Total Rubbish

Rating: 3/10 (3 June 2004)

How Arnold Schwarzenegger rose to become one of Hollywood's best paid stars is even more of mystery than his subsequent ascent up the political ladder. On the basis of his performance in 'Total Recall', he can't act, his mastery of the English language is limited, he's not even conventionally handsome and, most bizarrely for a star of action films, he runs like a man with a war wound. Paul Verhoeven's film is a comedy thriller made in the late 1980s but set in a future that looks like... well, actually it looks remarkably like the 1980s, with plenty of concrete, advertising, big hair and a portable computer the size of a suitcase. Given the film's massive budget, the failure to convey any sense of the vast otherness of space is a particular disappointment. '2001: A Space Odyssey' did better in this respect over 20 years earlier; the feel of 'Total Recall's vision is more akin to that of 'Star Trek'.
The holey plot is based on some interesting ideas that have since been re-used in films like (obviously) 'The Matrix' but also David Fincher's 'The Game': what is reality, and how can we tell? but both those films were far better executed than this. Meanwhile, the (intentional) "comedy" is provided by a prostitute with three breasts, Arnie swearing (something which happens a lot) and by an endless sequence of comic-book fight scenes that are neither convincing, exciting or funny (unless one happens to regard Sharon Stone kicking Arnie in the balls as inherently hilarious: one really needs to do so to enjoy this film, as this also happens on numerous occasions). The unintentional comedy derives from Arnie's performance.
If anyone ever re-makes this film, I advise them to save money by hiring a block of wood instead of Schwarzenegger: they'll probably get a better performance out of it. Instead, they should hire instead a decent scriptwriter and a director/designer with some imagination. In it's current incarnation, it's really not good, and as an actor, Arnie makes a damn fine politician.