TOTAL RECALL
A film review by Robert Dorsett
Copyright 1990 Robert Dorsett
Arnold Swarzenegger stars as a rather mixed-up guy in the somewhat-distant future. The movie begins with him having a deep hankering to go to Mars. His wife isn't keen on the idea, so he settles for something second-best--to have the *memories* of a trip to Mars implanted in his brain. He chooses the company's "Secret Agent" option; the next thing we see is that the procedure goes wrong--he starts playing the secret agent after getting doped up, but before the new memories have been implanted.
The rest of the film is more or less an action-adventure, with a few plot twists (is it all a hallucination, or isn't it?) to spice things up.
As a science-fiction movie, all I can say is that I'm reminded of the old actor's adage about Star Trek: it doesn't matter how preposterous the story is, you've just got to *believe* in it. The cast here, by and large, does their best to make the movie fly. The story, though--let's face it--is preposterous (I was willing to buy the memory bit, but the physics in the rest of the film ... yuck), and leans less on science fiction than on pure fantasy. The whole thing comes across like a 50's/60's-era sci-fi flick, with many things not quite clicking into place. Even Swarzenegger's trademark humor is (intentionally?) somewhat sterile, although there are some bright moments.
The flick sort of reminded me of Sean Connery's OUTLAND, which was a far better movie, and made far better use of the cramped mining town/oppressive environment gimmick. Swarzenegger's last SF film, PREDATOR, was a lot slicker. This one, however, tries to be a combination of both, with a bit of ROBOCOP (which I didn't care for) and COMMANDO thrown in for good measure.
There are product placements everywhere: Evian, Hilton, Heinz, Jack in the Box, USA Today, and hundreds of others which I didn't catch. They are all listed at the end of the film. These are used, generally, to provide "texture," but abnormally tilted labels always pisses me off. I've yet to see a kitchen in which all the shelves are piled up on the counter, with every single label pointed straight at you. :-) If one were cynical, one would find some pleasure in seeing these companies portrayed in the way they were (Jack in the Box, for instance, is located next door to a whorehouse; "Mars Today" is the organ of a demagogue; the Hilton's the site of several shoot-outs and terrorist incidents). And I did. :-)
Rating: 6/10, or a B- on the Summer Grading Scheme.
--- Robert Dorsett Internet: rdd@rascal.ics.utexas.edu UUCP: ...cs.utexas.edu!rascal.ics.utexas.edu!rdd
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