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Very disappointing...

So much average

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

I knew that this is what Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, the creators of HBO series Westworld (2016) were working with which is why I decided to check it out.The dialogues are humorous (in a good way -- I can understand why HBO fished out the Westworld series from the ancient void of movie irrelevance in the first place since what we get here is contemporary banter, sex-bots of all sex organs for everyone, and a wee bit of android free will philosophy, which indubitably all of us love) but everything else, including the execution of plot twists, dreadfully insipid pacing (boredom followed by something that actually passes for "not bad" dialogue then switching back to Plan 9 from Outer Space-grade SFX action or whatnot), character interaction, "romantic" subplot, is laughable (in a bad way), save for the touching heartfelt relationship between Bernard (I mean "Harry") and the faceless android named Kent which was shown in a positive light the entire time even with all that cheesy cartoonish tone to it.The "evil" bad guy, sort of a cross between Westworld (2016)'s Dolores and Ford, who talks about replacing world leaders and key corporate figures with logical, greener Earth-conscious androids before irresponsible humans ultimately and inevitably destroy Earth (if Skynet went full eco-friendly?) and you have to wonder, wow, that's it? That's the supah ebil premise that is supposed to knock my socks off? The 1970s Hollywood and society, for all its burgeoning sci-fi and environmental awareness, was incredibly anti-environmentalist and anti-technology-leaning ("Durr, da Saylort Greeny iz peeplz!!! Oh NOEZ!"). Or maybe fear-mongering just sells, I don't know, what am I, a sociologist?But I digress. I am sure the 1970s movie-goers loved this future-phobic spectacle before hopping into their ridiculous-looking ominously heavy carbon monoxide-emanating automobiles, having a TV dinner, kissing their spouses goodnight, and praying to God the Almighty not to die in a Cold War-fueled nuclear holocaust tonight. (Not much has changed, huh?)This movie is completely dismissible on its own and only works in the context of exploring what Joy and Nolan were working with in which case, if you have the spare time you can pointlessly waste, check it out.

Despite the Guest appearance of the great Yul Brynner, this film was a poor followup to the classic WESTWORLD.It is actually a real shame as the overall story is very good.The film featured many firsts for films and should always get credit for that... Its the first film ever where I have ever seen the "middle finger" salute before the 1990's when it became part of our general culture.Some excellent ideas were allowed to slip and sadly a wonderful twist disappeared without a trace...But despite all of this, it is a worthy follow up given its age.Sequels are rarely as good as the original... and time has took its toll on this one. It should have served as warning to those planning sequels as what NOT to do...Overall the story is good, but there is not as much fun or action as the original. Worth a look if for nothing other than nostalgia.Maybe if the rumours prove true about a Westworld remake, someone might see the potential with this one as well... Great ideas that never made the mark... Such a shame!But the building blocks are there for a fantastic remake!

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.

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.