This was a very underwhelming movie. I had heard so much about it and frankly I don't get the attraction. The premise of the story is interesting, but it is clearly a thinly veiled shot at organized religion. Even in the 70's, that's hardly clever.
Another thing is that it looks terrible. This was a full eight years after the amazing effects of "2001: A Space Odyssey". This doesn't even compare to the futuristic look of the sets in the original "Star Trek" TV series. The fact that they shot most of "Logan's Run" in a shopping mall is apparent. Everyone wears nighties or pajamas and the aptly named killer robot named "Box" is a far cry from C3PO, who appears in "Star Wars" only one year later and looks about 1,000 times more amazing.
The final act just stalls out. Logan and Jessica talk with an old man who's survived the earlier nuclear apocalypse, Logan kills "runner" Francis with a flag pole and the Sanctuary's computer overloads because Logan gives it some answers to questions that it can't handle. The last 30 minutes feels like an entirely different story.
For the life of me, I can't figure out who provided the "Voice" (that's all the script says) for the lock to which the Ankh is the key. It sounds so familiar, but none of the cast list jumped out at me. Searching "who played the voice in logan's run" isn't exactly going to return useful results. So… If anyone knows the name of the actor, I'd love to find out! It's making me a little nuts.
As usual, I'm going to nitpick first, then get into the bigger picture. (How this became my review format, I don't know, but it works.) There are many things worth nitpicking, actually. The visual effects in this film were surprisingly underwhelming, considering it came out only a year before Star Wars (1977). Lots of small details seemed off, and the film's IMDB listing has a pretty fat "Goofs" page. But only these struck me enough to write them down while watching.
The Carousel ritual has a couple of oddities. The performers' wires are clearly visible, as are the attachment points on their costumes. (Allegedly, director Michael Anderson is rather emphatic in saying that no wires are visible in the DVD commentary. I do not have this commentary available, so I have to trust IMDB. They really are very obvious.) And, it looks like one of the flying participants is pregnant. I don't see that referenced anywhere in trivia sources I consulted, and perhaps my eyes deceived me as I watched the film, but it really does appear so.
It was awfully convenient that Logan forgot he had an Ankh of his own, so Jessica's could be fumbled into the water for Francis to find later. (Smells like contrived writing, born of having no better ideas on how to get Francis outside with them.)
The grates Logan and Jessica remove inside the seawater intake system seem awfully easy to dislodge. I wonder just how they've managed to stay put for so many years. With 6 generations (roughly) of 30 years, that puts the construction of the power facility about two centuries in the past. Pretty impressive, since no one is allowed outside the city. How do they maintain outside equipment, anyway?
I know I've already mentioned the visual effects, in the nitpick section above, but it bears repeating: The effects in Logan's Run were underwhelming even after taking into account the age of the film. From obvious matte paintings and miniatures to just straight-up bad double-exposure work, I found myself really struggling to ignore the technical side of the movie to focus on its story.
Broadly, the story is a good one. It's perhaps an overdone trope these days—a post-apocalyptic, dystopian society with arbitrary rules that one person finally feels must change—but I must imagine this kind of story was slightly rarer 40 years ago. And even now, it hasn't really gotten old seeing a future human civilization rediscover what it means to be human.
The single largest omission from the screenplay, I thought, was world-building. We almost learn more about what life is like for the old man, outside the city dome, than what it's like inside. There's a vague sense of how hedonistic life in the city can be. Jessica appears as Logan channel-surfs "the circuit", seemingly a way for city residents to offer themselves up for sex. Francis appears with two "screamers" (oh yeah, that's subtle) for a party shortly after. There is, of course, the "Love Shop" scene—shorter than originally intended, but probably as long as was necessary. But most of the "regular people" we see are swimming, shopping, working out… I have no clear sense of what people in the domed city actually do all day.
It's implied that children are raised by machine, perhaps. It seems parents do not exist. The city residents might even be sterile by design (perhaps a surgical procedure performed shortly after birth). They can have orgies every day and not worry about birth control. Conception of children may be regulated by the city computer, just as is the "termination" of those who have reached Lastday.
For all the statement it makes, having such a world, it still feels like an empty premise. The city computer, which seems to have an obsession with tracking down Sanctuary, has a distressingly small role in the story. Logan's "surrogates" have a bigger part than the computer does, practically. (And those visual effects were… weird.)
I guess what I really wanted was "more villain". Also a better ending (because the city exploding after Logan's report fries the computer made no sense to me). But it's not a bad film. It's enjoyable, even thought-provoking. Just not as much as I expected.
In a world without old people, a couple refuses to die.
The intervention of the old man played by Mr. Ustinov... that´s the key of this movie.
In Time is NOT a remake of Logan's Run. Their stories are completely different, something you can depict even from the very short descriptions here on trakt.
There is a remake of Logan's Run in the making, either this year or 2014 (several sources on the internet are a little bit fuzzy about that) is it coming.
Shout by lewisindahouseBlockedParent2013-07-30T13:34:54Z
Very good