ZARDOZ (1974)
Article 2293 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 7-5-2007
Posting Date: 11-22-2007
Directed by John Boorman
Featuring Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, Sara Kestelman

In the future, a savage infiltrates a society of immortals in an attempt to find a way for his fellow savages to break through the barrier.

This is the type of movie where I love to go to IMDB and check the movie’s user ratings. Generally, if you discard the top and bottom ratings (this eliminates that large group of people who give extreme good and bad ratings to everything), you get the classic bell curve, with the peak pointing to a general critical consensus of the movie. Though the bell curve is there for this one (and it peaks somewhere between six and seven), the number of votes for each level of the rating scale is quite high, which means that this movie gets a large variety of reactions from those that view it. I fully expected this; it’s one of those movies that could elicit a different reaction from me each time I see it.

As for me, I just don’t know how I feel about this movie. It’s nowhere near as bad as some of the reviews I’ve read would lead me to believe, but it’s no classic either. At heart, I think the movie is unnecessarily arty and self-indulgent; the basic premise of the movie (that immortality may well prove to be a painful burden rather than a boon) actually seems simple enough that I don’t think it required this level of artiness. Yet, some of those arty scenes are quite compelling, and I suspect that the movie just wouldn’t be the same without them. So, in short, I don’t know. To anyone who is curious about this one, I’d say to give it a shot; it just may be the right movie for you. You could also hate it. Or you could hate it one moment and love it the next. It’s just one of those types of movies.