- Let's begin, as Logan's Run does, with some expository text: "Sometime in the 23rd century...the survivors of war, overpopulation and pollution are living in a great domed city, sealed away from the forgotten world outside. Here, in an ecologically balanced world, mankind lives only for pleasure, freed by the servo-mechanisms which provide everything. There's just one catch: Life must end at thirty unless reborn in the fiery ritual of Carrousel."
- What the quote fails to mention is that people known as Sandmen are responsible for "terminating" those citizens (called "runners") who suspect that being reborn isn't all it's cracked up to be. Logan (Michael York) is one such Sandman, but lately he's been wondering about the reasoning behind this externally imposed cycle of life and death. His friend and fellow Sandman Francis (Richard Jordan) is perfectly content to perform his duties without question, but Logan seeks to know more. Imagine his surprise, then, when the dome's computer system orders him to locate and destroy a rumored colony of escaped runners known only as Sanctuary. Trouble is, the computer has also rigged Logan's age-indicating hand crystal to make him look precisely like a runner.
- Desperate not to get terminated himself, Logan enlists the assistance of a rebel named Jessica (Jenny Agutter), who has links to the renegade runners. After a near-fatal visit to a plastic surgeon (assisted by Farrah Fawcett!) and a slight detour through what I'll tersely describe as a sex room, the two slowly make their way out of the city, all the while doggedly pursued by Francis. Whereas the domed city itself is what must have seemed in the disco era to be a utopia of mirrors and crystals, its foundations look much more industrial in origin, overgrown with metal pipes and gratings. And then there's that refrigeration-fixated, ice sculpting robot named Box (Roscoe Lee Brown) to contend with. And the fact that Peter Ustinov is the last man living outside of the dome in what is obviously meant to be the ivy-covered remnants of Washington DC. You maniacs! You blew it up...oh wait, different film.
- Overall, Logan's Run is a mostly welcome reminder that the sort of cheesy science fiction that I most directly associate with 1950's b-movies was actually still very much alive and well in the pre-Star Wars 1970's. With settings that are often quite striking, the film isn't terrible by any stretch, but I must admit that about half of my enjoyment of it stems directly from the goofiness of Ustinov's cat speeches and Brown's prattling on about "fish, plankton, sea greens, and protein from the sea." The rest of the movie is stuffed full of the standard dystopia tropes ("Beloved husband, beloved wife. I wonder what it means.") and an abundance of mirrors, gratuitous nudity, and synthesized music. Man, I can't wait for the future to get here!
- I was shocked to learn that Nicolas Winding Refn, the director of Drive, is set to direct a remake of this film. I wonder whether it will be called Run? Or maybe Runner's Run?
