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 In the 23rd century everyone is free to do what they want except turn 30! This
one is called a "powerful, post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller filled with intense
action, Oscar winning special effects and "visual razzle-dazzle [that's]
pyrotechnical enough for a dozen Fourth of Julys" (Charles Champlin of the LA
Times). I guess someone really liked the movie. This one is called "one of the
all-time greats" in the last sentence on the back of the box. 1976, 119 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
Michael York, who in the 1970s was pretty much "all that" starring in this
movie, the various Musketeers movies, and Cabaret has of late apparently been reduced to starring in pathetic, low budget,
Christian, apocalypse-trash movies like The Omega Code stars in this pathetic, big budget, secular, apocalypse-trash movie as Logan.
Logan is a sandman. In Logan's world, everything is provided for the residents
of the domed city they inhabit and all they have to do is die when they hit
thirty. I've noticed that as I've gotten on in years, this concept has kind of
lost some its appeal to me. I keep checking my palm to see if my lifeclock is
blinking red yet (or if there's any hair on it!). In any event, apparently even
though this world is premised on the fact that it is acceptable to die when you
hit thirty, many people seem cool to the idea when they're time comes. In fact,
some them decide to "run" instead of go to Carousel to get "renewed." This is
frowned upon and that's where Logan comes in. As a sandman, he is charged with
tracking these "runners" down and killing them. You can tell he's a sandman
because of the outfit he wears. Everyone else wears a robe or miniskirt like
thing that is the same color as the lifeclock embedded in the palm of their
hand, but the sandmen wear these black outfits with a big silver stripe running
across the middle of their chest. This makes them look something like a member
of a pitcrew at the Daytona 500. Their weapon of choice in hunting down this
runners is this gun that makes this real cheesey looking burst of flame when
fired. It looks like they're shooting flare guns at people. Right off the bat it looks like this Logan guy is going to be trouble. He has
a sandman buddy named Francis (though the way he acts in this movie it should
probably be spelled "Frances") and Logan is always asking Francis questions
about stuff about whether he's ever known anyone to get renewed or wondering
about knowing who his parents were. You see, in that society, those questions
are kind of taboo, mainly because everyone willingly goes to get "renewed"
because it's easier to sell people on that that to have them go get "killed."
And since this is a future where anyone can have any pleasure fulfilled that
means there is also no emotional attachment to anyone and it starts right from
birth where babies are raised in incubators and not by their parents. That's
one of the bogus things about these kind of movies. They always want to show
that you get anything you want in the future so you can say, "hey, that's a
pretty sweet deal" but then they show that along with that you have to give up
your individuality or your emotional bonds with people or some such nonsense.
This is supposed to take place 200 years in the future after an atomic war. Why
would human nature change so much in such a short period of time? Just because
you live in a domed city, you wouldn't suddenly become an emotionally vapid
pleasurehound. I just don't think it's credible to make the supposition that
the human emotional make up could change that radically that soon, but since I
paid good 20th century money for the DVD, I suspended my disbelief instead of
the movie.  Alright, let's get to the meat of the flick. In a scene I found difficult to
follow, Logan is ordered to go deep undercover as a sandman who decides to run,
in order for him to find this place called "Sanctuary" where all the runners
who have escaped are living the good life. I never figured out why they picked
Logan or why he had to do it alone or why none of the other sandmen could know
or how the computer even knew about this "Sanctuary" or why anybody should care
that these runners escaped the city (surely Sanctuary had to be outside the
city, since the city was run by all these computers who would know the location
of Sanctuary if it was in fact in the city). Logan's kind of like, "whatever,
sounds like an okay assignment." At least that's what he thinks until he
notices that the computer advanced his lifeclock on his hand so that now he's
blinking red, meaning he's up for "renewal." When he notices this, you can see
him kind of think, "awww, hell no!" So he hooks up with Jenny Agutter who also
appeared in An American Werewolf in London and who more recently appeared in Child's Play 2 opposite murderous doll, Chucky. That was in 1990 though, so if you've heard
from Jenny since then, you might telephone 1-800 THE LOST and let them know
that they can stop looking for her. Jenny's character is a rebel because she's
all for this Sanctuary idea for some reason, even though she's got plenty of
years left before she blinks red. Logan follows some clues to this plastic
surgery place which is interesting mainly because the female assistant is
played by Farrah Fawcett-Majors (remember when she was called that?) and even
though it was the 23rd century she was still sporting her 1975 hairdo that sold
millions of posters to losers the world over. The plastic surgeon was played by
the son of the director (I don't think any further commentary on that is
required). Well, there's some kind of mishap involving the doctor trying to
kill Logan and his "run" is on! The rest of the movie is a long, drawn out chase sequence. Now, even though
this domed city is jam packed with Sandmen, the only guy who gives a rat's ass
about chasing Logan down is his buddy Francis. Francis is played by Richard
Jordan. At one point on the audio commentary, Michael York calls him
"Brandoesque." You may also remember the "Brandoesque" Jordan from the Michael
J. Fox classic, The Secret Of My Success . Francis chases him through the city, he chases him through the sewers, he
chases him through an ice cave (if anyone could explain what the point of the
ice cave and the robot named Box was, that would be great), he chases him in
the wilderness and chases him in the Capitol building in Washington D.C. Logan
and Jenny Agutter's character fall in love during all this chasing. Apparently
being chased makes you very horny because they go skinny dipping and the like
even while the dogged Francis maintains his completely pointless pursuit. Oh
and when Logan and his woman fell in love, we were supposed to see that as a
big breakthrough since no one in this world had real emotional bonds with
anyone. Skinny dipping has a way of doing that to you. Here's one of the
problems I had with the middle of the film: How was it that Francis managed to
find Logan in Washington D.C. Logan had a really good head start and he was
just wandering in the wilderness aimlessly. How was it that he and Francis
ended up at exactly the same place so that they could have their climatic fight
involving a flagpole? I refuse to believe that he was trailing them and
watching their every move. If he was, he could have confronted Logan then. Why
would he have waited until he was in D.C.?  The filmmakers completely botch the end of the movie. The natural ending spot
seemed to be when Logan kills Francis in the bombed out U.S. Capitol building.
At this point they've met an old guy (Peter Ustinov) and have figured out
Sanctuary doesn't exist and they love each other, so what's left but to roll
the credits? Fifteen more minutes of movie is what's left! Logan decides he has
to go back to the city and tell everyone that they don't have to die at thirty,
that they can grow old. So they take the old man back as proof and we watch a
completely contrived happy ending wherein Logan is interrogated by the computer
and somehow blows up a bunch of the city since the computer can't handle
Logan's thoughts or something. Once the city starts blowing up, all the people
go outside to where the old dude is waiting and they all see him and it's high
fives all around as everyone instantly discards their old belief system. If I
was there, I'd take one look at Peter Ustinov and think, "if that's what
getting old is, you can count me out." Then I'd turn to Logan and say, "hey,
Logan, thanks for blowing up paradise. I don't have a place to live anymore and
I'm going to have to work for a living now, but on the upside I'll get to grow
all old and wrinkled now, you big dumb jerk!" The DVD contains an audio
commentary track where York and the director talk about how important their
movie was and is. For some unexplained reason the costume designer is on there
talking about how he designed York's pajamas he wore in an early scene in under
two hours on short notice and York claims he still has those pajamas as a
souvenir! Fascinating guys, simply fascinating! The bottom line is that you
have to buy the rickety premise (there's no way any society could function
without people over 30. It takes longer than that to learn some vital and
necessary professions.) and then you have be satisfied watching Logan get
chased by Francis for over an hour. If you're movie is going to be structured
as a chase flick like that, you need to keep the chase moving at a brisk pace
or else the chase loses its drama. The movie is called Logan's Run , not Logan's Jog . Lose the part after the chase is over and tighten this thing up to a really
ripped 90 minutes and it would have played better (the director was complaining
about all the scenes he had to cut - yikes!) rather than making it a slow
moving epic.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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