George Lucas's directorial debut - a psychedelic pic about a future dystopia in which the population is forced to live in underground cities controlled by computers. Sex is forbidden, everybody looks the same and its human denizens are force fed drugs to keep them docile. A couple (Robert Duvall and Maggie McOmie) defies the system by not only starting an affair, but by trying to escape to the outside world.
Obviously a very bleak affair, the film draws heavily on Orwell's 1984. Lucas expanded one of his student projects (a prize-winning featurette he made at USC) to make THX 1138, which is interesting to watch because of its almost hallucinogenic visual sense and off-beat sound effects. Dramatic interest do however waver at times because of this and a screenplay which, when you think about it, isn't too original.
Review by James O'Ehley from The Sci-Fi Movie Page. |
