RV!: Total Recall (1990) Dir: Paul Verhoeven Date Released: June 1, 1990 Date Seen: August 12, 2012 Rating: 4.5/5
After reading Vadim Rizov's typically thoughtful piece on Total Recall, the 1990 adaptation of Philip K. Dick's We Can Remember it For You Wholesale, I felt compelled to rewatch the film. I imagine that I'm like many other people in that I (often inadvertently) rewatch Paul Verhoeven's irreverent adaptation on a semi-regular basis. It's kind of ubiquitous, y'know?
In any case, I saw the new digital presentation of Total Recall on Sunday and found that, while I don't necessarily agree with all of Vadim's piece, I do think he's onto something. In the article, Vadim suggests that co-writer Dan O'Bannon's personal politics, the kind that helped to make Alien such an idiosyncratically thoughtful monster movie, make Total Recall a pro-Marxist film. The hero that Schwarzenegger plays is thus repositioned as a blue-collar everyman that's brainwashed into thinking that he's unthinkably unremarkable.
