Review of Soylent Green (1973) by Henrik S — 05 Sep 2010

I thought the movie was just average, although the cast promised to delvier a good movie. Joseph Cotton has just a brief appereance and you can see the late Edward G. Robinson in his last appereance. He was dying of cancer, which makes it rather unpleasant to witness his "death" scene in this movie I must say.

Did you know that Charlton Heston was really crying during the shoot?Well, back to the point. The movie is a standard dystopia - a greedy capitalistic industry being the devil's seed polluting the earth while a lonesome flatfoot tries to save it.

A classic future-western i'd say. Heston's performance is wooden, but that was his acting-style alright. The supporting cast is weak, expect the two legendary actors mentioned above of course.

But without a profilic villain, the good vs. evil plot just did not carry. The movie lacks some of the visual and score genius some similar movies of the around that time possessed (e.g. Blade Runner, Silent Running etc.

)It's funny though how most movies that are set in the future can be traced back to the century they were produced. In this picture for example, the aparments, clothes and the music is in-your-face 70ish.

It's not easy to make a futuristic movie that does not look totally retro after ten years, but it's possible (Alien, Tron, Blade Runner, Star Wars)Another strange thing that I noticed, is that all the women in the movie are referred to as furniture and live in apartments pleasing the tennants ? Is that some kind of utopian male sex fantasy of the author (the book's author I mean).

If anyone knows something about this, please explain.All in All the movie is average and nothing too fancy.