Les rescapés du futur

An inferior sequel to ¨Michael Chricton's Westworld¨ sci-fi starred by Richard Benjamin and James Brolin , here two reporters (Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner) enter to the new ¨Futureworld¨ theme park (like a futuristic Disneyland) for adult vacation , a pleasure palace resort called ¨Delos¨ which offers the opportunity to live in several fantasy worlds . It's run by powerful people (Arthur Hill and John P.Ryan) and serviced by lifelike robots that are turning against their creators and planning to take over the world .

The film gets stimulating in parts , action , chilling twists , thriller , suspense and results to be quite entertaining . It's made big scale and lavish budget but in a serial style of the thirties or forties . Climatic pursuit throughout the corridors of Delos is chillingly mounted and the starring is suddenly confronted samurais and robots , including footage shot at a spacial plant where is displayed dazzling and impressive scenarios . Peter Fonda is perfect as an intelligent and dashing journalist who does jokes with his partner Blythe Danner . Special cameo by Yul Brynner in his final film , he is frightening as the cold android gunfighter who inexorably pursues to Blythe Danner although in dreams but he was killed in the previous film . Director Richard T. Heffron has made an entirely believable scenario which creates the whole images seem admirably exciting , being first live-action movie to use computer-generated 3D imagery . A television series followed in 1980 titled ¨Beyond Westworld¨. Rating : 6 . Acceptable and passable .

Sci-fi thriller set in a park filled with robots.

The problem this movie faces is that Westworld (1973) was just so good and, a bit like Planet Of The Apes (1968), the story begins and ends in one film. Making a sequel to this sort of material is a struggle. Perhaps they should have stopped after one movie?

The other reviewers have pointed out what is wrong with Future World so I will point out what is right with it. There is an oddly touching goodbye scene between a less important park worker and his defective faceless robot pal. This scene and a few other moments make Future World worth watching.

Let's not forget, this was produced in 1976. Elaborate sets and respectable special effects! I urge anyone to take another look. Some of the earliest 3D computer generated renderings I've seen in film. Story wasn't bad and neither was the acting. Decent action and I appreciated the musical scoring as well. Forgotten gem from my humble perspective.

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.

Futureworld (1976)

*** (out of 4)

Sequel to WESTWORLD picks up a couple years after the events in that film as Delos plans on opening Futureworld. A pair of reporters (Peter Fonda, Blythe Danner) are invited into the new theme park but soon they discover that the owners have plans to replace various government officials with lookalikes. FUTUREWORLD doesn't quite reach the levels of the first film but I really give the filmmakers credit for doing something different with the story instead of just delivering a rehash of the first film. With that said, I think the film takes way too long for this story to take place as it really doesn't start to happen until around the 70-minute mark or so and so much of that early running time has us sitting there just waiting for something to eventually take off. It seems that the first half of the film spends a bit too much time with the reporters looking at how good everything in the place is and it just takes too long to get going. I will say that many of the early scenes in the picture are extremely good and especially the stuff dealing with people using the theme park. The jokes about robots that can handle sex were good and I thought there was some other nice humor as well. The performances were also really good with both Fonda and Danner turning in nice work and having some good chemistry together. Yul Brynner is basically here as a cameo but it was still nice seeing the gunslinger again. FUTUREWORLD runs a tad bit too long but the special effects are good and there are several good ideas throughout it.