You won't be disappointed!

Redundant and unnecessary.

Admirable film.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This movie came out pre-Star Wars, and is a more cerebral, content based story. No shiny, flashy explosions here, just solid writing. I still watch it several times a year to remind myself of what we'll-written science fiction once was. Eric Braeden is a solid lead, and I consider this one of his best roles.

The film is based on the 1966 novel, Colossus: The Forbin Project, by British author Dennis Feltham Jones, and was released in 1970 with a screenplay by James Bridges (The Hitchcock Hour, The China Syndrome, White Hunter Black Heart, among others.)It starred Eric Braeden as Dr. Charles Forbin, Susan Clark as Dr. Cleo Markham and Gordon Pinsent as The President.REVIEWAlthough the film begins slowly, and isn't your typical all-action movie, that people expect today, it still a suspenseful and unnerving film, which builds in intensity until one of the greatest climaxes in cinema history. The casting of the unknown Eric Braeden, in his first leading actor role, adds much to the power of the story. The acting is solid and the dialogue is concise, so that there is nothing said that didn't need saying. Eric Braeden is convincing as Dr. Forbin and it his story that we follow and it is his character that has the most depth. His struggle to believe that his creation has become more than he imagined, and his even bigger battle to try to defeat it, are what really makes the film that much more believable. Susan Clark gives subtleness to the character of Dr. Cleo Markham. A woman who is as intelligent as any of her male colleagues, if not smarter, but who also has the emotional aptitude to help Dr. Forbin, as his World begins to collapse around him. Gordon Pinsent portrayal of The President is very well executed. At the beginning of the film he is the supremely confident and affable Commander-in-Chief, but, as the story unfolds, he becomes far less controlled as his power to control anything is gradually taken from him. It is the relationship between these three that keeps the suspense building, to one of the greatest climaxes in movie history.The 'voice' of Colossus is provided by Paul Frees, and it is this voice that although chilling, also has a certain intelligence and, possibly, emotion. There are many supporting characters, such as Dr. Kuprin, the creator of Guardian, played by Alex Rodine, who is ultimately betrayed by his own creation. C.I.A. Director Grauber is wonderfully played by William Schallert, who gives a performance that has now become synonymous with inept C.I.A. Directors.When the film was released in 1970, Universal found that they had a surprise hit on their hands, as everyone clamoured to see it.Many of the Artificial Intelligence / supercomputer films, that have been released in the last thirty years have borrowed, if not downright stolen, their ideas from what Colossus set out. Gene Roddenberry used the idea in the 1968 Star Trek episode, 'The Ultimate Computer', while James Cameron cites Colossus as his inspiration for Skynet, in his 1984 movie 'The Terminator'.

I found this movie obsolete. Dead and buried. It looks so passé that seems to have been done in the fifties or even earlier. I understand that in thirty five years the world of informatics has change many times, to become something totally different by now, to a point impossible to figure out at that time, so maybe I'm being unjust in my views. Even so, the story leaves so many loose ends without tiding them up that it's almost inconsiderate carelessness from the script writers.Same thing happens with its special effects and that alone makes this movie almost impossible to watch because we are yearning for something more spectacular (visually) when it comes to special effects. Besides, it was a made for TV movie and that shows from the very beginning. There are many unnecessary close ups and cuts for the TV commercials.And that mania for creating a situation in order to have our hero falling in love with the beautiful female scientist (have anyone seen a female scientist with false eyelashes even IN BED?!) I think the world is coming to an end. What a bad movie! The acting is almost amateurish and the camera work completely standard. The American-Russian conflict at the time gives the basis for the storyline, too old by now and the Fabulous Computer created in the story looks now as a Ford "T" would look next to a Lamborghini. Very disappointing.

I saw this movie when in came out in 1970 while I was stationed in the USAF in Alaska. Computers were just up and coming and the idea of miniaturization had not yet taken hold. From that aspect, this movie holds up well, as we would assume that it would take a very large computer to handle all the information of the military defense of the United States.It does require some assumptions - the military mostly agreed to be put under one command (a BIG assumption here), the system was tested prior to launch (no reason why it shouldn't have been, and no reason to show us in detail, either). The system could monitor enough of the world to keep track of everything important - like the movie 'Eagle Eye' or the story, 'The Adolescence of P1'.Science fiction is a broad term and I happen to really enjoy one sub-genre, where the story takes one technological impossibility (or highly implausible concept - ignoring my first assumption above!), allows it to happen and investigates what it might mean and what might result. Here, the story is investigating run away artificial intelligence. The basic premise of the story is that Dr. Forbin, being the foremost computer expert, has created an 'intelligence' that can make independent rational decisions about military defense and put them into operation if need be. He just didn't expect the machine to begin thinking long term as well as searching out and resolving the underlying causes of why it is there.In this case, the good doctor embedded the machine with what he assumed was the capability to choose rational options. The problem with that is that as humans, we also let emotions enter into our decision making process. The aversion to the needless taking of lives is a case in point. If the machine has not been taught the difference between taking a life for a positive rational reason as opposed to a negative rational reason, it will obviously conclude that the taking of any life may always be a viable option regardless of the reason. Forbin probably had never read Asimov (and the machine was probably developed at some lab in some university in Illinois, right?)I have often thought back to this movie as I pound away at my desk computer, turn to my net-book, play with my smart phone, and watch more monitors going up everywhere people congregate. How much of our 'freedoms' are we giving up for safety, security, and information at a touch. How much are we willing to give up. This movie shows us a dark side of those concepts.As an aside, I would have to wonder how the system would respond to a terrorist attack like 9/11, since that was obviously not rational. Would it threaten to kill everyone if the terrorists did not stop killing everyone? A bigger question arising from this movie is - will artificial intelligence ever be truly intelligent if it can't admit it made a mistake - and worse, doesn't even know it?(Do we like Spock, the Vulcan, or Spock the half-breed? Was giving Data an emotion chip, a blessing or a curse? Would you trust your future to Sheldon or to Leonard?)