Westworld

Starring: Yul Brynner, Richard Benjamin, James Brolin, Norman Bartold, Alan Oppenheimer, Victoria Shaw, Dick Van Patten
Directed by: Michael Crichton
Rating: PG
Genre: Action, Science Fiction, Thriller
1973

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Tourists visiting Westworld- an amusement park where robots recreate the old west- are in sudden danger when the robots turn deadly.

Review:

Tim: If you don't know much about Michael Crichton, I'd highly recommend spending a little time researching the guy- he was fairly incredible. In addition to being an incredibly accomplished, famous author and screenwriter, he also decided to get into directing. This is usually a horrible idea (see Stephen King's Maximum Overdrive), but Crichton made his feature film directorial debut (which he also wrote) with Westworld, a very solid first effort. Was there anything Crichton couldn't do?

The premise here is interesting- in the near future, there's these adult-themed amusement parks- Western World, Roman World, and Medieval World. Each park is a recreation of that world and robots populate the parks. It's all be cleverly designed to give you an extremely realistic experience without the danger- you can get into sword fights with real weapons in Medieval World, but you'd "kill" a robot and not be harmed yourself. The idea is actually very cool and the movie spends a lot of time just exploring how amazing this would be. While there's three different worlds, we spend the bulk of our time in the titular Westworld. This is the recreation of the old west, complete with drunken brawls, bank robberies, jail escapes, etc. It was a little surprising how much of the film is spent showing the tourists' experience- it was as if Crichton fell in love with this idea and wanted to explore it on film.

The real action takes a while- eventually, the robots malfunction and begin to murder all the tourists. This is the point we'd been waiting for, and it's portrayed fairly well. It is quite menacing to think about lifelike robots running amok, especially when the humans have been trained that the robots are harmless and there to help and entertain. This is where Crichton's inexperience behind the camera starts to show. While the audience is fascinated by the amusement park worlds Crichton has created, the suspense and danger at the end needed to be ratcheted up more. It was good, but we really needed something great.

The cast is good. Yul Brynner was very good as the Gunslinger. He doesn't have a whole lot to do until close to the end, but his performance (although restrained) was very good- he's quite believable as a murderous robot. James Brolin was well cast, although his performance was a little too laconic for me. His smugness occasionally got on my nerves. He serves a very important purpose, being the one character who's already been to West World, but I didn't love his performance. Richard Benjamin was very good- his wide-eyed wonder and excitement were great fun to watch. He really gave a believable performance, especially in the early stages of the film.

I give Crichton a great deal of credit for creating this engaging, entertaining film. The story was refreshing and original. I still love the idea of these theme parks and the idea that something so fun and entertaining could turn deadly always makes for a thrilling time. The biggest challenge is that with so little directing experience, Crichton never managed to make this film truly memorable. There are some stretches of the film where so little happens- there's only 88 minutes of run time and Crichton doesn't leverage every minute for maximum benefit. I do question why we needed to see Medieval and Roman World at all- I'd have preferred to mention those (but save them for the sequel) and spend even more time in West World. The ending of the film was some intense moments, but there's also some big plot holes and the climax is surprisingly dull. Those things hurt the film, but aren't entirely unexpected from a first time director.

I did enjoy Westworld and would consider it a win for the first-time director. It's a solid, entertaining film. However, the premise itself is so wonderful that this could have been a truly great movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 7



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Jurassic Park, Futureworld