Too Intelligent and Artistically Elite to Be a Netflix Original or 2010's Hollywood Production

Rating: 9/10 (23 May 2019)

This movie reveals everything that Hollywood no longer is, exposing all of its flaws, clichÃ©s, bad scripts, horrible acting, no charisma talent, and boring movies.
But why wax poetic about what everyone knows current day movies are (or are not), which is basically krap.
Turn back the clock to 1990, Total Recall is literally, literally a nonstop Science Fiction-Action thrill ride that is intelligent, fun, and loaded, loaded with world class talent. When talking world-class talent, you can just laugh at what we look at today especially in terms of actors and actresses. Directors and writers also are many, many steps down from where Hollywood was around 1990. The only generational figures in Hollywood today that even come close to the primary creators of this movie would be Nolan and....and.....I'll get back to that.
Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Rachel Ticotin, and the writers and director are world class talent and artists. They don't get a job, collect a paycheck, and then give lame, half-hearted performances or work efforts. Each one of them digs in and allows their natural talents to shine, and the charisma on display both in front of and behind the camera is just palpable.
Ticotin in particular really steals the show as an incredibly sexy brunette, contrasted to Stone's blonde beauty, who displays physical athleticism and a physical specimen for a body, as she runs, ducks, kicks, doges, punches, and fires her way through the Mars dystopia. I'd pay top dollar in a theatre to just see such an extinct, paleolithic Hollywood employee like her these days. She is a pure natural talent and beauty with such an array of talents that no actress in Hollywood of any recognition has possessed for decades.
Speaking of which, Sharon Stone is also on another level. But it's not just her younger beauty and sex appeal only, which again seems just leveled up by what Hollywood considers attractiveness today and in recent decades, but it's the manner by which her vibrance and charisma come off the camera through her dialogue and athleticism.
These are "movie stars", not just actresses and actors. These were the days and times of filmmaking when an actor or actress were really what carried films, but not on their looks alone or just because they knew someone, but because they had world class talent, which is on an entirely other level. But the world class talent only happens because the talent is dedicated to working very hard to be the best they can be and give the role everything they got to the best of their ability.
Arnold, in his prime, of course brings his A game, and from the start you can see his dedication to understanding the script and playing off of it and himself, something a 2049 Blade Runner Ryan Gosling could never do, for example (although Harrison Ford on the other hand, with his earlier lead in 1982's original Blade Runner can hang with the script and material to elevate the film).
Lastly, there's the pacing. Yes, the pacing. Watching this movie and comparing it to so many films of the past two decades had me wondering if today's directors are just so pretentious and trying so hard to be artsy that their films come off as too long, poorly paced, boring, and with so many scenes that should have been edited out. But then again, it may be more likely that they are also just not on the level of talent they think they are- that of which the director of Total Recall is on. There literally is not a minute wasted, nothing drags, each scene is packed with important details and character development. As just one example, you only spend time with the bar characters for about five minutes total, but by the end of the movie you feel like you've known them so well and are pulling for them to survive. This is one movie that no matter how tired you are, you will not fall asleep on or even want to fall asleep and miss.
This is not to say that the movie is perfect or the best movie ever made, not at all. The main point of the aforementioned review is to indicate just how far the quality of talent both in front and behind the cameras as well as on paper (the script is tight) has dropped since 1990. This is simply too entertaining a movie to ever come out of Hollywood today- it would probably be looked at as too much work, or they may CGI it out while forgetting to hire truly good actors, or care less to edit it down to prevent it from boredom. However, for a Sci-Fi movie, this is an extremely good film:
10/10