Review of Soylent Green (1973) by Matt R — 21 Aug 2009

Frankly, it's a pretty bad movie. It's essentially a poor dystopian film. The concept is mildly interesting, but can't sustain itself. The movie tries to be a mystery, but lacks all sense of it, and tries to be dystopian, but doesn't sell the concept.

From the atrocious introduction, which shows apocalyptic imagery in tune to bubbly music, the film has no hold on what it wants to be. The film is also extremely dated. Everything in it screams 70s. The hair, clothes, and interior design all have a dated look, and the direction and pallet are so typical 70s that it becomes painful.

The actual story is pretty bad as well. The twist comes out of nowhere, basically, and serves no purpose. No conclusions are reached, and characters are cardboard and pop in from time to time to say high, but serve absolutely no purpose to the story.

The love interest is also perplexing. The protagonist meets her, then they have sex for absolutely no reason I can think of. 2022 must be very different. And as for it being the future and all, no work is done to make it look like, you know, futuristic.

Also, it's incredibly stupid to think that overpopulation would be that big of a problem only fifty years from the time the film was made. It's a mess, really. The film only has two things that save it from being unwatchable.

The first is Charlton Heston, who has a great screen presence and is always interesting to watch. The other is the line "Soylent Green is people!" Always fun to reference. Bust it out in a public area, and replace "Soylent Green" with whatever you're eating, and you have a recipe for good times.

But, the line happens all the way at the end, so you have to sit through a lot of shit to get there. And then it just kinda ends, without any kind of resolution whatsoever. However, even if the film was improved, with a more competent story, a great art style, and a good cast, it would still be just another dystopia movie.