Review of Westworld (1973) by Alison O — 19 Feb 2005

Best in Show: Richard Benjamin.

One for the future: n/a.

Stand-out scene: The first time the Robert Gunslinger kills a human.

Brainer or no-brainer: Brainer.

Stands up to one viewing or repeated?: Repeated.

DVD commentary any good?: n/a.

TV.

Notable for being the first film to use CGI effects, this early Seventies offering written and directed by Michael Crichton is set in a theme park where things go disastrously wrong and visitors start being killed off. In this instance it's robots causing the trouble (Crichton's Jurassic Park was made into a film twenty years later in 1993) at a remote theme park split Crystal Maze-style into three zones; Roman World, Mediaeval World and Western World. Each zone offers visitors the chance to fully interact with robot 'costume interpreters', something which saw a lot of scenes being cut to enable the movie to attain a 15 certificate (although the two main protagonists' tryst with a pair of saloon whorebots survives albeit in a trimmed down format). The Seventies' hokey take on futuristic technology is as fascinating as ever and Yul Brynner as the Robot Gunslinger has precious little to do but deliver a couple of menacing lines and strut about homaging/spoofing his own character from The Magnificent Seven. That said however, the movie is a fascinating exercise and at an hour and a half it doesn't outstay its welcome. Diverting sci-fi hokum.