10 Movies That Gave Away The Spoiler Immediately

Director Paul Verhoeven may recently have returned to form with erotic psychological drama Benedetta (2021), but prior to his years in the wilderness he landed a solid-vibranium classic in the form of sci-fi actioner Total Recall. Far more than just another guns-n-muscles flick for the enduringly bankable Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film offers up a perplexing tesseract of a narrative in a pre-Matrix film landscape.

Arnie plays Douglas Quaid, a construction worker from 2084 whose recurring dreams of exotic women and spy missions to Mars are made something of a reality when he receives an implanted memory of a fantastical adventure to the red planet from big tech firm Rekall (because they can do that now). After the process, however, there seem to be real-world consequences, as he is tracked down by shady fellas from the evil Agency, which has apparently supressed his real memories of being a bona fide undercover spy.

But one of the opening scenes, when Douglas is in choosing his implanted memories, gives the whole thing away. Curiously, it is not Douglas himself that outlines the plot but the Rekall sales guy, who speaks of the secret agent package, with an exotic woman and an undercover mission, in which 'you get the girl, kill the bad guys and save the entire planet'. In the context of what is real and what's not, and the legitimacy of what Verhoeven would have us believe, this raises more questions than it answers.