From extremely violent sci-fi pictures like RoboCop and Starship Troopers to seductive films such as Basic Instinct and Showgirls, Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoeven shows no bounds when it comes to tackling over-the-top stories. Total Recall, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is considered one of the director's best films and a classic sci-fi feature because of its themes of identity crisis and questioning reality, along with its fictional depiction of Mars and highly stylized action sequences.
Arnold also delivers one of his most memorable performances as a vulnerable hero who desperately tries to understand himself and the world around him, while still expressing his likable charisma, sense of humor, and funny one-liners. Here are the details surrounding the plot of Total Recall and its intriguing conclusion.
What is Total Recall About?
Total Recall focuses on Douglas Quaid (action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger), a construction worker on Earth during the late 21st Century who appears happily married to his wife Lori (Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone). However, Quaid constantly has dreams about being on Mars with an enigmatic woman. When Quaid decides to visit a high-tech company called Rekall (a place where individuals are implanted with false but realistic memories, so they can virtually experience their own dreams and fantasies), he chooses a scenario where he's a secret agent on Mars. Quaid's virtual setup is interrupted when he suddenly lashes out in pain, so Rekall sends him home.
Quaid's life turns upside down when Harry (his friend and colleague at work) and his henchmen beat him up and attempt to kill him, until Quaid fights back, overpowering and killing them. Lori then attempts to eliminate Quaid when he returns home, but he stops her, forcing Lori to confess their marriage was fake and that she's actually a secret operative working for the antagonist Vilos Cohaagen (RoboCop villain actor Ronny Cox). Cohaagen is a tyrant who controls the colonization of Mars and its inhabitants, caring more about mining a valuable mineral called turbinium rather than giving people a breathable atmosphere.
As Quaid is being chased by Lori and Cohaagen's associates led by Richter (Lori's real husband played by a villainous Michael Ironside from Starship Troopers), he receives a suitcase which reveals Quaid's real identity is Carl Hauser (a skilled agent under Cohaagen who went rogue after falling in love with the woman he's been hallucinating about). In order to conceal Hauser's secrets about Cohaagen and his business, Hauser is brainwashed by Cohaagen's agency, sending him to Earth under the name Quaid. After learning about his past life as Hauser, Quaid finds Melina (Rachel Ticotin), the woman from his dreams. She initially believes he's Hauser still working for Cohaagen, but figures out that he's Quaid trying to find answers about his identity.
Quaid and Melina work together to battle Cohaagen and his army, while also receiving vital information from an underground rebellion led by George (along with his brother Kuato, a mutant attached to George's belly). Kuato has the ability to psychologically read Quaid's mind in order to unravel the secrets behind Cohaagen's corrupt mining operation, including an ancient alien reactor that's hidden in a mountain on Mars with the capability to form breathable air and destroy turbinium.
How does Total Recall end?
While Richter and his men kill the rebellion (including George and Kuato), Quaid and Melina manage to shoot down all the henchmen during a clever action sequence where the pair of heroes use a hologram watch to fool the villains. Quaid also engages in a final fistfight with Richter, resulting in the villain's arms being ripped off at an elevator. Quaid and Melina then confront Cohaagen, who refuses to let them get their hands on the reactor. However, after Melina shoots Cohaagen, he sets off an explosive device, which Quaid throws into the tunnels, causing a massive explosion.
All three are hanging on for dear life as the wind blows inside the reactor room, but Quaid manages to pull Cohaagen off, causing him to go through the tunnels and outside the surface of Mars, resulting in an eye-bulging, suffocating death. Quaid manages to place his hand on the reactor, activating it before he and Melina are blown outside to the surface. The pair nearly suffocate and suffer the same fate as Cohaagen, but the reactor works just in time for it to provide breathable air on Mars by melting the red planet's ice core into gas, powerfully bursting to the surface, and saving everyone. Quaid and Melina rejoice, with Quaid asking her if everything was a dream before they share a kiss.
Is the Total Recall remake ending different?
The 2012 Total Recall remake from Len Wiseman (director of Underworld and Live Free or Die Hard) is essentially the same story as the original 1990 film. However, there are a few key differences, the biggest being that Wiseman's movie only takes place on Earth and doesn't involve Mars. While Sharon Stone's femme fatale, Lori, was killed early by Arnold's protagonist in Verhoeven's feature, Kate Beckinsale's villainous turn as Lori has a longer role in the remake, until Farrell's Quaid shoots and kills her in the very end.
Unlike the over-the-top, highly stylized graphic violence and colorful imagery from Verhoeven's sci-fi classic, Wiseman's remake is a more typically modern action film with PG-13 violence. Arnold's Quaid causes Cohaagen's excruciating death by blowing him to Mars' surface, while Farrell's Quaid fights Bryan Cranston's Cohaagen in old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat and stabbing him with a knife in the end.
Both films involve the age-old story of the rich and menacing tech corporation overpowering the lower class rebellion. There's also a conflicted hero with an identity crisis, questioning reality and making the choice to fight on the right side to defeat evil. Wiseman's remake has cool, admirable action scenes, but Verhoeven's original film with Arnold and a dream cast set a high standard, likely inspiring other film series like The Matrix and Jason Bourne.