Throwback Thursday: "Soylent Green"

Okay, so this movie tirade isn't exactly timely. In fact Soylent Green came out before I was born. But the name's catchy, kinda like Watership Down, so when I saw an old movie poster of it online, I found the movie and gave it a look. This will be the start of "Throwback Thursday" where - each Thursday - I'll review an old movie, for better or worse.
It's always interesting to see how the past would portray the future, like how Kubrick envisioned 2001 (soporific as his vision might have been). Green is set in 2022, where New York City holds 20 million people - a population density portrayed in the form of extras littering stairwells. How that's comfortable, I'm not sure, but I'll go with it.
With no desire to spoil the movie's plot, let's just say it's kind of like The Stuff meets 1984. If you can accept that - in '70s film - blood was orange-red, fight scenes looked like a tribute to John Wayne movies, and the women seemed to put out for no reason (I didn't see Charlton Heston complaining), then you'll appreciate that the story, acting, and camera work are all well done. It looked believable, and without many special effects.
What struck me the most is something I'm sure that's far more common in older films - not saying '70s is "old" - is that the climatic scenes - the shootouts, the fights, and chases - were almost entirely without background music. While I have fond memories of the powerful emotions that ran through me during the movies where background music seemed perfectly orchestrated (Lord of the Rings, The Matrix, and even the baseball bat beat down from Corky Romano to the tune of Twisted Sister's "We're not gonna take it"), it was nice to experience the emotions that came with seeing the climactic events unfold without music telling me how I should feel about it.
I've long despised the jump scares punctuated by sharp violin notes in cheesy horror flicks like I know what you did last summer that have no lasting effect, but merely tap into our baser fight or flight instincts and extol that some movie theater's sound systems are ridiculously loud.
Sound aside, Green is well worth watching for those who haven't seen it. Finding out it was a novel first, however, did make me wish I'd read the book beforehand, but it's not like there aren't a thousand equally-intriguing stories out there still.