Total Recall

I hadn't seen this movie since I was maybe 10 or 11 but this is the apparently the year of re-watching movies I haven't seen in forever. It's always great when they hold up and this one really does. In fact it's even better than I remember it being. It could be that I can now understand the story better since for an Arnold movie, it's surprisingly complex. 

The movie is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick as are many great science fiction movies such as Minority Report. In fact I think the original name for Minority Report was supposed to be Total Recall 2. Imagine for a second if Arnold had starred in that movie instead of Tom Cruise? Actually that could have been pretty awesome. Picture him saying the line "everybody runs." How badass was that? Now I'm angry, that movie could have been even better than it was, and it was already fantastic. 

Anyway we're not talking about what would could have been, we're talking about what is. Total Recall is a really good movie. It's action packed and features some classic Arnold one liners ("Consider that a divorce" being my personal favourite). It's also violent as all hell and has a woman with three boobs. What kind of mad genius came up with this shit?!

I've already touched a little on the story but it's worth mentioning again. Most Arnold movie plots consist of little more than "I have to kill a lot of people." Don't get me wrong that happens a lot here. In fact the body count is apparently the 2nd highest in any of his movies, right after Commando of course. But there is a lot more going on here. This is one of those movies you can actually interpret any way you want. Is it a dream, is it reality? You can actually have discussions about this movie, in depth ones at that. The most in depth conversation you can have about Eraser is "how awesome was it when he fucking killed that crocodile?!" So that's pretty cool.

Almost 20 years later this is a very good movie that I enjoyed more now than I did back then. It's a great sci-fi movie, a great action movie, and a great Arnold movie. In case you haven't guessed by now, I refuse to keep typing out his last name.

I also watched the DVD extras on this one. Most of it is usual documentary stuff but there is some good information in there. The commentary was the highlight, featuring the director Paul Verrhoven and Arnold. It's a decent commentary, but it has some unintentionally funny moments. Paul keeps trying to give us actual information, while Arnold will keep interrupting him so he can tell us what is going on in the movie. For example...

Paul: "This scene was difficult to shoot because the lighting was..."

Arnold: "Yes this is the scene where I kill all those guys with the guns and the shooting and the Mars and all that."

Rinse and repeat. It's good for a laugh but it's not all that informative for the most part.

Movie - 8/10

DVD Extras - 6.5/10