The greenhouse effect has ravaged Earth’s climate, leaving the world eternally hot and crops unable to grow in the year 2022. People survive on Soylent Green crackers manufactured from plankton, while a population explosion has crammed 40 million people into New York City. The poor and downtrodden sleep on staircases and in basements, while the wealthy live in luxury apartments and eat real food, including beef. NYPD Homicide Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston, Planet of the Apes) investigates the murder of a rich man in a secure skyscraper. Police researcher Solomon Roth (Edward G. Robinson, Little Caesar) picks through the clues to uncover a motive for the killing. The cast also includes Leigh Taylor-Young (Jagged Edge), Chuck Connors (Old Yeller), Joseph Cotten (Citizen Kane), and Brock Peters (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home).
What We Thought:
Soylent Green is a movie that even if you haven’t seen it before, at this point in time, you most likely know the surprise ending. Well it turns out, I hadn’t seen the movie before despite thinking I had. It’s a dystopian sci-fi flick with a fun performance from Charlton Heston and wasn’t too far off from its predictive future.
In 2022, the Earth, especially in its big cities, has been destroyed by over population, war, lack of resources and everything else. The rich are especially rich. The poor are especially poor. Heston plays a detective who investigates murders. A rich man has been killed in his apartment and Heston immediately knows it wasn’t a robbery turned homicide, it was an assassination. As he digs deeper into the truth, he finds out the awful secret that The Soylent Corporation is keeping. Soylent Green is…well I won’t spoil it if you don’t know.
I had always thought I had seen the film before. If I had it wasn’t the whole movie so I’m glad this came my way. It’s a realistic sci-fi story that seems ahead of its time. We aren’t as devastated as they predicted, but it still feels fresh and relevant. The movie has a great dystopian feel to it and the acting is solid. Along with Heston, Edward G. Robinson, Chuck Connors and more star.
The movie looks great in 4K. It has a Denis Villeneuve aesthetic to it with its coloring and hazy city scape. The rich folk apartments have a brighter color scheme to show how much more superior they are to those beneath them. It has a good score and science fiction sound effects.
Soylent Green is a film that gets a lot of things right yet isn’t quite as beloved as other movies in its era and genre. The bonus features has a neat feature looking at science fiction before and up to that time period. I knew the twist, but even knowing, it’s still a solid first time watch. Heston could do a character like this in his sleep, but he brings just enough humanity to the detective that you root for him despite taking things from crime scenes. If you are a fan of the film then the new 4K release is…
RECOMMENDED!
Special features include a 4K (2160p) UHD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible); original lossless mono audio; optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing; an archive audio commentary with director Richard Fleischer and star Leigh Taylor-Young; a brand new audio commentary; archive on-stage interviews with Charlton Heston and Richard Fleischer at the BFI; A Look at the World of Soylent Green; MGM’s Tribute to Edward G. Robinson‘s 101st Film; the theatrical trailer; image galleries; and a collectors’ booklet.
The Nerds Templar 