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Yeah. He’s the vacation partner who would complain the whole way up the Eiffel Tower that Pokemon Go wasn’t working.

Our boys finally gets into the spirit of things when they’re confronted by the town heavy, known only as the Gunslinger (Yul Brynner). Pete makes short work of him, apparently unaffected by the realistic blood and gore. Of course, you and I know it doesn’t take guts to fight when you know you can’t lose, but Pete is still learning. Of course this is allegory, and on many levels. Do we take technology for granted? Possibly. Have we become a society of pleasure seeking sensory addicts?

Who cares? I just bought an Oculus Rift and a 12-pack of Mountain Dew. These were pertinent questions in 1973, and they’re even more so now. The biggest difference is that back then, this movie had not already been made a hundred times. If this was the first time I’d seen it, I might be impressed. But from a storytelling standpoint, the seams really show. I can forgive sub-par set design and visual effects in a film this old. What I can’t accept is a story that raises all sorts of interesting philosophical questions and then makes little effort to explore them.

Crichton himself wrote and directed Westworld, and therefore the story contains his hallmark touches. There’s a fascination and familiarity with technology, coupled with an almost paranoid suspicion of closed technological ecosystems. Great, but the first half of the movie is an underwhelming slog. It’s full of interesting visual touches and concepts, but it’s also badly weighed down by bad dialog and clumsy exposition.

There are fly on the wall sessions with the scientists who run the park. Delos is a technological marvel; a Bond villain’s lair come to life. It’s a self contained, entirely foolproof system where everything is closely monitored and controlled. It’s kind of a Hunger Games meets Epcot situation, plus paying customers and minus the child-murdering. The place is conspicuously run with one eye on customer safety, and one eye on making a profit. Anybody want to guess what ends up being the central conflict of the second act?

Meanwhile, John and Pete would very much like for us to know that you can tell robots from humans because they haven’t perfected the hands yet. The simulation is full of failsafes designed to keep visitors safe, no matter how stupid and clumsy they are. “Nothing can go wrong,” drones the PA as visitors arrive. That seem like an unnecessary assurance, as well as further proof someone needs to fire that intern.

These are all things we need to know, so I don’t fault the film for going through its paces. The problem is that when the exposition feels forced, the drama begins to feel artificial. It’s like when you blow up a picture too far and it turns into pixels. It’s the same story template Crichton would later use for many stories, most notably Jurassic Park - another dry, vaguely scientific procedural that is also punctuated by confusing chase scenes. This made Crichton's novels easy to read, but on screen it looks like two hours of video game cutscenes, linked by the ironic theme that technology can never replace friendship.

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