Westworld (1973) Review

Westworld (1973)

Westworld follows friends John and Peter, who travel to Westworld amusement park, where guests can pretend to be gunslingers in an artificial Wild West populated by androids. When John is killed after the system goes haywire though, Peter’s escapist fantasy soon takes on a grim reality. 

Created by Michael Crichton (who would also go on to create Jurassic Park), the original Westworld has remained so effective all these years later because even with the modern knowledge of the concept, thanks in part to the HBO remake, there’s something unassuming about the film that really lures you into a false sense of security. It crafts such an immersive, carefree world of gunslinging, whiskey drinking, and bar fighting, where nothing can wrong, that you almost forget that the seeds have been planted for things to go very, very wrong. Which is why, when that immersion is broken, for the viewer and the guests, that it’s so jarring to watch.

Watching as the medieval knight (whose purpose was yet unknown up to this point) is slain, then John killed at the hands of the gunslinger, only to follow it up with the most disturbing shot in the film, a home-footage-like slaughtering of the park guests by the robots—it’s harrowing. And Westworld refuses to let off the gas from that point on, pitting Peter against an unstoppable android in a shocking finale that never seems to end, as the gunslinger keeps coming back for more. 

We get a rock solid cast too, starring Dick Van Patten, Norman Bartold, Alan Oppenheimer, James Brolin, Richard Benjamin, and Yul Brynner. Brynner is nothing short of terrifying in this, embodying the moral-incapable gunslinger to a T, bringing out an excellent fight or flight performance from Benjamin as well. 

Westworld, directed by Michael Crichton, is a revolutionary sci-fi blockbuster, not just for inspiring the likes of Jurassic Park and Terminator, but for being an exceptional film in its own right, with a 180 pivot that will likely stick with me for awhile. 

9/10