Well, remember, we've always thought flying cars are just twenty years in the future for the past century...
Starring in the film are Richard Benjamin and James Brolin as lawyers Peter Martin and John Blane from Chicago who come to the amusement park - Delos - for a vacation. The company's slogan is "Boy, do we have a vacation for you!", and boy do they ever! Delos is split up into three "worlds" - Western World (a 1880's simulator), Roman World (a Roman setting based around Pompeii), and Medieval World (Medieval Europe simulator), each of which is made to be 100% authentic to the period. The two head into Western World, cowboy up, and everything seems hunky dory up until the pair run afoul of a mysterious Gunslinger (Yul Brynner) and the park's systems begin to behave erratically.
If this sounds somewhat familiar, it is very similar to another film you might have seen called Jurassic Park, which makes sense seeing as they were written by the same person - Michael Crichton. He also does directing duty for this film as well and does a rather good job with it in my opinion. It's just kind of funny to think that he took this concept, reworked it, and added dinosaurs, and thus two very big science-fiction hits were created.
As for the film itself, as I said before, we have Richard Benjamin and James Brolin as the leads. Playing Blane, James Brolin has already been to Delos and is bringing Martin - played by Richard Benjamin- along for the first time. They're both believable in their roles as old friends and Richard Benjamin portrays someone who is more than a little uneasy with how things are going, but soon becomes more comfortable in the setting...at least until things go belly side up.
Yul Brynner has a fantastic turn as the Gunslinger. He says very little, giving the impression of being nothing more than a robotic killing machine, as is of course intended. He can't be bargained with, he can't be reasoned with, and he absolutely will not stop until Blane and Martin are dead. It almost seems like he'll be the inspiration for a film in about eleven years from the time this film premiered...can't think of why that'd be.
Apart from the leads, there are a few noteable faces - in particular an appearance by the First Lady of Star Trek herself, Majel Barrett, as the mistress of a brothel in Western World.
Giving full credit to those actors playing the robots, they do portray being machines designed to look like people quite well. Of course, special credit has to be given to the special effects team for the glazed look over the eyes of the Gunslinger and others in some scenes. The special effects in general are actually pretty good. While not by any means realistic, the blood exuded by both humans and robots alike is a good effect for the time. As is the use of machinery when the robots are brought in and taken apart for repairs and upgrades.
And no, ironically, the choice of film has nothing to do with my review of Rise of the Cybermen coming out tomorrow. Just a funny coincidence.
While the choices of set come off very much as a cost saving measure, this is played with as it is in many 1970s sci-fi films to create the style that they're known for. Apart from the environments in each of the worlds, which are suited to their theme, the corridors and laboratories of Delos are very clean and minimalist in a way that isn't seen very often anymore. It really makes you appreciate how much they make use of sets with something so simple as changing the lighting between scenes to make the audience believe it's a different location.
I could go on about how the bizarre differences in tech level are confusing - such as pistols that apparently fire real bullets, but use battery packs or how Delos has created robots so close to life-like that they're making the Synths in Fallout 4 jealous but have not developed surveillance tech better than a closed circuit monitor at 240p - or about how the reason for the sudden and complete malfunction is not very well explained (things just seem to start breaking down and just progressively get worse). Harkening back to my joke earlier, some elements feel like they were a dry run for things that Crichton put to use much better in his novel and late the film Jurassic Park. That being said, none of this is enough to take me out of the film or ruin my enjoyment of it, even if I do have a few questions about the logic of this world by the end of it.
Westworld stands as a classic and there's a good reason for that. It's brilliant. Rather than the incredibly over the top and overblown antics of the likes of Buck Rogers, the thinly-veiled Anti-Communist propaganda of the 1950s and 60s, or the high adventure feel of films from Star Wars and onward, Westworld is firmly centered in science fiction with a bleak tone. It has humor, if rather dry, but it helps build on the whole. And the film having a faceless corporation as a sort of psuedo-villain by poor regulations and/or non-interference is rather interesting, too.
Delos promises that they have a vacation for you, where nothing can possibly go wrong. To quote the Fourth Doctor when asked about the word unsinkable, "Said the iceberg to the Titanic. Glug, glug, glug."
But, even as the park sinks, Delos apparently still goes on. Three years later, Futureworld was brought into theaters without any involvement from Michael Crichton or the original cast outside of Brynner. We'll likely be getting to that another day. It also has gotten not one, but two TV series made about it. One of which is apparently very good. We will likely not be getting to either of them any time soon. Sorry.
I definitely recommend this film. If you can get a copy, definitely check it out.
Westworld was distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
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