One of the things I love about Paul Verhoven’s movies is that they come with zero ounces of pretense. In 1990’s Total Recall, the Dutch director famously known for his ultra-violence and gratuitous nudity, brought Philip K. Dick’s short story, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, to the big screen. In the future, memories can be simply uploaded into the subconscious; a perfect, substitute for the real thing (and apparently faster and cheaper), and in the case of Quaid (Schwarzenegger), a construction worker who has fleeting dreams of visiting Mars, getting a memory implant sounds like an ideal choice. Things get complicated during the implantation, and soon finds himself on the run from dangerous killers who want to take him out. Turns out Quaid is actually a spy who was on a mission on Mars when things went wrong and his memory was erased—implanted; with new, fake memories. As Quaid searches for the truth, which brings him back to Mars, the possibility that this is all just a dream inside his mind is always a possibility.

Has Quaid’s memory been restored, and is he finishing out his mission?, or is this all just a dream as real and vivid as life itself? The screenplay, by Alien writers Ronald Shusett and Dan O’Bannon, never quite reveals itself as to what is real and what isn’t. Which is a smart move, and unlike some, I don’t think finding out the truth is so much important as it is to maintain the illusion that anything is possible; it seems to go along with Philip K. Dick’s mindset of never quite being able to know for sure what to make of reality. But what is certain is that Total Recall is a splashy, comic book-like blood-bath of an actioner, with a sci-fi backdrop, non-stop excitement, an absolutely relentless pace and a fun sense of humor, and it’s one of Verhoeven and Schwarzenegger’s best.