Total Recall directed by Paul Verhoeven staring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Ronny Cox, Benny, Johnny Cab and Kuato (who I found myself liking all the more this time around).
Now this is more like it. This is the real deal Total Recall, not that phony baloney newfangled remake. It’s funny how the fights scenes and action sequences in the remake are remarkably better and choreographed so well, but yet they fail in comparison to the original in everything they try to do. There’s just something being said for Arnold plowing through people with his massive frame. What the original film lacks in choreographed action and polished scenes, it more than makes up for it in sheer brutality that just assaults the senses instead of trying to finesse its way into them. I suppose that’s part of the pleasure of watching this or any Verhoeven film, because the sheer joy of doing what he’s doing is on the screen in every frame which was another thing the remake lacked: the joyfulness of just being a movie. Verhoeven always brings that “kid in a candy store” mentality to his films but doesn’t ever preach or patronize the viewer with pretentiousness. He just makes a film and yes even the wildly, insane over-the-top Showgirls is loads of fun to watch now, because of how bad it is, which is something even the remake of Total Recall will never be able to achieve.
I was just amazed at how everything in this movie looked fake and super cheesy. It seemed more like I was watching a TV show than a movie. But then Verhoeven would hit me right in the head with a crazy amount of bloodshed and gore that reminded me I wasn’t watching a TV show I was watching a movie. Maybe that’s why a lot of his films have that type of TV show feel to them, because it instantly gives the viewer easy access into the movie, making them feel all warm and comfortable. Lulling them into a peaceful quietness, before Verhoeven comes along to shower them in blood and gore to remind them it’s a movie not a TV show. Even though he destroys that peacefulness the viewer can't really turn away, because they already had been suck into the movie so they had to keep watching. I don’t know if this is true or not but it’s a theory I’m working on.
I will tell you this though no one on the planet earth can moan or groan like Arnold. I mean he ought to trademark that sound because it’s so easily identifiable as him that’s it’s a joy to hear whenever he fights or is trying to do anything physical. Verhoeven virtually made that sound part of the soundtrack of the movie he used so much of it and the movie was all the better for it. In fact I think this movie can be seen a whole metaphor for Arnold. Just the massiveness of his size and just how he over powers everything on screen. Verhoeven uses all of this in the movie, from every fight scene to everything Arnold does. In the movie he’s like a living embodiment of the whole movie, even down the to the psychological aspects of the movie one thing always stands true: Arnold dominates everything. This can almost be seen as a sci-fi version of Conan the Barbarian.
I also forgot how violent his movie is, granted it’s nowhere near as violent as today's outpouring of torture porn. But the violence of the movie has a Road Runner and Wiley Coyote feel to it every time it happens. I think this is because it just gets so crazy that I couldn’t help but start laughing at it. That’s another thing this movie is funny and I mean funny. Whereas I was laughing at the remake for all of the wrong reasons, I was laughing at this movie for all the right reasons. It’s that funny, even the violence and insane amounts of gore were so over-the-top there was no striving for realism but only for the comedy of the absurd. My feeling on the absurd is: if you’re going to go absurd go all the way, don’t go half way absurd, because then you just don’t have the passion for it and it will show. You have to go absurd all the way.
And this movie than goes absurd all the way and it all the better for it.
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