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Soylent Green is a decent movie. It can easily be considered a classic. When it comes down to it though, at least in my opinion, there are much better movies out there. Although it does have a really good plot, I do think it has some problems with pacing. 

Soylent Green is a 1973 film that envisions the distant future of 2022. It shows a world that is heavily over populated and heavily polluted. New York City has 40 million people in it, half of which are unemployed and poor. A green gas looms over the world. Most of the oceans and land can not harbor life. In light of this, tasteless nutrition bars are distributed to the populous. Fresh food and produce is exceedingly rare and expensive. Meat is even more rare and extraordinarily expensive. The story itself centers around a detective who is investigating the murder of an executive of the Soylent Company, which makes the food bars. He must uncover the truth behind the company and the food they all eat. 

The plot of Soylent Green is intriguing. It has a lot of suspense and keeps you wondering what will happen next. Soylent Green has a lot of mystery elements to it and is almost completely a detective movie set in a dystopian future. The setting does make it unique in this sense. The final revelation is rather shocking as well. This revelation really carries through with the dystopian atmosphere of the film. The revelation, that I will not spoil here, was so good in fact that it is commonly referenced even today. As far as plot goes Soylent Green is rather excellent and despite other problems the plot does make it worth watching in your free time, if only to get the references to this classic film. 

There are, in my opinion, some problems with the pacing of Soylent Green. I did feel like a large portion of the movie went too slowly and the rest was rushed. Most of the movie has standard methodical developments which is fine, but this conflicts with the very last 15-20 minutes. As everything develops the final revelation is rather sudden. It comes out of nowhere and is wrapped up promptly, as if they ran out of time to film. This is a big problem with Soylent Green and is the reason that it is not one of my favorite films. With this aside however, Soylent Green is definitely a good movie. 

As far as movies go Soylent Green is not too shabby. It does have some problems with pacing, but has an intriguing and engaging plot. Although it is not the best film out there it is truly a classic and is commonly referenced. Therefore, it is worth watching, if you have time of course. If not then it isn’t too big of a loss, honestly.