DVD Review: LOGAN'S RUN (1976)

Logan's Run

Released: June 23, 1976


Box Office: $25 million
(Ranked approx. 13th of 1976)

Starring- Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Peter Ustinov, Farrah Fawcett, Roscoe Lee Browne

Directed by Michael Anderson


DVD Issue: 2004

Grade: D


Logan's Run is the kind of film that is passed on from the past few generations more in memory than actual devotion. Almost all the television shows that parody pop culture have made at least one mention of the film, usually referencing the palm crystals or the Carrousel ritual. But released in the dawn of the sci-fi film that changed the genre forever, Star Wars, and in the time that many dystopian thrillers were being made, can Logan's Run stand above and beyond a cult film 32 years later and stand on it's own legs?

I've always been interested in the dystopian idea of the future, ever since I read Lois Lowry's The Giver in 5th grade. From 1984 to Blade Runner to Fahrenheit 451 to A Clockwork Orange, it gives writers and directors a chance to conceive an endless imagination of our world gone wrong, whether they believe it to be corporate and inventive madness, or because of our increasing lack of religious beliefs.

But while Logan's Run has some valid moments, offering glimpses of Adam & Eve-like elements and man's intended nature to live and conduct his own free will, it is ruined by some terrible subplots and a lack of chemistry (even if there's supposed to be a lack of chemistry). It can be considered somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that of a camp ideology, but Logan's Run at times takes itself too seriously to downplay its harsher criticisms.

In the Year Of The City 2274, a large self-sustaining dome city, people are hedonists. They play and whet their sexual appetites day and night, and rely on machines to feed and provide them with amenities. However, to control the population in the city, the people must die at age 30. Logan 5 (Michael York) is a Sandman- a government agent who must kill people who run from Carrousel, the ritual that offers 'renewal' from their death. Thanks to Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter), he gets wind of 'Sanctuary', a place where people supposedly can live past 30, and the reason people run from Carrousel. Soon enough, Logan is forced to find 'Sanctuary', but will he go to destroy it or go to save his own life?

The acting was as stiff as the braless lead females in the film. York, known mostly in today's times as British spy controller Basil Exposition in the Austin Powers series, is pretty uncharismatic aside from his Charleston Heston rip-off scene screaming "NO! YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO IN THERE! YOU DON'T HAVE TO DIE!". Agutter is okay, but when director Michael Anderson uses a deliberate part inside an ice cave just to get her naked, you know she wasn't cast for her acting. Same can be said for Farrah Fawcett (Majors), playing a ditzy blonde nurse in a sequined silver dress. Perhaps worst of all was 2-time Oscar winner Peter Ustinov as a singular old man Logan and Jessica find outside; did he have Parkinson's disease? Was he supposed to sound like Jim Backus' Mr. Magoo?

The editing and explanation of Logan's Run is muddled at best. At times Logan will just finish talking and instantly we're taken to another scene. Once Logan says something serious and the camera pans about 2 inches to another take and Logan begins laughing at something. They disregard children, as at the end of the film when everybody escapes to the outside and we see the large crowd gather at the top, there are no children or babies despite the whole beginning of the film taking care to point out the 1:1 ratio of births to deaths. Perhaps the biggest plot confusion of all was the computer's reasoning for making Logan the sole Sandman to wipe out 'Sanctuary'.

What was the whole point of Carrousel? Couldn't they have picked a cooler or more explainable way for them to die? If it was meant to be a spectator sport, they couldn't devise something more akin to Rollerball or Death Race, both of which were made into terrible remakes because of the message of violence that quenches the thirst in our society today? If not, then why did they wear weird masks and float around? If it was a sacred ritual, why did everybody cheer and treat it like a game? Carrousel seemed like a grisly version of the bubble factory in Willy Wonka.

Many of the subplots only seem to get in the way of the central story, and play like poor mini skits thrown in to bolster the running time. They run through a 'Love Shop', mostly so director Anderson can insert T&A (into a PG film no less) and strange vibrato music. They travel to 'Cathedral' to fight a pack of young kids called 'Cubs', who for some inexplicable reason are feral and supposedly drugged up on something called 'Muscle', and worst of all run into Box on the way to 'Sanctuary'. Box, a giant shiny tinfoil robot played by Roscoe Lee Browne, has gone insane and must've seen Soylent Green one too many times on his Betamax.

The sets bother me as well. It comes with a certain understanding that 'futuristic' movies, especially ones made in the 1960's and 1970's, will have a now retro flair 30+ years later. Many films at the time designed modern amenities, but kept the brown, orange, beige or yellow wood paneling color scheme of the era. Logan's Run is no different. However, it is quite obvious that the entire city is made up of thinly-veiled malls and hotels of the time. The outside water turbine, used at the end of the film, is quite obviously the Forth Worth Water Gardens. Were they too busy to build real sets? Only the recreations of the National Mall in Washington D.C. was worth any redeeming value.

While the special effects did not sway me for voting either way, they are extremely outdated. The shots may have won an Oscar, but considering the magic George Lucas' crew came out with the next year, the effects pale in comparison. Here we see debris superimposed over the reels for an explosion, stop motion to show the effects of disintegration, sparklers going off when a person combusted during Carrousel, a giant scale city for overhead shots, the list goes on and on.

It's hard not to compare certain sci-fi efforts to other ones. Logan's Run has many thematic elements to other films that preceded it in the mid-70s, most notably Soylent Green, Rollerball, and Planet Of The Apes, and obviously played a factor in modern films such as The Island and Gattaca. But while many of the films from the same era endure based on some truly remarkable writing, acting or at least one memorable scene, Logan's Run fares pretty poorly as a run-of-the-mill exercise in the genre. Good idea, weak execution.