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Monday May 13th 2024

Total Recall | 1990

Ingenious FX-packed sci-fi, based on a Philip K Dick story, with Arnold Schwarzenegger as Quaid, visiting Mars to discover why he’s been implanted with a false memory, though it does feel like there’s one last twist cut from the ending. A less obvious action hero might have lent a bit more ambiguity.

The film was made almost entirely in Mexico City’s Churubuscu Studios. Director Paul Verhoeven wanted to use the futuristic cityscapes in Houston, Texas, but, ultimately, production costs determined that filming would be south of the border, and Arnie’s neighbourhood on Earth is thus a military academy just outside Mexico City.

The subway entrance is Metro Insurgentes station, in the Glorieta de los Insurgentes shopping mall, on the Pantitlán-Observatorio line of the Mexico City Metro. It's on Avenida Insurgentes at Avenida Chapultepec in Cuauhtémoc borough, close to the Zona Rosa shopping district.

The escalator is at Metro Chabacano on the Tacubaya-Col. Puebla Line, where, supposedly, blood spatters from the film can still be seen.

Other scenes used the penthouse and the lobby of the 750-room Hyatt Regency Mexico City, Campos Eliseos 204, Mexico City, in the Polanco district, north of Chapultepec Park.