Westworld

Westworld is an interesting, fun little film that is Jurassic Park with robotic gunslingers rather than dinosaurs. It's not surprising then that the films writer and director was Michael Crighton. The interesting thing though, is that this film was made 15 years before he ever wrote the novel, Jurassic Park. Yul Brynner gets top billing as the robotic gunslinger of few words despite the fact that his role is only slightly more than a glorified cameo. Westworld is a theme park for adults where they are transported into a different era and are free to live out all of their hedonistic desire. Westworld is populated by lifelike robots and the guests, all dressed in 19th century garb and sporting Western phrases learned from far too many movies, are free to live out their wildest fantasies. They can kill, become sheriff, and even have intercourse with these robots without fear of consequence, because, after all, they're only robots. But as you can imagine, something goes wrong and soon the robots are playing for keeps. It's mostly all good fun and Yul is always fun to watch, but I think the potential outlives the reality of the film. It's partially held back by its television-like set design. It's mostly just fun, but my guess is that it was intended to make more of a statement about technology rebelling against man and perhaps even the dangers of hedonism, but, for the most part, that is all overshadowed by Yul Brynner's glowing eyes.