BA_Harrison Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin) enjoy a $1000-a-day vacation at the high-tech Delos amusement park, where it is possible to live out one's fantasies in an environment populated by lifelike robots. The guys opt for Western World, where they get to engage in shootouts with a ruthless gunslinger (Yul Brynner), safe in the knowledge that protocol prevents the machines from harming the guests. Their fun ends, however, when the robots develop a serious fault…It's easier to shoot holes in the plot for Michael Crichton's Westworld than it is to put a few rounds into Yul Brynner's robot gunslinger. Here's just a few of the awkward questions that arise throughout the course of the film:What happens if more than one guest wants to be sheriff? How does Delos ensure the safety of guests during a bar brawl? Is it wise of Delos to allow guests to blow up their property with dynamite? How can Delos ensure that there are no REAL rattlesnakes in the vast expanse of the theme park? Why doesn't the Gunslinger's heat vision detect Peter's body heat when he is lying down in the laboratory?That said, Westworld is a very entertaining film if you can put aside the problems that the script throws up. The first half is an enjoyable light-hearted piece of pure escapism, with buddies Peter Martin (Richard Benjamin) and John Blane (James Brolin) immersing themselves in the Western world, enjoying the basic pleasures of a frontier land: drinking, shooting, and womanising. The second half is gripping sci-fi horror, as the theme-park's mechanical marvels go on the fritz, the gunslinger becoming a relentless killing machine intent on evening the score with Peter (inspiration for James Cameron's The Terminator?).In addition to providing thrills and spills, Crichton's film also throws up all sorts of interesting philosophical and ethical dilemmas to chew over, most notably the moral implications of catering for guests' primal instincts (sex and violence).8/10. Not perfect, but still very good, with a marvellous performance from Brynner.

evanston_dad Michael Crichton has a thing for amusement park catastrophes. 20 years before letting T. Rexes and raptors run amok in a little movie called "Jurassic Park," he wrote and directed this film about choose your own adventure theme parks peopled by robots that malfunction and start slaughtering the guests."Westworld" is a pretty entertaining sci-fi flick with modest ambitions, well acted by Richard Benjamin, who plays a nerdy dude who chooses to go to the wild west world and be a cowboy for a few days, and finds that he likes it, at least until Yul Bryner, as one of said robots, goes haywire and starts stalking him like the terminator. The screenplay misses an opportunity to make a seriously interesting character study out of the man Benjamin plays. He's courteous, quiet, and civilized by modern standards, but finds that once he's somewhere that allows him to act without consequences, he enjoys whoring, killing, and letting his id run amok. But, like I said, the movie has much more modest ambitions, and settles for being a straight up man against robot stand off. But what the film does deliver is entertaining, and justifies its status as a cult classic.Grade: B+

Reno Rangan I wanted to see it before I get into the new television series of the same name based on this. This is totally amazing film, especially coming from the early 70s. Obviously everyone understands the cowboy culture, because it was from the past. But mixing it with the future was the real beauty here. The robots and all, I don't think all the people from that era understood it clearly, but surely they have got entertained. So now, people do have knowledge about the things what in this film was talked, but still this film is effective despite the technology differs.No doubt this film was the source of inspiration for many films that came after it. That's what I was remembering while watching that so many titles popped in my mind. So hats off to the creator of this. But looking at its rating and reviews, seems an under-rated and under-recognised film. The story was kept simple, not making any complication, either technical terms or characters and the story developments.The two friends head for an amusement part where they can have the real wild wild west holiday by drawing the arms against the robots. But one day when something goes wrong, one of them who got stranded there, looks for a way out and how he makes it told in the remaining narration. It does not give any reason why malfunction happened. Because that's how things happen right, like when a plane crash, we investigate what caused it later. So in this, it was just focused on a disaster, but the first half of was different which was more an introduction to what kind of world the story sets in.If 'Star Wars' is the father of all the space films and 'The Lord of the Rings' for all the fantasy films, then this must be the father of all the dystopian films that we see in the present cinema. Certainly it is not a masterpiece, but the idea of the film plot stands alone. It opened the door for the similarly themed films like 'Night of the Living Dead' did for the zombie films. A must, must see film, particularly by the film fanatics.8/10

scott I came across this film completely by accident. I was searching through Amazon, found Westworld, thought the description was good, so I watched it. I had never heard of it and didn't realise it was a 70's film. At first I though it was very retro then realised it was in fact produced in 1973. I like 70's stuff so I gave it a chance.First off I have to state that its wrong to criticise old films based on contemporary standards but you could write a dissertation on how the 70's imagined the future. Its comical in so many ways and so bad in others. As a piece of entertainment its OK. I watched the whole film but was more stuck by the imagination of a future more than the actual story. The story itself is 'middle of the road' but at the time I imagine it was original and captured the imagination of a generation. I watched it, was entertained, but laughed more at how bad it was rather than being enthralled by a piece of movie magic.I first judged the film right at the beginning where a TV reporter is talking to people getting off the plane that are just returning from Westworld (Dalos). One guy bragged that he had killed 6 people (" I think they were people" he told the reporter). The next person the reporter spoke to was overly excited having just been to Romanworld "The Men!, the men!" she exclaimed. It quite clear straight away that this is a sex park for depraved pervs. Nothing more than sex tourism for the rich. Plus you get to 'kill without committing murder'. Who in their right mind wants to go to park so they can experience the 'thrill' of murder? This is not something I would pay to experience.It goes downhill from there. The two protagonists then check into their hotel in Westworld and come to realise the Western world they have come to experience includes authentic digs. They sleep in old beds with old sheets, drink old drinks with absolutely no modern comforts. I don't know why someone would pay $1000 a day for bed bugs and malnutrition just for the privilege of sex and murder. This pretty much sums up the whole film. The 'dead' robots are cleaned up every night, while the guest are asleep, and repaired. This strikes me as an extremely expensive way of doing things. Plus the engineer at the park says "These androids were designed by computers so we don't really know how they work" Wow, great! unleash a load of highly sophisticated machines with weapons amongst a load of fee paying guests.What made me laugh the most is when Peter sleeps with the robot prostitute. He is all timid and shy and afterwards thinks hes a stallion. It was a ROBOT PROSTITUTE! Not much conquest to speak of but we was very proud of himself. Because of this he then embraces the experience and come out of his shell.Peter does ask the question 'How is it that we have real guns?' where he is then informed that the guns don't fire at warm targets. These must be non-ricochet bullets then (geeze!). When the robot snake bites John, and the park engineers start to realise things are going wrong, do they close the Park? No, just bring the snake in so we can take a look at it. Health and Safety just doesn't exist in the 70's (kinda why I like it).When the situation worsens then park engineers shutdown the power to the park all it does is shutdown the engineers computers. We discover all the robots have batteries!! Plus, somehow, shutting down the power only locked the engineers in their control room, with no oxygen. Seriously! come on.I would love to continue poking holes in this but this is too long already.Overall, a laugh but not great.