Film Review
A variant on the disaster movie theme that was so popular with
audiences in the 1970s,
Westworld
probably has a greater resonance today than it did when it was first
released and seems chillingly prescient in its depiction of what can
happen to a society which is overly dependent on advanced
technology. The film's writer-director Michael Crichton would
effectively re-tell the same story, of a theme park gone bananas, in
Jurassic Park, but the version with
the psychopathic androids is infinitely more unsettling than the one
with flesh-eating velociraptors.
Crichton's direction is confident and effective but rarely as inspired
as it needs to be for the film to be genuinely thrilling.
Indeed, with its jokey introduction and thick underbelly of dark
humour,
Westworld works
better as a black comedy than a conventional sci-fi thriller. Yul
Brynner is superlative as the homicidal robot gunslinger, which is
obviously modelled on the character he played in
The Magnificent Seven (1960).
His is a performance that exudes spine-tingling menace in every shot,
amply compensating for weaknesses in the script and the
lacklustre contributions from Brynner's co-stars.
The film was a surprising box office hit and inspired both a sequel,
Futureworld (1976), and a
television series
Beyond Westworld,
although the latter was so ill-received that it did not survive beyond
a few episodes. Trivia fans should note that the gardens
belonging to the legendary comedian Harold Lloyd were used for some of
the exterior locations seen in
Westworld
and that this was the first film to exploit digital image processing,
for the android's pixellated point-of-view shots.
A borderline classic of the sci-fi genre,
Westworld is as much a
tongue-in-cheek commentary on Hollywood-style escapism in the 1970s as
it is a timely warning against putting too much faith in
technology (users of Internet Explorer please note). It is still great fun to watch, but don't be
surprised if Yul Brynner pops up in your nightmares, eyes shining with
a sadistic steely intent. You may have to subject
yourself to yet another viewing of
The King and I to
exorcise this grisly spectre from your subconscious.
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In the throes of a messy divorce, Peter Martin agrees to accompany his
friend John Blane on a visit to Delos, an adult amusement park where
the guests can live out their wildest fantasies for a thousand dollars
a day. The park is divided into three zones: Western-World,
Medieval-World and Roman-World. Each zone is a near-perfect
replica of a historical setting and is populated by androids that are
virtually indistinguishable from human beings. John and Peter
have barely been in Western-World five minutes before a sinister
gunslinger shows up and provokes Peter into shooting him
dead. The gunslinger is of course an android, since, as
John confidently assures his friend, it is impossible for any human to
suffer the slightest injury in Delos. At least, that is what the
company brochure says. In reality, the technicians running the
amusement park have recently observed some unexplained malfunctions in
the androids' circuitry, which appear to be spreading like a
virus. What is first diagnosed as a minor technical problem
suddenly assumes greater significance when one of the visitors is
eviscerated whilst duelling with an android knight in
Medieval-World. An attempt to shut the androids down by cutting
off the power supply backfires, and merely results in the technicians
being trapped in their control centre. Meanwhile, the
androids across the three pleasure zones go berserk and start killing
all of the human guests. This is one vacation that Peter
Martin will not forget in a hurry, if he survives it...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.