Another Verhoeven masterpiece...

Rating: Null/10 (3 April 2001)

Everyone in this film is at their best: Paul Verhoeven, Sharon Stone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox, and even that dummy they used for Johnnycab. Yes, that last one was a joke. Just another film that was ripped off in order to create The Matrix, Total Recall's claim to fame is being the first film to be released in Australia with two seperate VHS versions. Of course, the R-rated VHS version was deleted due to commercial reasons, but we Verhoeven fans are having the last laugh now that DVD-Video is driving VHS towards its well-deserved extinction, with the full R-rated cut available in all its digital gory glory.
I wonder if anyone actually kept a tally of the number of people that were killed during this film? More people get shot during Doug Quaid's escape from the subway station than during the entirety of End Of Days, and Total Recall is still Arnold's best film ever. I'm not sure if it still is financially, but it certainly is in terms of plot and acting. Ronny Cox puts in a performance that, like his turn in RoboCop, I like to think of as an exhibition of a schoolteacher with some guts. Michael Ironside is a delight to watch in this film... it was like watching myself in a film where someone's turned the clock ahead by about thirty years. Sharon Stone, of course, proves that even with the massive improvement granted to all involved, she still can't act, but she is only in the film for a total of about fifteen minutes at most. My only complaint about the film is that I wish they'd cast someone a little more appealing or believeable as Mileena. She was the only weak spot in the film as far as I am concerned.
When Paul Verhoeven commits himself to a film, you know he's going to give it his all, regardless. Even when he churns out a real turkey, it is plain to see in elements thereof that he put his heart and soul into it. When he builds a total masterpiece like Total Recall, which is rumoured to still be less violent than the cut he originally wanted, he puts that much more oomph into every aspect of the film that you just can't help but watch. Violence and intellectual stimulation have been the two saviours of my life to date, and Total Recall provides them both in spades. Nine out of ten (ten for the director's cut when it comes out some day).