Review of Total Recall

Introduction

No Arnold Schwarzenegger collection is complete without Paul Verhoeven’s Total Recall. Made in 1990, it followed The Running Man and Predator and came just before the mighty Terminator 2.

Set on Earth and Mars, Paul Verhoeven’s (Robocop, Starship Troopers) movie features Arnie as an Agent relocated from Mars to Earth and given a new memory to conceal his activities on the Red Planet. Frustrated with life on Earth, but unsure why, he heads to memory implant specialists Rekall to give him memories of the planet he always dreams about – Mars. The implant procedure rekindles his old memories, and Arnie suddenly has to fight off agents desperate to silence him, before returning to Mars to team up with the rebels and uncover the truth.

Video

Whilst I would have obviously preferred anamorphic transfer, the 1.85:1 video is of pretty good quality throughout the film. There is no noticeable dirt or grain, and the image is stable and colourful.

The futuristic setting makes for good visuals – from the opening city on Earth to the bleak outpost on Mars. There are spaceships, gunfire, explosions, mutants and futuristic vehicles etc – all of which look quite good – although the cars are rather angular.

Despite the film being nine years old, in general the effects look quite good, although the ending sequence looks a little dated now.

Audio

The audio comes in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is very good. Being an action movie, there is plenty of opportunity to fill all channels with gunfire, music, effects, flypasts and the sound engineers haven’t let us down.

The dialogue is always clear and understandable throughout the mayhem on screen.

Features

A trailer, cast/crew bios and production notes are all that is on offer.

The film is packaged in a black Amaray case, which contains a folded insert giving a brief background to the movie and the chapter stops.

Conclusion

Overall, Total Recall passes the test of time and is still very a entertaining and enjoyable movie. Like other Verhoeven films, it is extremely violent at times, this Region 1 version contains all of the infamous human shield scene which caused the BBFC to get their scissors out when the movie was released (Arnie uses a dead person as a shield against lots and lots of enemy bullets). Total Recall came at the end of a great sequence of movies from Schwarzenegger and doesn’t disappoint – there’s plenty of action, one-liners and a good supporting cast including Sharon Stone, Rachel Ticotin and Michael Ironside.

Good picture and sound quality are let down by the stingy extras, but I knew that when I bought the disc, so I’m not to going to complain apart from wishing that the picture was anamorphic…

Enjoy!