InformationRap
This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.
Darin
One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
Cristal
The movie really just wants to entertain people.
david-sarkies
I remember watching this film back when I was a kid, and while I knew about Westworld I was never particularly interested in it namely because it was set in the wild west and I really was not a huge fan of the western. Well, I'm still not a huge fan of the western, though there is something interesting about the whole concept, but that is another thought for another time. However, I was interested in Futureworld because that had much more of a science-fiction feel to it, though the only thing that I could actually remember about the film was the holographic game of chess.Anyway, since I have just watched Westworld, and also finished watching the series, I decided that I might relive my childhood and rewatch this film as well. As it turned out this movie was rubbish, and pretty boring as well. It certainly wasn't one of my favourite films as a kid, but it had robots in it, and it was set in the future, so it did keep me entertained for a while. Okay, calling it rubbish is probably a little harsh because it wasn't as bad as some films that I have seen, however putting it up against the likes of Westworld does make it feel very inferior.So, Futureworld is, obviously, the sequel to Westworld, and set a few years after the previous film. The owners of the park have fixed up all the problems, and reopened it, and have invited a couple of journalists to report on the new theme park. Mind you, the fact that the robots have previously gone haywire and proceeded to kill all of the patrons sort of undermined the suspension of disbelief – I simply could not see how a theme park could have survived something like that. Okay, theme parks have survived instances where a ride has malfunctioned resulting in fatalities, however I sort of can't accept it happening in this particular case.While I'm not all that phased about revealing the plot of this film, I won't, just in case you insist on watching it. It is sort of okay, and while they suggest that they attempted not to simply do a remake of the original film, a part of me felt that basically it was, just a lot more subtler. As such there is a lot more interaction between characters, and of course the protagonists are attempting to find out what is going on. As such Futureworld is more like a mystery than a simply sci-fi action film. However, it does drag on a bit, and the scene where the female protagonist dances with the Gunslinger from the first film is simply ridiculous and completely out of place. In the end if you insist on watching it then maybe you will like it, but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to get your hands on a copy.
Leofwine_draca
FUTUREWORLD is a bland, uninteresting sequel to one of my favourite science fiction films of all time – Michael Crichton's WESTWORLD, a movie I can watch over and over again without ever getting bored. This sequel has only one thing going for it, and that's that it doesn't simply repeat the robots-run-amok storyline of the first film. Many sequels rehash the plots of the original movies, but this one evades that in favour of a more complex and layered storyline about an evil corporation's plan to replace the world's leaders with robot versions of themselves.Unfortunately, the execution of this film is diabolical, making it near unwatchable. The script is boring, focus on long, talky dialogue sequences and almost totally omitting any action or interest altogether. The story seems muddled and never really goes anywhere, with the focus being on two of the dullest leads I've seen in a film, a pair of reporters played by Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner. Danner is pretty irritating as the 'sassy' TV host, but Fonda's simply awful – wooden doesn't do justice to just how bland his performance here. The robots express more emotion and acting ability than he does! The story goes from one non-event to the next, never succeeding in engaging the audience's interest. The highlight of the film is a cameo from the original's Yul Brynner, who pops up in a dream sequence. He's quite brilliant, and by far the best thing in the movie, reminding us of the classic scenes he had in the first film, but he's gone before you know it and the film lapses into boredom once more. Other, brief elements include the (very) early use of some computer effects, a brief and tacky action sequence in which our heroes are attacked by a trio of Japanese robots (I don't know what's worse, the appalling fight choreography or the fact that the Japanese are played by western actors with rubbish 'slant-eyed' makeup), a supposedly exciting climax in which the leads come up against robot versions of themselves, and a surprisingly brutal stabbing in a film that's otherwise been made for kids.B-movie stalwart John P. Ryan (IT'S ALIVE) plays the role of the evil scientist behind the project, but he seems wasted in the part and doesn't even get his comeuppance in the climax. Instead, this seems to try and be a conspiracy type thriller in the style of something like COMA, where the hero is the only person who believes that something sinister is going on and nobody else ever believes him. Unfortunately, unlike that film, it falls flat.
Tiberius27-1
THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN DREADED SPOILERS! Having just watched this on Amazon Instant Video (And no they didn't pay me for that free advertisement but I'll sell out cheap! :D ) my perspective is as fresh as my frustration that what turned out to be the last film in the franchise (Funny how a bad entry can do that) didn't end things on a satisfactory note. Since I don't know which you'd prefer first between the good & bad news in my review title anymore than the filmmakers apparently knew how to make a good sequel, I'll arbitrarily choose the good. (I'm an optimist, what can I say?) The music is quite good. Blythe Danner is quite good here as is instantly recognizable baddie John Ryan (Ever notice how most bad guys aren't the most handsome devils in the world of movies? And good guys are always handsome? But I digress.). Also I give them points for recognizing that they NEEDED to bring back Yul Brynner for the sequel.To start off with the bad though whatever points I give for them realizing that they needed Yul Brynner are COMPLETELY negated by the fact they waste him utterly in this made for TV movie looking follow up. He was a virtually unstoppable killing machine in "Westworld", the inspiration for Michael Meyers (John Carpenter has admitted this) & The Terminator as well! Brynner was as The Gunslinger a complete & total BAD ASS! And how do they use him here in his last film? (Tragic when a great actor goes out on a stinker. Reminds me of Raul Julia's last movie being "Streetfighter".) They make him some kind of a Harlequin romance novel fantasy for Blythe Danner's character to get all hot & bothered about!!! I kept WAITING for them to introduce him into the movie thinking "When he shows up it's finally gonna get good!" only to see the aforementioned hippie dippy dream-time sex fantasy sequence! Their misuse of the STAR of this franchise, made all the more sad by it being his last film, was an EPIC FAILURE. I'm not saying that to satisfy me they needed to have him doing exactly what he did in the first one, running & gunning down good guys left & right, but why couldn't they have turned it around & had the good guys use him as their secret weapon when all seemed lost? If you've already seen this imagine how cool it would have been if The Gunslinger showed up at a "We're screwed now!"" moment blowing away his fellow robots with reckless abandon! THAT was what this film needed! But I digress again.Back to what's wrong with "Futureworld".In a word. Fonda. In two words. Peter Fonda.To say that the acting of Peter Fonda in this film was lifeless would be an insult to the dead. It would have been much more believable if they would have revealed that the character that we thought that we knew him as had in fact been a robot throughout the entire film and at least THEN we could have an excuse other than Fonda taking too many drugs in his life or just never bothering to hone his craft because with his name he didn't need to. He's a blight on this movie. Not that it'd be winning any Oscars without him mind you but he didn't do it any favors starring in it either. Makes you appreciate Blythe Danner's talent that much more though. Ultimately what we have here is a sequel that failed for the same reason that most sequels fail. They just didn't try hard enough to make a good film.
JoeB131
This sequel was kind of pointless and defied logic and reason.The movie picks up where the film "Westworld" left off. The Davos corporation has reopened the park, or at least the sections with Roman World and Miedeval World, along with a cool new place called "Futureworld". Despite the robots going crazy and killing the guests last time, and apparently every trial lawyer in the world drinking Roofies, this apparently doesn't bug anyone.We find out the robots have taken over, and are cleverly replacing real people with robots.There are a few scenes that defy logic, like the magically generated samurai and the dream sequence to get Yul Brenner (who played the killer robot in the last film that made sense) into the film.You have Peter Fonda, who obviously didn't get the thespian gene in his family, trying to stretch out 30 minutes of plot into a 90 minute feature.
