Cold Fusion Video Reviews

• Directed by Michael Anderson
• Written by David Zelag Goodman, based on the novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson
• Starring
  • Michael York
  • Richard Jordan
  • Jenny Agutter
  • Peter Ustinov

Didn’t you just love that whole thing in Free Enterprise where Eric McCormack’s character, the grown-up sci-fi geek, obsesses about turning thirty, using all those Logan’s Run references? And even better, when he has that dream that his best friend is chasing him all over in a jumpsuit and floppy wig and calling him “runner?” Jeez, didn’t you laugh long and hard at that?

Yeah, well, I turn thirty this Sunday, and I’m not laughing so loud anymore, partner.

It’s nice to see that model trains are still popular in the future. (Oh, that’s supposed to be the interior of the dome? Never mind.)

Logan’s Run has become something of a cult classic (a big-time cult classic, that is, such as you would see run on TNT under the label “A Cult Classic!”, as opposed to a really cultish cult classic, like Killer Klowns From Outer Space), and it’s important to remember something about most genre cult classics: they’re excessively silly films. What sets this one in a different category from, say, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (”A Cult Classic!”) is that, while Buckaroo Banzai knew it was an excessively silly movie, Logan’s Run is a Deep Movie. An Important Movie. A Thinking Movie. Which makes it all the sillier.

The Logan in question is Logan 5 (Michael York), one of several thousand denizens of a futuristic domed city. Like all futuristic domed cities, it was created in response to the complete breakdown of the Earth’s biosphere, and like all futuristic domed cities, its main purpose seems to be wasting air space. Also, as is standard, the inhabitants of the city (or, as it’s quite clearly refered to, The City) have forgotten about, or don’t bother thing about, the outside world. And why should they? Their life is completely idyllic, with leisure galore and buckets of uninhibited sex. (Was this made in the ’70s? Oh yes, it was!) Well, except for the fact that no one lives longer than age thirty. That’s when everyone sharing a birthday is called into Carousel by the Big Bitchy Computer Voice (hereinafter BBCV) and try for “Renewal” — the vague reward that comes to a lucky few. Most, though, simply explode in full view of the cheering crowd.

Now, it may seem to you that there would be, even in such a brain-numbed world, a few radical thinkers who may have a slight problem with this whole mythology. There are, and these people are called “runners” — those who try to hide and live past the time that the crystal “lifeclock” in their palm starts flashing (just like your smoke detector when the battery starts wearing down — and when was the last time you checked that thing?). Naturally, this is Not Permitted, and so there’s a special contingent of citizens who don’t have to wear the age-color-coded togas and jumpsuits of the general populace (the biggest perk), who wear black and gray and have the job of hunting down and shooting runners. These happy-go-lucky goons are called Sandmen, and Logan is one of these. (You knew we’d get back to him sooner or later, right? I mean, he’s in the title and all.)

“Both. It was a gun in my pocket, and I am glad to see you.”

Logan’s only 26, which is an eternity before his turn at Carousel, but he’s of something of a philosophical bent, which causes consternation to his more stolid partner Francis (Richard Jordan) — a bent which gets bent even further (oh, how I love wordplay) when he retrieves from a runner’s body an ankh-shaped piece of jewelry, which proves identical to that worn by Jessica (Jenny Agutter), his intended one-night stand for that night. She’s even more of a questioner than he is, so much so that he starts to label her as some kind of subversive weirdo.

But he quickly finds value in her the next day. See, when he turns in the runner’s effects at Sandman Central, the BBCV grills him on what he knows about the ankh, and it’s rumored meaning: “Sanctuary.” Apparently there are over a thousand runners unaccounted for, and “Santuary” is the fabled safe place from the computer and the Carousel, and the BBCV wants to find it — so much so that she zaps Logan so that his crystal starts blinking, and sends him out undercover to find this Sanctury. (She also refuses to confirm that he’ll get his four years back when his mission is accomplished, and also lets it slip that no one has ever been Renewed; somehow, in her massive memory bank, the BBCV seems to have misplaced her copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People.)

So he’s not just undercover — he’s a for-real runner. He does exactly what’s sensible; he gets ahold of Jessica, trying to find out how to get to Sanctuary. But Francis notices that Logan’s acting out of the ordinary, and starts following him…

A scene from Dentist 3: In Space.

I could try to take you through the entire movie, but it’s a full two hours (rent it yourself!), and much of what happens is episodic in character. We get introduced, for example, to the Love Shop, which is probably the least alluring orgy of all time; we meet a mad robot (note to all concerned: since 2001, the idea of an insane computer that actually laughs maniacally has really lost its luster), and eventually we do get outside, discovering that the eco-system has rebuilt itself but that there’s no one to enjoy it, except a very lonely Peter Ustinov (giving the best performance of the movie) and his thousand and one cats.

Now, so far as I’ve told you, it sounds like a pretty good movie, if none too original. And I certainly don’t want you to leave here without getting a sense of the silliness involved, so let’s get right to that, beginning with the initial premise:

In the first place, WHO WOULD DESIGN A SOCIETY LIKE THIS? I mean, we’ve got an emclosed civilization which has completely dispensed with the experience and wisdom of age. There is no adulthood past age 30, and as you can imagine, that leaves everybody in a state of suspended teenagerhood — a horrifying premise at best. Nobody thought that maybe we should have a population maybe 3/5ths the headcount and let them live to age 50? Sure, this scheme preserves the human race, but it also guarantees that none of the things which we all think are so cool about humans (little things like thought, creativity, innovation, etc.) are preserved.

Hey, I’m all for improvements in vacuum cleaner technology, but having that head on top just weirds me out.

For that matter, as long as the computer is controlling everything, why not design a better method for culling the over-aged? we already know that children are test-tube created from donor sperm and ova; how about some genetic tinkering instead, with a thirty-year expiry date? No muss, no fuss, no vague mythology or room for philosophical doubts; within two generations, it would be a completely expected part of the life cycle.

By the ending, the irrationalities of the plot have been building up so long that it’s almost foreseeable that we are given a completely stylized and arbitrary denouement; the BBCV proves, in the end, to be just the type of computer that James T. Kirk loved to debate; and in a future where they haven’t reinvented the circuit-breaker, that’s pretty disastrous.

Now, not to seem overly negative, I do have to point out that there is a moral core to the proceedings. Logan starts out as blindered regarding the ethical dilemmas of his job as any other Sandman (”I’ve never killed anyone in my life!” he protests to Jessica’s offhand remark), and then demands her help when his crystal starts flashing because “it’s different - it’s ME this time!” In the end, altruism for the other doomed inhabitants of the City motivates his actions; but this whole morality play has to be painted in such big strokes to compete with the other garish elements of the movie that it’s completely anticipated and anti-climactic.

“President Dubya announced today that proposed cutbacks in federal maintenance budgets would not affect any of our national landmarks…”

There are several good, if stilted, performances, and the movie’s obviously been an influence on later movies, even outside of tongue-in-cheek references (compare, for example, the sweeping shot establishing the domed city with the sweeping shot introducing Krypton in Superman: The Movie). But, as with most cult movies, its greatest value is in giving fodder for in-jokes and oblique references. Watch it to laugh, watch it to be adequately entertained, watch it to know what everyone else is talking about; but don’t watch it to be as impressed with the “depth” that the filmmakers were obviously aiming for.

[Unrelated sidenote that I had to stick in somewhere: yes, I did recognized the split-second uncredited bit part of Candice Rialson of Candy Stripe Nurses and Chatterbox; oddly enough, she didn't contribute to the breast total below.]

Some Notable Totables:

• body count: 35
• breasts: 14 (not bad — for PG!!)
• explosions: 32
• ominous thunderstorms: 0
• actors who’ve appeared on Star Trek:
  • Bill Couch, stunt coordinator and one of the Sandmen, was also stunt coordinator on Star Trek 2
  • Glen Wilder, another stunt coordinator and one of the runners, was also stunt coordinator on Star Trek 5
  • Johnny Haymer (an uncredited extra) played the constable in the classic episode “All Our Yesterdays”