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Watched this one last night.  I thought the premise was very cool, but the execution was bland.

Dr. Forbin (Eric Braeden, currently the one and only Victor Newman of The Young and The Restless), the world's leading computer expert, has designed a computer to take over all aspects of the US Dept. of Defense.  Colossus, as it's called, has direct control over all nuclear weapons, well all weapons, and even has its own weapon system just to guard itself (included a gamma radiation shield).

The US Pres. and pretty much everybody is going on and on (and on and on and on and on) about how great this is. They hold a press conference announcing to the world how great this is - that a machine, with no emotion and far smarter than any human could ever hope to be, controls human destiny.  It does not take the viewer long to figure out this is not going to go as planned.

Only hours after being activated and given complete, irreversible, control, Colossus discovers its counterpart (Guardian) in the Soviet Union, that the US did not know about.  Colossus and Guardian team up to figure out a way to really take control and make the yu-mans subservient.

Sound a bit like War Games borrowed from this one?  Maybe.

Anyway, the film has a darker mood than lighting and visual design seems to suggest.  I was very struck by how the relationship between the US and the USSR was portrayed.  Trust and teamwork was probably almost unheard of in the height of the cold war.  The ending was much darker than I thought it would be (thank goodness for no deux et machina Hollywood fairy tale ending).

My complaint with this movie was simply that it was extremely dialog driven.  In fact, my wife commented that you don't really to watch it; you can listen and get just as much from it.

Overall: 3/5 for story concept and mood.

I like this movie a lot as well. Too bad that a widescreen version isn't available.

I had this on VHS a few years ago.  The first time I watched it, I thought it was slow-moving and VERY dated.  But I watched it a couple more times and I liked it a little better each time.  I think that if they ever do a remake of this, it has a good chance to be better than the original.

Only watched it once, probably during the '70s, on tv.  Even though I was young, I thought it had a good premise.  This is definitely a thinking/talking movie, a remake would probably shoe-horn in as many explosions and car chases as possible, and ruin it.

It came on TV a couple years ago, but I missed it. Going to have to put it on my list so I don't forget about it.

And the ending was a way downer....at least for humanity. The Novels certianly brought out that aspect.
Ah, if only they had had Jim Kirk, then they would have had a chance.