"WESTWORLD" WILDLY ENTERTAINING

          Now, more than ever.
          Written and directed by Michael Crichton, Westworld is about a couple of buddies (Brolin, Benjamin) who take a trip to an adult-themed amusement park populated with robots. There is Medieval World, and there is Roman World, but the buddies choose the part of the vast park where everything looks and feels like the Old West of 1880.
          Initially all goes well and the pals have a jolly time availing themselves of robot prostitutes and getting to kill guys consequence-free in the saloon. A nebbish banker played by Dick Van Patten typifies the repressed clientele anxious to fork over a thousand dollars a day for the opportunity to abuse what look like people. "I shot six people!" one guy gushes to an interviewer as he exits the park.
          But then things go wrong.
          A big part of the fun is seeing Yul Brynner as the Gunslinger robot. Because the audience knows he's bald, he doesn't even have to take off his hat to assume a mechanical quality. And this verisimilitude is furthered by Brynner having starred in Westerns such as The Magnificent Seven. So when he starts chasing the guys around with real bullets, he's the perfect actor for the job.
          For Crichton the writer to also wear the director's hat, the task was made easier by getting to direct actors playing robots. If most of the cast gives a lifeless performance, no harm done. Years later, Crichton improved on his work with the more character-rich Jurassic Park. But it's the same basic Frankenstein story.
          When we hear a hidden operator complain, "I don't know what to do if the stage coach is late!" we get a sense of the fragility of the system. The paying guests place their trust in the park's reassuring authority with no idea how tenuous the illusion.
          At no point is there explained exactly why robots would be required for a resort of this sort. In another story the same thing could happen except with living people who may or may not actually die. But approaching the story with artificial life allows for the system to break down entirely--a theme which resonated particularly with audiences in 1973--and allows for insights regarding inhumanity and what it means to be alive.
          The problem is that the robots become independent. When the robots stop being worker slaves, everything falls apart. One moment you're chasing a serving wench, and the next she's rebuffing your advances with a slap in the face.
         
         


WESTWORLD
Starring Yul Brynner,
James Brolin,
Richard Benjamin,
Dick Van Patten
Written and directed by Michael Crichton
Runtime 88 minutes
Rated PG




Stewart Kirby writes for