Paul Verhoeven does not disappoint

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2006)

Paul Verhoeven does not disappoint. This is one roller-coaster ride of a movie.
This film is about a man who leads a fairly dull life. I mean, he has a nice wife, but a dead end job as a construction worker in the year 2084 A.D. He has an odd fascination with the planet mars and craves the adventure of one day being able to take a trip there. While riding the bus to his area of work, he notices an ad for a pseudo-trip. I say pseudo because the trip is not real, but an insertion of memory. This place is called recall, and what they do is insert a memory chip, enabling you to believe that you took a vacation to a place that you probably could not afford otherwise. Quaid can see no reason in not going to recall, so he goes- only for the procedure to go terribly wrong, when Quaid realizes that he has already been to mars, and is now a wanted man.
Good flick. Seems to live in the same vein as the fifth element. Or the fifth element seems to live in the same vein as total recall, rather. I think that's right. Well anyway, it had some cool graphics, I especially liked the one with the no-air-eyes-pop-out thing. Really cool. My only real complaint is that some of the fight scenes looked like they were filmed by a four year old. Now maybe its because I have seen way too many kung-fu movies, and I believe our generation to be living in a generation of old kung-fu rip-off's (**cough cough** the matrix **cough cough**). The main question on this board seems to be "was it a dream?" Well that much is up to you. But overall good film. Good enough for an 8/10 at least.