Wild, Chaotic, Energetic Fun With a Deep, Challenging Core

Rating: 8/10 (2 May 2012)

Terribly acted splatter gore projected over the canvas of an astonishingly bright, daring sci-fi premise. Director Paul Verhoeven is no stranger to this sort of conundrum, with Robocop immediately preceding this picture and Starship Troopers only a few years down the road, and he squeezes as much carnage and gunfire as he can from Phil Dick's brief initial concept. Oddly enough, it's those moments of unrestrained action and wanton violence that hold the whole thing together while the plot explains itself, expertly blending Verhoeven's knack for tongue-in-cheek parody and reckless self indulgence with Dick's outrageous ideas and cerebral plot twists. Merging the two creators' distinct sensibilities, which appear to be at odds from a distance, actually results in the creation of a unique third identity that's bigger and better than the sum of its parts. The flick's runaway success is in spite a horrible performance from Arnold Schwarzenegger at his most steroided, who grunts and growls in a hilarious near-English while the screenplay does its best to buck him like an untamed bronco.