Total Recall

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Year:	1990
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Paul Verhoeven
Genre:	Memory Wipe Sci-fi action
Starring:	Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100802/
Tagline:	They stole his mind, now he wants it back.
Favourite line:	"You ever fuck a mutant?"

Verhoeven's sci-fi action extravanganza teams up Arnhult, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox (excellent, as always) and the ever reliable Michael Ironside in a planet sprawling slice of paranoia hokum.

Arnhult plays Quaid, a man who dreams of Mars. His wife, Stone, is horrified when he tells her he visited Recall, a company with the ability to plant dreams in your subconscious, to allow you to live out your every fantasy without ever setting foot outside their laboratory. But Quaid's dreams are no fantasies, and he's a puppet in a grand scheme by megalomaniac Cohaagen (Cox), a businessman who own the colony on Mars and, crucially, controls the air supply, forcing inhabitants to pay for their right to breathe.
A gang of rebels, primarily mutants, have instigated an uprising against the tyranny, and their leader, Kuato, is the lynchpin, a mutant Cohaagen would like nothing better than to exterminate. Cue The Austrian Oaks' appearance on Mars, setting off a chain of events that will change the landscape - literal and political - of the planet forever.

A fairly epic concept then, delivered with assurance by the usually reliable Verhoeven.
It gets a bit silly in places, but then, this is an Arnie film so we kind of expect that, and this is nothing if not entertaining and stands up to multiple viewings.
The effects are a mixed bag, being either superb - the X-Ray machine, the 'female disguise' - or shoddy - the eye popping vacuum scenes - and it's a bit of a shame that the Mars sets look so studio bound, but overall any flaws can be overlooked by the sheer energy of the whole thing.
Enjoyable schlock then.