Rachel Ticotin. And so on and so on, lots of rather shoddy dialogue later, they decide that they must stop Cohaagen from monopolising the oxygen which he is in charge of, of course. They must also try to avoid being killed by Richter and all the other mother flippers trying to ruin things.
I’m doing a bit more on the plot here than I want to, so from now on I will keep it short and sweet (that’s what she said). So yeah Quaid later meets Kuato, the chuckie doll lookalike who lives in a man’s chest and finds out that the core of Mars is ice and that centuries ago, aliens built some device that would melt it all and give Mars an atmosphere thereby negating the need to buy oxygen from Cohaagen, who in turn knows of this and wants to stop Quaid from screwing things up. The main obstacle facing Quaid aside from people with guns is the fact that people keep telling him that his experiences are just a part of the simulation he paid for at Rekall and that in fact none of this is real. Dum dum dum, but are we to believe this, Quaid certainly doesn’t, and he continues to kill his way through the problem eventually reaching the core of the planet, despite being betrayed by Benny and the death of Kuato. Oh by the way, when Quaid kills Benny with a giant drill, proper funny !
Where were we? Oh yes so Quaid has reached the core and he is still being pursued by Richter, but manages to defeat him by removing his arms, another highly amusing scene. From this point we are nearing the end of our adventure, with the help of Melina, Quaid manages to activate the alien device and melt the core of Mars thereby giving it an atmosphere and saving all the mutants. HOORAY Mars is once again safe. Our movie ends with our hero and heroine kissing in the sunset, awwww.
So there we are, I hope you took all of that in. Now for those who haven’t actually seen this movie, do not expect something that’s Oscar worthy. Some of the action sequences are so over the top and ridiculous they will leave you laughing your teeth out of their gums. Which is nothing compared to the dialogue which I must say is just so so bad, for example this peach of a line, ‘who gives a shit what you believe? In thirty seconds you'll be dead, and I'll blow this place up and be home in time for Corn Flakes.’ However that being said this film is thoroughly enjoyable and delivers exactly what it promises, the special effects pre – date CGI but they are not too bad considering. Arnie really is at his best in this movie, he can’t act for shit but hey he is good at punching people and delivers great action movie one liners with aplomb.
I would recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of a straight and simple action movie, which has a bit of sci-fi mixed in for good measure. And another bonus is that my friend managed to buy it for £1.50 so it won’t set you back much, also don’t be put off by the fact that it was directed by the same guy who did Showgirls, its much much better than that, despite the absence of as many naked women.
I will give this movie a 7/10 and it you don’t like that then SCREW YOOOOOOOOOOU!!!!
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