Westworld
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Movie Reviews of Westworld
Movie Review: Theme park gone awry
Summary: 5 Stars
This is another classic sci-fi flic that I needed in my library.
It is a "fun" adventure with robots.
Movie Review: Excellent
Summary: 5 Stars
I loved this movie when I first saw it on TV. I love it today. It will keep you on the edge of your seat.Movie Review: Great movie
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the better movies.(science fiction)I have seen it several times and enjoyed each time.Movie Review: ...famous last words...
Summary: 4 Stars
"Boy, have we got a vacation for you...where nothing can go wrong!"
Well, as the old saying goes..."famous last words."
"Westworld" is supposed to be set in the future (as visualized back in 1973 when the film was made, apparently the computers of the future are really, really big, and the monitors are really, really small, lol), where pampered rich folk can go to a vacation resort named "Delos", and may choose one of three "worlds" to visit and play make-believe-for-grownups in: Medievalworld, Romanworld, and Westworld. Our protagonists John Blaine and Peter Martin (played by James Brolin and Richard Benjamin, respectively) choose Westworld. John is a Westworld veteran, having visited many times. Peter is his friend and first-timer at the resort; uttering childlike statements such as "Do we get a real gun? Wow!" In the various "worlds", the guests interact with each other and with anatomically-correct, extremely realistic robots. They are able to *ahem* interact very closely with the female robots, and also shoot the gunslinger robots for fun if they wish (the guns they are supplied with will not work on real people). Romanworld is promoted as something of a sex resort, and Medievalworld seems geared towards the romantics.
The film begins with quite a lot of intentional comedy and satire, and starts out very much like it could have been a 1970's TV "Movie of the Week", but once the robots start to "crash"...the rest of the film is a truly creepy western/sci-fi film. It's a gunfight, a western, albeit a Sci-Fi one. The last half-hour of the film is essentially a silent movie, as Crichton said he wanted, save for the great soundtrack, which sounds something like a bow being drawn against piano strings, or a cello; anyway it has the same unsettling effect as the out-of-tune piano in another favorite of mine, "Wait Until Dark" (1967).
Movies with robots/androids...there have been many I have seen and loved. But examples of what I consider to be frightening robots in film, besides "Westworld", are: "The Stepford Wives" (1974), "Alien" (1979), "Blade Runner" (1982), "The Terminator" (1984), "Aliens" (1986), and "The Companion" (1995).
"Westworld" was the first scary robot film I ever saw. And even after the others that followed, nothing quite equals Yul Brynner in his role as the robot gunslinger gone bad in "Westworld." His performance is what really makes the movie; Brynner was a good actor, and even (maybe especially) playing a machine, his skill is used to great effect. His performance is anything but wooden, unlike the always-stilted Ah-nold in "The Terminator", for instance. When Brynner's robot gunslinger commands "Draw", with the slightest twist at the corner of his mouth, he is completely creepy and scary. Even the way he walks and moves has an element to it that is hard to define, and very unnerving. When Peter first meets him at the saloon, it's obvious that the robot gunslinger's movements are very fluid, in a way one doesn't usually see an actor portray a robot, yet the smooth mannerisms somehow serve to further the effect.
What's also great about this film is the evolving of the Peter Martin character. He starts out as the inexperienced nerdy sidekick to Brolin's John Blaine, and ends up showing his true mettle as the going gets rough. The formerly milquetoast Peter quickly learns how to survive and fight back, and Richard Benjamin is very sympathetic, likeable, and effective in his portrayal.
This was Sci-Fi writer/director Michael Crichton's first foray into big-screen filmmaking. Crichton has said he made the film in thirty days, under schedule and within the budget. I would expect that finding pre-made sets was fairly easy; there was bound to be at least one western set sitting around the studio lots. In fact, several locations were utilized for the filming of Westworld: the Mojave Desert, part of the gardens of the Harold Lloyd Estate, and various available studio stages.
If you find a DVD of this to rent, and you've never seen the film before, I recommend that you do not watch the trailer first! It's a real spoiler.
Note: Look for Majel Barrett (of "Star Trek-Generations", and she is also Gene Roddenberrys' widow) as the whorehouse madam.
Brynner's part was a play on his role in the classic western film "The Magnificent Seven."
Movie Review: One day the robots, always programmed to lose, got fed up...
Summary: 4 Stars
The primary image I have of Yul Brynner is distilled from four films: THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, THE KING AND I, ANASTASIA, and this one, WESTWORLD. And for someone who barely gets any dialogue in this sci-fi western, Brynner wields the most impact, carries the strongest presence. Even though Richard Benjamin and James Brolin co-star, it's Yul Brynner's character people remember best when thinking of WESTWORLD.
Michael Crichton writes the story and directs the thing, and this is his debut at directing things. It's an intriguing concept that he introduces, and one that he'll revisit many years later in the blockbuster JURASSIC PARK. In the story Westworld is only one of the three fully interactive, fully immersive adult recreational theme resorts run by the Delos corporation, the other two being Roman World and Medieval World. Fantasies are fulfilled here, and nightly bacchanals in which to revel. Role playing is taken to the extremes. You can do whatever you want here, seemingly without repercussions. Two friends visit Westworld, thinking this, not knowing just how wrong they are.
In Westworld, which apes the rugged frontier towns of the 1880s, the greenhorn guest engages in gunfights and saloon brawls, and sleeps with the local soiled dove. No doubt all these activities are described in the brochure, and no one even looks at you sideways when you engineer a jailbreak for your incarcerated pal. Westworld's inhabitants are robots who impeccably simulate humans, automatons "scientifically programmed to look, act, talk, and even bleed just like humans do." And so they're shot down or beat up or bedded with impunity. The two friends, Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin), take on a stalker, this pushy gunslinger (Brynner) with dead metal eyes who time and again, as per script, goes down in a hail of bullets. Until he doesn't.
Part of the fun is in seeing what goes on behind the curtain. The film frequently shifts the scenery to the lab techs running the show, fixing and rebooting the machines on a nightly basis, and we note their cluelessness and inability to adapt when things begin to go haywire, when the machines begin to rebel and murder their guests. And, let me tell you, for a thousand dollars a day, I expect better than a sword punched thru the gut. "Nothing can go wrong," the reassuring disembodied voice says twice during orientation. You think the techs would have a solid emergency contingency plan in place. Happily, they don't, and that's why this movie is fun. It's always fun when there's a glitch in the product, a gremlin in the system.
WESTWORLD came out in 1973, so the special effects pale in comparison to what we've got today. There's also this weird lack of energy at times on the screen, and I guess you have to put this at Crichton's feet since he was in the director's chair. Part of that low energy level has to do with the protagonist's tepid sense of self-preservation. In his encounters with the implacable Brimstone Kid he sometimes settles for strolling away instead of urgently running the f--- out of there. Also, with the technological advances proposed in this film, it's really unbelievable that they're still having issues with perfecting the robot hands to pass for human hands. And how the Brimstone Kid can see with its cruddily pixelated robot-vision, I don't know, although, okay, the robot is equipped with a full sensory array. I'm basically grousing because the robotic perspective looks cheesy.
But disregard all that. I think they're minor drawbacks, really. WESTWORLD, with its 88 minute running time, is entertaining stuff. Welcome bits of humor pepper the film, and for a PG rating there's even a dose of suggestively lewd conduct going down. But what really sells this film is Yul Brynner as the enigmatic, terrifying robot gunslinger gone rogue. When the Brimstone Kid flashes a smile in one scene, there's menace oozing from it. What Brynner also does here is wink at his "Chris Adams" role in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. WESTWORLD, in its own right, counts as one of Brynner's standout pictures.
But, hey, whatever happened to the tourist who became the new sheriff? Or did I just miss seeing his sad corpse lying somewhere in Westworld?