A 1990 Sci-fi film based on the Phillip K. Dick short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is on its face a sci-fi take on a spy thriller, set in memories implanted into a bored construction worker of the future... or is it? Because of all the Alternate Character Interpretation, the film is often called "The thinking man's action movie."Douglas Quaid (Arnold S.) is tired of life Twenty Minutes into the Future. His literal life's dream is to get his ass to Mars as a way of escaping his humdrum existence. A commercial for the Rekall brand "Ego Trip" induces Quaid to try one of the trips, which are just implanted memories of a vacation that he'd never be able to take in person. Quaid elects for an enhanced set of fake memories that cast him in the role of a super spy—sort of a memory novella that he will remember living through. When something goes wrong with the procedure, he discovers that his entire life is a lie, and that he is, in reality, a super spy working under deep cover. Or is he?The viewer is constantly challenged to decide if Quaid's experiences are real or all just a result of his "ego trip." The film is also well known for its special effects and over-the-top gore, like someother notable Verhoeven films. Highlights include tons of cool guns, three-breasted mutants, and a bizarre NES tie-in game (Or do they?)A less-campy remake starring Colin Farrell is due to released in 2012.
An Arm and a Leg: Richter gets both his arms ripped off in his death scene.
Artistic License - Physics: Mars is roughly under half an AU from Earth at closest approach, meaning it should take at least three minutes each way for the video phones to send messages.
There are so many things wrong with Mars in this film. The finale is especially egregious though: melting the frozen core of the planet fills the atmosphere with water, turning Mars into an earth-like, perfectly viable planet. Yeah, it makes perfect sense.
Bigger problem: a frozen planetary core?! The ideal gas law, PV = nrT, shows that pressure and temperature are positively correlated (ie the higher the pressure, the higher the temperature). Think about it.
A-Team Firing: Richter's goons surround Hauser's hologram on all sides, firing from less than 10 feet away without ever hitting each other even though the bullets should be passing right through the hologram.
Dark Is Not Evil / Light is Not Good: Ironically, the script makes lovable blonde girl-next-door Lori a villain, while the dark-skinned, slutty ("sleazy," to use Quaid's term), and rude Melina is the sympathetic one.
DVD Commentary: The one for this film is particularly hilarious. For one, Verhoeven's Dutch accent, coupled with Schwarzenegger's Austrian accent, serve to make it almost unintelligible. Schwarzenegger's commentary consists almost entirely of making jokes about the three-breasted hooker, a grating tendency for stating the patently obvious ("This is me as a construction worker", "I used this guy as a Human Shield and then threw him down the escalator"), and expressing how he likes certain parts of the movie because they serve to reinforce the possibility that it's All Just a Dream. Verhoeven for his part has a Verbal Tic that leads him to end most of his sentences with "Izznit?"
Eye Scream: The eyes of characters exposed to the near-vacuum atmosphere of Mars.
Even if they recover from suffocation, they should be blind after their eyes have taken that kind of abuse. But then, the entire movie seems to be a case of Eyes Are Unbreakable.
Handy Cuffs: Quaid, after he's captured by the bad guys on Mars.
Hey, It's That Guy!: Marc Alaimo, best known as Gul Dukat on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, enjoys one of his more prominent (if typically brief) film roles in a career of bit part work as the captain of the guards in the Martian spaceport.
Mind Screw: Quaid's entire adventure follows the plot of the super spy vacation he orders, as described by the Rekall salesman. Coincidence?!? Or was it?
Neck Snap: In Quaid's first fight against Cohaagen's goons, one of them checks out this way in a rather gratuitous fashion.
No Ontological Inertia: Quaid and Melina, who somehow instantly recover from Decompression fairly quickly, despite it being previously shown to turn people into jelly.
It seems that the Alien reactor also managed to bring the pressure to Earth-Norm, but it still shouldn't have been that fast.
No OSHA Compliance: Rather than kicking in automatically, the emergency pressure doors in the Mars spaceport terminal have to be manually activated while potentially (as happens in the film) fighting against being sucked into a near-vacuum.
Note to Self: the video messages Hauser leaves for Quaid.
One-Scene Wonder: Dr. Edgemar (the bald guy who offer Doug the red pill). And, of course, the unforgettable three-breasted hooker.
And it all comes down to whether the the scene between when they start the implantation process and when Quaid wakes up in the Johnny Cab is a part of the halucination or if it really happened. And there's absolutely nothing that says one way or the other.
Planetville: Even the presence of other tropes reinforce this. For example, the atmospheric pressurization is so fast that if it was interpreted as accurate, it not only shrinks the colony to appreciable city-size, but the whole damn planet. Subtropes include:
It's A Small World After All: Mars has one red light district (Venusville), and is arranged into sectors that number enough to be designated letters of the alphabet.
Since we don't know how much of Mars was colonized, it's possible that the human population there all lives in the same city.
Rare Guns: The Pankor Jackhammer, though it is actually a Cobray Sweet Streeper made to look like one. It's not very convincing, but damn if it doesn't look cool.
These Hands Have Killed: Quaid does this right after he slaughters the five agents trying to kill him on Earth, before he goes back to his "wife" Lori. He actually has their blood on his hands at the time.
The Tape Knew You Would Say That: Hauser leaves instructions to Quaid, anticipates how Quaid is going to react at various points, and seems to know roughly how long it'll take him to remove the tracking device, before continuing.
Troubled Production: The Mexico City shoot was considered a nightmare for most of the cast and crew. Many cast and crew members got sick at one point from contaminated water (the only major members of the production who didn't get sick were Schwarzenegger, who had remembered being sick during the Mexico shoot of Predator and took special precautions, and producer Ronald Shusett, who would give himself B12 shots each day to avoid illness) and the air was so polluted that Schwarzenegger recalled having trouble breathing on most days.
Uncle Tomfoolery: Benny the cab driver, until he reveals himself as a mutant collaborator. And especially after that turns out to be a lie and he was Evil All Along.
Video Phone: Used a lot on Mars. Talking to someone on Mars was as easy as phoning them up on Earth. In fact, Cohaagen (when on Mars) uses his vid phone to call Richter (on Earth) without any technical difficulties.
Villainous Breakdown: Richter has a brief one after Lori's death, but pulls himself together quite quickly after nearly killing himself and his head goon.
Your Head Asplode: Subverted, where the exploding head is a bomb-rigged animatronic prosthesis which Quaid wears as part of a costume. His deception uncovered, he tosses the head to his pursuers, in whose hands it cracks wise and then asplodes. Also averted and played straight, since the thin Martian atmosphere causes one bad guy's head to a splode. Arnie and his gal narrowly avoid the same fate.
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