Total Recall

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Amazon.com

This science fiction blockbuster from 1990 began its production life as a very different movie than the one that was released. An adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale,” Total Recall was originally conceived of with Richard Dreyfuss starring as a Walter Mitty-like character who experiences a variety of artificially induced fantasies. The movie we know is a mega-budget action epic set on Mars. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a normal working man who discovers that his entire reality has been invented to conceal a plot of planetary domination. Oscar-winning special effects and violent action propel the twisting plot, in which Arnold manipulates his manipulators in a world of dazzling high technology. Director Paul Verhoeven (Robocop) indulges his usual penchant for gratuitous bloodshed, but the movie has enough cleverness to rise above its excesses. —Jeff Shannon

Barnes and Noble

One of the most expensive movies produced up to that time, 1990’s Total Recall provides Arnold Schwarzenegger with a complicated story, extensive action sequences, and state-of-the-art special effects. Cast as a 21st-century construction worker whose virtual-vacation gear malfunctions, Arnold learns that he’s been programmed with false memories of his earthbound existence and is actually a secret agent entangled in a proposed rebellion on draconian Mars. The nominal female lead is Rachel Ticotin, but it’s Sharon Stone—in femme fatale mode as Arnold’s duplicitous spouse—who really grabs viewer attention. The futuristic settings are lavishly designed, and Arnold gets his fair share of terse one-liners. But what sets Recall apart from so many other sci-fi movies is the practically fetishistic staging of graphic, brutal action scenes by director Paul Verhoeven, who provided a template for the decade’s ultra-violent genre films. The Special Edition DVD offers a new wide-screen transfer enhanced for 16:9 televisions, along with a plethora of extras—including a rare, full-length commentary by Schwarzenegger (in tandem with Verhoeven). Other supplemental features include the documentary “Imagining Total Recall,” the featurette “Visions of Mars,” galleries of photos and conceptual art, production notes, cast/crew filmographies, visual storyboard comparisons, and an assortment of theatrical trailers and TV spots. Ed Hulse