Review of Westworld (1973) by Stuart K — 07 Feb 2013

Written and directed by Michael Crichton, this was his directorial debut and had the good luck to get this film made after Robert Wise's film adaptation of his 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain did well.

It was a brilliant idea for a film, and while Crichton would re-visit it's central idea nearly 20 years later, it's still socially relevant all these years later, even if technology has changed a lot since 1973.

The Delos Corporation has developed at great expense, a high-tech adult amusement park, which consists of 3 worlds. Roman World, West World and Medieval World, where visitors to the park can for £1000 a day, can indulge in their greatest fantasies in this park.

Two visitors to the park, Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin) go to West World, which is populated mostly by robots, including the Gunslinger (Yul Brynner), and visitors to the park can shoot them, and all seems to be going brilliantly.

But, then glitches and computer viruses cause the robots to go on the rampage, killing the guests in the park, and the Gunslinger is unstoppable. It's a brilliant film, and it's a frightening vision of the future, although mechanoids haven't been perfected yet, they will one day.

Brynner sends up his Magnificent Seven persona with this, and it manages to do quite a lot with so little, and even the small practical effects are quite effective.