Total Recall (1990)

Director: Paul Verhoeven

 Though this film was released in 1990, it is clearly a 1980's Hollywood action film. It's got all the cliche's, including horribly cheesy dialogue, gross-out special effects, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The story is also a fairly standard hero's journey. But the somehow movie still works. This is because the theme of knowing what's real and what is not is never forgotten by the filmmakers, and that's what makes the movie thought-provoking despite all the sub-standard aspects.

Because of just one scene towards the beginning that has our protagonist talking about a fantasy in which he is a government spy who is saving humanity, the studio gets the easily digestible action picture they want, and Paul Verhoeven gets the thought-provoking film that questions the state of reality that he probably wants. Now obviously I prefer the latter, and if the movie fully committed to advancing the reality theme, the movie would have been much better. But regardless, I am positive about this film because of how this type of movie being thought-provoking is usually an unlikely concept. There are still large sections of the movie that are just action movie cliche after action movie cliche, and even if they're not real or whatever, they're still not fun to sit through. But because the filmmakers never forget the point of the story, a movie that could have been unbearable to sit through, becomes worth watching.

Grade: C+