Disc Reviews
Futureworld Blu-ray Review
In 1973 Michael Crichton directed his first feature: Westworld. This film successfully fused together two genres: the western and science-fiction and is text book Crichton in which some kind of amusement park with technological innovations goes out of control. The common theme in Crichton is with technology there are no fail safes. He did this most successfully with Jurassic Park. The key success with Crichton’s Westworld was exactly the fusing of two genres with Yul Brynner brilliantly cast as a cowboy android who has gone out of control, mimicking his role as Chris in The Magnificent Seven (1960) and shooting up the Westworld players. Futureworld, however, does not cross genre lines except that it is now science fiction and conspiracy thriller.
Many critics at the time of the films release commented that this is not a direct sequel to Crichton’s directorial debut, but instead an exploitative film building on Westworld’s immediate success. On viewing the film it is evident that it is indeed a direct sequel but from a different angle. The film was marketed the same way but more on this later. Whereas Westworld was made with the studio giant MGM backing it (albeit with a tight budget), Futureworld alas was turned down by Crichton and was instead made by American International Pictures (AIP), the studio responsible for many Blaxploitation films and the hundreds of films made by B picture director Roger Cormon. Like Westworld, Futureworld opens with a TV advert promoting the fantasy amusement park of Delos with its medieval and Roman period arenas and a futuristic Spaceworld. Westworld has been left as an empty lot. The Delos Corporation proudly boast that $1.5 billion worth of improvements have been made and a grand opening of Delos is scheduled. Two of the invited guests are a couple of journalists (played by Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner) to see and investigate if Delos is as safe as the corporation make out. They investigate and are even taken around Westworld but become suspicious of the Corporation’s motives. But as they delve deeper they find paranoia within the organization as well as robots who behave aggressively to protect the Corporation’s interests. What they uncover is even more shocking than they thought as the Corporation is building clones of world leaders.
The 1970s was a decade of conspiracy thrillers and Futureworld is a better film than many critics had given it credit for. It may not have had the wunderkind Michael Crichton behind it nor the might of MGM (who severely cut the budget on the original anyway); nor did it have much of Yul Brynner who is only in the film for a few seconds in a nightmare sequence and footage from the original although his presence looms large over Westworld’s legacy and was a big part in the promotion of the film. It does have an interesting story though, if a little shy on too much action as many critics at the time pointed out. Filmed in the then futuristic looking city of Houston, Texas the film is clearly constrained by its limited budget but this does not make the film any less enjoyable. For all that it was also one of the first films to make use of CGI with the face robotics and a chillingly friendly faceless robot mechanic playing cards. Once again a film with a terrifyingly cold dystopian vision of an android future is made credible.
Futureworld was even made into a porn film parody, Sexworld allowing the players to play out their erotic fantasies. Any mainstream film parodied for titillation is a measure of its success. Like many 1970s films the print is grainy not necessarily making it ideal for Blu-ray but is never the less an otherwise decent print. There are no extras on the disc.
Chris Hick