This motion picture does not follow the underlying short story

Rating: 7/10 (29 December 2005)

This motion picture was surely, in my opinion, inspired by short story "Total recall" by Phillip K. Dick. I have read it and I can tell that the movie has only caught up the general idea from there. There is the retold short story:
Douglas Quaid is a simple worker (his wife is his wife, not an undercover agent, as in movie) who is obsessed about going on Mars (because this some time after his wife leaves him for good). Knowing he is a poor man and trying to do something about it, he goes to "Total Recall" , a company for artificial voyages. There he talks with Mc.... (as in movie, appears that names have been taken literally); before he talks to receptionist (we are told she is blonde => white , not black , as in movie). Things goes wrong; he is discovered, under narcosis, as past agent of Interplan (as he wished to be in the dream voyage to be implanted in his memory) and the guys at Total Recall put him in a taxi. He wakes in cab , finds half of money owed for imaginary voyage in his pocket and soon begin to remember what happened at Total Recall; then he asks and get all the money he has payed (of course is angry and frustrated). On way home he starts to remember that he was a real agent; at home 2 armed officers (one of them has a ear device that let him hear Quaid's thoughts; the Interplan had implanted a living creature in Quaid's brain who can transmit thoughts). Douglas Quaid soon increasingly remembers all that happened on Mars and his past training and abilities, officer want to kill him, does not succeed (Quaid already knew how to fight) and Quaid escapes outside. After some conversation in his mind with someone from Interplan (through that living device in his brain), he (catching at his last chance of survival) decides to go to an Interplan facility and let their specialists study him to see if a false memory could be implanted over his yearning wish to go to Mars (if none could be found, he agrees that must be killed); a fantasy dating from his child times is found and they choose that. He is taken to Total Recall to proceed (receptionist is described as having her naked big bosoms dyed in orange) and here , examining his memory , they found that the fantasy (in childhood he saw an alien spaceship landing in front of him, the only who could see them; that ship had beings as big as mice, but bound to conquer Earth; that ship was only first, more thousand will follow; after a discussion with alien beings, they were touched and decided not to invade Earth as long as he lives) was real and Quaid, as he says proudly, is the most important human being on Earth. The short story ends with the advice to the Interplan not to kill him; otherwise the alien invasion would begin, bringing destruction to all Earth civilization.