Michael Crichton had some interesting ideas, both as a writer and a director. Some of the ideas worked out incredibly well, such as The Andromeda Strain or The Great Train Robbery. But one movie where he only wrote the original story, and wasn't so much involved with the making of the actual film, is The Terminal Man. Still, the last time it came up on TCM and I saw the synopsis, it sounded interesting, so I recorded it to watch at a later date.
The movie begins with a pre-credits sequence of a couple of doctors looking at pictures of a man named Benson (George Segal). These pictures were all taken before the "accident" and "incidents", which are alluded to but not fully explained until later. Then we get the credits, set against an eye looking through a door eyehole, obviously spying on someone and suggesting a dystopian panopticon. Once that's over, we see Benson being brought into a hospital, with a couple of policemen standing guard outside the door to his room. He doesn't want the police around, but the hospital think that's necessary because, well, reasons.
Dr. Ross (Joan Hackett) proceeds to tell a bunch of doctors about Benson's injuries and why he's really there. Apparently, he was injured in a car accident, and one of the results was that a brain injury gave him what the doctors call para-epilepsy; that is to say he has seizures that make him violent but that also given him amnesia in that he can't remember what he does while he's having one of his seizures and for some unstated period of time afterward.
Benson is, or certainly was before the accident, a brilliant research scientist working in the then nascent field of artificial intelligence. As a result, the doctors think Benson might be a perfect candidate for an experimental treatment that will implant some sort of computerized device in his brain that will ostensibly control the seizures. It is, however, the first time the procedure has been performed on a human being. And since this is a movie, you have to wonder whether the procedure is going to be successful. Indeed, one of the doctors is not sanguine at all about the prospects of the surgery, especially considering how Benson has become paranoid as a result of the accident and worries about the AI he's been working on taking over the human mind. You have to wonder why he would consent to the surgery -- or whether he's been honestly informed about what the surgery entails.
Eventually, the operation is performed, and Benson is brought into one of those rooms with a one-way mirror to talk about what's going on in his mind as the doctors in the adjoining room watching him activate various electrodes; again, you have to wonder whether Benson is aware of what the doctors are doing to him. One also wonders whether the doctors know what sort of an effect this might have on Benson.
Wouldn't you know it, but the machine malfunctions, and Benson is able to break out of the hospital despite the police guard, eventually looking for his estranged wife (Jill Clayburgh) and the robot research facility where he worked to get revenge on everybody. The police see Benson as a threat and just want to kill him now; Dr. Ross thinks Benson can be reasoned with.
It's easy to see how Crichton came up with this idea and made something that the studios thought would have potential. But watching it, it's also easy to see how the execution goes wrong with the result that a lot of people have less than positive reviews with the same criticism. The movie seems too slow for its own good, certainly in the half of the movie that's set in the hospital. And then once he does escape, the movie seems awfully conventional, like an amalgam of a modern-day Frankenstein story meeting the George Sanders character in Village of the Damned; that is, the one man who wanted to do research rather than destroy the threat immediately.
I have to admit that I tend to fall on the negative side regarding The Terminal Man. Not only is it slow; I also think that George Segal isn't really the best guy for the role, Segal being better suited to slightly roguish comedy than this sort of science fiction dystopia. He tries, but he's not given much to do to make a likeable character.
Still, The Terminal Man is one that should probably be watched if you want to look for ways to see how a movie can go wrong.
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