Review of Westworld (1973) by Richard N — 25 Nov 2010

Boy, do they have a vacation for you!

The genre of sci-fi western kind of begins and ends with Westworld. The beautifully simple premise that computers become advanced to the point where they start making their own decisions, outside of human control, developed into a well executed and engaging film by a young Michael Crichton, using the backdrop of an adult theme park which enables the wildest fantasies to be played out by it's paying guests. The viewer is drawn in, appealing as it does to the child within us. Who wouldn't want to enter just such a fantasy world, as Delos? So when things start to go badly wrong the impact is that much greater.

When I first watched this, probably sometime in the early 80's, it gave me nightmares about being chased down dimly lit corridors by a humanoid/robot/cyborg armed with a colt 45. Yessir, Mr Crichton did a fine job for a novice director. The film stands up well to repeat viewings which tells you something about just how good it is.

Although ahead of it's time in many ways (first use of CGI for example) some of the then 'futuristic' sets obviously look dated to our eyes (the wallpaper onboard the hovercraft!!), although this isn't necessarily a critisism, as the crew had to work within a relatively tight budget. However unlike a lot of movies, I think an updated version of this could potentially be awesome, given the right cast and director. The nature of the storyline allows the imagination to literally run riot. But mostly remakes suck as we all know, so I'll stick with the original for now. And who could possibly replace Yul Brynner. One of my all-time favourites.