'TOTAL RECALL'....HAPPY 30TH ANNIVERSARY TO THE MARS-INATOR

Total Recall (1990)    We're a couple weeks late by not posting this on the film's actual June 1st 1990 release date........but that's the joy of running your own blog.......skipping self-imposed deadlines to take a nap or catch up with a good book or film....

                 And we LOVE catching up with this one........we consider it one of the most perfectly conceived blending of non-stop brutal action and mind bending sci fi......

                   So on its 30th Anniversary, let's salute the film's MVPs......

                  Paul Verhoeven   American directors may have dabbled in nihilistic violence from time to time, but no one fervently embraced it more than Verhoeven,  In 'Total Recall','Robocop' , 'Flesh + Blood'and 'Starship Troopers', Verhoven constructs worlds where agonizing death is random, plentiful, merciless........and yes, on a certain level......outrageously funny in its excess.

                   Arnold    Do we even need to spell out his last name?  The most telling thing about the Governator is the way we loved him as an Everyman hero......even when he was about the farthest thing from an 'Everyman' as anyone could get....(did any of us look like him....ever?)  But when he ponders in exasperation, "If I'm not me.....then who da hell am I?", he tapped into a universal anxiety we all share.

   

                    Sharon Stone   Our only deep regret........she....uh....how do we put it.....exits the film too early.   A remorseless Iron Goddess, Stone's brief 'marriage' to Arnold erupts like a dark parody of  the husband-and-wife dynamic.......with the wife functioning alternately as a sex toy and castrating nemesis.  (Verhoeven and Stone would then take that concept to delirious heights in 'Basic Instinct')

                  Michael Ironside  Did any movie hero ever have a more implacable foe than Ironside, a grim reaper in a leather jacket. But in a career filled with such roles, Ironside finds a way to put an individual stamp on each of his villains and psychos. His final punch-up with Arnold on the industrial elevator remains one of cinema's greatest battles.....

                    Mel Johnson Jr. as Benny the mutant cab driver with "five kids to feed"......and a prime example of why you should never trust someone who appears to be the comic relief in a Verhoeven movie

                    Jerry Goldsmith  The film composer genius whose driving, perpetual motion score becomes the literal beating heart of the movie........with a theme set to what sounds like pounding metal-on-metal.......a beyond perfect accompaniment to the unfolding carnage

                     Old School Effects  Call us old fashioned......or just plain old....but we adore those elaborate meticulous miniatures......making this one of the last films that wouldn't require a 15 minute credit crawl of 1,000 CGI artists......

                    "Total Recall" remains one of those films that's a treat every time we watch it.......its 2 hours fly by and we have to fight the urge to restart it all over gain.  Forever and always, a 5 star (*****) FIND OF FINDS. BQ says follow the advice given to Arnold ....get your ass to Mars.