among Verhoeven's best North American films

Rating: 8/10 (31 August 2003)

Total Recall revels in the state-of-the-art special effects and frantic violence characteristic of most of director Paul Verhoeven's American productions. Though based on a story by Philip K. Dick, Total Recall is more of an action movie than a philosophical rumination on identity. Still, the film gets a lot of mileage out of the questionable notion that "you are what you remember." The screenplay was finally credited to seven screenwriters; it had bounced around Hollywood for a number of years with different directors and stars before it reached Verhoeven. The director's brand of high-octane, cartoonish, violence is a good fit with the material, though his style may have been better-suited to 1988's more satiric Robocop. The movie received a special-achievement Academy Award for its impressive effects.