An intelligent concept, but a dumb film.

Rating: 5/10 (7 November 2001)

The premise, a man plagued by memories and unsure whether they are real or false could have made for an intelligent, thought provoking, tense thriller, and indeed it did some six years later in Terry Gilliam's 'Twelve Monkeys'. Unfortunately here the idea is wasted, reduced to a run-of-the-mill actioner, used entirely as a vehicle for the once popular Arnie. There are a dozen running gun battles, but each is exactly the same as the next. Anything that can explode must explode. Anything that can erupt in a spray of blood must explode in a spray of blood.
In it's defence, Arnie hasn't made a film in the same league as this since Terminator 2, and it introduced a seductive Sharon Stone ('If you don't trust me you can tie me up') to a wide audience, giving us a taster of what she and Verhoven could do a year later in 'Basic Instinct'. Perfect if you - like the customers at Rekall inc. - have had a labotomy.