Review of THX 1138 (1971) by Stephen J — 09 Sep 2008

This is actually one of George Lucas´s best movies, and of course it´s his first. Again a bleak outlook for mankind, controlled and drugged in a subterranean city (we assume due to a nuclear war which took place at the end of the 20th century-this is never discussed though).

It´s Robert Duvall´s movie and he gives a great performance trying to escape all that he´s known. The film really starts to get moving once he is banished to the room without walls, and meets Donald Pleasence, who makes endless plans but does nothing, Don Pedro Colley (check him out as one of the mutants in Beneath The Planet of The Apes) a hologram and shell dweller-dwarf.

All are controlled by the robotic policemen, who chase after Robert Duvall until he starts climbing the ladder to the surface. It´s only a shame that Lucas didn´t use the same imaginativeness with the prequels of Star Wars.