The greatest Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi movie ever is, without a doubt, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. And yet, the classic sci-fi thriller that required Arnold to do the most amount of real acting in concert with being an action badass is the 1990 cult classic Total Recall. Not only does this movie hold up much better than it should, but it’s also notable in the history of science fiction insofar as it turned a fluke in 1982 into a bona fide rule: When you adapt some material from the brilliant writer Philip K. Dick, your best best is to make sure you change the story quite a bit.
Like Blade Runner before it, Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 film Total Recall was based on writing from sci-fi visionary, Philip K. Dick. But, paradoxically, just like Blade Runner, what makes Total Recall a success is the way it honors the original idea, but utterly transforms that concept into something completely new.
