Total Recall

Total Recall is Philip K. Dick filtered through Paul Verhoeven’s maximalist sensibility, and the result is the most wildly entertaining science fiction action film of its era. Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Douglas Quaid, a construction worker who discovers that his entire life may be a fabricated memory — or may not be. The film’s central ambiguity, which persists through every viewing, elevates it from action spectacle to genuine science fiction.

Verhoeven stages the Mars sequences with a gonzo energy that is uniquely his: three-breasted mutants, bulging eyeballs in the vacuum of space, and a villain who drills into people’s skulls for fun. The practical effects by Rob Bottin are astonishing — the fat-woman disguise, the mutant prosthetics, the Martian reactor — and they give the film a tactile reality that CGI has never replicated.

Total Recall earned $261 million on a $65 million budget and won a Special Achievement Academy Award for its visual effects. It remains the definitive Arnold Schwarzenegger science fiction film and the best Philip K. Dick adaptation outside of Blade Runner.