Blockbuster Overload: Our ongoing series looking at movies that took the blockbuster genre to the extreme and perhaps to excess. Note that these reviews may contain spoilers.
What Is It?
This film follows an apparently normal guy, Douglas Quaid, who spends his days as a construction worker while also dreaming about visiting Mars. He decides to go to the company Rekall, which will provide a “virtual vacation” to Mars, and Quaid asks them to throw in the twist that he is a secret agent. However, something goes wrong, and the procedure either implants in his mind that he really is a secret agent or awakens a suppressed memory. This sets Quaid on the run as he finds that his friends and wife (or the person he thought was his wife) are trying to kill him. He meets up with someone claiming to be an ally and receives the information that his name is actually Hauser. He also learns that he worked for the sinister Mars administrator Vilos Cohaagen, and that he must now return to that planet to stop Cohaagen in his attempts to expand his tyrannical reach. All the while, Quaid/Hauser questions what is truly real and who he can and cannot trust.
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox
Crew: Paul Verhoeven (Director), Ronald Shusett (Screenplay), Dan O’Bannon (Screenplay), Jerry Goldsmith (Music), Philip K. Dick (Original Story)
Original Release: June 1, 1990
What Were Its Excesses?
This film took a good premise but amped it up with action and violence. The more interesting sci fi elements and moral quandaries are pushed to the back as gunfights, explosions, and chase scenes take up much of the film’s running time, making for a high-octane thriller without much substance.
A Closer Look:
The late Philip K. Dick has achieved, deservedly, a reputation as a masterful writer of science fiction stories, and filmmakers have frequently mined his work for movie ideas, though rarely have they managed to capture the depth and brilliance of his intricately plotted tales. Blade Runner, based on the novella Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, is one of the few films based on Dick’s work that stands above the pack, but even that one is controversial among the writer’s fans because of the liberties that Ridley Scott took with the plot.
In 1990, Paul Verhoeven (RoboCop) decided to tackle a Philip K. Dick tale as he adapted the short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” into Total Recall, starring ’80s action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger. The original story had great potential to deliver an outstanding sci fi movie, and the film picked up on that to some extent with its fractured reality and its attempts to keep the audience guessing what is real and what is not. But unfortunately, it utilizes this only as a gimmick and never fully delves into the underlying potential of the science fiction elements. That’s where this movie could have distinguished itself and lived up to the “game-changing” promises that it heralded on its release.
Total Recall had some pedigree behind it, with Dan O’Bannon (Alien) penning the original script for the film in the ’70s. But unfortunately, the final product (which went through many rewrites before making it to the big screen) used the sci fi elements only as slick window dressing in what was little more than an action film more interested in amping up the blood and violence to eye-popping levels (literally), and it ultimately delivered a mind-numbing experience, quite the opposite of what you would expect from an intelligent genre film.
Arnold Schwarzenegger delivers his usual deadpan, winking-at-the-audience performance, though it’s hard to accept him as a normal Joe, so that possibility suggested in the script gets thrown out early by the audience. Michael Ironside holds his own next to Arnold with his usual scenery-chewing tough-guy role. But most of the rest of the cast quickly get swallowed up in the action and violence, and the once-promising plot succumbs to the same fate as well.
The film does not even succeed at delivering the same satirical strokes that we saw in Verhoeven’s other genre entries, like RoboCop and Starship Troopers. It just assaults us with gratuitous violence strung together by some clever asides drawn from Dick’s story or from other sci fi sources. And thus it falls well short of the goal it set for itself and even fails at delivering much of an enjoyable movie experience for those looking for a serious genre entry.
This one actually did quite well at the box office, though critical opinion on it was split. Some bought into the pre-release hype that Total Recall would give the genre its next landmark film along the lines of Alien and Blade Runner. Others, like myself, held their judgment and ultimately dismissed it as another mindless Schwarzenegger action flick that did not even measure up to his better genre films such as the Conan and Terminator movies. It does have its moments, and there was a good film in there somewhere, but ultimately this one falls short of the sci fi classic some claim it to be.
Why Was Their No Sequel?
As mentioned, Total Recall performed quite well at the box office, but there were no initial plans to move forward with a sequel because Hollywood was not quite as driven by franchise fever then as it is today. But Gary Goldman (who worked on the final script for the film) acquired the rights to Philip K. Dick’s short story “Minority Report” and approached Verhoeven about a movie adaptation. The director saw it as a potential continuation of Total Recall, with Schwarzenegger returning as Quaid and elements of the short story adapted to the film’s universe. It ended up not going forward, though, and you can read more about that at Cult-SciFi.com.
Should It Be Rebooted?
It already has been rebooted, twice. The Canadian television series Total Recall 2070 premiered in that country on CHCH-TV, and later in the same year on Showtime in the States. It was really only connected to the film in name and had very little to do with the original Philip K. Dick story. It developed somewhat of a cult following, but it was cancelled after one season and has since been mostly forgotten.
In 2012, a reboot film was directed by Len Wiseman (Underworld) with Colin Farrell (The Batman) in the lead role and Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) cast as the villain. It tried to bring in more elements from the short story, but it ultimately delivered a mixed bag that was not well-received. There have since been talks of yet another reboot, but nothing has gone forward, and perhaps it is best to give this property a rest.
Interesting Facts:
Ronald Shusett and Dan O’Bannon started working on a screenplay based on “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” back in the 1970s but realized that the special effects would be far too expensive at that time. They instead shifted their attention to a different screenplay, which would become the basis for Ridley Scott’s Alien. Total Recall was revived in the 1980s when sfx technology was more advanced, but when Paul Verhoeven came onboard as director, he had a falling out with O’Bannon. Gary Goldman was brought on to rewrite the script, and he took out much of the satire from the earlier version while amping up the violence and one-liners.
Patrick Swayze was originally set to play Douglas Quaid, and Bruce Beresford was the director at that time. However, Dino De Laurentiis’s production company went bankrupt, and the movie stalled. Arnold Schwarzenegger had an interest in the film, so he convinced the Carolco production company to buy up the property so that he could take the lead.
Where Can You Watch It?
The movie is widely available on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD, and you can also purchase it VOD. It is currently available for streaming on Paramount+ and MGM+.
