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TV show review: CONTINUUM season 4
PHOTOGRAPHY
TOTAL RECALL (1990) Mind Bending Edition
Blu-ray Review by David Blackwell
 
DETAILS:  113 minutes, audio commentary, director interview, three featurettes, making-of documentary, photogallery, theatrical trailer
VIDEO:  1.85:1 (Anamorphic Widescreen)
AUDIO:  English 5.1, French 5.1, German 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
Subtitles:  English, French, German
 
STUDIO:  Lionsgate/ StudioCanal/  TriStar Pictures/ Carolco
RELEASE DATE:  7-31-2012

TOTAL RECALL is an interesting movie to watch back in the 1990s and even now. It is seems a sci-fi B movie done on an A movie budget.   Schwarzenegger throws around one liners and you have the bombastic violence of a Paul Verhoeven sci-fi action film.   However, TOTAL RECALL is more than just a sci-fi action and you start to see an intelligent thriller under the surface as you question what is real and what virtual reality is.  It is inspired by the short story ”We Can Remember It For you Wholesale” by the late and great paranoid sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick.    It is the movie that went through 40 script drafts and false starts (it got far enough that they started building sets in Australia only to lose Director David Cronenberg and also see the sets torn down due to bankruptcy).  Enter Arnold Schwarzenegger who swoops in to save the script and get it made.   It has plenty of action set pieces and features plenty of who’s who’s in the acting world including Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside, and Sharon Stone.   The action scenes are incredible in addition to the detailed mutant make-up effects, the large model sets, and another master score from legendary Jerry Goldsmith who scored for several sci-fi films like Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, and this one. You have the three breasted woman (many fans will bring this girl up when talking about the new TOTAL RECALL), a fight between two women (Sharon Stone and Rachel Ticotin), and Arnold fighting Sharon Stone and later Michael Ironside.

 

TOTAL RECALL still holds up as twisty film that makes you question what reality Douglas Quaid is in and whether he is living the dream promised by Rekall (two sequences nail this point and foreshadow the events to come).   The film revolves around a construction worker in 2084 who is haunted by dreams of Mars that he visits a place called Rekall that specializes in virtual vacations that are indistinguishable from memory.  Things start to turn bad when he visits Rekall and he is thrown into learning he is a secret agent who had his memory erased.   Quaid is chased by secret agents who want to kill him as he learns about the truth of his mission on Mars which involves alien artifacts and a woman posing as a hooker working for the Mars Rebellion.   Is he really a secret agent or is it all a dream from the time he visited Rekall?

 

TOTAL RECALL is still a fun sci-fi movie after 22 years that still loves to play with your head.  Even though the director has his opinion on what he thinks is happening to Qauid.  I tend to think the opposite due to one scene when the director of recall visits Qauid, but it could still be playing into Qauid’s reality really has broken down.   You are never 100 percent sure if Qauid isn’t in that Rekall chair during the movie.

 

The transfer for the Blu-ray is derived from a transfer struck from the original negative.  It has gone through a remarkable restoration process supervised and approved by director Paul Verhoeven.  The Restoration Comparison shows you the before and after results.  It is a big improvement over the previous Blu-ray version.

 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The audio commentary with director Paul Verhoeven and star Arnold Schwarzenegger  is very fun and informative to listen to.  Too bad Arnold doesn’t dish on the sequel he was going to be which would have one time been directed by Jonathan Frakes (only to have it be called off not to compete with the short-lived TOTAL RECALL 2070 TV series).

 

Two extras are exclusive to this Blu-ray release- a new interview with director Paul Verhoeven who layers in more details about making the movie and a Restoration Comparison featurette that shows how the movie looked before the restoration they did and what it looks like now.

 

MODELS AND SKELETONS: THE SPECIAL EFFECTS OF TOTAL RECALL- go behind-the-scenes of the model work and CGI of the film.  The CGI skeletons via the X-ray scanner were originally supposed to be done by motion capture only to have it be saved by rotoscoping it. Also the company responsible for the big model sets of Mars explains the story of how they kept having to fight to get everyone created and not just the studio name.

IMAGINING TOTAL RECALL-  a very detailed documentary on the making of the film from its troubled history as a script to how it got made and the problems they had to overcome and the times Arnold had to fight to make sure certain special effects shots were budgeted into the film and not cut.

 

Rounding out the extras are a vintage promotional featurette, a photo gallery slideshow, and the theatrical trailer.

 

When comparing this version t a previous DVD special edition, I do see some extras not included are the VISIONS OF MARS featurette, Virtual Storyboard Comparisons, the Conceptual Art gallery, and TV ads.  I wish the included the above extras on the Blu-ray and not exclude them for this release from Lionsgate.   I also wish they had a featurette on what would have happened in the unproduced TOTAL RECALL 2 ( a script was written).

 

FINAL ANALYSIS:   TOTAL RECALL is one of the best films from the careers of Arnold Schwarzenegger and director Paul Verhoeven.   Watch the movie before you see the 2012 version or check it out if you want to go for another ride after seeing TOTAL RECALL for the first time via the 2012 version.   I do recommend you track down the TOTAL RECALL 2070 series.   The extras are good despite some things they could have included.

 

This review is (c)7-29-2012 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  Send all comments to feedback@enterline-media.com