Total Recall (1990)

This week, the Dads get their asses to Mars with 1990's Total Recall, the second Verhoeven joint on the podcast and a movie that has seared itself into the collective consciousness whether you've seen it or not. Nic's pick here, and he wastes no time pointing out this is peak Arnie at peak powers, a cable descrambler classic, and one of the all-time great films for doing impressions of a man in distress. Steve agrees, noting that so much of our cultural love for Schwarzenegger comes from imitating the specific noises he makes, and this movie is absolutely overflowing with them.

The Dads walk through the dystopian premise of a company that will implant fake vacation memories directly into your brain, and immediately spiral into how psychotically insane the "ego trip" upgrade sounds. Why would anyone want to believe they were a secret agent and then just wake up and go back to jackhammering? The cognitive dissonance alone would destroy you. Nic's wife gets a solid moment when the nail-painting receptionist appears on screen with her instant-color-change manicure tech, prompting a frustrated "son of a bitch!" from the couch. They appreciate the Verhoeven commentary on casting Schwarzenegger as a quote-unquote regular guy, acknowledge that Sharon Stone is acting her face off while playing a character who is also acting her face off, and give proper respect to the escalator shootout, the human shield that got used for way too long, and Johnny Cab's inexplicable decision to kamikaze itself into a wall over an unpaid fare.

The conversation inevitably lands on three boobs, Kuato's weird little voice, the "see you at the party" callback, and the big question: is any of this real? Steve's now convinced the whole thing is an ego trip and Quaid is a lobotomized vegetable, while Nic figures he just wakes up disappointed and goes back to his crappy life married to peak Sharon Stone. Either way, blue sky on Mars was a new one.