DVD Review: Total Recall: Special Limited Edition

I have no reservations in saying that Totall Recall ranks as one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's best films. Period. This one is right up there with The Terminator and like that film, deserves recognition as a great piece of science fiction.

The story opens with Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger) waking from a dream about Mars. We learn that he often has these dreams. In fact, it could be said that Quaid is obsessed with Mars and wants to go there. This is upsetting to his wife, Lori (Sharon Stone), who just wishes Doug would remain safe on Earth.

Quaid isn't listening, however. If he can't go to Mars, he'll experience the planet somehow. He finds himself in the offices of a company called Rekall. Rekall has specialized in the technology of implanting memories as a cheap way for people to have new experiences. The hook is that you'll remember whatever you want without having to really experience it.

Quaid is sold on the package and even pays for a "secret agent" upgrade. For just a little more money, he won't remember his trip to Mars as just a vacation, but as a mission to save the planet.

This is where the film takes an interesting turn. Quaid wakes up in a rage during the middle of the memory implanation. It seems that by tampering with his memory, Rekall has somehow blown his cover. He really is a secret agent.

Or is he?

Could this, in fact, be the implanted memory that we are watching from this point on? The film effectively plays with our head on this point.

Rekall erases all memory of his trip to their offices and sends him home in a cab. Unfortunately, the agents assigned to watch him don't know that Rekall has both blown and restored his cover. They only assume the worst and intend to kill Quaid rather than risk a complete failure of the mission.

Quaid manages to defeat and escape from the other agents and soon he finds himself on a spacecraft landing on Mars. He learns that Mars is run by Cohaagen (Ronny Cox) and that he is at war with a group of mutants. The mutants are a result of shoddy radiation shielding during the early days of Mars colonization and they resent Cohaagen's treatment of them, particularly the manner in which he gouges prices for the basics of life, such as air. In short, they want freedom and Cohaagen wants oppression. The specific point of contention in the current struggles revolves around rumored alien artifacts found in the Martian mines.

Quaid finds himself in the middle of this war, never knowing who to trust. One minute he views Cohaagen as his worst enemy, in control of the men who are trying to kill him, and the next minute it seems that he and Cohaagen were best friends before Quaid was put undercover. Eventually one thing seems clear: friend or foe, Cohaagen is using Quaid to get at the mysterious leader of the mutants, a man named Kuato. Cohaagen believes that if he can kill Kuato, he can crush the mutant rebellion.

The brilliance of Total Recall is that throughout all of this you're continually questioning whether it's all real. Just as you begin to believe that Quaid really is an undercover agent, the film tosses in a detail that seems like far more than a coincidence. For example, after arriving on Mars, Quaid meets up with a dark-haired member of the mutant forces. They obviously have a past together and yet she looks exactly like the "sleezy, demure" brunette that Quaid describes to the Rekall technicians while tailoring his implant. The film continues the trickery right up to the very end, with every event unfolding exactly as the Rekall salesman said they would.

As the credits roll, the question remains: Was it all supposed to be real, or just a dream? While most Hollywood films insist on spelling every little detail out for the audience, this one leaves us guessing.

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