Westworld [Blu-ray]

A Real Science Fantasy Trek Into Horror
I picked this film up about a week ago. I hadn't seen it since it premiered back in the 1970's. It made no impression on me whatsoever on that first viewing. Boy has time and its simplicity improved it, the second time around! This is a very timely film and I think people of all ages should take a look at it.

This film moves from humour to fantasy to horror almost seamlessly. And the funny thing is- the fact that Crichton didn't get caught up in atmosphere or look; he concentrated on two characters simply going to a future resort, however fantastic the idea seems, to release and experience what in fact become examples of some of the darkest pleasures or most violent impulses inside of all of us. It really presses the right buttons and asks questions about what we find fun or entertaining.

I don't want any review I write to spoil the films for the people yet to see the work so, let's just say- when the tables turn and 'we're on the receiving end ', there's a real...

Disneyland it ain't...
"Westworld" is Michael Crichton's first foray into the theme-park-as-hell genre which he followed up more successfully in "Jurassic Park", but it's a very good film on its own. Here we have James Brolin and Richard Benjamin, two bored yuppies, starting their holiday in Delos, billed as the ultimate theme park, "where nothing can go wrong". Yeah, right. Customers pay through their noses to spend a vacation in one of three areas of the park: Romanworld, Medievalworld, and Westworld, where they can live out their fantasies and it's fun for all. Brolin and Benjamin choose Westworld (what American boy has never played cowboy at some time in his childhood?) and for a few days they have the time of their lives shooting up bad guys, starting barfights, and drawing a bead on deadly rattlesnakes. But it's all harmless fun and games -- everything's computerized, the bad guys, the ladies of easy virtue, even the rattlesnakes; and there's a state-of-the-art computer lab to keep everything...

Welcome to Westworld, where concept science-fiction isn't just a fantasy
This review is from the 2010 DVD re-release of the original film.

From the early to mid-'70's, there was a run of science-fiction films that seemed to be trying to break out of the pulp stereotype, and to address questions about where expanding technology and cultural changes from the '60's were leading us as a society. Generally speaking, the first 'Star Wars' film effectively canceled that trend for some time - during the '80's, most science-fiction retreated back into the adventure mold, or else confined itself to satire (Robocop) or to eccentrics (Terry Gilliam's brilliant Brazil). It would be interesting to know, if the theory of parallel universes is true, to what lengths the science-fiction field might have developed if it hadn't been altered in 1977, although it's possible that it had already reached a saturation point...

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