Soylent Green (1973) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_557" align="alignright" width="307"] Official Score = 3 1/2 Devils[/caption]

When I was younger there was a show on TV called, ‘Millennium’. This show really kicked ass, I mean it had some amazing star power to it, including, Lance Henriksen (The Terminator), Terry O’Quinn (Stepfather), Meghan Gallagher (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine), Bill Smitrovich (Independence Day)… Just to name a few!

Now this show initially had to do with a group of ex-law-enforcement officials that investigated some of the worst of the worst when it came to crimes! And later on when Frank’s access to the, ‘Millennium Group’ was raised (The Millennium Group was the name of the organization that the lead character in the show was a part of...) Anyway, when his access in the group was raised, he was given a special voice print pass code that was a some sort of, ‘Movie reference’.

One of the co-stars (and people who Frank (The lead character in the show) worked with in the show) had the password ‘Open The Pod Bay Doors Please, Hal’, and Frank’s was, ‘Soylent Green is people’… Now I had found this particular reference to be rather amusing, if anything because I had heard it before but had never actually seen the movie that this reference was made from!

Of course that was till a few years ago when my friend and ABM CEO, Matt Dowling, had actually told me about this movie (at the time I was starting to delve real heavily in to 70s movies), and I thought it sounded like fun and picked it up to watch!

And boy what a movie this was! I mean besides the fact that it starred Film Legends like Charlton Heston (Planet Of The Apes), Edward G. Robinson (this movie would prove to be his final role), and not to mention Chuck Conners (Summer Camp Nightmares), Brock Peters (Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home), and Joseph Cotten (Baron Blood), to name a few… The story, both in how it was written and also in how impactful it was on the screen would blow your mind and really make you think!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="479"] Detective Thorn (Charlton Heston) and his old friend, Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson) are on the case and will stop at nothing to find out what is wrong with, 'Soylent Green'![/caption]

The reason that I mention this you see, is that this movie tells the story of a dying Earth, a planet where the pitfalls of what mankind has been doing to the planet on an environmental level has become to much!

Now during this time there has become a major class divide in that those that are even comparatively moderately wealthy live in swanky and cool apartments where they can sometimes eat a piece of meat or eat a piece of a vegetable…

On the poor side though, there is a Detective by the name of Thorn (Heston) who, while taking care of the old man (Robinson) comes across a conspiracy that ends up having planet wide implications when he investigates the murder of a rich man!

You see this rich man happens to be working for the, ‘Soylent Corporation’ a company that is feeding the world using food that is supposedly coming from the ocean’s floor!

If it is, is the statement, ‘Soylent Green is people’ just the rantings of one of the mad men that is caught up in the conspiracy, or is Soylent Green really people…

If you want to known, you’ll have to check it out… And trust me when I say that you won’t be disappointed if you do!

http://youtu.be/SVpN312hYgU

The Void (2001) - Movie Review

[caption id="attachment_322" align="alignright" width="258"] Official Score = 1 1/2 Devils[/caption]

On The Sci-Fi Channel (Now I believe it is called, ‘Syfy’) but there is this continuing series of Movies/TV Shows that deal with certain elements of Science (and more directly Science Fiction) that generally tend to be quite entertaining!

One show on this network generally tended to do with a town that is comprised primarily of the world’s most smartest people, and the hilarious consequences of their sometimes, dangerous and oft times strange inventions! This show, is the show that we all know and love, ‘Eureka’

Now that show is an awful lot of fun and frequently quite hilarious (usually because it takes the Sheriff (who is the dumbest person in town) and his friends to resolve whatever problems that the smart people have created!

There is another side to the Science Fiction on that channel, and that is more well-known it seems like in the filmaking community, and that is the movies that Syfy has made!

Now I know that not everyone agrees with this concept (I know I don’t totally agree with this) but Syfy has been known to make these sometimes bizarre but also oft times fun end of the world style doomsday scenario movies that usually puts the, ‘hero’ or the, ‘heroes’ as the soul people fighting against the big bad group that is un wittingly about to destroy the world, or they are the only ones capable of salvaging what is left of humanity!

Now I personally think that at least part of the reason why people think that these movies are bad, is because frequently they are well funded, with great special effects, a great cast, oft times are directed real nicely, and they even have been known to have some fun cinematography… The only problem is, is that not all of these movies are great, and it does seem rather odd that most of these movies generally tend not to make it to Blu-Ray or DVD!

You might be wondering why I am mentioning this… Well simply put, the movie that I am reviewing here actually seems very much like a movie that people could have first scene on the Syfy channel called, The Void (2001)

Written by: Geri Cudia Barger (Powerplay), and Directed by: Gilbert M. Shilton. Starring Adrian Paul (Highlander: The TV Series), Amanda Tapping (Stargate SG1), Malcolm McDowell (Halloween), Kirsten Robek (Tempbot), Roger R. Cross (X2), Michael Rivken (The Cable Guy).

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Professor Steven Price (Adrian Paul) & Professor Eva Soderstrom (Amanda Tapping) in, 'The Void' (2001)![/caption]

Now one of the prevailing theories that I have heard in the limited number of Science circles that I have been able to hang out with, and this theory has definitely been a long standing theme in Science Fiction movies and TV shows, is the idea that if you use a particle accelerator to create a black hole, that if even the slightest hint of anything goes wrong, that it could end up destroying the planet!

A truly fascinating concept for a great Science Fiction movie right?

Well, The Void tells the story of how a greedy old man (McDowell), whom 8 years earlier had tried to generate a stable black hole, ended up destroying an entire complex and killing dozens of people!

Well 8 years later, this guy is now dying of cancer, and the Earth is quickly running out of energy… Well he decides to try again, only this time though, the woman (Tapping) who is the daughter of one of the projects managers at the old test site, ends up convincing her boyfriend (Paul) to help her save the world, stop this man who is trying to start the project again (and which is destined to fail again), before this project and its leader kill even more people!

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="480"] Eva Soderstrom with Dr. Thomas Abernathy (Malcolm McDowell) as they work to resolve, 'The Void'![/caption]

In the end, I do think this movie is a fun one, but the cinematography techniques used in making this film were so bad and disjointed (at certain times they use slow motion on the camera, and jerky almost stop motion cinematography so much, that at some points Ms. Tapping actually looks like a character from a video game), all in all it heavily detracts from the quality of the film, but if you can get past that aspect of it, it is actually pretty fun!