Simplified plot: A 23rd century Dirty Hell's Angel biker invades a futuristic druid pagan agrarian collective and wreaks havoc, teaching this eternal hippy clan about sex & death in the meantime. Loved it!

To quote the first line of the film: "The gun is good, the penis is evil!"

Comments, por favor?

[Edited by Tony Block on 04-04-01 at 06:35 PM]

This movie is 2 hours of my life that I want back.

If you were an eternal, it wouldn't matter!

Just 2 hours? It felt like 4 or 5 hours to me.

-Beebs

Okay, first let me say that I am a huge John Boorman fan. I consider Zardoz to be an experiment that wasn't very successful but is interesting to think about (at times) and good to laugh at also. Once you get past the 70's aspect of the film it's not that terrible. I'll have to say that the commentary did help me understand certain points but the whole tabernacle thing at the end will never completely make sense. Overall I'd rate it near the bottom of Boorman's list, right above the overly preachy Beyond Rangoon.

One of the reasons I like it is because the 70s aspect of the film make it so wacko from other sci-fi flics! The scenes were they vote with all those facial tics and hand movements are so absurd I laugh my ass off with, and at, this film. The scene too were they ostrocize Friend is totally wackkkkadoooo! "No! No! NO! NO! I will not go to the second level with you!"

cheers, Tony Block

Hi Tony: FWIW the first line is "I am Arthur Frem". However the line I would have suggested to you, for illumination sake, would have been "Is God in show business to?"

Oh, and you could do better on the synopsis by saying

Mother Natures answer to smart a** scientists is…………..

Sean Connery in a loin cloth!

I liked the film very much. Over the top, to be sure, but that's a blessing IMO. The film presents some very interesting thoughts about issues pertaining to life now and life in a supposed future (what great S.F. *should* be about).

But even better than that, the film works well as a statement of Boorman's thinking on many personal subjects. So I found myself, to my very great surprise, promoting "Zardoz" to one of the very few films ever made that I would call art

Good Job John.

Oh and the commentary story about Connery splitting the difference is priceless.

For my ever-compelling thoughts:

http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?id=1770

"...one of the very few films ever made that I would call art"

...that weird, swishing sound you hear in the background is a slew of dead filmmakers (e.g. John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, David Lean, Marcel Carné, Akira Kurosawa, Victor Seastrom, G.W. Pabst, Andrei Tarkovsky, Satyajit Ray, Federico Fellini et al.) spinning in their graves...

. . .

You do me too much honor Hendrik.

Nothing I could say could spin those dudes. This is the wrong place for a film/art discussion but FWIW I will mention that Kubrick and Scorsese are on my side.

So nawh, nawh.

Oh and I enjoyed your review Ctyner