Written and directed by Michael Crichton, Westworld revolves around the concept of a distant-future amusement resort. Spending their time in one of three fully-functional, authentic sets, guests are free to live out their life-long fantasies as a wild west cowboy, medieval knight or indulgent Roman elite while a convincing, lifelike cyborg supporting cast absorbs punishment and boosts egos. The big selling points are that anything goes and nobody gets hurt, but when a park-wide malfunction grants free will to the robots, those guarantees are immediately called into question.

It's a fun premise, on par with some of the era's better sci-fi concepts, but spends too much time dilly-dallying and vainly soaking up the atmosphere when it should be advancing the plot. That gives the impression that, like so many Philip Dick properties, it doesn't really know what to do with itself after the ground rules are established. Crichton's work in the director's chair leaves a lot to be desired, but he doesn't get much help from the film's hammy, made-for-TV special effects. Most of that can be attributed to the age of the picture, but it's tough to take the drama seriously when folks bleed neon red. Yul Brynner turns in some quality work as the ruthless, stone-faced lead cyborg, but the rest of the cast is droll, vanilla and forgettable. Too much frosting, not enough cake.

**The amusement park where you can go back in time!**

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_