Customer Reviews

Harrison Bergeron [VHS]

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Bruce Pittman's intelligent and modest TV adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's short story is a wonderful and much underappreciated piece of high sci-fi. Films of this kind are rarely made, simply because there's not much potential audience for low-budget science fiction - most people are in sci-fi mainly for special effects and impressive battles. Harrison Bergeron, though, is one of those few adaptations made of real philosophical sci-fi, the kind that creates an image of the future as a reflection of our own reality. And it succeeds quite well in delivering its message, and for what it is it could be enjoyed by almost everyone - though I doubt it could have done well in the theaters.

The film revolves around two wonderful lead actors - one is Sean Astin, who recently gained success and fame as Sam Gamgee in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy. The other is the wonderful British actor Christopher Plummer, remembered by sci-fi buffs as the Klingon General Chang from Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country. Brilliant comedian Eugene Levy gives an eerily funny performance as the President. The story is of a future America in which equality is achieved by discouraging exceptional talent or intelligence and creating forced mediocrity. Harrison (Sean Astin) is one of the exceptional few whose intelligence surfaces despite the government's best efforts and is therefore given the chance to work for the government. There he discovers the timeless Orwellian truth of Fascist regimes - all are equal, but some are more equal than others. Astin's interplay with Clummer (the classic `Big Brother') is wonderful, and the ending is beautiful. The script does an excellent job of expanding Vonnegut's very short story into a 100 minute film.

Harrison Bergeron is well worth watching - if you can get your hands on it. As far as I know there isn't a DVD available, but the VHS can be ordered on Amazon and the movie plays occasionally on television. If you're interested in science fiction literature of authors like Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, or Isaac Asimov, this wonderful little think-piece is a good purchase.

I don't usually get really emotional about movies, but this is my exception. Nothing has ever inspired me so much to fearlessly be myself and stand up for what I believe in the way this movie has. I have also read the short story, and, true, to some people's dismay, there are not many similarites, but if you don't like it I suggest you take it up with Mr. Vonnegut himself, who had a hand in producing it. As I've said, movie's don't usually affect me, but as soon as this one was over I turned my television off and just sobbed. This is a very provocative look at how sad our culture really is and how much worse it could become if we simply sit on our couches and refuse to stop it. Watch this movie.

All apologies to Kurt Vonnegut fans, I never liked him. Read 4 or 5 of his books and found him only annoying. Never read the story this film was based on and probably never will. Could care less how faithful the film is to the short story.

Having cleared the air on that. This is an AMAZING film. Set 50 years from now it is hysterical, dark and remarkably prescient of what has already come to pass since the original story was written. Even if Vonnegut's work only inspired the screenplay I must admit he really is the genius he's been touted as for the last 30 years. Can't believe the original story was written in 1961.

For plot details see the editorial reviews. If you like Kubrick, Blade Runner, the Coen Brothers, you will love this film and be glad you saw it. If you don't know what I'm talking about go watch Titanic or the Matrix. Have a beer, have a six pack or two,.... My only regret is I wasted the money renting it when for a few bucks more I could have bought it.

One thing, the president was a complete and utter moron. That could never happen now... could it?

This film is a brilliant piece of satire in that it is not about the future, as it claims, or the past, which at first glance it appears. It is in reality a strikingly profound, although simple, parody of the present. Or of human nature. When I finished watching this intellegent movie, I was disturbed. But what troubles me is that I don't know whether it's disturbing because it's dark fantasy, or because it's the horrid truth and it's not a fictional story at all. If you like dark, anti-establishment films like 1984 and A Clockwork Orange, you might like this, although it's a little lighter.

This is a funny dark sci-fi comedy based on Kurt Vonnegut's short story, an anti-communist allegory exploring the ultimate result of a communist revolution in America. The new subjects are required to submit to various handicaps to make them all "equal," including bands to stupify their brains, leg weights, etc. Of course it turns out it's all enforced by an elite class led by Christopher Plummer (The Sound Of Music, Star Trek VI The Undiscovered Country).

As I recall the short story, it didn't go nearly as far as the movie, which is even more thought provoking and humorous. Sean Astin ("24," The Lord Of The Rings, Toy Soldiers) plays a citizen who's brain band doesn't seem to keep him dumb enough, so he's scheduled for surgery, which turns out to be a ploy to recruit him.

Astin's father, John Astin (The Addams Family), has a bit part; Eugene Levy (Cheaper By The Dozen 2, American Pie) is very funny as the ostensible President of the U.S.A.; his former SCTV co-star Andrea Martin also has a small part, as does Hayden Christensen (Anekin Skywalker of Star Wars).

A cautionary tale of political-correctness taken to its logical extreme in a leftist dystopia that enforces "equality" and no one is permitted the freedom of achievement or failure, since everyone is made to have the same ability ---whether they like it or not. Mediocrity and standardization are enforced on citizens by a totalitarian socialist government of well-meaning know-better elites (who are of course exempt from their own rules) until one young man rebels and threatens their order. In the vein of Orwell's "1984" or Animal Farm, this is a classic allegory for left-wing authoritarian hyprocrisy and supression of the individual's identity in favor of the "group."

The movie takes the basic idea of the story (which is under 4 pages long), and builds it into a full-length movie. I respectfully disagree with the viewer who claimed that the movie was bad because it deviated from the story; I thought this movie was better than the printed version, but the film version of Slaughterhouse Five was *terrible* compared to the book.

This movie ought to be required viewing (in a G-to-PG editted form) in all of the schools, starting with the very young children. They *made* us watch footage of the holocaust in 6th grade, dead bodies, nearly dead bodies, and everything; why can't we also let kids see footage of the 'intellectual holocaust'?

If people could realize what they are truly asking for, it might put a stop to all this nonsense, or at least allow us to determine who lacks the intelligence to participate in public policy.

People who continue to espouse the viewpoint that everyone should be equal in all respects ought to be lined up and shot like the criminals they are.

This was a great movie that dealt with the classic debate of how to achieve human equality and human happiness. The setting is a world in the near future where envy and inequality have been removed from American society by making citizens equally unskilled and unintelligent through technology, thus making everyone equal and giving no one any reason to be jealous of anyone else. The plot thickens as this philosophy is challenged.

This has got to be one of the best Science Fiction Dramas I've ever seen. It touches the roots and ideas of our own society.

i am 14, and i goto Indian Trail Middle School in Illinois, we watched this movie in a Language Arts class, but a Teacher Edited copy, it was a great movie, no matter how you think the acting was, the movie wasnt made for the acting, it was made to get a point out. i recomend buying it, i am planning on it. its very good. even though we got a shortend version of it, and it would cut off, becuz it wuz edited, it still sunk through my head, and i am glad i watched it. see the movie yourself, andif your not a movie critic, you will get the strong meaning to the movie.

This production never received the recognition it deserves, perhaps because it is a mirror to politicians, leaders. and the movie industry.

Harrison Bergeron shows us a world in which we see social convention (currently called "political correctness") taken to its final extreme, where the Government shuts down the brains of smarter individuals in order to insure that no one feels bad about being below normal. Everyone is reduced to average stupidity.

The film is very well done, with examples again and again of why such a "solution" is something no sane person would wish.

Perhaps Harrison Bergeron should be required viewing in high school government classes, to open students' minds as to the proper role of government.

At any rate, watch this movie for an experience that will broaden your mind, as you see smart young kids sneaking into what might be called "intelligence brothels," where they go in to have free speech and the free exchange of ideas. It's a memorable experience.