Westworld (PG)
IMDb; MichaelCrichton.com; Rotten Tomatoes; TCM; TV Tropes; Warner Bros.; Wikia; Wikipedia
streaming sites: Amazon; Google Play; iTunes; Movies Anywhere; Vudu; YouTube

This came out in 1973 (two years before I was born), but I didn't see it until 2017. It was written and directed by Michael Crichton, whom I mainly associate with Jurassic Park. Apparently "Westworld" was successful both critically and financially (given its small budget, and this being before the era of blockbusters), but personally I just didn't find it that interesting or entertaining. I mean, the premise is fine, and in 2016, a TV series based on the movie debuted on HBO, which I definitely hope to see someday. (But the 1976 sequel "Futureworld" is something I'll probably never bother with.) But as for this movie, I just... I dunno, maybe I would have liked it better if I were old enough to have seen it when it first came out. But as it is, the "futuristic" technology (aside from the androids themselves) seems very dated, to me. It also really felt weird to me that the technicians had no concept of a computer virus. (I understand that it wasn't a familiar concept in 1973, but it's still hard for me to wrap my head around just how impossible the notion seemed to them.) More importantly, I didn't particularly care for the acting, certainly didn't care about any of the characters, and the whole story, beyond the premise itself, kind of bored me. And when it eventually turns into a thriller, I just never managed to find it scary at all.

Anyway... it's about this sort of amusement park called Delos, which was divided into Westworld (or Westernworld, as it is sometimes referred to), Medievalworld, and Romanworld. We see a little bit of the latter two worlds, but as the movie's title implies, it's mostly set in Westworld. The main characters are two friends, Peter Martin and John Blane (James Brolin), who are visiting Westworld together. (John had been there before, but this was the first time for Peter.) There are various other guests of the park (which costs visitors $1000 a day), but most of the "people" you see in any of the three worlds are actually very realistic androids. (All the animals are robots, too.) Visitors can do pretty much anything they want in the park, including "killing" the androids... or having sex with them. (We learn, at different points, that you can tell the androids from human guests by their hands, which look a bit less realistic than the rest of their bodies; and that the guns which are provided can't kill humans, because they have sensors that won't fire at anything with a warm body.) Peter and John visit a bordello in Westworld, which is run by a woman (er, android) named Miss Carrie (Majel Barrett, in a very minor role). They also run afoul of a Gunslinger (Yul Brynner), whom Peter soon "kills." Meanwhile, there are also scenes of the technicians in the control room overseeing everything in the three worlds, and over the course of the film they become increasingly concerned about things starting to go wrong that shouldn't be possible. (This is due to the aforementioned computer virus, though they don't actually call it that.)

Well, all the robots get repaired whenever they're killed, but it seems like the Gunslinger wants revenge against Peter and John when he's returned to active service. He once again gets killed, but by the next time he comes back, the virus has apparently affected him enough that he's able to actually kill humans. (It's not explained how his gun was able to fire at them, but whatever.) Anyway, he kills one of the main characters, but for the sake of suspense, I won't tell you which one. The rest of the movie is basically the surviving guest running away from him. (Or, for awhile, riding away from him on horseback, and I couldn't help but think the guest was lucky that the virus hadn't turned his robotic horse against him, too.) But eventually he ditches the horse and wanders through the other worlds on foot. (By then all the guests in those worlds had been killed by malfunctioning androids, but I guess all the androids had run out of power by the time the Westworld guest got there. Of course, the Gunslinger was still powered up.) And... seeing the Westworld guest and Gunslinger cross over into the other worlds reminded me of the end of Blazing Saddles (which came out the year after this movie, but which I coincidentally had seen for the first time about four months before I watched this).

I won't reveal whether or not the guest manages to survive to the end of the movie. I'll just say that I think the movie would have been more interesting if we were given any idea of how the virus originated or how it actually affected the androids, besides turning them into killers. I mean... did it give them emotions? Did they have any sort of motives or agenda? Was someone else behind all this, or was it just a random, pointless tragedy? And was there supposed to be some kind of moral to the story? (Actually, I think it was probably the same idea as Jurassic Park, just a lot less clear and a hell of a lot less fun.)