Customer Reviews

Soylent Green

5 star:		(50)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In 2022 the population's growth may reach eight billions people So the awful warning call given by Aldous Huxley ( A new visit for a brave new world) , George Orwell (Animal's farm or 1984) will suppose several restrictions about the free circulation vehicles and also an estimated amount of liters of water by each one of us.
This film is a very clever scifi story about a overcrowded world, where the reduced free spaces of the world we know actually , may be more narrow.
The story holds a deep reflection about the effects of a claustrophobic world, the lack of certain benefits you assumed almost naturally till now.
This movie shows us about a reality not so far. This work was the last appearance of Edward G. Robinson; thanks to Heston efforts for including him in that role. The last sequence in which you watch the ancient world like it was; it depicts a bucolic landscape; and the Pastoral Symphony works out perfectly with this goal. You may feel it something tearful, but the remarkable point is the hidden message. Still we are on time to avoid it. But who'll take this dangerous flag?
This film was released just one year after since Roma's club establihment, in 1972. In that age I had the opportunity of reading that fundamental work of Barry Commoner titled The circle that it closes.Watch for this one. Because with these raising reflections about the enviroment concern around the world made it possible, by instance, avoid to throw several hazardous weapons over Vietnam, whose direct and collateral effects had not studied enough. Chernobyl was just only fourteen years before and Long island twelve years.
Only with this long introduction you'll be capable of understand why this film,together with Farenheit 451, Capricorn one, The Omega man, Zardoz, The planet of the apes , 2001 and Solaris were made between 1967 and 1972. We are taking about movies of film makers so distant in style and view directorial as Kubrick , Tarkovski, Truffaut, Schafner ,Hyams and Boorman, but surrounded by that cloudy atmosphere who involved the world in those days.
A must for you to watch. It will let you thinking for a long, long time.

This is one of those bleak future movies where there is a finite amount of resources and an unbalanced distribution of them. The one good point is that food processing as been perfected to the point that we get tasty blocs of colored nutrients. The best one, publicized as being made from plankton Soylent Green.

Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) is tasked with investigating a homicide in a ritzy section of town. During the investigation he, with the help of his friend Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson,) discovers a dirty little secret.

Shocking for the time of the movie release. Nowadays we would take it in our stride. Still worth watching.

I enjoyed this movie. Being a big fan of Logan's Run and Rollerball, I like my 70's sci-fi. This is a very grim look at the future. You can tell that it is dated and probably this was the mentality people had of the future in the 70's. Some of these special effects (in fact most) look cheesy and weak by today's standards, but I think that a lack of special effects somehow put more emphasis on the story and character development. It was nice to see Chuck Heston and Edward G. Robinson together. They worked well together in the ten commandments. At times, I get in the mood to watch some old sci-fi, and this with the Omega Man makes a good double feature.

En 1973 ce film m'avait beaucoup impressionné étant un film de projection en 2022 encore aujourd'hui les carences planétaires démontré dans le film
son d'actualité eau,nourriture,animaux quel visionnaire!où es ce le hasard!
36 ans plus tard je l'ai encore apprécié.

I just rediscovered this classic movie on DVD recently. It is an extraordinary and haunting film with a powerful message. The performance by Edward G. Robinson is moving, and it's almost obligatory to say that Charles Heston chews up the scenery (as usual).

Some of the reviewers here have bemoaned the fact that there are so many 70s-type vehicles in the world of Soylent Green, which detracts from its setting in the year 2022. Nothing could be further from the truth. I remember watching this film in 1973 and was very conscious of that fact that it was projecting what NYC might look like 49 years from then. Why so? Read on.

Not to state the obvious, but this is a film about a dystopian future. The planet is overpopulated and running out of resources. All of the major oil fields on earth have passed peak production (our experts tell us that the last major fields in Saudi Arabia and Iraq will reach peak production in just a few years from now). Most of the automobiles are old and broken down. Infrastructure is decaying. Even in 2004, here and now, you can see this process beginning. In many parts of the city where I live, people are driving vehicles manufactured from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Things are run down. People are working harder and making less money. Richard Fleischer's vision of the future is brilliant and spot on.

So what about the cheesy 70s background music, you say? All I can say is that by 2022 there might very well be a 70s renaissance, because by then people will have realized how good things were in the 1970s. Look at us in 2004, we're still playing Beatles music, and it is quite likely that the music industry will dramatically change or won't even exist by 2022.

And finally, to underscore the scope and brilliance of this film, just do some investigative research into today's Monsanto Corporation and see if you can't find an overwhelming parallel with the Soylent Corporation depicted in the film, whose aim was to control the world's food supply.

And who knows, by the year 2022, food processing and Chicken McNuggets will be so pervasive that NOBODY will know where their food really comes from. What a chilling thought.

I wish that every person on this planet owned this DVD. It's not just a great Heston film, or a brilliant science fiction thriller, it's an important film for all of mankind...because it's still not too late.

p.s. the amazing quality and sharpness of the images in this film are astounding. This is the film that I saw in 1973. All other versions have been muddy and dark. Another outstanding transfer!!

This is one of those bleak future movies where there is a finite amount of resources and an unbalanced distribution of them. The one good point is that food processing as been perfected to the point that we get tasty blocs of colored nutrients. The best one, publicized as being made from plankton Soylent Green.

Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) is tasked with investigating a homicide in a ritzy section of town. During the investigation he, with the help of his friend Sol Roth, discovers a dirty little secret.

Shocking for the time of the movie release. Nowadays we would take it in our stride. Still worth watching.

this film is a slow paced thriller that stars good ol Charlton Heston, who happens to be a Great actor I must add. The film's ending is the real high point here if you haven't seen it. For anyone who has, I feel it is worth one viewing but not much more than that.

'Soylent Green' is a weak science fiction film. It made some good points like science fiction normally does, but I was not impressed by it at all. I guess I'm just not a Charlton Heston fan. It takes too much time to build up, and then the movie just kind of ends quickly.

This movie really does look like it was made in the early 70's, and both the sets and the acting needed a much bigger budget and a better script to be effective, but it is not.

In his earlier film, The Omega Man, Charlton Heston finds himelf alone against a world depopulated by biological warfare, with only a handful of children survivors and the creepy, plague-deranged Family to keep him company. Whereas that film explores the ramifications of massive depopulation, Soylent tackles the opposite question: what happens if there are too many people? The two films focus almost entirely on the urban, city-street setting, and both of Heston's characters are very similar. I enjoyed Soylent more, if only because I think the dramatism was better executed and the 70's kitsch was not nearly as bothersome. Politically, Soylent is obviously a product of the Zero Population Growth movement, which is itself dedicated to ubiquitous birth control and rationing of virtually every resource known to the modern world. Thankfully the spooky predictions of the 70's seem about as realistic in 2004 as Orwell's 1984 was in the real 1984. But as a mental experiment, Soylent is very engaging. Especially the plight of Sol Roth, portrayed by a nicely aged Edward G. Robinson. In many ways I was attracted to and empathized with Sol more than heston, as Sol is obviously a creature of our time stranded in the horrible future of Heston's Detective Thorn. Sol's ultimate demise is a heartbreaking scene, at once glorifying humanity and nature, while also damning a society which views people as little more than carbon compounds, to be recycled and consumed again and again. As the film's most famous line tells us, the secret of Soylent green is no secret at all. The really interesting stuff is in the characters and how each responds to this would-be dystopia of the not-too-distant future. Put together with the previously mentioned Omega Man, and Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green is a must for students of celluloid science fiction; especially Heston fans.