Total Recall: Critic Reviews

Total Recall is too much -- but it's too much of a good thing.

Melding the ever-more-workable Schwarzenegger mystique with a better-than-average science-fiction premise, the director Paul Verhoeven has come up with a vigorous, superviolent interplanetary thriller that packs in wallops with metronomic regularity.

Recall is full of the musclebound action that [Schwarzenegger's] fans presumably enjoy. It also means that this Mars-bound movie is violent, nasty and expensive (it cost Tri-Star well over $60 million).

A gratuitous explosion of vainglory and guts, the movie is all firecrackers and giblets and broken glass. The overall effect is like wading through hospital waste.

There may be people who overlook the Arnold Schwarzenegger performance in Total Recall who think he isn't really acting. But the performance is one of the reasons the movie works so well.

A worthy entry in the dystopian cycle launched by Blade Runner, this seems less derivative than most of its predecessors yet equally accomplished in its straight-ahead storytelling, with plenty of provocative satiric undertones and scenic details.

The fierce and unrelenting pace, accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek strain of humor in the roughhouse screenplay, keeps the film moving like a juggernaut.

Neither Arnold Schwarzenegger nor Paul Verhoeven have stretched their talents here.

An absolutely superb sci-fi film and a true modern cornerstone of the genre not seen since the deeper though less entertaining Blade Runner nearly ten years previous.

Not only one of the best films of 1990, it's one of Arnold's finest cinematic accomplishments -- a fireball of a film...still disembowels like a champion.

Total Recall is fine entertainment, complete with breathtaking action sequences and special effects that impress even in these computer-generated times.

Ugly, stupid, loud, offensive, and pointlessly violent.

Say what you will about Verhoeven's penchant for extravagant theatrics, when he's not yanking the arms off people or putting bullets in their forehead, he tells a good story.

The future doesn't come any better.

...people are allowed to change their minds

Thought-provoking, flashy, and FULL of action!

Oh for the days when Verhoeven was still in Holland.

...one of the best action flicks to emerge out of Hollywood in the '90s (or ever, really).

Mediocre sci-fi. Gained a cult following, for some unknown reason.

While it may seem dated today, the film showcases Sharon Stone, evil wife to Schwarzenegger. You may want to take notice of how precious air is after seeing it.