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Just who AM l?!
Another story taken from Philip K Dick's canon. This is a typical Dick story in a way for a central part of the film is a commentary on the nature of reality and memory - all very Dickian. Arnie's character, Quaid, appears to be just a simple construction worker but he's dissatisfied with life and he decides to visit Recall who could implant memories of trips anywhere in the Solar System. After chosing Mars as his destination, Quaid suffered a fit and Recall blanked his memory of the visit for such work could only be the work of a government agency. On returning home, he begins to realise that his life, and his wife, as he knew them were lies after an attempt to kill him was made right on his doorstep. Even if he no longer knew who he was his body had some unusual skills it hadn't forgotten. On receiving a message from his prewiped self Quaid thinks he's got a better idea of what was going on but it means a trip to Mars.
The ability to tell what is real and what is artificial is put to the test when confronted by his wife and a supposed psychiatrist to get him out of a supposed psychotic incident. This film certainly lives up to the 18 rating in terms of violence and the make up for the mutants is unpleasantly realistic as were the effects of decompression out on Mars's surface. Quaid has to decide who he is: the basically decent guy he was made into or Mars's dictator's best friend. Unfortunately the final effect of Mars getting an atmosphere was totally unrealistic - Mars is far too small to retain a decent atmosphere for very long nor could it have been achieved so fast. |
