Total Recall

There are two things I find really interesting about Total Recall.

1. How intricate the story is, particularly to leave doubt in the audience’s mind.

2. How much Arnold’s very existence in a movie can make me think it’s poorly done.

Now, the story is rather well put together (which is not surprising given its basis in Philip Dick). It takes the viewer back and forth through believing what is happening to be a dream and believing it to be real. This occurs first when the doctor says he’s reacting poorly and the nurse says she hasn’t implanted anything yet. It then flips back to perhaps being a dream with the entrance of the doctor, and then back out of it when the doctor begins to sweat. But it’s never conclusive. There is a lot of explicit linking to it being real, like Arnold’s perspective, the story being set up to need Rekall’s existence, and so on. But at the same time, all of the subtlety points to it being a dream. Like Arnold creating the girl that shows up, him choosing there to be alien relics identical to those on Mars, the very spy program being called blue skies on Mars, and so on.

And then you can look elsewhere for how obvious this is. No one can make convincing arguments about it, IMDb is completely unresolved (not that those posting are always the brightest).

I think this brings about something interesting, though. Those that pay more attention to the subtext of a movie and the seemingly random comments that are unimportant will lean toward thinking the entire movie is a dream because of the hints dropped earlier, while those watching just to be entertained will think it is real because that is what is explicit in the movie.

But of course, a lot of this depth is lost because Arnold stars in it. I can’t explain why, but his very presence makes me think the movie was just thrown together and a hack and slash job. Even though it’s made from an amazing story and actually is decently (actually, not really decent anything but plot direction) done. But still. I think we all understand.

Arnold makes bad movies.