Futureworld 1976 ***

Although the much discussed remake of Westworld has travelled a much more high-brow road, the original has a special place in pop culture, notably taking Yul Brynner’s cowboy from The Magnificent Seven and repositioning him as a terminator-style robot, bent on hunting down two tourists (Richard Benjamin and James Brolin) in the futuristic Delos theme park. This sequel expands the Delos universe to reveal a plot for taking over the world with strategically placed robots, with Peter Fonda as the journalist uncovering the conspiracy. Blythe Danner provides colourful support, and there’s a surreal dream sequence in which she imagines herself romantically stalked by Brynner’s robot. Futureworld is a sloppier proposition than the original film, but certainly has its moment of surreal charm, not least for the early CGI, quite literally in the form of the hand of Pixar exec Ed Catmull.