Logan’s Run (1976) – Review

Dystopian futures are a funny old thing. Just as long as humankind’s civil liberties are being well and truly ploughed in the rear, the faceless beings in charge can inflict any old life it wants on the mindless denizens trapped under its sphere of influence. Be it cursed to live a life of grey-tinged toil as an insignificant cog in bureaucratic machine, or have their very identities and emotions suppressed under the demand of some extreme, dogmatic edict, they’re often cautionary tales that warn us to keep an eye out for big brother lest we simply hand our freedom over on a silver platter.
It’s with this thought in mind that we approach Michael Anderson’s 1976 uber-kitsch, dystopian freak out, Logan’s Run, which, on the surface, offers up a futuristic vision that doesn’t initially seem all that bad considering some of impossibly shitty scenarios other movies have thought up – but is the price of a life dedicated solely to pleasure simply too high to willingly tap-out the moment you hit thirty?

Far into the future, all human life is now contained within a bunch of geodesdic domes and have virtually every aspect of their life tended to by a super computer that dictates every aspect of their existence from their birth, right up to their death. The humans live an existence of hedonistic pleasures as they swan about a kingdom that looks like a gigantic mall while clad like silken flower children, but in order to prevent the overpopulation of a race that’s free to fuck like bunnies and live in constant comfort, a steep price has to be paid.
At the grand old age of thirty, all citizens have to take part in a ritual called the Carousel under the pretence that they are being “renewed” when all that’s truly happening is that they’re being executed like blind cattle. However, not everyone believes in the Carousel and try to flee instead of following the rules. Dubbed “Runners” (well, what would you have called them?), those who would defy the natural order are hunted and killed by the “Sandmen”, an “elite” kill squad (that boastvall the aim of Stevie Wonder) who help keep things running smoothly.
One of these hunters is Logan 5, a gun-toting Sandman who wanders through his charmed life like a billionaire playboy with a licence to kill, but when he is chosen by the city’s computer to take on a dangerous mission, he is forced to question his entire existence. Informed that there are 1,056 Runners unaccounted for, the computer believes that there is a safe haven outside the city named the “Sanctuary” and tasks Logan with the job of seeking out and destroying it, but to do so, it removes four years off of the Sandman’s life clock, forcing him to actually become a Runner himself. Panicked and his sudden change in fortune and hunted by his best friend, Francis 7, Logan teams with Jessica 6, a young woman he believes has ties to the Sanctuary in order to try an prolong his life. But as his adventure progresses a question starts to form: why prolong his life when he can live it?

Logan’s Run is one of those movies that hits the sweet spot of dystopian futures so well, its virtually impossible to watch it without pointing at the screen like that Rick Dalton meme from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood the second a trope pops up that’s been nicked by a different film. Certainly the notion of an unlikely hero going on the run due to a sudden change of ethics is a ripe one, as is the same hero being hunted by a former best friend who still frantically clings to the lie (Equilibrium). Also standing out like a sore thumb is the fact that the population is blissfully unaware that their almost childlike, half-life existence is a sham (The Island) and that the entire direction of humanity is being dictated by a computer rigidly sticking to its programming (Wall•E). However, while some classics bear the brunt of these comparisons and continue to stand strong, Logan’s Run seems curiously diminished by them and instead is left to stand by its garish, stylised version of a future that takes retrofuturism to an outlandish degree.
It’s not that Logan’s Run doesn’t look spectacular; in fact its lushly garish world is an impressive feat of production designand the over-designed sets and clean lines make sense for willfully naive populace who won’t even make it to a stones throw to forty. However the swishing robes and blinking lights tend to diffuse the seriousness of the situation,  especially seeing as the genre – not to mention cinema itself – was about to get a gritty wake up call in the shape of Star Wars only a year later. Similarly, the rather theatrical performances from leads Michael York and Jenny Agutter (surely two of the most upper-class accents ever to emerge from a sci-fi film) also serve to dull the darker tones of the story, inadvertently adding the levity of a Barbarella when it should probably be applying the cruelty of a Planet Of The Apes.

Still, while I personally found the film suffers from how much it has dated in comparison to, say, Rollerball, that’s not to say that the film isn’t loaded with memorable moments. Surely most memorable is that of the appearance of the robot Box, a silvery filling cabinet with arms an legs who’s turned its job to preserve food from the outside for the dome (“Fish and plankton and sea greens and protein from the sea!”), into a horror show that reveals that the 1,056 unaccounted for Runners have made it into the deranged droid’s deep freeze. Also remaining defiantly memorable is the utterly bizarre notion of the Carousel itself which sees its victims clad in happy looking hockey masks and unitards as they whizz around in zero G like some sort of freakish Japanese game show only to spontaneous explode as the crowd cheers them on.
However, while the twists try hard to be appropriately ironic (it turns out that neither of the promises made by the city or the Sanctuary prove to be true creating a paradox that not even the super computer can get its diodes around), there’s a distinct feeling that the life in the city wouldn’t be considered all that bad by later generations. Sure, the lying is shitty, but a cushy existence free of mid-life crisis and middle aged spread doesn’t actually sound all that bad and the fact that the people of the city will suddenly have to fend for themselves without any training whatsoever will no doubt result in sizable casualties. Additionally, for a on-the-run film, Logan’s Run is strangely tension-free affair and could easily stand to lose around fifteen to twenty minutes of pre-amble to get to the real meat of the matter.

Of course, there are those who embrace this cult classic precisely because of its vibrant aesthetic and trippy energy and to those people I say, “I genuinely salute you ” – but while I can apreciate the artistry and the social commentary, the dated nature of the piece personally slows Logan’s Run down to a trot.

🌟🌟🌟