Review: Westworld

1973

    Two friends, Peter (Richard Benjamin) and John (James Brolin) buy the trip of a lifetime to the robot populated theme park Westworld. For $1000.00 dollars a day they can live out all of their fantasies but at what cost?

    I know, I know, Westworld is not a horror film it’s sci-fi, but I feel that it definitely has some dystopian views. People in the very near future can spend their money by going to a fantasy theme park but there are problems beneath the surface of the perfect world that they know nothing about. I really like this film mainly for the entire premise of it. How cool would it be to go to an old western,  Roman or medieval populated world? It would be very cool indeed since Bloofer Lady wouldn’t mind being fed peeled grape by a hunk of a gladiator. Well, that’s besides the point! Yes, certain parts of it are very dated; the 70’s hairstyles and the bank of computers, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the story itself is very well written. Westworld is so damn cool that there was set to be a remake, but thank goodness that has been shelved for now. The 70’s feel of this film helps it rather than hinders it, and without it I don’t think the film would work.

    Westworld was written by Michael Crichton, who of course also wrote Jurassic Park andComa, among other things. As I said before the entire premise of this film is really cool. He really takes a look at what could be a very neat idea for an adult theme park and turns it on its head by having bad things happen. That is kind of his modus operandi so that isn’t really a huge surprise. It tells us that all of the money in the world is not only not going to bring you happiness, it can also come back and bite you in the ass; your fantasies may be fully realised but with some unforeseen consequences. I love it that the robots can do anything including having sex, starting a bar fight and doing pretty much anything you ask. It also tells a tale of corporate greed because the company that runs all three ‘worlds’, Delos, ends up putting profit above the lives of the guests. Another thing I really like is that the character Peter is put through a pretty tough character arc. At first he is constantly complaining about the rough living conditions of Westworld, and by the end he is transformed into a completely different person. Seeing that kind of character development really adds some reality aspects to the film.

    The direction of this really isn’t anything too special. Crichton doesn’t do a bad job but it’s not brilliant either. There are slow motion bits during the bar fight scene which isn’t too unusual and all of the shots are pretty standard. However, there are some kind of cool special effects in it. The Gunslinger (Yul Brynner), which relentlessly pursues Peter through the last third of the film, has a really neat looking silver tint to his eyes which makes him look really mechanical. The other robots have them as well, but none of them look at evil as The Gunslinger does. Another effect is when The Gunslinger is tracking Peter he sees in a pixelated infra red which we get to view quite a few times while he is chasing him. There really isn’t any gore in this besides the day-glo red blood that you will see when either a robot or human dies.

    Up front I’m going to tell you that the acting in Westworld tends to be kind of cheesy. However that’s in part what makes thismovie a lot of fun. Richard Benjamin is okay as Martin and is probably the best actor in this. Since his character actually changes through the movie he has the most to work with. Yul Brynner is,well, Yul Brynner. He doesn’t have any lines really, but he does a good job walking around like a robot out of control and on a hunt for humans, and James Brolin seems like he’s trying to act in a tv movie of the week.  

    Westworld is a great example of a 70’s style sci-fi movie and Bloofer Lady wants to you to watch it!

Bloofer lady