Dead Planet

In the future, overpopulation has become such an issue that those in authority take some pretty drastic steps. Any couple that refuses to get with the program and stop having kids will be punished with public execution. Instead, people have to make do with dolls that prove to be highly inadequate replacement for flesh & blood children. Russ and Carol McNeil (Oliver Reed and Geraldine Chaplin) decide to defy the law and do their best to raise a child in secret. Of course, it's only a matter of time before they're found out. Their neighbours & friends the Bordens (Don Gordon and Diane Cilento) learn their secret and their desire to be a part of this childs' life only serves to permanently scar the friendship.

While obviously done on a low budget, this is dealt with fairly successfully by having the outside world in this future be overcome by smog, forcing people to often wear masks. This gives this modest, reasonably entertaining production a certain degree of atmosphere. However, the film is never quite as involving as one would like. It's a little too slow and a little too static. It does succeed at being somewhat disturbing at times: first, whenever the authorities bring around their special killing domes, and second, when Russ goes to the library to learn what he can about premature birth, raising the suspicions of those in charge and leading to his being tortured.

Filmed on location in Denmark, "Z.P.G." gets by mostly on the performances of its four principal actors. Reed is commanding with his typical whispery delivery, and Chaplin is endearing as the young woman wanting a human child more than anything. The lovely Cilento and the under-rated Gordon are equally fine as the envious friends.

There is a sombre quality to the whole thing yet by the conclusion it does create a sense of hope and peace. With a bit more style and energy, this really could have been something special. As it is, it's good, if not great, and it does have a place among genre films of the time that dealt with the idea of dystopian futures.

Six out of 10.

ZERO POPULATION GROWTH is a very cool little, subtle/in-your-face, sci-fi movie from 1972. It's literally LOGAN'S RUN meets CHILDREN OF MEN but staring Oliver Reed (and released in theaters before either film). I had 8 beers before I watched this and I suggest you do too (and I'm sure Oliver Reed had at least that before the cameras rolled so when in Rome...). Anywho ZPG is one of those "utopian future but utopia is actually totally f'd up" movies where most of the inhabitants are like "hey, I'd complain, but nobody would listen" but one guy manages to step up and fight the power. I love that theme so if you're into that kind of thing too then you should absolutely check this movie out. Sure, the beer helped, but I sort of loved this movie.

ZPG played recently on the Science Fiction channel, and I found it dull. Only the fourth PLANET OF THE APES film, and THE OMEGA MAN, could compare to this lame mid-70's sci-fi (except for maybe LOGAN'S RUN). Yes, I dare to say it, all those films were pretty lame, but ZPG is the leader of the pack.

Oliver Reed is living in a society where the government controls everything, especially reproduction. He and his woman have a child, and they have to conceil it. Well, that's the plot, and it goes on and on like that. I could've cared less, honestly, because the film lacks dramatic thrust. Perhaps I didn't allow myself to become as emotionally attached to this film as some people may, but I found it thought-provoking only in the sense that I was think,'When is this going to end?'

Don't get me wrong, I respect the sentiment behind the story. And the movie is professionally mounted, the costumes and sets are wonderfully drab. But, somehow I just couldn't get into the spirit of this cynical view of what our future holds. BLADE RUNNER it isn't.

But, ZPG is not bad exactly. It is just exceptionally mediocre.

Dystopian population control film with no finesse, just limping across a film's run-time on only 40 minutes of gas. One of the more disappointing things I found in this film is that it really asks no questions. The world government has declared a goal of zero population growth because all the animals and most of the plants are extinct. They claim they can no longer support the human population with the remaining resources. Is that true? No one questions this, that maybe leadership is hoarding those resources for themselves and living large, everyone just agrees that the population is too large and more births would lead to starvation. If so - why do we care about the protagonists and their decision to have a child? In fact, why bring a child into a joyless smog-filled concrete nightmare after you've effectively killed the planet and all other life on it? They don't have an answer, and they had plenty of time to focus on it, making it seem like the decision to "have" a baby was just an act of selfish amusement (and everyone wants in on that amusement).

If you are a fan of Logan's Run this film is an interesting must see since it plays as a decent prequel (story wise) to that better known sci-fi film. Since LR was made after ZPG I suppose one should say LR plays like a sequel to ZPG. ZPG takes place in an over-populated future so polluted that people wear gas masks outside (we eventually find out it is war related), animals are found only in a museum (stuffed), and food is found only in paste form. The edict: no more babies (or face death), so those born to already pregnant women have an invisible BE (Before Edict) scanned onto their foreheads. In Logan's Run, much later in the future, babies have small crystals placed in their palms that light when the human turns 30. In ZPG we are introduced to a couple (Oliver Reed and Geraldine Chaplin) who work and live as a 1971 typical swinging couple exhibit in the museum along with another couple (best friends/neighbors). When the couple decides to have a baby anyway they are forced to share it with their neighbors or face certain death. There is a scene where Oliver Reed is checking out premature births in a futuristic library very reminiscent of the scene in Logan's Run where Logan researches Sanctuary. Both films deal with escaping the restrictions of a society so messed up it restricts life itself. Eventually the film becomes an escape picture much like Logan's Run. I can't help but think the baby grows up to be the Peter Ustinov character in Logan's Run. Just a thought.