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Futureworld (1976)

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18 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
"Welcome to the World of the Future!", 22 July 2005

Author: Adrian Smith (trouserpress) from Eastbourne, England

Westworld was the film that put Michael Crichton well and truly on the map as a writer and sometime director to watch out for. His story of an amazing theme park gone wrong was revisited twenty years later, only with raptors in the place of cowboys. It could have been revisited a lot earlier, had Futureworld been a lazy, hurried sequel to it's successful predecessor. Instead the filmmakers produced something entirely original that stands on its own with no prior knowledge of the first film necessary to the average viewer.

The film begins two years after the disaster at Westworld, with the newly improved theme park Delos ready to open its doors again to the rich and influential public. Peter Fonda however smells a rat, and following a tip-off that all is not well he takes a holiday there himself, with his ex-girlfriend and fellow journalist in tow. Of course it would be a short and uneventful film if he turned out to be wrong, so he doesn't. He's right. In fact, things there are worse than he thought, but I won't give it away here. Suffice it to say that it's not only the robot technology that has improved at Delos.

Futureworld plays on the question that audiences raised following the release of Westworld - can you have sex with these robots? The answer is yes, and whilst we're not shown any (this is a family film after all) both the robots and some of the guests discuss it openly. One even quips "Once you've had sex with a robot, you'll never go back!" If Futureworld was a real place, the implications would be scary indeed.

This film seems to have attracted a lot of negative reviews which surprises me, as I felt it was a well paced science fiction thriller. It was produced by American International Pictures, with Samuel Z. Arkoff at the helm, and as such it is a very slick looking film on a very low budget. It never looks cheap, despite some of the costumes looking a little too theatrical. And why shouldn't they? After all, it's a holiday camp, not a re-enactment society.

I would recommend Futureworld to anyone who is a fan of Westworld, or of seventies science fiction in general. I would imagine if you're reading this you probably fit into the latter category!

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19 out of 26 people found the following comment useful :-
A fairly uninteresting sequel with a very poor first half and a second half that is badly delivered, 23 August 2004
Author: bob the moo from Birmingham, UK

Years after the failure of Westworld, the same company have regrouped and are planning to open the same theme park again but improved and totally safe. Chuck Browning, the journalist who originally broke the Westworld story, is approached by a mysterious man who has information on this new park – but he is killed before he can tell his story. Looking for dirt under the surface, Browning and colleague Ballard join the elite group selected for the opening few days at the park and begin to investigate a world where nothing is what it seems – nothing.

Having enjoyed the Jurassic Park rehearsal that was Westworld, I tuned in to this sequel hoping for, at very least, more of same stuff with a clever new slant on it. In defence of the film it does try to do something with the plot and widens it out into a bigger, potentially better conspiracy story but for some reason it fails to really engage. The first half of the film drags like a chain smoker and it seems happy to just bang out sequences that we are supposed to go 'wow' at simply because they involve special effects or robots. This is a terrible first hour because the special effects at best are superimposed men painted red and green to look like holographic chess pieces and, at worst a laughable moment where people sky down the red dust on Mars – on rather, they ski down a normal mountain but the whole scene is shot through a red filter! That is not a special effect and even in 1976 I doubt that these 'effects' were enough to stop audiences from getting bored in the first half of the movie.

The second half is a marked improvement but, by then, a lot of damage had been done and a flurry of action and conspiracy was not quite enough to make it a good film. It does have some good scenes but, ironically enough, these feature between the duplicated characters rather than being the effect shots that the producers were clearly banking on being the business side of the film. However, the extent of the threat is never translated to the film and the ending is terrible – far too muted to have even the faintest relation to the plot we were being sold just a few minutes before. The film only once or twice has even vague tension and certainly nowhere near the degree that the plot demanded.

The cast are also hamstrung by the material. Fonda looks bemused the whole time and it looks likely that nobody told him what was happening in the film – he certainly doesn't look like a man who has just uncovered an evil conspiracy! Danner is also as shapeless and dipsy and she didn't make me care one bit about her. The support cast try hard to look 'evil' and 'conspiratorial' but really they are not given the tools to do the job and just end up scowling! A cameo from Yul Brynner just seems to be totally pointless and resulting in his entire scene just being stupid.

Overall this is a very poor sequel. It tries to repeat the formula from the first film while opening it out into its own plot but it fails in a big way.

The first hour is empty, unspectacular that was meant to be spectacle but wasn't and a second half that has a potentially good plot which is just wasted by a delivery that is so lacking in excitement and tension that you'd think there was no conspiracy or danger whatsoever! Stick to the original.

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19 out of 27 people found the following comment useful :-
A fine sequel to Westworld, 22 March 2005

Author: Brandt Sponseller from New York City

Series note: As Futureworld is a "later chapter" to the story begun in Michael Crichton's Westworld, it is imperative that you watch Westworld before this film.

Set a number of years after the events of Westworld (1973), Futureworld concerns two competitive reporters, Chuck Browning (Peter Fonda) and Tracy Ballard (Blythe Danner), who have been invited to cover the reopening of Delos, the "virtual reality" amusement park that went haywire in Westworld. Browning broke the story about the previous mishap, and he's particularly skeptical about the revamped park. Of course, being a sci-fi/thriller film, much of his skepticism is justified.

Director Richard T. Heffron did a lot of work for television both before and after he directed Futureworld, so it is not surprising that the film often has more of a made-for-television "atmosphere" than its predecessor. Delos has been revamped so that there are new lands--including Spa World (similar to today's actual "destination spas") and of course, Future World, where guests take a simulated rocket flight to a simulated space station where they engage in recreational activities such as simulated space walks and non-simulated hobnobbing at the bar. Westworld has become a ghost town (and it seemed to me that this dilapidated state should have been capitalized on as "Ghost World"--that's where I would have chosen to spend my high-priced vacation--but Heffron and his scripters didn't bother). The production design is a bit slicker than it was in Westworld, even if the locations aren't as pleasant (there is no desert--I'm a big fan of deserts). It also looks a bit higher budget, but the impact isn't greater because of the made-for-television feel.

Still, Heffron often transcends that limitation, and there are occasional sequences, such as Ballard's dream, which Browning and a handful of technicians vicariously enjoy (it partially involves a nudity-free sex fantasy) from a remote monitor, that are unusual in their surrealism. Much of the dream is as a silent film, and it features a nice cameo from Yul Brynner, who was the chief villain in Westworld. There are also a number of impressive "industrial" sets--full of piping, cables, large machinery and such, in which Heffron sets a number of exciting action sequences, one remarkably prescient of the climax chase in Total Recall (1990).

Because of the film's intimate connection with Westworld, it's helpful to make a number of comparisons between the two that help explain how Futureworld holds its own (almost, I only rated it a point lower) to its infamous brother.

Both films are largely satirical (in a more formal, less humor-oriented sense of that term), a caricature of many different facets of society, from amusement/recreation to folly, and in the case of Futureworld, more ominous machinations. Delos is a satire of Disney World and similar theme parks, where we can spend leisure time playing roles, fantasizing that we're someone else, in some other time.

Whereas Westworld presented its satire of Disney-like escapism on a more surface level, Futureworld is concerned with the reality under the public façade. Westworld presented a few moments of the behind the scenes reality--technicians attending to computers, maintaining robots, fretting about anomalies--but the bulk of Futureworld consists of Browning and Ballard on a figurative journey to the bowels of Hades, where they'll eventually attempt to "unmask" the devil and destroy his perpetration of hedonistic illusion.

As it should sound, Futureworld is much more sinister in some ways. Not that Westworld wasn't wonderfully disturbing, but the dilemma in that film arose through relative innocence, with man attempting to better himself and his environment, only discovering too late that his manipulations were backfiring. In Futureworld, the innocence is gone. The Frankenstein-like, God-emulating manipulation of the world has been realized, and through conceit, the powers that be behind Delos figure they can improve not only upon nature, but the artificial control of nature that failed in Westworld, especially utilizing the services of behind the scenes technicians who are now almost exclusively robots.

The villainous motivation behind of all this, which extends far beyond Delos, has an attractive grayness. The aim is still to improve the world, but at a cost of human life. But is it? Supposedly, human life is being replaced at the same rate, the replacements ostensibly being identical biologically, except that they have a different set of beliefs. Although the exact mechanism of all of this is a bit vague (as it needs to be--any attempt at a scientific explanation would probably be less plausible then just saying " . . . and then a miracle occurs"), the plot points fueled by the idea broach a number of very interesting philosophical questions.

If you haven't seen the film yet, some of what I'm saying will seem itself a bit vague, but I'm purposefully presenting it that way to avoid "giving the film away", while still enabling comments on it. Rest assured that the plot is fairly transparent and easy to follow --this is a good script, and Heffron did a fine job directing it so that it brings up serious issues at the same time it provides more than a fair amount of suspense and touches of humor.

A lot of the film succeeds because of good performances from Fonda, Danner and a few others. Fonda and Danner have to effectively play a couple different roles, sometimes making a clear distinction, sometimes purposefully blurring the same, which they accomplish with skill. They also have to undergo a couple somewhat bizarre transformations that aren't explained very well, such as one from rivals to lovers, but somehow they manage to make even that convincing.

This is a fine sequel to Westworld. It isn't essential viewing, but Westworld certainly is, and if you've experienced that film, you may as well see what happens next.

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11 out of 13 people found the following comment useful :-
More a companion film than a sequel, 14 May 2002

Author: JoeytheBrit from Cambridgeshire, England

It's to FUTUREWORLD's credit that it manages to avoid simply rehashing the plot of WESTWORLD in an attempt to cash in on that film's success, and it's interesting to see that a story written over quarter of a century ago still contains topical elements today. Instead of the simple chase plot of WESTWORLD, the sequel opts for a (none-too-original) conspiracy thriller involving the cloning of world leaders holidaying at the revamped Delos holiday complex. That all these world leaders would flock to a glorified theme park is questionable (although Tony Blair would probably be there in the blink of an eye) but, that quibble aside, the premise does give the basis for quite a suspenseful couple of hours.

The technology still looks fairly fresh today and, considering the minor-celebrity status of the leads, it's a fair bet that this is where most of the budget was spent. Unfortunately, the acting of the two leads is a serious flaw. Fonda is never more than adequate as the crusading reporter, and Blythe Danner, as his sidekick, lacks any kind of screen presence. Together, they are a disaster, exhibiting no chemistry whatsoever. That they are given a pedestrian script with which to work – their interplay, in particular, is horribly banal – doesn't help matters.

Yul Brynner makes only a fleeting appearance in a truly cheesy dream sequence that is guaranteed to have you rolling on the floor with incredulous laughter, and the ending is pretty lame, so it's something of an enigma as to how the movie as a whole manages to be so enjoyable.

FUTUREWORLD is not so much a sequel to WESTWORLD as a companion film. If anything, it could be argued that Crichton's JURASSIC PARK is more of a sequel (or remake) – after all, the story is identical (uncontrollable robots relentlessly chasing a group of helpless visitors around a theme park).

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13 out of 21 people found the following comment useful :-
Stupidworld, 8 June 2004
Author: Poseidon-3 from Cincinnati, OH

In this infamously unnecessary (and inferior) sequel to "Westworld", Fonda and Danner play hotshot reporters invited to Delos, a fantastic (and fantastically expensive) amusement park. They are brought there, ostensibly, to relay to the public the vast changes made to the park since an unfortunate mishap a few years earlier (in which 50 people were killed!) In actuality, Fonda is there to look into the murder of a man who warned him about evil doings there, but there's still another reason that the duo was invited. The executives of the park have them in mind as part of a bigger master plan! The park is actually made up of four "worlds" with another one in the works. The reporters go to Futureworld where they are promised such exciting activities as skiing the Martian slopes (which turns out to be regular snow shot through a red gel) and riding an asteroid (?! How exactly would one do that and how could it be considered remotely entertaining?) There are a few neat gimmicky treats at Futureworld such as a chess game with holographic pieces that really move and actually take each other out of the game violently and a boxing game in which glove-like handles control the arms of two real-looking pugilists in satin shorts. However, Fonda and Danner aren't really there long enough to enjoy much more of it (and only fleeting - and boring - shots are ever shown of the other worlds.) The reporters wind up staying in a sort of dormitory, sneaking out and around whenever possible to find the real story behind the place. On one guided tour, Danner is induced into having a dream which can then be presented in video format. This is the low point of the film (or high point if one is a camp lover!) as Danner drifts around in chiffon and fake hair while Brynner (a memorable villain in the first film) pursues her all over the place. Eventually, he wards off other attackers and does a tacky, fog-shrouded dance with her and kisses her. Wow..... This is all there is to his appearance! What a rip off. Almost from the start, the film is mindless and tedious, but as it goes along, it gets more and more illogical. Just one of the many nagging questions is this: WHY, in a place where every single thing is monitored continually, are Fonda and Danner able to skulk around in highly restricted areas, flipping on lights and making noise THROUGHOUT the movie? It's ridiculous. There are two fairly decent supporting performances from Hill as an administrator and Margolin as a helpful repairman. Most of the other acting is abysmal. The leads are out of their element and share very limited chemistry. It matters little anyway because the film is so wrong-headed 90% of the time. Even though this cost more than "Westworld", it looks cheaper, with cruddy lighting, unimaginative direction and the space costuming being a particularly glaring miscalculation. Also, any potential surprise about the nature of Delos is completely spoiled during the opening credits. Skip it.

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5 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Not as good as the original, but still interesting, 20 December 1998
Author: Scott-8 from USA

Futureworld is the sequel to 1973's Westworld. It differed from the first movie in that while Westworld could be genuinely scary, with the gunslinger marching down on everyone, (Almost like an early seventies Terminator) this movie is more like a detetctive story, as Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner try to figure out what sinister things are going on in Futureworld.

Peter Fonda was acceptable, but Blythe Danner's scratchy voice begins to grate on your nerves after a while. Yul Brynner does show up briefly, but in a contrived appearance.

This movies is mainly notable as one of the very first to use computer animation, albeit on a scale that seems laughable compared to today's movies. Worthwhile to see on cable, but don't go out of your way.

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3 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Gave me a nightmare, 1 January 2007

Author: Randall Phillip (monstermonkeyhead@yahoo.com) from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I was lucky enough to have seen this movie as a kid in the movie theater. It left an indelible impression on me, in the same way that something like Scanners did. I hadn't seen this movie again for thirty years until last night (yes, that's right, I'm nearly 40-years old). I don't know if it tapped into my uncritical child's mind and awakened all my old primal fears, or what, but last night I had a nightmare. Basically, almost everybody in the world was a robot, chasing me, trying to kill me. I was ripping off their faces and pulling out the circuitry behind to deactivate them. I was stuck in some gigantic building, trying to escape from floor to floor on an elevator, without any success. Needless to say, I woke up with my heart pounding. Still half asleep, I had the panicky feeling that I was in an amusement park filled with humanoid robots. Any movie, no matter how flawed, that can provoke such a reaction from this jaded viewer, gets my respect. Enjoy fellow paranoid sci-fi fans!

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Worst Sequel Ever? Agteed!, 27 August 2005

Author: unstable_aardvaark from Canada

I have to agree. What a really awful movie. This was just a poor ripoff at a time when poor ripoffs weren't as common as now.

Sigh...

The original Westworld takes a good concept and works well. The attempts to tie futureworld back to Westworld are poorly structured.

Wooden performances abound, not just from the 'robots' either.

Watch Westworld and skip the sequel.

Another reasonable pick for an odd Yul Brenner movie is an odd post-apocalyptic knife fighter flick.

Aardvaark

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5 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
Less is more, 6 October 2000

Author: The_Movie_Cat from England

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

WARNING: REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS - ONLY READ IF YOU'VE SEEN THE FILM

Futureworld is the weak follow-up to the superb Westworld (7). While points can be awarded for the fact that it tries to do something new with the format, it ultimately proves the adage that less is more.

Whereas Westworld had a childishly simple - yet devilishly effective - plot, Futureworld's plot is muddled and lacks focus. The start of the film is a mock quiz show, reminiscent of the later Running Man which, unlike the original's news report, doesn't make things abundantly clear for the audience. This gives us Jim Antonio as "Ron", the quiz winner who receives a free trip to Delos. While his introduction pre-credits would lead you to believe that Ron would be a major character, he's quickly fazed out about halfway into the film, his blatantly unamusing "southern hick" act not achieving any of the laughs required. I wonder what happened to Ron? Did they bother to duplicate him? Did he become head of the project? Was he killed off? Who cares?

We are then introduced to Peter Fonda, star of Cheesy Rider, sporting a haystack on his head courtesy of the stylish seventies. He's paired with Blythe Danner as "Socks" Ballard, a nickname given to pretend that she has a character or is in any way interesting.

Ultimately, Westworld, for it's "robot-goes-mad-and-kills-people-in-theme-park" is good science fiction. Futureworld is bad science fiction. Robot doubles taking over the Earth. Samurai warrior robots that teleport into a rocket. A device that records dreams. A holographic chess set, which involves Fonda and Danner looking at a board then cutting to a close-up of some blokes dressed up as knights and painted bright red. All it needs is for some nude female aliens to land and say "show us this Earth custom you have called love."

For the majority of the film every time we see something good, it's followed by something lame. We see an impressive rocket set, with a huge, awesome circular doorway. We then see a "Martian ski" setting, which are basically shots of skiing in normal snow, the film print rather obviously tainted red. And like Mars has snow and all...

The initial dream sequence isn't that bad as it features random, spooky images like the girl and her dog. But then it cuts to a protracted chase sequence, which pays lip service to Yul Brynner. You know, the scary guy from the first film? Well, it turns out "socks" has the hots for this brooding slaphead and his element of danger and so fantasises about him. That's right. Bring him back to miscast him. Imagine if Terminator II had a completely different cast of characters and they brought back Arnhuld to do a cameo song and dance routine in a dream. That's what this is like. The scenes of Brynner dancing with Danner are so embarrassing I couldn't actually bear to watch the screen.

Some characters are okay. Stuart Margolin as Harry, and his oddly poignant scenes with his robot friend Clark do carry some weight, though his odd way of telling Danner that he and a pal once slept with some robots and that they "blew some fuses that night" are unsettling. Believe me, this is not a conversation that would appeal to a lady. I should know, I've tried it. On several occasions.

But it's the end where it all comes down. After the main protagonist has been reduced to a laughing stock, we find the real villains this time are robot doubles of the two leads. The fact that you've been watching a film that has such a small budget that Delos is controlled by 1960s oscillators unconsciously tells you that they won't have the budget to do a convincing split screen. So the wooden Fonda tries to shoot himself from long distance, and my God, he's not scary at all - just a rather silly old man in huge glasses and a suit with flared trousers.

The film is 16 minutes longer than the snappy Westworld, and its runtime is built up by dull chases, which are padded with even duller incidental music. But the major, desperate flaw with this just-about-adequate sequel is that there is absolutely no suspense or tension. We know that there's probably something going on, because Fonda tells us at regular intervals. ("There's probably something going on", he says). But the fact that we are not shown this until the final quarter of the movie, and that nothing but his suspicions have alerted us to this fact, mean that a catatonic state is inevitable before the big climax. After the wonderful original, this dated pap comes as a crashing disappointment. 5/10.

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7 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Totally paranoid and terribly exciting!, 10 January 2000

Author: Avezou

This is one of the most intelligent Sci Fi movies ever made. It has almost everything: a great plot, lots of suspense, some good acting and it leaves you with some true questions about the future of manhood when machines get close to human perfection. If you're a fan of "Blade runner", you will love this one.

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