Plot: A soldier from the future (Bradley) leads a team of convicts in a suicide mission to 1998 to stop a deadly separatist (Thomas Kretschmann) from changing history.
I had never seen this movie before as it just slipped under my radar, however, it popped up on Prime Video recently and I watched it the other night.
I always liked David Bradley and he deserved to be a bigger star; he had charisma and screen presence and could elevate what could be seen as lesser movies.
Total Reality is hardly a classic, but it’s still got a few action scenes with some brief fights and a storyline which is kind of like Terminator but it doesn’t involve any cyborgs. Rand (Bradley) leads the alliance in a war against General Tunis (Thomas Kretschmann); Rand is sent back in time with a small group of soon to be killed off people to take out Tunis, but things don’t go as planned.
What’s interesting is that despite Tunis being the villain he isn’t just a one-note character and he feels more fleshed out. It could just be Thomas Kretschmann who I think is also under appreciated as he has played plenty of antagonists but he is usually soft spoken, rarely losing his icy cold demeanor.
This has a runtime of just under an hour and 40 minutes; it could be argued that the ending goes on a little long after Tunis has been dispatched (spoiler alert) so you could have trimmed a few minutes. I also would have liked a final fight scene between Tunis and Rand which feels like a missed opportunity.
The title Total Reality is as generic as they come and doesn’t really relate to anything in the movie. I also try not to overthink time travel stories as you’ll go cross eyed trying to make logic out of it, so I just enjoy things exploding.
Overall, Total Reality has some interesting ideas and I like David Bradley and Thomas Kretschmann in their respective roles; it doesn’t have a huge budget but there’s enough action to keep things moving. It’s not one I’d watch often, but if you enjoy David Bradley and 90’s B movies then check it out.