Westworld
(1973)
...where robot men and women are programmed
to serve you for ...Romance ...Violence ...Anything
Director
- Michael Crichton
Writer - Michael Crichton
Starring - Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Norman
Bartold, Alan Oppenheimer, Victoria Shaw, Dick Van Pattan,
Linda Gaye Scott, Steve Franken, Michael T Mikler, Terry Wilson,
Majel Barrett, Anne Randall, Julie Marcus, Sharyn Wynters
Review by Noel Baily
A superb scifi time capsule
WESTWORLD just happens to be the great-great grandparent of
JURASSIC PARK as well as the surrogate parents of TERMINATOR,
EVE OF DESTRUCTION etc...
I saw WESTWORLD the day of its '73 Australian premiere, I
was actually reviewing it for my own newspaper. I'll repeat
what I said THEN! A conceptually brilliant update on the Disneyland
theme-park idea with Yul Brynner basically reprising his role
from THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN as a robotic gunslinger with a
touch too much human ambition. With the limited budget Crichton
had to work with, he did alright and if some of you weren't
to taken with MEDIEVAL WORLD or ROMAN WORLD well pardon me
all over the place. Personally I would die for one of the
"pleasure models!"
WESTWORLD
was a colossal hit worldwide and I can tell you, there were
few nit-pickers a quarter of a century ago. See it today for
what it is..a benchmark in scifi cinema. You could do worse
than watching FUTUREWORLD too - not as good but compared to
BLADE2 or MIB2 a total classic.
Review by Theo Robertson
Get Off Your Horse And Watch This Film,
I often criticise westerns because they bare no reality on what really happened in the Wild West. Unlike the Hollywood version most gunslingers met their end after getting shot in the back, they never stood in the middle of the street telling their opponent to draw, this is a myth that only happened in Hollywood movies, and WESTWORLD is an enjoyable celebration of this myth where (Rich) holidaymakers can spend (For $1000 a day) their holiday drawing their guns on gunslingers, taking part in bar room brawls and visiting ladies of ill repute and it’s really fun to watch people play up to all the wild west clichs in a film that’s entertaining , funny and a little bit scary too .
As good as WESTWORLD is as entertainment it is rather flawed. James Brolin and Yul Brynner are fair in their roles but Richard Benjamin is very wooden as Peter Martin. Imagine you’re being chased by an unstoppable killing machine (And had paid one thousand dollars a day for the privilege!) you’d be terrified, or at least upset that you’re not getting value for money, but Benjamin doesn’t seem to convey enough fear. It should also be pointed out that the more you think about WESTWORLD the more it falls apart, and another thing I notice the more I watch it is that you see nothing of Roman World, but I suppose that theme park probably consists of middle aged housewives taking part in Roman orgies so on second thoughts maybe it’s just as well we learn nothing about the place
So if you get the chance watch WESTWORLD and make sure you don’t think about it
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