Great premise, very entertaining

Rating: 9/10 (19 August 2019)

A rollicking good science-fiction story, one with a great premise from Philip K. Dick, and well executed by director Paul Verhoeven. The elements of mind manipulation and layers of identity are fantastic, giving the film some nice twists to it to go with all the special effects. Arnold Schwarzenegger is fun to watch, and so are Rachel Ticotin and Sharon Stone (his love interests), as well as Ronny Cox and Michael Ironside (the bad guys). I like how the futuristic elements show creativity in dreaming up new technology, but also blend it with elements of human behavior that will never change, e.g. greed, lust, the crassness of the advertising, etc which will remind you of Verhoeven's Robocop. I could have done without some of the one-liners, e.g. when Arnie goes at someone with a giant drill and yells "Screw you!" at the precise moment that films like this seem to work desperately hard to get a cheesy catch phrase in, which is so shlocky. The elements of mass slave labor exploitation, disinformation, and mind control give the film a gravitas underneath all of that though. It's a great popcorn movie, and clearly influential.