Total Recall (1990) | Paul Verhoeven

Around the World in 80s Movies

Set on Earth of the future, where we've already mastered the ability for space travel to through the solar system, and even set up colonies on Mars, Total Recall surrounds a lowly construction worker named Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who has recently been plagued by a recurring dream of being on Mars. His doting wife (Sharon Stone) tells Doug it's just a dream, but there's something in the events of the dreams that makes him curious to find out more about the red planet. Seeing an advertisement for a company called Rekall, an establishment that will implant the memory of vacation into the mind in vivid and perfect detail, Doug decides to choose the "secret agent" package set on Mars. No sooner than the implanted thoughts enter his head, Doug finds himself in what he perceives to be a real-life espionage drama involving himself and his role in a Martian underground society of spies, all seeking to end the stranglehold of a megalomaniac corporate businessman named Cohaagen (Ronny Cox). Fighting for his life, Doug makes his way to Mars to try to uncover the secret to who he really is, but not everything is what it seems to be, both on Mars and in his mind. Paul Verhoeven directs.