Over the years, twist endings have become a staple of movies. Some films are defined by their twist ending, and some wouldn't even be remembered if it weren't for the twist conclusion (I'm looking at you, The Usual Suspects). Obviously, the point of a shocking finale is to surprise the audience and catch them unaware. Therefore, it's best to not know about the twist before watching the movie. Unfortunately, some twist endings have taken on a life of their own and become bigger than the film themselves. Soylent Green may be the ultimate example of this. Released in 1973, the movie has taken on cult status, and there are most likely people who could quote the film's most famous line without even knowing that they are repeating something from a movie. Thus, I went into Soylent Green having never seen the movie, but knowing how it ended. Did that effect my viewing experience?

Soylent Green is set in the year 2022, where we find a decimated and over-populated Earth. New York City is a dark and desolate place where people live in the hallways of buildings and electricity isn't reliable. Food is scarce and people must wait in line for it. Police detective Thorn (Charlton Heston), who lives with his friend Sol (Edward G. Robinson) in a cramped apartment, is called to investigate a murder at a upscale apartment building. Once there, Thorn is fascinated by the fact that the apartment has abundant food and air conditioning. He meets Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young), the woman "assigned" to the apartment to care for the resident and Thorn is immediately attracted to her. While Sol does research on the murdered man, Thorn begins to ask questions around town. He quickly surmises that the homicide was an assassination, not just a simple burglary. As Thorn gets closer to the truth, it looks like he may be targeted for an assassination as well.

Once again, I've known about Soylent Green for nearly three decades, but I'd never seen the film until now. Of course, I also knew about the twist ending as well. Other than the ending and the fact that it starred Charlton Heston, I never heard much about the movie, specifically any comments about the overall quality of the movie. Still, the film has achieved something of a cult class status, so I expected it to be pretty good at least. It couldn't even live up to those slim standards.

We see a lot of movies which are style over substance, but I don't think I've ever seen a competition between story and what's actually happening on-screen like I did with Soylent Green. The movie is based on the novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. I have not read the book, but an on-line synopsis revealed that the book is more about the over-crowding, hunger, and socio-political topics and not about a mystery or conspiracy. According to what I read, the movie's famous twist ending does not occur in the book -- so that angle was a creation by the screenwriter.

So, what we get in the movie apparently takes its cues from the book, and then goes off in the wrong direction. It almost seems like the makers of Soylent Green forgot what the title of the movie was and did a very poor job of explaining what was going on with the food issues and the "soylent" products. (There is a also a "Soylent Red" and a "Soylent Orange" in the film.) For example, I learned from the book synopsis that the word "soylent" comes from the fact that the products are a combination of soybeans and lentil beans. OK, that makes sense and that's good information to have. (In the movie, plankton is mentioned as the main ingredient in Soylent Green.) The movie makes passing mention of the "soylent" foods and then suddenly, at the end, Thorn is at the Soylent Green factory. I can see a lot of viewers being bewildered as to why this is suddenly important. The movie does emphasize the lack of food, almost ridiculously so, as we watch Thorn obsess over the food which he finds in the apartment. This is really the only part of the film which can be taken seriously and it's quite depressing.

Soylent Green is much more concerned with portraying itself as a Charlon Heston tough-guy movie. The way in which Thorn treats Shirl is very peculiar -- he clearly has no respect for her and he expects to have sex with her. Is this a reflection of what life was like in 1973 or is this what life is like in 2022 and the movie simply never made that clear? The action scenes in the movie are ludicrous and the fight choreography is incredibly stiff. The movie poster art (and the Blu-ray art) depict dump-trucks scooping up people. These drawings contain much more kinetic action than what we witness in the film and it's amazing how slow these scenes are. Anything involving a genocidal dump-truck should be exciting, but these scenes aren't.

Perhaps the issue with Soylent Green is simply that it's dated. This is certainly a movie from the early 70s, as depicted by the "fancy" furniture in the rich man's apartment. The movie has some great central ideas, and the concepts of over-population and hunger are just as relevant now as they were in 1973. The movie should have packed more of an emotional punch, especially at the ending. As it stands, the movie is slow and somewhat goofy, with a famous twist ending which actually means more out of context.

Soylent Green really didn't need the shower scene, frosted glass or not, on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Warner Home Video. The film has been letterboxed at 2.35:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 18 Mbps. The image is relatively sharp and clear, given the film's age. In the movie, exterior scenes have been covered with a green smoke, which I presume was supposed to look like smog. This has given the picture a very odd look -- while not grainy, it's still not all that clear looking. The colors look pretty good, but they aren't very striking. The picture is slightly dark in some scenes. There are no notable defects from the source material. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 1 channel (mono) track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 1.1 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. There's not much to say about this track, other than the fact that it's nice that Warner stuck with the film's original track instead of trying to create something new and artificial sounding.

The Soylent Green Blu-ray Disc contains a handful of extras. We begin with an AUDIO COMMENTARY from Director Richard Fleischer and Leigh Taylor-Young. "A Look at the World of Soylent Green" (10 minutes) is apparently an EPK-like featurette made in 1973 to promote the movie. It contains on-set footage which shows the filming of the riot scene. A narrator describes the action, but there are no interviews with Fleischer or Heston. The scene then changes to a party for Edward G. Robinson. "MGM's Tribute to Edward G. Robinson's 101st Film" (5 minutes) offers more footage from the party we glimpsed in the last piece. We hear speeches from Robinson and Heston (who is still in costume). The final extra is the THEATRICAL TRAILER for the film, which asks the question "What is the secret of soylent green?" How come the movie never asks that question?