Whether it's a dream or reality, it's Ah-nuld's best flick

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 2002)

When Total Recall was released in 1990, I snuck in to see it lying in the trunk of my friend's Pontiac Phoenix. It was my 17th birthday, and for it I received a conundrum: was what I was seeing on the screen what was really happening to the character, or was it simply a manifestation of memory implants that he receives early in the film? Nobody can definitively answer that (and because my review is to be free of spoilers, I shall refrain from delineating my response). But regardless of whether or not the movie is supposed to be real or a dream, it's Schwarzenegger's best work. For one thing, we don't have to suspend disbelief enough to think "sure, the government would hire a 290-pound muscle-bound Austrian to do delicate undercover work" or "sure, he could be an investment banker". Schwarzie's a construction worker. And he can act in this film, which is better written (despite some cornball lines for the villains) than most of his other films. When he acts like an unstoppable hand-to-hand superman at the beginning of the movie, he is shocked and horrified at what he's done. Find me another Arnold movie in which he expresses remorse! The movie has action, suspense, and some themes that inspire discussion long after the movie is over. And although I don't normally care about such things, Rachel Ticotin and Sharon Stone pull off perhaps the best girl-vs-girl fist fight in movie history. I give it a 9, and I'd rate it not only as Schwarzenegger's finest work but also that of Paul Verhoeven.