Colossus: The Forbin Project

DVD review (region 2)
Directed by Joseph Sargent
Starring Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, William Schallert, Georg Stanford Brown, Martin E. Brooks
Release date 26 May 2008

At the height of the 1960s Cold War, a new supercomputer is entrusted with the defence of the US. It soon turns on its human masters and imposes peace through dictatorship…

Joseph Sargent’s political science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project had the misfortune to come out around the same time as Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both films deal with cool, collected, but out-of-control supercomputers doing what they think is best for mankind. The difference with Colossus is that it is entirely earthbound and lacking in the mysticism that concludes 2001.

In its own late-1960s time period, Colossus and the threat it poses must have seemed eminently plausible, but harks back to a time when computers were the size of a room (the supercomputer here fills an entire mountain!).

Colossus is a supercomputer entrusted with the defence of the United States, as it lacks capricious human emotion. All flashing lights, spinning tapes and reams of paper printouts, the machine behaves like a tantrum-throwing child. When it discovers Guardian — its Soviet counterpart — Colossus demands to be put in touch, and the two computers become one, threatening to dominate mankind. It’s like a beta version of Skynet from The Terminator movies.

The human presence in the film is largely left to lead scientist Forbin, coldly played by the Germanic Eric Braeden, and Susan Clark as Dr Cleo Markham, who becomes his co-conspirator against the Frankenstein’s monster he’s created. As Colossus grows paranoid about its creator, Forbin’s life becomes an extended edition of Big Brother as he undergoes 24-hour surveillance to ensure he doesn’t get up to any mischief.

Colossus is more like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits (Sargent directed a lot of TV in the 1960s and since), even down to the 24-style split screen at the climax and the ultimate phosphor dot finale. The drama is almost shot as if it were a live TV production, which adds to the tension and realism of the piece. There are a couple of unintentionally amusing moments, such as a wine glass strategically placed to obscure the actors’ modesty, Austin Powers-style, and a plan by Colossus to design its own successor, which would be echoed by Douglas Adams with Deep Thought.

There are very few extras, just promotional images and a commentary from Sargent. The commentary is extremely disappointing, full of extended silences and inane comments, with little information of any true value about the making of the film or the cast. It’s a bad sign when a director begins his commentary “I haven’t seen this film in 30 years…” as you know immediately that no preparation to provide an informative commentary has been done. A missed opportunity. Brian J. Robb