It came from development hell (and should have stayed there)

Rating: 1/10 (21 October 1999)

Long time fans of movie Science Fiction will be familiar with this film's troubled production history. Total Recall passed through the hands of a great number of actors, producers and directors and was given the title of "the greatest sci fi film never made." Well several years ago it did get made and the results were not worth the wait. What might have been a fairly decent sci fi peice is turned into just another macho posturing, B.S. movie chock full of incredibly lame one liners from star Arnorld Schwarzenegger. Total recall marked the downward slide of director Paul Verhoeven, a slide that reached it's depths (or heigths?) with the turkey of the decade, Showgirls. And let us not forget that this film is responsible for putting mega sleaze Sharon Stone on the map. As an aside, why does Hollywood continue to put this no talent in pictures since she hasn't had a hit since Verhoeven's other super stinker, Basic Instinct? At least Ronny Cox and Micheal Ironside are on hand and they easily walk away with the top acting honors. But then again when you're up against Scharzenneger and Stone, it's no contest. About the only good thing to come from Total Recall was the fact that Rob Bottin finally got a long overdue Oscar for his makeup effects. Even so, his work in Total Recall is nowhere near as good as his work on The Thing, the film he "should" have won an Oscar for. Let us all have some collective memory loss and forget Total Recall ever happened.