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Total Recall
by Lions Gate
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$9.98 |
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$7.99 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. |
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$1.99 (19%) |
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DVD
Publisher: Lions Gate
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Widescreen, NTSC
Actors: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside
This Special Edition DVD allows you to experience TOTAL RECALL the way it was meant to be seen & heard. 16:9 Newly remastered Widescreen Version will immerse you in the action. 5.1 Newly remastered Dolby Surround with Nearfield performance. Audio mix delivers optimum home theater audio performance. Arnold Schwarzenegger provides a rare audio commentary along with Director Paul Verhoeven.
| Customer Reviews: |
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| An ultra-violent mind-bend |
| Customer Rating: 5 out of 5 |
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Doug Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) thinks he is just an ordinary construction worker who dreams of moving to Mars. However, after a spur-of-the-moment visit to Recall (a company that implants false memories of holidays into the minds of people who are too busy or too poor to go on them), Quaid suddenly starts to remember a previous life that he lived on Mars as a secret agent. Soon Quaid is being chased by a lot of people who want to kill him and he is no longer sure of who to trust, including his wife (Sharon Stone) and himself.
"Total Recall" is a rarity among action films - a film with an intelligent, mind-bending script that is also filled with some incredible set pieces. It can be enjoyed for its story or if you prefer, you can just sit back and enjoy the mindless violence. Either way, it's a really great film. When this film was made, Schwarzenegger was at the height of his career, as was director Paul Verhoeven (who also directed "Robocop") and Stone was about to reach the height of hers (she would reach that two years later when she and Verhoeven again worked together on "Basic Instinct"). Neither Schwarzenegger nor Stone has ever been accused of being a "great" actor, but that doesn't mean that they're not fun to watch, as is the case here. Arnie gets to deliver some great one-liners and kick butt, and as usual, Stone adds a certain trashy quality to the proceedings.
Paul Verhoeven is fast becoming one of my favourite directors and "Total Recall" has just become my second favourite of his films (after "Starship Troopers"). Verhoeven has a reputation for delivering films with huge amounts of gratuitous, over-the-top violence and he does it again here (although, clearly some of the more violent scenes have been cut down to get a lower rating, since the violence seems kind of tame compared to the "Robocop" director's cut). As I said in my recent review of "Robocop", it is possible that these high levels of violence could upset some viewers. However, to me they seem so unrealistic that I find it difficult to imagine anyone seeing them as being anything other than ridiculous good fun.
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| Non-stop Action Thriller! |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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Many action-mystery movies are something you watch once and never again. This movie isn't one of those. Even after the mystery is 'solved' it can be watched again and again because it is simply non-stop action. Arnold is in his prime in this movie as he tries to recover his lost memories. The movie begins with Arnold having a strange fascination with the planet Mars. While his 'wife' and 'friends' try to dissuade him from pursuing his interest in the red planet, Arnold, decides to get a vacation implant of a trip to Mars against their advice. Once in 'Recall' the problems and the action begin as they discover a 'memory-cap' installed by the ominous 'Agency' and Arnold begins to discover his true identity. One of the great things about this film is that you never really figure out if the events really happened or if they are simply a paid 'ego-trip' vacation from 'Recall'. This is a great movie because of the infinite replayability and action. Sharon Stone is also in her prime in this film. I recommend adding this DVD to your collection.
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| Fun & Action Packed |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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Total Recall is fun and action packed. Arnold was surely at his best in this one. The special effects are fine in some instances but cheesy in others. Overall, a good movie to have in the collection.
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| OK movie. |
| Customer Rating: 3 out of 5 |
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One of the Schwarzenegger movies I can stand watching. For it's time it was a really good movie. That's all I really can say.
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| Utterly flawed and absolutely brilliant |
| Customer Rating: 4 out of 5 |
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TOTAL RECALL is a flawed masterpiece, marred by multiple errors of aesthetic judgment and flat out absurd moments. Nonetheless, it raises a host of wonderful questions, has a huge number of memorable moments, and is arguably Arnold Schwarzenegger's best film after the first two TERMINATOR movies.
Although the story doesn't stay especially true to the Philip K. Dick short story upon which the movie was based --"We Can Remember It For You At Wholesale" -- it does contain the endless self-referentiality found in Dick's best stories and novels. Construction Worker Douglas Quaid (it was Quail in the short story, but the studio thought it might be viewed as a slap at then-vice president Dan Quayle goes to a virtual reality company named Rekall that provides the imprintation of fake memories of holidays. Having had persistent dreams of Marx, he wants a holiday to Mars. After some prodding, he agrees to pay for some extras, namely, an adventure package, in which he will feature as the hero in an espionage tale featuring resistance fighters, alien artifacts, a brunette who looks like the one who has been featuring in his dreams, and will get to save the world. But shortly after being placed in the equipment things start going wrong because it turns out he has already had false memories implanted. He quickly finds himself chased by the authorities before going to Mars where he meets the brunette of his dreams and with the use of alien artifacts saves the world. Or does he? Any viewer will be wondering along the way whether any of this is real or whether this is just his virtual adventure holiday. The film ends with Quaid wondering whether any of this truly was real or whether it was just the programming. And we are given no answer.
TOTAL RECALL was one of the very last important science fiction films made before the advent of CGI. It was one of the last to employ primarily miniatures and matte paintings rather than SCI. Even BABYLON 5 only three years later on television would use crude CGI for most of its special effects visuals. In this way TOTAL RECALL is the end of an era. Only a year later TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY would be released. Many of its greatest special effects were CGI. So in two straight films Schwarzenegger helped close one chapter of SF history and opened another.
The problem with TOTAL RECALL is that there are just too many moments that don't quite work. The inhabitants in the mutant section of underground Mars are just too comical self-indulgently mannered to contribute much to the film. And the animatronic rebel leader Kuato, who is inextricably attached to the body of another person, is easily one of th emost ludicrous SF creations since the original THE FLY, where at the end of the film we see a fly with the head of a screaming David Hedison, as it is about to be eaten by a spider. There are a host of terrible little lapses in judgment like this. The most unfortunate might be the climax of the film, as Quaid has turned on generators that will oxygenate the atmosphere of Mars. The ludicrousness comes not from the amazingly rapid creation of a breathable atmosphere for the planet, but from their completely ignoring the fact that the surface temperature of Mars is roughing that of Antarctica in the middle of winter. The visuals of Arnold and his female friend as they roll on the surface of Mars has to be one of the silliest sights in the history of big budget films. In real life they wouldn't have had to worry about air pressure; they would have frozen solid in only a few seconds.
All in all, this is both a truly rewarding and an immensely frustrating film to watch. It contains both a host of truly remarkable and utterly horrid moments. For me the good outweighs the bad and what we see in the end is a fascinating if undeniably flawed film.
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