In 2084, Mars Colony is run by Vilos Cohaagen (Ronny Cox), who makes his millions in turbinium ore. On Earth, construction worker Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger) dreams about a mysterious woman on Mars. He visits a company called Rekall, which plants realistic false memories in people’s brains. He chooses to be a Martian Secret Agent, but before the implant takes hold, he lashes out violently, thinking he is already a Secret Agent.
On the way home, he is attacked by goons led by his friend Harry (Robert Costanzo) and he kills them. At home, he is attacked by his wife Lori (Sharon Stone), who says their marriage is a false memory implant, and she is an agent watching him. He is pursued by armed men led by Richter (Michael Ironside), Cohaagen’s operative, who is Lori’s real husband. Quaid is given a suitcase full of spy-gear and a video by Quaid himself, who says he is really named Hauser. He was in with Cohaagen and left when he fell in love. Hauser tells Quaid he must return to Mars and stop Cohaagen.
On Mars, Quaid evades Richter and follows Hauser’s clues to Venusville, where the people are mostly mutants created by Cohaagen’s pollution and radiation. He meets Melina (Rachel Ticotin), the woman of his dreams, who thinks he is still working for Cohaagen. He is confronted there by Lori and Doctor Edgemar (Roy Brocksmith) from Rekall, who tells him he is trapped in a fantasy. Quaid kills Doctor Edgemar. He is captured by Richter’s men, but Medina rescues him, and he kills Lori. A cabdriver named Benny (Mel Johnson Jr.) helps them escape from Venusville.
The mutants lead them to the hidden rebel base, where Quaid meets Kuato (Marcus Bell), a creature that grows on his brother George. Kuato reads Quaid’s mind and learns that Cohaagen is hiding a half-million-year-old alien reactor in a mountain. If activated, it would create a breathable atmosphere on Mars and bankrupt Cohaagen. Benny is a turncoat and shoots George and Kuato. Cohaagen’s forces attack the base and kill many rebels. Quaid sets off to start the reactor and Cohaagen cuts off the air supply to Venusville.
Quaid and Melina are captured and brought to Cohaagen, who says Quaid was created to destroy the rebels. He orders Quaid turned back into his friend Hauser, and Melina changed as well. But they escape the machines and kill the bad guys. Cohaagen attacks them in the reactor room, where he tries to blow up the reactor. Thanks to Quaid, the bomb blows a hole in the mountainside and Quaid starts the reactor as Cohaagen is sucked out into near-vacuum and dies. Quaid and Melina are sucked out too, but the reactor melts the planet’s ice core in seconds, creating an atmosphere all over Mars, just in time to save them. Any resemblance to real science here is purely coincidental.
The film was directed by Paul Verhoeven, written by Ronald Shusett, Dan O’Bannon, and Gary Golding, based very loosely on Phillip K. Dick’s story “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.” It took sixteen years, forty scripts, seven directors, and many actors picked to play Quaid to come to fruition. A producer went bankrupt. It was only because Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to star in it that it was ever completed. It received mixed reviews, indeed, but the special effects received an Oscar and Jerry Goldsmith’s score is often called his best. Phillip K. Dick liked the extended script because he had wanted to write more and could not. Early on, thinking that the movie was too expensive to be made, they turned to something cheaper—Alien, the success of which allowed Total Recall to be made.
Many of the actors were injured, including Ironside and Schwarzenegger. Despite all the jokes and outrageous acting and copious bloodletting, some actual themes from the original story survived. Throughout, it is not entirely clear whether anything is real or an implanted memory, and the script tries to have it both ways. Earth is a dull dystopian place with brutalist architecture, and Mars is filled with mutants ruled by gangsters. The rest is escapism. The violence is casual and bloody. A 2012 remake was more restrained but not successful. The cab-driving robot was voiced by Robert Picardo and Marc Alaimo (Gul Dukat) is there as well. It took 15 puppeteers to work the mutant Kuato. Many people thought it was real.
Sharon Stone’s ability to switch from charming and loving to vicious and cruel led to her being cast in Basic Instinct (1992). Director Verhoeven suggested that was Sharon Stone in real life. She posed for Playboy just as the movie was released, to put to good use all the work she had done bulking up to fighting trim. The movie was criticized for its portrayal of women—Lycia Naff, who played Mary, the three-breasted mutant prostitute, found the experience degrading and depressing--but the film featured what was probably the first battle between two women where the fighting was realistic and not a catfight. It is claimed that Schwarzenegger’s IQ is 135 and Sharon Stone’s 154. They are certainly extremely savvy about their careers. They didn’t get along at all, actually.