Logan's Run (1976)

Let's be realistic.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

I was only 3 when this movie was made, so I didn't see it back in the day. The first movie I remember seeing was Star Wars episode IV, A New Hope. So I'm no stranger to 70s sci-fi. Actually, I've seen older sci-fi movies as well. That being said, I thought the majority of the special effects were pretty cheesy. The laser effects were pretty good, but that was about it. The story was also a bit too cheesy for my taste. I'd like to think that a culture so advanced would know better than to exterminate people at the age of 30. After the apocalyptic event (which they never mention specifically what it was) that destroyed the world, you would think people wouldn't do things even more foolish, but they do, apparently. The acting was, at times, rather mediocre. My whole reason for watching it was to understand references made of this movie in TV shows and other movies. Now the references make sense and that's all I wanted. Not planning to watch it again unless I'm bored out of my mind.

In a future world full of tacky decor and polyester, people are only allowed to live into their 30s before being done away with by Sandmen, guys with bad haircuts who chase people around and zap them. Some folks get chosen to participate in a ceremony during which they might get lucky and be allowed to live longer (I think) if they're not vaporized first. Why anyone wants to live past 30 is a mystery, since this version of the future looks like a gigantic shopping mall. Michael York is a Sandman who is sent undercover to find a bunch of runners, people who have escaped their fate. What he finds instead in a kind of "Planet of the Apes" reveal is a world outside of this hedonistic one where people are allowed to get old and enjoy all of the perks that come with that, like heart disease and hemorrhoids. This world is populated by Peter Ustinov, who mumbles lines from T.S. Eliot's "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" before it was a Broadway musical and who deserved an Oscar for keeping a straight face while reciting any of his lines."Logan's Run" won a special achievement Academy Award for its visual effects, even though they look like they were rejected from a "Dr. Who" episode for not being good enough. It also received nominations for Art Direction and Cinematography, which can be explained by the fact that this was the 70s and everything was ugly anyway. It's pretty bad, and a nostalgia for cheezy, retro sci-fi will only take a modern-day viewer so far in overlooking its badness.Grade: C-

Released in 1976 and based on the 1967 sci-fi novel by William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson, "Logan's Run" chronicles life in the late 23rd century where the populace lives in an idyllic geodesic domed city with no access to the outside. While life there seems fun, it only lasts till age 30 when citizens are required to participate in a life-ending ritual that supposedly grants rebirth. Those who rebel are gunned down by likable Nazi-like police called Sandmen. Michael York plays a Sandman named Logan, who's forced to flee, while Jenny Agutter plays his potential babe, Jessica. Richard Jordan appears as another Sandman.There's just enough good in "Logan's Run" to make it worthwhile for those who can handle 70's sci-fi in all its glory and shame. The flick comes across as a 70's Star Trek movie albeit without space travel and the iconic characters. York plays a quality protagonist and Agutter is exquisite throughout in her attractive (not slutty) apparel. Several quality women also appear in the background.Although this is an old production, the hi-tech society is realized pretty well and still LOOKS genuinely futuristic with quality visuals throughout, although decidedly 70's and relatively low-budget. The story, however, is only moderately interesting, but I like the themes of anti-ageism, pro-family and anti-hedonism. Like Star Trek, there's some action, but it's mostly an adult drama. Of course it's nowhere near as compelling as Star Trek, whether The Original Series or The Motion Picture, but I suppose it's about on par with the early seasons of The Next Generation and superior in some ways.The film runs 119 minutes and was shot in the Dallas/Arlington/Fort Worth area and Malibu Creek State Park, California, with interiors done in Houston and studio work in Culver City, California. DIRECTOR: Michael Anderson. ADDITIONAL CAST: Farrah Fawcett, Michael Anderson Jr. and Roscoe Lee Browne are on hand in peripheral roles with Peter Ustinov showing up in the last act.GRADE: B-

Science Fiction is inherently strange, and it seems like the further back you go, the stranger the movies are, perhaps none stranger than Logan's Run. This film is considered by many to be the one of the best science fiction films of all time, so I decide to watch it for the most recent classics review. My first impression, I've seen weird before, but Logan's Run goes way beyond that, to a point of incomprehensible. After a nuclear war, a group of citizens in what was once Washington D.C., live in a self-sustained domed city. Population control is a big problem, so the builders of the city have convinced the citizen's that at the age of 30, they must enter a device known as carrousel, which will decide if they should be renewed or eliminated, the only thing is, no one has ever been renewed. A group of citizens has figured this out and run from carrousel. They are hunted by a group of officers known as sandmen. Logan 5 (Michael York) is one these sandmen, who goes undercover to try to infiltrate the runners, As his time comes closer, Logan 5 realizes they're right and he joins them, hence the name Logan's Run. The premise here is ingenious and at first I thought I'd enjoy this film, but as it went on, the pace slowed, the quality deteriorated, and the story became ridiculous. For example, after exiting the cave, the worst looking robot I've ever seen, named Box, who looks like a child wearing a box, carries on for fifteen minutes about plankton from the sea, and at that point I almost turned it off. Michael York, better know from his Austin Powers fame, stars and is actually very good, (even though it is never explained why this British guy is in a D.C. city, surrounded by Americans). York was entertaining but the rest of the cast was not, in particular Jenny Agutter, who just complained and carried on the whole time. Farrah Fawcett also makes an appears in the film, in a role that amounts to little more than eye candy. In my opinion, she would have made a much more convincing Jessica. Logan's Run starts out as a terrific futuristic adventure and looks like it's going to earn every bit of acclaim it received, but as the film progresses, it just gets worse and worse to the point of being unwatchable.