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★★★★
Directed by: Michael Anderson
Written by: David Zelag Goodman, William F. Nolan, George Clayton Johnson
Starring: Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Farrah Fawcett and Richard Jordan
Throwback Film Review by: Rachel Pullen
Logan's Run Movie Review
The future, ooooh what will it hold? Hover cars and hypno toads? Food in pill form and an applicable living wage? Don't hold your breath. But it may hold cool primary colour outfits and crystals in the palms of our hand and a thing called carousel where we kill people who get to the age of 30...well that’s me dead I guess.
No, wait, that's just Logan’s Run, a film about a society of people who live a fun, sexy carefree lifestyle, whereby they all party and shed their colourful robes and hump on the low-to-the-ground future couch, but don't get to thirty because then you have to die to be reborn and not be a useless wrinkly bag of bones.
Logan is hired as a sandman, someone who polices the city to make sure people don't run away when it’s their time to face the carousel, which is not actually a fun ride with horses and good times, no it’s just a place you die. Anyway, he is then asked by the higher powers to find out where the runaways are trying to get to as a rumour has gone around about a place where they can achieve sanctuary.
Logan is all down for this action and being the sexy under 30's stud he is, he finds a lady who he thinks can help him run away and together they start to peel the layers away from the city that they have never seen the outside of, and surprise, surprise they fall in love and he ends up thinking freedom is more kick-ass than the death that awaits him on his return to the city...not a hard choice but hey.
This film is split down the middle, city life and outside life, for once they are outside they meet an old man living in the crumbled remains of Washington D.C. with his many cats, they learn that life does not end at thirty, you can get old and it does not mean the end, and with this knowledge, they work to inform the city and for everyone to be free.
They hike him back to the city and he is uber keen to meet some young people and then they all accept him and everyone lives happily in their crystal-free society! The end...but I was annoyed we didn't get to see more of the cats, I mean there are a f*ck tonne of cats, and I needed more.
Logan’s Run is a prime example of the sci-fi genre before Star Wars rolled into town, making it all robots and lasers (there are some lasers and one robot but we will get to that in a moment), its subtle approach to futuristic aesthetics are pleasing, everything is not hyper futuristic, most of it looks pretty homely and how you would imagine it with the right amount of tech spliced in when needed, just think IKEA with some flashing lights.
The contrast between the claustrophobia of the city scenes, compared to the open and vast shots of the real world are stunning, we feel the freedom, the desire to run and breathe the air and simply live life sans hand crystals and death carousels, we can empathize with both sides of the world, the city offers beauty and community, while outside, although scary you have the chance to be free, and I think as humans we flirt between both ways of life.
But don't think I could talk about Logan’s Run without mentioning the robot in the ice cave....he is the god of this film, a fashion icon, someone who needs protein and kelp and to freeze humans and if you look real close you can see those fun human teeth beneath the tin foil, I love you robot iceman and hate everything else in the world but you.
So what have we learned a lot about living in 2274?
Robots have human teeth
If the gem in your hand flashes...run
Primary colours are for all occasions.
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