***SPOILER ALERT*** (WARNING!) This is yet another one of these 1970's fantasies that hasn't stood the test of time -- any time. I don't remember the "wildly popular novel" that is supposed to have inspired it (though now that I think of it, maybe I just DID see it peeking out of some kid's school book bag here or there, back in the day, and in paperback, of course), but the movie itself suffers from a surfeit of mid-budget 1970's production values (and even special effects miniatures that look like a 1959 World's Fair exhibit - and after a while, I could never see one of those monorail trains without expecting to hear the jingle of the trolley music from MR. ROGERS' NEIGHBORHOOD) and a look and feel of that shag carpeting and pastel polyester style that seemed too much even then and not surprisingly vanished after only a few years. Farah Fawcett (credited as Farah Fawcett-Majors, in the middle of her year-long non-marriage to Lee Majors, no less) and her trademark billowing cloud of hair appearing here as the World's Absolute Dumbest Dirty Blonde Ever (in her character's case, it was evidently her IQ that was not allowed to exceed 30), predictably could not do anything but contribute to these feelings, and even the appearance of Special Guest Stars like Roscoe Lee Brown and no less a luminary than SIR Peter Ustinov (the only time I ever heard him with a remarkably uninteresting flat American accent, however else he characteristically strove to ham this up) were insufficient to effect anything like a meaningful save. The whole effort seems to be nothing more than an especially mechanical, consciously formulaic, paint-by-numbers cobbling together of by-then shopworn sci-fi movie cliches that should have seemed to the filmmakers well past their best-by date even in 1976. Even then this film garnered the reputation of being especially only just so-so.
The story starts with the obligatory purportedly casual but necessarily exposition-packed conversation intended to inform you that you are Not In Kansas Anymore, Toto (which is thus supposed to engage you by intriguing you, but is so obviously obligatory that it doesn't), and then proceeds on to a rousing round of Can-You-Name-That-Shooting-Location-(Hey-Wait-I-Was-There-Three-Summers-Ago-On-Vacation-And-Even-Bought-These-Sneakers-At-That-Shopping-Mall). The sci-fi cliche festival continues apace from there, whether it is that "There Is No Renewal!" (and if that were not enough, even, "There Is No Sanctuary!", a la "Soylent Green is made of People!", only not just once but TWICE, as if you missed it the first time), or having the whole thing end with the destruction of the oppressive antagonist regime in a chain reaction of explosions starting from deep in the Secret Control Center Of The Evil Bad Guys (a la Bond, practically any, JAMES Bond, movie) triggered entirely inexplicably by the main character causing the Controlling Computer ("I can't do that, Dave", i.e., 2001) to melt down by tormenting its subroutines with The Truth ("I . . . am . . . Landru . . . Sterilize . . . STERILIZE!" (You can say Captain James T. Kirk, Federation starship ENTERPRISE, can't you? Circa 1966-69? Sure you can . . . and on at least FOUR different occasions before this movie was even a gleam in these writers' eyes). There is even a sequence depicting the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in ruins that blatantly channels the denouement of PLANET OF THE APES, 1968 (Ohhh Myyyy Godddddddd!!!), complete with portrayal of a house chamber in the Capitol building filled with deteriorating portraits and books (surely there would be somebody in the audience who hadn't seen ZARDOZ, released in 1974).
The bottom line is that movies are about stimulating a willing sense of disbelief, and I never found this one doing so. It reminds me of, lacking a budget or anything like expertize, some of the work-arounds we used to attempt in 8th grade summer school film class in San Diego (I still remember the lengths we went to to get a portable classroom building at at a junior high school to look like the train station in Dodge City in the Old West). Whatever they were trying to do (and in some spots that was not all that obvious), all too often and just in general it just didn't work. Whatever its thematic aspirations (or pretensions, for that matter), it is no FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966). (It is not intended to be a parody, so it is no BARBARELLA, 1968, either.) The only thing I really appreciated on a recent screening at the advanced age I now find myself approaching all too rapidly were the filmy costumes which adorned (except when they didn't quite, or even had to be removed altogether once or twice for some reason involving no objective logic whatsoever in regard to the plot, at least) the ample quantity of comely female extras (as well as the leading lady when she first appears), and which in yet one more exhibition of true short-lived 1970's style, made so much of the apparent proposition that in the year 2274, not only have the human race forgotten there could be such a thing as old people, they have also forgotten there could be such a thing as the manufacture and use of the bra.
(P.S. Yes, I realize that some might think that in a world where no one survives past age 30, the continued proliferation of bras would not be inherently necessary in any case. My own experience, however, has been that such a thought would be a mere middle-aged misapprehension. My memory is holding up much better than my eyesight (among other things). Also, be sure to read the review of IMDb member "ace-150", entitled "Euthanize Me Now". It made me LOL.)
The story starts with the obligatory purportedly casual but necessarily exposition-packed conversation intended to inform you that you are Not In Kansas Anymore, Toto (which is thus supposed to engage you by intriguing you, but is so obviously obligatory that it doesn't), and then proceeds on to a rousing round of Can-You-Name-That-Shooting-Location-(Hey-Wait-I-Was-There-Three-Summers-Ago-On-Vacation-And-Even-Bought-These-Sneakers-At-That-Shopping-Mall). The sci-fi cliche festival continues apace from there, whether it is that "There Is No Renewal!" (and if that were not enough, even, "There Is No Sanctuary!", a la "Soylent Green is made of People!", only not just once but TWICE, as if you missed it the first time), or having the whole thing end with the destruction of the oppressive antagonist regime in a chain reaction of explosions starting from deep in the Secret Control Center Of The Evil Bad Guys (a la Bond, practically any, JAMES Bond, movie) triggered entirely inexplicably by the main character causing the Controlling Computer ("I can't do that, Dave", i.e., 2001) to melt down by tormenting its subroutines with The Truth ("I . . . am . . . Landru . . . Sterilize . . . STERILIZE!" (You can say Captain James T. Kirk, Federation starship ENTERPRISE, can't you? Circa 1966-69? Sure you can . . . and on at least FOUR different occasions before this movie was even a gleam in these writers' eyes). There is even a sequence depicting the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in ruins that blatantly channels the denouement of PLANET OF THE APES, 1968 (Ohhh Myyyy Godddddddd!!!), complete with portrayal of a house chamber in the Capitol building filled with deteriorating portraits and books (surely there would be somebody in the audience who hadn't seen ZARDOZ, released in 1974).
The bottom line is that movies are about stimulating a willing sense of disbelief, and I never found this one doing so. It reminds me of, lacking a budget or anything like expertize, some of the work-arounds we used to attempt in 8th grade summer school film class in San Diego (I still remember the lengths we went to to get a portable classroom building at at a junior high school to look like the train station in Dodge City in the Old West). Whatever they were trying to do (and in some spots that was not all that obvious), all too often and just in general it just didn't work. Whatever its thematic aspirations (or pretensions, for that matter), it is no FAHRENHEIT 451 (1966). (It is not intended to be a parody, so it is no BARBARELLA, 1968, either.) The only thing I really appreciated on a recent screening at the advanced age I now find myself approaching all too rapidly were the filmy costumes which adorned (except when they didn't quite, or even had to be removed altogether once or twice for some reason involving no objective logic whatsoever in regard to the plot, at least) the ample quantity of comely female extras (as well as the leading lady when she first appears), and which in yet one more exhibition of true short-lived 1970's style, made so much of the apparent proposition that in the year 2274, not only have the human race forgotten there could be such a thing as old people, they have also forgotten there could be such a thing as the manufacture and use of the bra.
(P.S. Yes, I realize that some might think that in a world where no one survives past age 30, the continued proliferation of bras would not be inherently necessary in any case. My own experience, however, has been that such a thought would be a mere middle-aged misapprehension. My memory is holding up much better than my eyesight (among other things). Also, be sure to read the review of IMDb member "ace-150", entitled "Euthanize Me Now". It made me LOL.)