Review of Logan's Run (1976) by Allan C — 18 Jan 2015

Michael York and Richard Jordan a future cops of a sort called Sandmen. Their job is to police this distant future utopian society where no one is allowed to live past 30 years of age. Everyone has a crystal implanted in their hand from the day they are born.

The crystal starts out as white but when it becomes a flashing red on someone's 30th birthday, they are to report to the "carousel" for "renewal" meaning their ritualistic execution.

York and Jordan's main job is to go after "runners" who don't refuse to go through with the bizarre ritualistic suicide/execution. York, playing the Sandman Logan, is charged with posing as a runner to destroy a secret sanctuary outside the utopian dome in the wastelands outside and his crystal is accelerated to it's final red stages.

This sci-fi concept was ripe for social and political commentaires, but sadly the film loses it's focus as the film devolves into a chase (SPOILERS!) through the mechanical catacombs outside of the city filled with barbarian, leading to ice caves with mad robots (voiced by Roscoe Lee Browne) and eventually to the surface where they meet a bit of an old Mad Hatter played by Peter Ustinov as an old man, which they've never seen before, in the ruins of Washington D.

C (I love the shot where they wade through a swamp leading to the Washington Monument that used to be the National Mall!). The story was ripe with ideas and had the potential to be a sci-fi classic. Instead, it's one of those films like "Soylent Green" that had a great idea but didn't have the story to back it up.

However, the concept is good enough to carry the film, the action is exciting (even if it is empty headed), and Jenny Agutter is gorgeous as York's rebel companion trying to help people escape the dystopian society.

Farrah Fawcett and Michael Anderson Jr. have bit parts and Jerry Goldsmith provides a fine score for the film that's electronic in the enclosed future world but is all orchestral outside of the dome.

An interesting concept that had more potential that it delivered, though the silliness with mad robots and an overgrown D.C. is still pretty fun if empty-headed.