![[box cover]](../reviewimgs/w/westworld.jpg)
Westworld
Delos is the theme park of the future, offering the choice of life-like western, medieval, or ancient Roman adventures, for the meager price of $1,000 a day. Tourists Richard Benjamin and James Brolin choose Westworld, a lawless saloon town full of testy gunslingers, barroom brawlers, and sultry women of pleasure -- all of them robots, ready to be shot or shagged for consumer pleasure during the ultimate vacation. Meek Benjamin is just starting to groove with this playland premise when the robots -- including a most menacing Yul Brynner -- go murderously awry. A mildly diverting entertainment on its own, Westworld is perhaps most interesting as thematic predecessor to writer-director Michael Crichton's more recent blockbuster brainchild Jurassic Park. Although Westworld lacks the skillfully crafted suspense of Steven Speilberg's dinosaur film, Brynner makes for a more compelling villain, even if the robot mutiny makes no sense whatsoever, and Benjamin a smarter and better realized hero. This adventure is short at just under 90 minutes, and at its shallow depth that's a blessing, but a longer, more complicated treatment of the same subject could have been something really special.
