Total Recall 1990

Janet Maslin, New York Times: Melding the ever-more-workable Schwarzenegger mystique with a better-than-average science-fiction premise, the director Paul Verhoeven has come up with a vigorous, superviolent interplanetary thriller that packs in wallops with metronomic regularity. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: A worthy entry in the dystopian cycle launched by Blade Runner, this seems less derivative than most of its predecessors yet equally accomplished in its straight-ahead storytelling, with plenty of provocative satiric undertones and scenic details. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: It's not a masterpiece, but it is a fast-moving thriller, one worth revisiting (and, evidently, remaking). Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Total Recall is too much -- but it's too much of a good thing. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Neither Arnold Schwarzenegger nor Paul Verhoeven have stretched their talents here. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: There may be people who overlook the Arnold Schwarzenegger performance in Total Recall who think he isn't really acting. But the performance is one of the reasons the movie works so well. Read more

Geoff Andrew, Time Out: The future doesn't come any better. Read more

Variety: The fierce and unrelenting pace, accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek strain of humor in the roughhouse screenplay, keeps the film moving like a juggernaut. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: Recall is full of the musclebound action that [Schwarzenegger's] fans presumably enjoy. It also means that this Mars-bound movie is violent, nasty and expensive (it cost Tri-Star well over $60 million). Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: A gratuitous explosion of vainglory and guts, the movie is all firecrackers and giblets and broken glass. The overall effect is like wading through hospital waste. Read more