Westworld

Now, this is a good movie. This film was written and directed by Michael Crichton just a few years after he became an overnight sensation with his first novel, The Andromeda Strain. Crichton hit the big screen just a year after he helmed his debut, the well-received TV movie, Pursuit. With Westworld (1973), Crichton begins to show his range as a writer, moving away from biological holocausts and into the realm of androids and the near future.

Westworld, along with Romanworld and Medievalworld, is a fully-functional, fully-detailed vacation world available from the Delos resort company. Guests are immersed in a re-create 1880s Old West experience, and are encouraged to interact with the androids populating their vacation experience in any way that they wish. This seems to mostly manifest in the twin joys of consequence-free murder and sex.

Oddly, no one but Peter (Richard Benjamin), vacationing with his buddy John (James Brolin), seems alarmed at the physical, psychological, and ethical issues of banging and/or killing the android theme park workers. Unfortunately, he soon puts his concerns to rest and jumps blithely into bed with a robot hooker, and makes quick work of a Westworld gunslinger (Yul Brynner), gunning him down in the saloon after an argument.

While mudered androids are dragged away to park headqurters and repaired, Peter, John, and the other guests drink, cavort, and carouse to their hearts' content. But when the gunslinger that Peter killed in the saloon returns the next day and tries to kill John, Peter must think quick to dispose of him again. The gunslinger's behavior alerts park engineers to a growing programming malfunction in the andoids, but this surprisingly does not prevent the engineers from installing the gunslinger with vision and hearing upgrades and sending him back into circulation. The dream vacation turns to a nightmare, as the guests fight for their lives with malfunctioning androids, and John and Peter are stalked by Brynner's silent and menacing gunslinger.

This movie is great. Half of it plays like a Western (the fun gunfight bar brawl kind, not the boring sweeping desert vistas kind), and the other half is a sci-fi morality tale. And through the whole film, you can see the ideas forming that would eventually come to full fruition with Crichton's Jurassic Park (both the novel and the film). A complex, life-like, interactive, futuristic theme park? Check. New technology being used for entertainment before it's been properly tested for pitfalls and dangers? Check.

And let's talk about Yul Brynner for a minute. In Westworld, Brynner's gunslinger barely says 10 words the entire film, yet he seethes a steely-eyed menace and a swaggering braggadocio. The gunslinger never smiles, but you'd swear that a mocking smile lurked on his face, below his oddly luminescent gray eyes. In life, Yul Brynner was one of Hollywood's most persistently intriguing and mysterious figures. He is said to have been something of a trickster, shrouding his life in mystery just because he could. I'd like to think that some of the allure of Westworld's gunslinger is Brynner's natural mischevious mirth bubbling to the surface. The gunslinger is a man, er, I mean, a robot who would kill you just because he could and laugh as you heaved your dying breath.

Westworld is a treat for fans of Crichton's particular brand of sci-fi morality, and for anyone who has a hankerin' for a good Western, just as long as they don't mind that the gunslingers are robots.

Plot & storyline: 8/10

Cinematography & effects: 8/10

Music & mood: 7/10

Performances: 8/10

The Reverend says: 8/10