Waste of time

Thanks for the memories!

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Take all of the bad cinematography of Made for TV movies, add some 1970s corporate paranoia, throw in some unrelated techno babble,add an evil scientist and cram in as many bad sound effects from Star Trek, Willy Wonka, Lost in Space and every bad scifi movie from the 1960s and viola, you have Futureworld.Im not even mentioning the silly special effects because Im sure they were pretty whiz-bang back in 1976. But the truth is you can have great Scifi without dating yourself with special effects. 1951's The Day The Earth Stood Still is a perfect example.Horribly predictable. Tortuously slow, has almost no relation to Westworld other than they both take place in the future and have pleasure robots. I love a bad movie, but this goes beyond bad.Some of the dialog is so bad you will laugh out loud.The Evil Corporate Executive with a gun discovers Peter Fonda on the phone. Evil Corporate Executive: "Put the phone down". Peter Fonda to Evil Corporate Executive: "You're a part of it?" Evil Corporate Executive: (LAUGHING) "Yes, of course I am!"Someone on IMDb gave this movie a glowing review so I watched it. Ugh.Logan's Run, made at the same time, has many flaws and has not aged very well, but it is still much better than this flick.

Aside from the total waste of Yul Brynner, there's not really anything egregious about FUTUREWORLD. It's just kinda half-assed. It does away with the terror-in-an-amusement-park fun of its predecessor in favor of a lukewarm mystery that frustratingly tiptoes along to an extremely silly payoff. It's what, an hour-forty? And it just doesn't move.I've seen much better from both Peter Fonda and Gwyneth Paltrow's mom. They have done sort of chemistry, I guess, but those are two hammy performances. But cheap is the name of the game here, and if it weren't such a slog, it might make for some cheesy fun. But as '70s dystopian sci-fi goes, this belongs with the dregs.4/10

Although "Futureworld" is considered by many to be a poor excuse for a sequel,it has its own cult followers.After the tragic deaths of several guests at the hands of robots in "Westworld," Delos decides to invite reporters Tracy and Chuck to the rebuilt resort. Delos representatives want to prove to the public that their new vactioning spots are completely safe and their robots are under control and harmless. As Tracy and Chuck investigate "Futureworld," they begin to suspect there's something sinister behind Delos' welcoming embrace.Judging "Futureworld" on its own merits, I found it to be a mildly entertaining slice of 1970's sci-fi. The movie's warnings against allowing machines and computers too much control and relying on them too heavily seems prophetic in hindsight. For 1976, I'm sure it felt fresh and was terrifying for a world that was just barely embracing electronics and the technology we take for granted today. Director Richard T. Heffron and writers George Schenck and Mayo Simon don't really do much more here besides expand on the concepts Michael Crichton came up with for "Westworld."The only actor to return from "Westworld" for this sequel is Yul Brenner. He isn't given much to do here. He basically walks around and has an awkward love scene with Blythe Danner. Honestly, it's uncomfortable to watch. Peter Fonda is great as a chauvinistic wisecracking 1970's reporter that could never get away with his treatment of Danner's character in modern times."Futureworld" is a fun and nostalgic journey back into the 1970s. Its interesting to see what the state of science fiction cinema was even a year before "Star Wars" breathed life into a dying genre. You'll not find any of the carefree advetnure and joy we found in "a Galaxy Far, Far Away" in the dystopic and doomed "Futureworld" of our making.

This is the limp and unsatisfying sequel to WESTWORLD, which had been author/director Michael Crichton's marvelous mix of science fiction and western genres, and is now a '70s classic of sorts. Trying to devise a followup angle must have been challenging, but the results came out disappointing. Several years after the breakdown of Westworld, the Delos adult theme park populated by life-like robots has been rebuilt and perfected. To secure confidence in the public and much-needed publicity, the head honchos of the corporation invite a popular newspaper writer (Peter Fonda) and television reporter (Blythe Danner) to be their guests at the resort with full access to their operation. But the snooping duo begin to uncover an underhanded plot that's as hackneyed as it is stupid.Problems here begin with the observation that Fonda and Danner are rather lethargic leading stars. This entire production has a cheap "Made For TV" feeling in its style. The "human-like" robots that move around the complex call attention to themselves by uttering such ridiculous illusion-killing lines such as: "No, Sir, I am a Model 3x - I am not programmed to lie", "We're both sex models", "I am sorry, sir, I am a Model (whatever) - I am not programmed for sex!" (I'm paraphrasing here, but you get the idea). Just idiotic. Worse of all is the laughable cameo appearance by Yul Brynner as the robot gunslinger who had been so deliciously deadly in the first movie. This without any doubt has got to be one of the most vomit-worthy excuses to revisit a recurring character for any sequel ever made. It's so pathetic that I won't spoil it for you... you won't believe it if you've seen the original WESTWORLD. ** out of ****