← Back to Reviews
in
#361 - Soylent Green
Richard Fleischer, 1973
In the distant future of 2022, a detective tries to solve the murder of a wealthy businessman but ends up stumbling upon a conspiracy in the process.
Another day, another Charlton Heston movie that is famous mainly because of its climatic twist. While I'm not going to specify the twist in this case as I didn't with Planet of the Apes, I still feel the need to point out that Soylent Green differs from that film in that it doesn't exactly hold up even in the face of knowing its twist. Soylent Green is a dystopian conspiracy thriller that sees Heston's detective investigating a home invasion and suspecting that there was more to it than just a break-in gone wrong. His search leads him through the crumbling streets of New York as a largely destitute population fights over synthetic foodstuffs because real food is such a rarity that even Heston is willing to appropriate it from a murder victim's apartment.
Of course, the world-building that goes into the world of the film doesn't do all that much to distinguish it from your run-of-the-mill dystopia. Corrupt officials, pronounced class divide, futuristic items, and of course the secret conspiracy that provides the film's big twist - there's not nearly enough personality. The performers aren't much chop - Heston is his usual square-jawed heroic self, while the only other actor that comes across as memorable is Edward G. Robinson as Heston's elderly mentor. There's the occasional spot of action to pad out its lean running time and the occasional astute observation (the greenhouse effect is still a serious concern in 2022) but it's a fundamentally empty example of science-fiction that does provide some decent visuals and an interesting enough plot but little else beyond that.
Richard Fleischer, 1973
In the distant future of 2022, a detective tries to solve the murder of a wealthy businessman but ends up stumbling upon a conspiracy in the process.
Another day, another Charlton Heston movie that is famous mainly because of its climatic twist. While I'm not going to specify the twist in this case as I didn't with Planet of the Apes, I still feel the need to point out that Soylent Green differs from that film in that it doesn't exactly hold up even in the face of knowing its twist. Soylent Green is a dystopian conspiracy thriller that sees Heston's detective investigating a home invasion and suspecting that there was more to it than just a break-in gone wrong. His search leads him through the crumbling streets of New York as a largely destitute population fights over synthetic foodstuffs because real food is such a rarity that even Heston is willing to appropriate it from a murder victim's apartment.
Of course, the world-building that goes into the world of the film doesn't do all that much to distinguish it from your run-of-the-mill dystopia. Corrupt officials, pronounced class divide, futuristic items, and of course the secret conspiracy that provides the film's big twist - there's not nearly enough personality. The performers aren't much chop - Heston is his usual square-jawed heroic self, while the only other actor that comes across as memorable is Edward G. Robinson as Heston's elderly mentor. There's the occasional spot of action to pad out its lean running time and the occasional astute observation (the greenhouse effect is still a serious concern in 2022) but it's a fundamentally empty example of science-fiction that does provide some decent visuals and an interesting enough plot but little else beyond that.