The ninth and final film of the now rebranded “Skywalker Saga” is the weakest of the the final films, I think, though I haven’t seen the other two in some time. Like the first two, it’s too long. But the real problems centre around how similar it ends up being to previous films in the …
Tag: Soft Science Fiction
Stalker (1979, Andrei Tarkovsky)
Stalker is a willfully difficult, philosophical medication on the nature of faith posing as a science fiction film that feels like it would have been significantly more dramatic had it been made during the age of CGI. (Though Tarkovsky wouldn’t be the one to have made it, then.) I have not read the novel its …
Space Raiders (1983, Howard R. Cohen)
When this movie came out, somebody noticed some of the spaceship fighting scenes were the same as Battle Beyond the Stars. And somebody noticed the score was the same too. Remarkably, despite those hilarious facts, this is not among the worst movies ever made. SPOILERS?
Space Truckers (1996, Stuart Gordon)
This is not one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen but it is one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen with a cast this notable, which, for me, makes it feel worse.
Project Wolf Hunting (2022, Hong-Sung Kim)
This is an extremely gory, bloody and bonkers action/horror film about a ship of inmates travelling from the Philippines to Korea. The theme of it is basically overkill – don’t just hit somebody once, do it seven times. Why shoot at someone once when you can use the entire magazine? It’s quite funny and entertaining …
Star Force: Fugitive Alien II (1987, Minoru Kanaya, Kiyosumi Kuzakawa)
No, I have not seen the first Fugitive Alien.
Starcrash (1978, Luigi Cozzi)
Usually, I’m pretty good about rating a film I’ve watched through Mystery Science Theater 3000. But, apparently, not in this instance. As this film as starting, I got a massive sense of deja vu and so I went to its Wikipedia page and saw that I had indeed already watched it (or most of it) …
Battle Beyond the Stars (1980, Jimmy T. Murakami, Roger Corman)
If you’re looking for a Roger Corman Star Wars ripoff starring Johnboy Walton, with effects by James Cameron and a story by John Sayles…well, you’ve found it.
The Day Time Ended (1979, John ‘Bud’ Cardos)
This is one of those films that I watched courtesy of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and I can’t really imagine doing it without. I wonder if my rating would drop a point if I had to watch it on my own. It’s one of those terrible films that appears to be just very, very boring.
Arcane (2021)
This was recommended to me by work colleagues whose pop culture tastes I don’t yet know. I mention that because I might not have started this show if I’d known much about it. It is apparently associated with the League of Legends game franchise, something I know nothing about.
Lords of the Deep (1989, Mary Ann Fisher)
One of the innumerable 1989 underwater science fiction horror/thriller/mystery films that just exploded, this is probably the worst (that I’ve seen).
High-Rise (2015, Ben Wheatley)
I have read only one J.G. Ballard novel though I have seen a couple of films adapted from his books. I thought I had seen more than one of Ben Wheatley’s movies, but it turns out I’ve just seen one. On paper, I think I can probably see the Ballard-Wheatley pairing as a match made …
The Leftovers (2014)
This is a well-made show with at least one fatal flaw. (And possibly two. I didn’t get that far.) Recommended as ideal for watching during the pandemic we found quite the opposite: that the pandemic actually made the whole thing seem far less believable than it might have seemed when it first aired.
Palm Springs (2020, Max Barbakow)
This is a very funny romantic comedy inspired by the classic romantic comedy [redacted], and which has many similarities to the recent TV show [redacted], but which still manages a fresh spin on what is becoming a pretty tired concept. What is that concept? Well, I don’t really want to tell you. Rather, I suggest …
The Old Guard (2020, Gina Prince-Bythewood)
This is a decent action movie with an interesting soft science fiction/fantasy premise which falls apart whenever you think too hard about it. I didn’t know the premise before watching so I’ll assume it’s a spoiler and say SPOILERS
Altered Carbon (2018)
I usually review a TV show when I’ve finished it or when I’ve given up. But, given the Pandemic and the state of the film industry, I’m not sure when or if a 3rd season of this show is coming. And by the time it does come, I may have forgotten about the show. So …
Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace
Take that David Chang! SPOILERS: The end of this review contains a relatively massive spoiler.
Chronicle (2012, Josh Trank)
This is a pretty great idea, though hardly a new one, which is marred a great deal by the found footage conceit, which feels stupid and completely of its time. One wonders if they could only get the film made because of how trendy found footage was in the aughts. SPOILERS
I Still See You (2018, Scott Speer)
This is a PG-13 thriller with horror/science fiction elements which steals ideas from other movies and books, and which cannot even come up with its own vocabulary for its internal world. Had I been less tired when I watched it, I no doubt would have figured out who the main bad guy was immediately, simply …
Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018, directed by Ron Howard et al.)
This is an entertaining film that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but still manages to mostly fly by for its absurd run-time.
Extinction (2018, Ben Young)
This is a pretty high concept science fiction film with a tiny budget that looks rather shitty and has a few really odd decisions that likely only happened because of the budget. SPOILERS
Star Trek: Beyond (2016, Justin Lin)
For some reason, I have yet to see the first movie of this Star Trek reboot. I’ve seen Into Darkness and I didn’t love it. And I must say the things I didn’t love about Into Darkness and present to a degree in Beyond. But I seem to have come to terms with them better. Because this time, it …
Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017, Rian Johnson)
When this movie came out, I read in various places that it was perhaps the best Star Wars movie ever made. That would be a tall order, I guess, if I actually enjoyed Star Wars as an adult. The thing is, I don’t. I keep watching these movies and whatever it was that compelled me to really …
Cowboys and Indians (2011, Jon Favreau)
Many years ago, in my teens, I had a habit of writing down every movie idea I had, as I dreamed I would one day be a filmmaker. One such idea was a western film in which aliens showed up part way through. However, a key part of the idea – perhaps the key part …
Rogue One (2016, Gareth Edwards)
The problem with science fiction prequels, as I’m always saying, is that they are made with better technology then the ostensible sequels, making them incoherent in terms of technology.
Coherence (2013, James Ward Byrkit)
This is one of those super talky, high concept science fiction films which feels like it was written for the stage. (Many of these have been written for the stage, but this one apparently was not.) There are a lot of these films by this point and it’s sort of become its own sub genre. …
Meltdown: Days of Destruction (2006, JP Howell)
This is one of those terrible TV movies which are competently made at some level – the sound is fine, the lighting is okay, I never saw a boom mic in a shot – but are so unbelievably preposterous and poorly plotted that you wonder how they get made. (The answer is likely that many …
A Boy and His Dog (1975, LQ Jones)
This is an interesting idea – I’m sure the novel is good – that is severely harmed by a lower than ideal budget and a poor choice of locations results in a pretty mixed bag of a film – one of those ’70s science fiction films where the idea is so much better than the …
The Box (2009, Richard Kelly)
Richard Kelly continues his descent into utter nonsense with this completely unnecessary feature length film version of that old chestnut about the man with a box and $1 million dollars. (It’s worth noting that Kelly has not made a film since this one.)
Knowing (2009, Alex Proyas)
It’s kind of hard to describe how dumb this movie is. It’s also extremely dispiriting to know that it was written and directed by the man who made Dark City, a personal favourite. This review contains SPOILERS.