Soylent Green (2007, DVD)

The year is 2022, the place New York City. Overpopulation is rampant in this once-mighty metropolis, which now bursts at the seams with a staggering 40 million inhabitants. Mankind has ravaged the Earth in the name of industry, progress, and the all-hallowed economy. The soil is poisoned, the air is fouled, and nary a pristine spot remains on this overcrowded hell on Earth that is locked in perpetual summer thanks to global warming. For most, life is merely existence, and not much of an existence at that, unless you happy to be one of the few wealthy elite.

Those areas where food can still be coaxed from the ground are closely guarded, and the human diet is now composed mostly of Soylent wafers, a combination of soy beans, lentils, and other ingredients. The rarest of these, Soylent Green, is said to include algae from the sea for its great nutritional value.

As one might imagine, the Soylent Corporation holds immense power, so when one of its most prominent figures, William R. Simonson (Joseph Cotton) appears to have been murdered, it s up to Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) to get to the bottom of the matter. But when he brings books belonging to the Soylent Corporation to his curmudgeonly roommate Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson in his final role), Thorn is in for a surprise. That s because Sol, who is old enough to remember when food was real and you could actually breathe fresh air, has found that Soylent has a terrible secret.

And as Thorn leaves no stone unturned trying to discover that secret, he finds that the tables have turned and he has now become the quarry of Cotton s former bodyguard Tab Fielding (Chuck Connors). And when he finally does learn the truth, it may just be that he was better off not knowing at all.

Sound like a modern apocalyptic thriller? Although it could be, Soylent Green was actually filmed in 1973. Prescient for its day, Soylent Green touches on very sensitive topics like the greenhouse effect (mentioned by name in the film) and euthanasia. And yes, scientists were already theorizing about global warming more than 30 years ago as evidenced here.

The interesting theme might be enough to draw you in, but a good story is needed as well to make a movie really worth your time. And that s certainly here too, with the well-woven plot that keeps us guessing as to the secret of Soylent green right on up to the end. And that end is truly shocking indeed.

Although Soylent Green is long on plot, it s rather short on special effects. In many respects, Soylent Green lacks the futuristic feel of a good sci-fi thriller. To a degree, that is intentional, as director Richard Fleischer seems to be going for a gritty feel for his pessimistic anti-utopian thriller. And part of that is just that many of the gadgets we take for granted today (cell phones, PCs) that are absent in the film just had not been thought of yet. Still, football helmet clad riot police and the dreaded Scoops (garbage trucks with pay loader buckets mounted on front) are almost laughable today.

But great performances by Heston as Thorn and Robinson as Sol go a long way in making up for that. Robinson is a true casting coup as Sol, and his final scene amidst projections of idyllic depictions of how the world once was to the strains of Beethoven s Pastoral Symphony is pure movie magic. Considering he would die shortly after making the film, it is strangely eerie as well.

And of course Charlton Heston is his usual super-hero self here as the hard-nosed Thorn. Heston is perfect as the all-business realist who regards Sol with an air of disbelief, mostly because he s never known any of the things Sol misses so dearly. And Heston is up to the task of making Thorn a believable character indeed.

Soylent Green may be slightly dated, but it s still a classic and perhaps more relevant today than it was 34 years ago. Well worth a few hours of your time.

Want more apocalyptic action?

See the world destroyed by nuclear war and inherited by sentient apes in Planet of the Apes , also starring Charlton Heston.

A virus turns the human race into vampires, with the exception of Vincent Price, The Last Man on Earth

Mars invades the Earth in The War of the Worlds (1953) and The War of the Worlds (2005)

The end comes by global warming induced ice age in The Day After Tomorrow

And aliens infiltrate us from within in They Live