The Adjustment Bureau (USA, 2011)
Directed by George Nolfi
Starring Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Anthony Mackie, John Slattery

When Ridley Scott showed him the rough cut of Blade Runner just months before he died, Philip K. Dick is said to have remarked: "it is as though you looked inside my head." But not all adaptations of Dick's work have been quite so ecstatically received. For all the ones that have worked (Total Recall, Minority Report, A Scanner Darkly), there have been at least as many that ditched the more thoughtful aspects of Dick's work in favour of chasing and explosions. Adding to Paycheck and Next, we now have The Adjustment Bureau, which could be the biggest let-down of the year.It's not as though The Adjustment Bureau doesn't have talent behind it. Emily Blunt has demonstrated her dramatic chops in My Summer of Love and The Young Victoria, while Matt Damon is fast becoming one of the most reliable screen actors of our time. George Nolfi, who wrote and directed the film, worked as a co-writer on The Bourne Ultimatum, which remains Paul Greengrass' best work. And it is shot by John Toll, who won back-to-back Oscars for his work on Legends of the Fall and Braveheart.With these credentials it would be tempting to brand The Adjustment Bureau as 'Bourne-lite' - or maybe 'Inception-lite' due to its science fiction trappings. But to do this would be a great disservice to both films, since The Adjustment Bureau has neither the intellectual rigour nor the heart-stopping, emotional action of these films. In fact, it is everything that those films weren't: flimsily constructed, loosely written, glossy-looking for its own sake and with underdeveloped ideas.What made the later Bourne films so fantastic was the ability of Paul Greengrass to marry the aggressive, hand-held action sequences to believable character drama. The Bourne Ultimatum balanced this perfectly, with none of Jason Bourne's personal quandaries getting lost in or watered down by the spectacular action. Looking at Nolfi's film from a writing point of view, you'd swear that he had written the chase scenes and let Greengrass do the rest. He does not have the skill to marry action and ideas together, creating a film which is at best silly and at worst completely shallow.The Adjustment Bureau is essentially a perfectly decent, if unremarkable, romantic comedy surrounded by increasingly preposterous elements of science fiction. The central relationship between David and Elise does have a genuine spark about it: the romantic dialogue in Nolfi's screenplay is too witty to have been written by a committee, and both characters feel like rounded human beings with believable jobs and lifestyles. We enjoy the company of Damon and Blunt because their emotional responses seem believable, increasingly a rarity in Hollywood rom-coms.Normally, this kind of frothy concoction would do absolutely fine. But the science fiction elements, which provide the backdrop and keep breaking into the plot, cause the more contrived moments in the relationship to become magnified. Having David give up on Elise, only to have him realise he loves her and run across a city to find her, would work perfectly well on its own. But when you have David running across the city through secret doors, which he can only pass through while wearing a trilby, it very quickly becomes ludicrous, like a bad mash-up of The Graduate and Tron.The Adjustment Bureau does attempt to raise a number of interesting questions about fate, chance and free will, subjects which are staples not only of science fiction but of Dick's work in particular. At the centre of the film is a discussion about whether human beings are free to choose how they live their lives, or whether we are simply actors reading lines off a script which has already been written (and re-written). The film strikes an interesting balance between the two, saying that while humanity's behaviour is constantly 'adjusted', it is not possible for the Bureau to be everywhere at once or stop every bad thing from happening. They even go so far as to admit that certain things are entirely down to chance, although it isn't specified where exactly the lines are drawn.The film does a pretty good job of demonstrating the cost of free will - or, from the Bureau's point of view, the advantages of intervention. Terence Stamp's character delivers a speech similar to Al Pacino's in The Devil's Advocate, about how Mankind has taken itself to the brink whenever 'the Chairman' has taken a hands-off approach (for instance, the Dark Ages and the Cold War). The film retunes Dick's paranoia surrounding big corporations (and Hollywood) to a more abstract moral dilemma, in which the Chairman is God and his hatted assistants are interceding angels, keeping Humanity on the straight and narrow at the cost of there being no genuine free will.The Adjustment Bureau attempts to retune this concept further to look at the course of true love. The central relationship, between a congressman and a ballerina, follows the trajectory of most American rom-coms: all sorts of obstacles are created to push them apart, but we always know that they will somehow end up together. The Adjustment Bureau doesn't deviate from this mould, but what it does do is offer a twist on why such obstacles occur. Rather than being the result of personal attitudes or quirkiness, the obstacles faced by Damon and Blunt are created by the powers-that-be, whether God or - to go all Pirandello for a second - the writers themselves.Unfortunately, there are two gigantic problems with the manner in which The Adjustment Bureau tackles these ideas. The first is that it is very literal-minded, and fails to bring out the moral dilemmas without resorting to blatant plot exposition. Terrence Stamp's character is effectively Basil Exposition in a sharp suit, as though Nolfi thought Stamp was too old to be running around Chicago, telling him to stay in the warehouse and talk to his heart's content.Alfred Hitchcock once said that exposition is a pill which must be sugar-coated if the audience is to remain in suspense. If North by Northwest is the epitome of sugar-coating, then The Adjustment Bureau is like a series of big and bitter pills. Whereas Inception introduced the mechanics of the dream-state incrementally, this handles its mechanics like someone repeatedly dropping a sledgehammer. It never has the confidence or foresight to outline exactly how much of what we see is adjusted, and the conversations about the plans are shoved down the audience's throats.The second big problem with the films is that it dodges all the big moral questions that follow from its intriguing set-up. Not only does it gloss over where the battle lines are drawn, but its payoff feels far too easy. The lengthy chase sequences in the final act are an excuse to canter through the character development when it really matters, and the rooftop scene finds the script skimming over the philosophical implications of the plan 'being changed'. In its naked pursuit of a happy, feel-good ending, The Adjustment Bureau produces the exact opposite emotional response.The visuals of The Adjustment Bureau are also guilty of being shallow. John Toll may be a great cinematographer, but under Nolfi's instructions everything is far too glossy: the overabundance of shiny blues and metallic greys make everything look like a shaving advert, or one of George Clooney's coffee commercials. The chase sequences are a blatant excuse to get the ol' green screen out, making the action seem even less physical or believable. At every possible turn there is a pursuit of style over content, and speed over intelligence.The Adjustment Bureau is a deeply disappointing film which lacks the depth, nuance or subtlety of the best Philip K. Dick adaptations. In Nolfi's hands what could be a potentially interesting sci-fi romance becomes something flimsy, frothy and ultimately too ridiculous. I would be lying if I said I didn't laugh, either mockingly at the film or out of charm at the central couple. But laughter isn't enough to do justice, either to Dick's material or to the central relationship, resulting in a case of squandered potential that could have been so much more.

Rating:
Verdict: Flimsy, frothy and far too ridiculous

Basic Instinct (USA, 1992)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Starring Michael Douglas, Sharon Stone, George Dzundza, Jeanne Tripplehorn

Erotic thrillers have never had much by way of credibility. They have a reputation for being cheesy, lurid and sleazy, and are often lumped together with horror movies as the stuff that 'sensible', 'reasonable' citizens wouldn't touch with a twenty-foot pole. But as with horror, some erotic thrillers manage to explore interesting, often edgy ideas in amidst the gratuitous sex scenes and clunky dialogue. Basic Instinct is one such film.Although the groundwork had been laid by Fatal Attraction, Basic Instinct was the film which brought the erotic thriller into the mainstream. The controversy surrounding its R rating in America and misplaced allegations of homophobia created a whirlwind of publicity, which catapulted Sharon Stone to short-lived stardom and made an entire generation give in to guilty pleasure, if only for a couple of hours.

In bringing the erotic thriller to the multiplex, there is surprisingly little attempt on the part of anyone to sanitise the content, or make changes that would make the story less cheesy. The opening 20 minutes are pure cheese, as people take their clothes off with abandon, detectives trudge around in dark suits, and Catherine Tramell sashays around delivering every line like it's a turn-on. Joe Eszterhas' script is chock full of absurd one-liners that would have made Greg Dark proud - the best being the detectives' remark that the first victim "got off before he got offed".
As well as being everything you'd expect from an erotic thriller, Basic Instinct is everything you'd expect from a Paul Verhoeven film - it's sleazy, trashy, cheesy, and quite good fun. Verhoeven was in his commercial prime, having made a splash with Robocop and Total Recall, and had explored sexual crime previously in The 4th Man. Basic Instinct may have opened the floodgates for a wave of worse films, from the Demi Moore vehicle Striptease to William Friedkin's Jade, but outside of its legacy it is a smarter film than has often been assumed.As with Total Recall, Basic Instinct begins with a big shock to separate the men from the boys. During the opening credits, with Jerry Goldsmith's eerie soundtrack and the movements in mirrored glass, we see the name of Rob Bottin - the make-up artist who did the effects on Total Recall and The Thing. His presence perplexes us: why would an erotic thriller need its own special effects boffin? Then you see the killer's ice pick go through the face and neck of Johnny Boz, and you sit there frozen to the spot, with no further questions.Basic Instinct is a deeply stylised film, which never feels the need to be visually realistic if a creative decision would enhance the mood of a given scene. In the famous interrogation scene, Verhoeven's long-time collaborator Jan de Bont lights the bunker-like room very unusually. Instead of having both parties in equal amounts of light, Catherine Tramell is lit in blinding white light coming from the floor, while the detectives are shrouded in darkness. This gives things a prominent noir feel while conveying the theme of women being in control: the detectives become like voyeurs, wishing to gaze longingly at Catherine without showing too much of their faces.This scene brings on to one of the big talking points in Basic Instinct, namely the gratuitous nudity. We know what to expect up to a point: it wouldn't be an erotic thriller without some flesh, and the film is helmed by the man who left teenage boys drooling at the sight of a three-breasted woman from Mars. But even by those standards, the level of sex or nudity is way over-the-top. The film may not be totally exploitative in its treatment or depiction of women, but it does tip over into base titillation in several scenes. The moment where Sharon Stone crosses her legs is pure exploitation: to all those in denial, it's clearly not her thigh showing up on screen!Like many attempts to bring something inherently trashy or silly into the mainstream, the story of Basic Instinct is contrived to the point of being ridiculous. The most obvious example of this is the level of intuition which Catherine Tramell possesses: it's one thing being able to guess what someone is going to say, but always being in the same place as the detective is a whole different matter. In its action moments it often gets completely silly, asking us to believe that Michael Douglas could participate in a high-speed chase only seconds after being knocked down by a car.It will be clear by now that Basic Instinct is not a film for the faint-hearted, either in its full-on visual style or its blatant disregard for narrative cohesion. But once we have gotten past the sleaze, and the violence, and the smoking, and the swearing, and the silly action scenes, we do begin to see something going on beneath the surface, which turns into that kernel of substance buried deep in the heart of Verhoeven's work.All of Verhoeven's films are essentially about questions of identity. In Robocop, how much is Murphy still a man and how much is he a machine? In Total Recall, has Quaid really been to Mars, or is the whole thing an implant? In Basic Instinct, the question revolves around Catherine Tramell and the motivations behind her unusual behaviour. Is she purely and simply the Devil, who taunts men for sport and uses her books to cover up her brutal murders? Or is she someone with a warped mind who is caught up in these events, someone who craves attention but has no desire to kill for it?The wanton nature of the character is designed not merely to titillate, but to explore - albeit broadly - the sexual independence of women. Catherine doesn't need men to control her or define her in any way, and her actions are not motivated by a direct Freudian urge, e.g. craving affection to make up for the fact that Daddy showed her none. She treats men and women equally as playthings, taking the dominant role in every relationship.This brings us on to the position of gay and lesbian groups, who used the film to attack what they perceived as Hollywood homophobia. The film may be clichéd in its depiction of lesbianism or bisexuality on an aesthetic level - all the lesbians in the film are still dolled-up and attractive enough to make them naturally appealing to men. But Basic Instinct is not homophobic in its view of sexual preference as a lifestyle choice. It maturely chooses not to make an issue of Catherine's sexuality; in other words, who she sleeps with has no direct bearing on whom or why she kills.

The film borrows heavily from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, with Verhoeven restaging certain sections involving the Golden Gate Bridge or the various steep staircases. There is a close parallel between the characters, with Michael Douglas being driven to obsession and Sharon Stone harbouring some kind of self-destructive impulse. One could say this is what a Hitchcock film would have looked like had such levels of sex and violence been acceptable in the 1950s.In the end, however, Verhoeven's efforts to keep things totally ambiguous don't quite work as well as in Total Recall. While there are moments in which it is reasonable to believe that Catherine isn't completely insane, the final act in which Beth Garner is 'revealed' as the killer feels too contrived to cut the mustard. Jeanne Tripplehorn's character has been so peripheral up until this point that we never really believe she could have done it, even if all the plot points add up.While it never reaches the heights of The 4th Man or Verhoeven's previous Hollywood efforts, Basic Instinct remains an enjoyable thriller which manages to raise a number of intelligent issues even in its most lurid moments. It has more than its share of problems, either relating to its plot or the inherent cheesiness of the erotic thriller genre. But as a guilty pleasure or something a little smarter than you'd think, it demonstrates that, once in a while, embracing trash is not such a bad thing.

Rating:
Verdict: Sleazy, trashy, cheesy - and quite good fun

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (USA, 2004)
Directed by Michel Gondry
Starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood

Science fiction is one of the most malleable genres around: it can be light or dark, scary or funny, insightful or escapist. Most impressive, however, is its continuing ability to cross-breed with other genres, and in doing so produce great works in cinema and other media. In the past forty years we have been treated to sci-fi horror (Alien), sci-fi comedy (Dark Star), sci-fi action (Aliens) and sci-fi noir (Blade Runner).

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the latest addition to this cross-breed family: being equal parts Philip K. Dick and romantic comedy, it qualifies succinctly as a sci-fi romance. There have been previous science fiction films which have dealt directly with romantic love, but precious few have both the tenderness and intelligence which comes from the match made in heaven that is Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman.Because of its romantic elements, the film has been dismissed in some circles as an essentially shallow exercise, something which is visually enthralling but ultimately little more than a Hugh Grant rom-com with A-levels and shuffled timeframes. Some of the most damning criticism came from Rick Kisonak, who described it as “Love Story with frontal lobotomies” and concluded that it was “not a lot more than a thinking person’s 50 First Dates.”Such comments appear ludicrous even before half an hour has passed. For one thing, you never get the sense that Kaufman or Gondry are being overly complicated for its own sake. The visual and emotional tone of the film is not that of two intellectuals desperately trying to show off. The film is profoundly open-hearted and involving, combining existential parables with light-hearted humour and insights into the human condition which at no point feel preachy or pretentious.

One of the great triumphs of Eternal Sunshine is that it manages to be incredibly complicated and readily accessible at the same time. Like Inception after it, there are layers of hidden meaning within each image or scene, but part of the fun is getting lost in events as the plot barrels forward at a frightening pace. Gondry leaves little visual hints lying around, such as Clementine’s changing hair colour, so that if we stop and question where we are, there is a perfectly good explanation. But for most of the time, like Joel and Clementine, we are simply compelled to run headlong from one scene to the next with little care or concern except for the safety and happiness of the characters.In terms of its lineage, Eternal Sunshine is the film to which Kaufman has been working towards for his entire career. Like Being John Malkovich, much of the action takes place within the mind of its characters, and as with Adaptation we find different shades of the same character coming into contact with each other. From a sci-fi point of view, the film resembles Philip K. Dick in its fascination with paranoia and the blurring of identity, and there are clear hints of Total Recall in both the visuals and the film’s dreamlike state. Even the machine used to extract Joel’s memories of Clementine resembles the memory implant machine used in the Paul Verhoeven film.Gondry’s background in music videos gives him a concise and focussed method of storytelling; when you only have four minutes to get a message across, you can’t afford to be baggy or indulgent. You get the distinct impression that he is unflinchingly focussed on the characters and upon keeping Kaufman’s script moving forward. You therefore embrace his visual extravagance and unusual approach to special effect, both of which are defining features of the film.When Christopher Nolan was shooting the dream sequences in Inception, he strove to film as much as possible in-camera with mechanical effects. He did this on the grounds that if the actors were delivering their lines to green-screen, they wouldn’t believe in the world of the dream, and therefore neither would we. Gondry takes the same approach, shooting most special effects sequences in-camera using old-fashioned forced perspectives (or trompe-l’oeils). The scenes of Jim Carrey being bathed in the sink or hiding under the table have a very organic sense of the surreal they make memories physical rather than whimsical, rooting the chase and its flights of fantasy firmly in some form of reality.The film drifts seamlessly from memory to memory and back to the real world, resisting the constant urge to stop and explain where we are. By the time Joel has begun relating a memory to Clementine, that particular section of his mind begins to disappear; lights flicker off, fences disappear, frozen lakes turn into train stations and people vanish into thin air. Certain sections see Joel revisiting old memories which have fragmented. In one scene, he revisits a conversation in which all the characters’ faces have become blurred, resembling the freaky masks worn by the schoolchildren in Pink Floyd – The Wall.

Eternal Sunshine’s central thesis is that all events which transpire in our lives are at some point in time meaningful, and that any attempt to block out such experiences will only lead to recognition of their ultimate importance. The title, which comes from a poem by Alexander Pope, is deeply ironic; in being able to artificially forget bad memories, the characters are just as distressed if not moreso by what unfolds. The first time around, the sequence on the train to Montauk seems normal and straightforward. The second time round, we watch hindsight playing out and the true meaning and power of this scene becomes clear.In attempting to move on from Clementine, Joel discovers that their relationship (and the memories thereof) was the only time he was genuinely happy. He tries to preserve those memories not because he has forgiven her, but because otherwise his life may not have a cohesive sense meaning. One could almost argue that the film is an analogy for Alzheimer’s disease with Joel as the patient, struggling to remember others in order to make sense of himself.

Memories are a vital part of a person’s identity, and the film does an interesting job of showing how identities can be manipulated. Elijah Wood, in an really creepy performance, uses Joel’s memories to seduce Clementine, copying his ‘chat-up lines’ word for word. His character is desperate to be liked by women, and believes that the only way to achieve happiness is to impersonate other people. It is testament to Kaufman’s skills as a writer that scenes like these are not played for cheap, bawdy laughs – nor instead that the scenes of the technicians getting stoned never venture too far into Cheech and Chong territory.The film is anchored by the central performances of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, both of whom are often incredibly irritating. Like The Truman Show and Man on the Moon, Carrey’s wackiness is completely reigned in and he gives a brilliantly well-rounded performance full of pathos and subtlety. Winslet, on the other hand, is allowed to leave her ‘English rose’ image behind and play kooky, wacky and impulsive. But her feistiness and intensity hold our attention, creating a sense of mystery which engages us. The chemistry between these two give us an emotional bond around which Kaufman’s philosophising is anchored. When they decide to give things another go, it feels poignant and meaningful because of the genuine emotional journey we have taken with them.Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a superb slice of science fiction with all the emotional intensity of a Mike Leigh film. It is the pinnacle of Gondry and Kaufman’s respective careers, being proof positive not only of their talents but of the continued relevance of romantic drama. In addition to its exemplary performances, the film is witty, insightful, tragic and humane, often all at the same time. It is one of the best films of the decade, and no amount of selective memory loss is going to change that.

Rating: 5/5
Verdict: Unforgettable

Total Recall (USA, 1990)
Directed by Paul Verhoeven
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox

There’s nothing more annoying than a stupid film which pretends to be clever. The worst offender would be Guy Ritchie’s Revolver, which presents itself as a great metaphysical journey in a desperate attempt to cover up its total meat-headed idiocy. It’s possible to love a stupid film if it knows it is stupid, but something like Revolver will get on your nerves for days.

Total Recall, on the other hand, is a clever film which appears to be very stupid, and which will linger somewhere in your subconscious as you try to work it all out. While not the most successful adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s work, there is plenty to both admire and enjoy about Total Recall, and it remains one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s best films.Watching a Paul Verhoeven film is like trying to peel an onion while wearing boxing gloves. On the surface his Hollywood movies especially are trashy, pungent affairs with lots of violence, lots of sleaze and lots of swearing. He has often been accused of only being interested in dumb entertainment or base titillation – and in the case of Showgirls, they may have a point. But once all the flashy layers have been stripped away, his films do contain real substance, and are in many cases quite profound.

To reach the nugget of truth at the heart of Total Recall, we have to peel away several layers, each of which would seem like overkill to the squeamish or uninitiated. The first of these layers is the abundance of action movie clichés which threaten to distract us and undermine the story. In true Lethal Weapon style, there is a big action sequence every ten to fifteen minutes, in which our hero always manages to defeat the bad guys and get away unscathed. This may be down to events in pre-production, when David Cronenberg was set to direct; he fell out with writers Ronald Shusett and Dan O’Bannon (Alien) who had re-envisioned Dick’s short story as “Raiders of the Lost Ark goes to Mars”.Thankfully, Verhoeven is too smart to let such frivolities swamp the film. Much like John McTiernan did with Die Hard, the action sequences are carefully positioned within the storyline and are punctuated by complex sections of dialogue, some of which contain the key to understanding Quaid’s predicament. Hence it is never really possible to just sit back and nod off; you may occasionally flinch, but you never want to walk out, for fear of missing something important which is coming up. Verhoeven should also be credited for giving us two strong female characters; both Lori and Mellina are strong-willed, independent and can kick butt just as well as the men.The second level we have to negotiate is the explicit sexual content. Dick’s other work has explored the secondary position of women in future societies; in Blade Runner Zhora makes a living as an erotic dancer and Pris is described as a “basic pleasure model”. But while Ridley Scott treated these characters with great sensitivity, Verhoeven takes an almost adolescent pleasure in shooting half-naked women. No-one else would get away with staging large parts of the film in a mutant brothel, whose inhabitants include a dwarf prostitute and a hooker with three breasts.

But again, just when you think everything is about to collapse, Verhoeven tugs on the reins and pulls everything back together. If there were individual patches of sexual gratuity nestled amongst more ‘serious’ scenes, we would quickly lose patience with the film. But because the sleaze is so all-encompassing, we either get bored with it or accept it before getting back to the story. The first time the three-breasted girl opens her shirt, the teenage urges take hold (at least among men) and we briefly gawk at the screen. But the more such events happen, the more blasé they become so we eventually just recognise them as part of the culture and refocus on the characters. Pulling this off in such outré circumstances is the sign of a smart filmmaker.The third level through which we have to navigate is the flesh-ripping violence. Being an 18 certificate film, the violence is a lot more graphic and realistic than in most mainstream action films. This is not a film in which people are punched in the face and then get up unscathed, or one in which people’s agony is kept off-screen. Amongst others, Total Recall has a scientist having a six-inch bolt shoved through his head, a henchman having his arms severed off by a lift, the villain’s head being distorted in outer space and Arnold being repeatedly kicked in the nuts. And that’s on top of all the gunfire and realistic blood.Total Recall is a full-on film, but all of the violence is meaningful. Verhoeven’s pull-no-punches approach is an emphatic way of demonstrating the level of danger Quaid and Mellina are in. In something like Star Wars, our heroes are fighting such a large number of interchangeable enemies that we never really identify with said enemies and don’t focus on their pain. Here, we feel the pain of all the characters; their shocking deaths and injuries demonstrate the social instability of this dystopia and by no means glamorise violence. The special effects are created by Rob Bottin, who also designed the effects for The Thing, and his use of animatronics and latex rubber give the film a painful physicality.

Having gotten through all that, we finally arrive at the substance of the film. As in Blade Runner, a great deal of Total Recall is about an underclass who are being mistreated by a corrupt corporate world, in this case by a tycoon who controls the air supply of the Martian colony. And like Blade Runner, the film ends with some form of redemption for these characters, albeit via a conventional kind of happy ending. Both Roy Batty releasing the dove as he dies and the mutants watching the mountain overflow with oxygen are moments which are steeped in Biblical imagery; the final shot depicts Quaid and Mellina as both the saviours of the world and as a new Adam and Eve.Most of Total Recall, however, is about questioning our perceptions of reality. As in Mulholland Drive, there is the ongoing possibility that everything we are seeing is a dream, and it is difficult to pinpoint where reality may begin and end. In one version, Quaid is genuinely Quaid, and everything we see from the scenes in Rekall is just the memory implant playing out; the implant was designed as a secret agent mission, and the line about it not being put in yet could be a red herring. In another version, Quaid is Hauser after his memory was erased; everything on Mars is real and Lori is not his wife. The film is constantly disorientating, and probably tries the same trick too many times to be fully effective.
Total Recall is an intelligent no-holes-barred action movie which can be enjoyed either as cheesy, dumb spectacle or as an examination of dreams and social inequality. Because it is so disorientating, it is easy to get lost and assume that the whole thing is hokum; it’s not the kind of film you can pick up after coming in halfway through. It’s full-on nature also means that many won’t get through it in one sitting; if you can get past Arnold being disguised as a women with an exploding head who can only say “Two weeks!”, you’re doing well. It’s no Blade Runner, but it’s an interesting and challenging science-fiction film on a par with Robocop and Starship Troopers.

Rating: 4/5
Verdict: Sleazy but stimulating