Logan's Run - Movie Review

By the 1970s, Hollywood studios perfected the low-budget science fiction movie. Instead of building futuristic sets producers would find newly constructed modernistic buildings. For the movie Conquest of the Planet of the Apes to replicate a city of the future where the ape revolution first takes place the films producers simply used the newly built Century City, a brand new complex of office towers built on Fox property. Soylent Green did not even bother with the futuristic city motif but went for the urban decay motif. In the future you will have the same buildings, just a bit more run down. In 1976 M.G.M. released Logan's Run, promoting it as the most extravagant science fiction movie ever filmed. And compared to the other science fiction movies produced at the time, it was the most extravagant. The problem was that its special effects were eclipsed only a year later by Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Some of the special effects were even bad by the early '70s standards. Blue screen effects come off transparent and surrounded by a dark border. Miniatures meant to look like the entire city of the future instead look like toy models. And there is a lot of use of matte paintings rather than sets. This low quality of effects was actually very acceptable in 1976, until Star Wars raised the bar.

The movie's plot revolves around an entire city covered by giant domes, built soon after a nuclear war had turned the atmosphere deadly. A city confined to domes is in danger of becoming overpopulated as new generations are born, so a giant computer was put in charge of population control. Citizens were fitted at birth with a crystal in their palm which changes color as you age. When you reach the age of 30 the crystal begins to blink and your time is up. You must then report to carousel, a sort of mass public execution where you and other 30 year olds don a skeleton costume and stand in an arena waiting to be blown up. The carousel itself is a giant crystal at the center and ceiling of the arena that causes the participants to float in the air before exploding. The clueless population believes that if you participate at Carousel then you will be instantly reincarnated as a baby. For those who do not wish to be "renewed" the only other option is to become a runner and basically just do not go. Runners are hunted down by the local police force known as Sandmen who execute them where they stand.

One of the Sandmen named Logan 5 ( Michael York ) is told by the computer running the city that thousands of runners have successfully avoided capture. Rumor was that they found a place called sanctuary to live out their years out of the reach of the law. Although Logan still has 4 years until his 30th birthday the computer resets his palm crystal to start blinking, then asks him to go undercover as a runner to find sanctuary so it can be destroyed. Somehow Logan's partner Francis 7 ( Richard Jordan ) is not notified of the undercover operation and now believing Logan is a runner decides to personally chase after him. Logan finds an ally in Jessica 6 ( Jenny Agutter ), a girl who is part of the underground movement that helps runners escape to sanctuary. Making their way through the bowels of the city Logan and Jessica follow the path that is suppose to take them to the mysterious sanctuary which leads to an elevator. The elevator leads to an ice cave watched over by a robot named Box who likes to instantly freeze and store anyone who crosses his path. Logan defeats Box and then he and Jessica make their way out of the cave and outside the domed city. Walking through the woods they discover the ruins of Washington D.C. where they find an old hermit (Peter Ustinov) who is the last of the descendants of those who did not choose to live in the dome city. Logan decides that sanctuary does not really exist, that they were the only runners to make it past Box, and that they would not mind growing old like the hermit. Francis, still on Logan's trail, shows up for a fight to the death which he loses. Logan decides that he and Jessica should return to the dome city and tell all the inhabitants the truth about Carousel. But after they return they only succeed in being captured by the Sandmen. Logan is dragged to the master computer who asks him where sanctuary is. When Logan tells the computer there is no sanctuary it can not understand how humans would believe in something that does not exists. This causes the computer to have a meltdown and the city begins to blow up. The inhabitants are forced outside where they find the old hermit waiting for them. This is suppose to be a happy ending, although how having thousands of people use to a technologically advanced city where machines and computers did everything for them suddenly outside in the wilderness while that city self destructs does not really sound like much of a happy ending.

During production a then unknown television actress named Farrah Fawcett-Majors was cast in the small role of Holly, a member of the sanctuary underground. Around the time Logan's Run was released Farrah's career took off with both the pilot movie for Charlie's Angels and her famous pinup poster. M.G.M. made a big deal about Farrah being in the movie, and rushed out posters of her character Holly. This was a bit misleading as Farrah is only in a couple of scenes before her character is killed off. The true female lead is the beautiful British actress Jenny Agutter debuting in her first Hollywood movie followed in the same year with The Eagle Has Landed, and in the following years Equus and An American Werewolf in London. She and Michel York give phoned in performances as if they never expected the movie to be released. What they do provide is the movie's nude scenes. Yes, back in the '70s PG meant no one under 12 without parental supervision and usually got it's rating from the odd swear word and nudity. In this case the nudity seems forced. Logan and Jessica are in wet clothes and find some furs they decide to change into. In less than three minutes they decide to change back into their wet clothing. There is also a scene where they skinny dip, but the water concealed their bodies enough that this scene was shown on television with very little editing. The showcase performance belongs to Peter Ustinov as a hermit who lives alone in the ruins of the capital building in Washington DC along with hundreds of pet cats.

Logan's Run is precisely the quality you would expect from a campy high concept '70s science fiction movie but without the quality of special effects that Star Wars raised the bar to. As long as you do not mind a movie that is only half way intelligent then you will find this movie an interesting two hour diversion. Maybe it is not the ultimate science fiction extravaganza M.G.M. had hoped it to be but still a classic of the science fiction movie genre worth watching.