The Terminal Man

"I was asleep. Did anything happen?" A character says this at one point but it serves as a good enough review. Shot like an art film, heavy on the introduction, and with action disconnected from any discernible concept except some hints in airy dialogue, this movie is a sleeper... meaning you can sleep through it. Team Crichton had not yet figured out how to translate concept into drama, even though in ten years they would be making the epic "Runaway."

The film has a very good cast and a stark, modernist aesthetic, but it's also glacially paced and Segal's motives in the second half are incredibly opaque. It feels like it's supposed to be some kind of comment on the follies of mind control ... only it's a stretch to see this procedure in this light and it really only fails to work because Segal deliberately sabotages any attempt to fix the problem.

I can see where The Terminator and Silence of the Lambs took from this movie! Though slow paced, it had a very sleek look and was compelling throughout. I didn't take my eyes off the screen. Excellent 1970s sci-fi!

Michael Crichton books tend to be fairly technical, and getting that to play on screen while still making an engaging movie is a fine balance that more often than not - with a couple of notable exceptions - has been difficult for filmmakers. Robert Wise did it pretty effectively with The Andromeda Strain. This one, another early book and adaptation, comes off pretty much as sterile as an operating theater. The science is there, but it lacks a pulse.

Not bad.

Bleak 70s sci-fi based on a Michael Crichton novel should be a recipe for success, but somehow this hits all the wrong notes. A real disappointment.

Paranoid psychotic dude getting seizures gets experimental operation that goes wrong so you watch him go paranoid psychotic and seize EVEN MORE

Shot and acted in a very clinical way that kills most of the potential drama

Tries a little too hard in the style department, but still effective.