40 posts tagged “sci-fi”
In the beginning, she isn't a woman at all but a young girl. I had totally forgotten that. There's probably a good 20 minutes at the beginning of the film where she is a girl and then she turns into a full grown woman. Sil, as the woman is known, is also a lot more cunning than I remembered.
I'm sure part of my distorted memory is because of Natasha Henstridge and her boobs. Her turning into a monster is pretty much all I really remembered. Henstridge is pretty good and does a pretty good job of playing Sil as she learns and begins to come to grips with what she is.
A lot of the film is spent on the people who are chasing her who I had almost totally forgotten about. One element in particular is kind of odd. ForestWhitaker plays a guy who is said to be an empath but basically is psychic and can tell things about people and can lead them to Sil. Why they included this paranormal aspect I'm not entirely sure. It is an extra element that isn't really all that needed.
Species is pretty good but it is really crying out for a remake rather than the endless direct to video sequels it is getting. There is a lot of potential here but the pace is just kind of off and the specifics of the plot aren't quite what it seems like they should be. In some ways if plays out like a detective story with the team trying to find Sil and prevent her from mating. The film needs more action and it really needs better computer generated effects. There aren't many scenes with cgi in them but the ones that do have it stick out like a sore thumb.
three thumbs up
I would mate with her
as long as I lived through it
and no space babies
I liked the series for the first few seasons. I eventually quit watching it though because, something I perhaps feared way back in the beginning, nothing ever seemed to happen. I remember watching an episode, getting pissed that nothing related to the core mythology actually got resolved only to see the teaser for next week which, the voiceover promised, would answer everything! Then I’d watch next week, get pissed that nothing related to the core mythology actually got resolved only to see the teaser for next week which promised to answer everything. After so many of those I got fed up and quit watching. It was also around that time that the film came out which promised to solve everything and then didn’t. Since then I pretty much avoided watching X-Files on reruns or on the Sci-Fi channel. Over the years the creator of X-Files has gone on to do… umm…. pretty much nothing? So when I heard that there was another X-Files movie I was less than excited and pretty much saw it as Chris Carter’s last gasp for money and a career.
With this in mind I was pretty happily surprised by X-Files: I Want to Believe. Now, don’t take that to mean that I liked it or thought it was great or anything. I think that part of me was happy that it had nothing to do with the series mythology (well there was some random, unnecessary mention of his sister which seemed included only to remind viewers that after a movie and ten series nothing had been resolved yet) because then I wouldn’t be irritated by that. However, because it has nothing to do with the core mythology it really begs the question, “Why does this exist?” and nothing in the film does anything to change that nagging suspicion in the back of my head that “Ol’ Chris needs the money!”
As I see it there are really 3 storylines going on here. 1)Mulder and Scully. 2)the murders. 3)the sick kid. I'm not sure that they work together all that well or that they are needed.
For me the Mulder Scully relationship stuff was the most interesting. It was nice seeing them deal with their relationship. However, Mulder is clearly a dick. He’s deep in his problem and seems totally oblivious to Scully’s problem.
The murders didn't need really need Mulder all that much. Once they found the body parts, or even the first arm it seems like they could have got some fingerprints and the lack of communication between people with cell phones and gps and such is a bit much. (I mean when they bust into the body part business and Mulder and Amanda Peet's character go running after the Russian guy they show that Xzibit's character is wearing an earpiece so why didn't Peet's character radio them for backup?) Oh and do female FBI agents commonly forget to button their shirts as much as Peet’s character did?
The sick kid was by far the weakest. Scully is doing stem cell surgery at a Catholic hospital? I don't know about that... And she reads some stuff online and the next day she is able to do the surgery??? I'm really not sure about that...
two thumbs up
Two heads are better?
Better go ask Rosey Grier
Why this film exists?
Basically, the movie is about this future war between the normal humans and these other humans who want to basically become Borgs. Honestly, I'm not sure what the big schism between the two is because our heroine has all these cybernetic powers just like the main bad guy. So what is it that makes her a regular human and him a wanna-be Borg?
Regardless, our heroine is trying to stop the bad guys from launching a super-weapon but crash lands in the middle of a desert and the bad guy is trying to find her. Now, the super-weapon is in the middle of their city so I'm not sure why they just don't put a lot more guards on the weapon. They try to say that the bad guy is in love with her but it doesn't really make a lot of sense.
The heroine treks through the desert in a Tomb Raider-ish outfit that consists of short shorts and a midriff showing shirt with lots of guns and other stuff. While the woman is attractive the outfit doesn't really do much for her. She isn't really hot and the camera work doesn't objectify her overly much. There's no ass shots or cleavage so I'm kind of wondering why they bothered making her wear that outfit.
The most irritating thing about the movie is that there is a near-constant voice-over. Every thing is narrated. Every thing is explained for us. Apparently the creators have never heard the saying, "Show don't tell" or perhaps they misheard it and thought it was "You can show if you want but make sure you tell every little thing." The film spends a lot of time going on and on about the background of the conflict (except for the whole cyber thing) that isn't really needed. There's this whole deal about Watchers that once came and made mankind behave and gave them warp drives but then disappeared and that the Earth was destroyed and that our heroine used to be addicted to a virtual reality videogame and that she sometimes hallucinates and the Gaia hypothesis is correct and a lot of other stuff.
Now, it turns out that there is a reason why some of this crap is in the movie. After the heroine's story is over, there is another 25 minutes with her daughter. Then we learn that it is the end of the universe and the Big Crunch is about to happen and that another universe will be born. Possibly, the new universe will be just like the old one and the history of the universe will repeat itself. So the daughter of the heroine will make some kind of attempt to pass on the knowledge of what happened in the attempt to prevent it from happening all over again.
Whew. That's a lot for one movie. And it really is. Way too much. It really felt like the guy who made the film was trying to create a universe to tell multiple stories in or something. It isn't all that effective. It is pretty weird. Had it just been the Heroine in the desert trying to stop the super-weapon it would have been pretty good.
two thumbs up
What a weird movie
It needs more pumps and the bumps
As Hammer would say...
Other than that, it is fairly standard. The military base is using nuclear power to do experiments. Strange deaths start to happen and the locals blame the nuclear power. The military denies it. Turns out there is a reclusive scientist nearby who is known for researching paranormal phenomena. I wonder who is really the cause of the deaths...?
The "fiends" are pretty interesting in that they are brains with spinal columns that slither around and jump on people. I learned that if your nuclear reactor is going wild with no way to turn it off you can just blow it up without any danger radiation fallout or anything and that the best time to hook up with a woman is at her brother's funeral.
two thumbs up
Those Canadians
Why do they hate our freedom?
Let's "liberate" them
In some ways this 1968 television movie made by the BBC is both a precursor to reality television, especially Survivor, but also thematically similar to Mike Judge's film Idiocracy.
It starts off by telling us that the film takes place, "sooner than you think..." in a world where people don't do anything but watch television all day long. In fact, it has gone so far that rather than actually have sex themselves, all they do is watch people on television have sex as part of a competition. The main characters are the behind the scene people who produce the shows and judge the sex competitions in preparation for the upcoming sex olympics.
Because it was made for television we don't see any of the sex though. In reality, the movie isn't really about the sex but rather the fact that people have been dulled into passivity by watching television all day. The world is so passive that one character says, "Sex is not to do. Sex is to watch." and the characters regularly take drugs that are in tubes with baby bottle pacifiers on them. In the attempt to keep the people dull and entertained they eventually send some people out to live on an island by themselves where they have to try to survive without any television, electricity, or packaged food. As the participants encounter tragedy the television executives are more and more excited.
"The Year of the Sex Olympics" is really interesting because in trying to make a statement about the impact of television it very clearly predicts reality television. Now I'm a fan of most reality shows (although I really despise the current talent contests like American Idol and I've tired of Survivor) so I don't really buy into the message. It is also rather unevenly paced. Before they got to the Survivor part I felt it was getting pretty tedious. Then the survivor part moves kind of quick with a few things using a bit more explanation. Then it ends without a traditional Hollywood style comeuppance for society. In some ways I like the ending but in others it was a bit too sudden and lacked the real punch that I would have liked.
three thumbs up
reality shows
get a bad rap by some folks
I like them myself
The premise sounds pretty good but unfortunately the execution is less than stellar. The basic premise is that in the future a guy is sent to jail. In this future jail they put you into suspended hibernation for years at a time. Every time he is thawed out he finds that years have passed while he is still the same age. He gets screwed over by the parole board and the changing laws. Fed up he breaks out. Then he gets rearrested and put into suspended hibernation again. Rinse and repeat. For the whole movie.
That right there is the problem. The movie is basically just him escaping and getting arrested over and over. There's some attempt at making it interesting regarding why he is escaping but it doesn't really matter. There's also his constant lamenting about his daughter who is, of course, growing up as he spends years and years in deep freeze but it doesn't really matter either.
two thumbs down
Help us Jeffrey Combs
You are this film's only hope
please execute him!
Before I begin this, I want to mention something that I just found out. A while ago I reviewed the movie Next. It was an OK movie about a guy who can see two minutes into the future. Around that same time I bought a collection of some of Phillip K. Dick's short stories. I've been reading them a little bit at a time. One of the stories is called "The Golden Man" which is about a world where mutants are hunted down and killed. One mutant manages to survive to be a teenager. He isn't like the X-Men though. He is hairless and golden. He is also a wild child. It turns out that he can see into the future and he is also very fertile. If not contained he will pretty much make every woman he can get near pregnant effectively out breeding humanity.
Well guess what? Next is "based" on "The Golden Man." I know, right? I just found that out and I was totally amazed. Odd how the rewrite process works in Hollywood.
Now believe it or not this is actually kind of relevant to Iron Man in that this film is very tightly plotted and undoubtedly underwent some really serious rewriting. That isn't to say that it is bad. In fact, it is really really good. It kicks the ass of Spider-Man, that is for sure. However, it is one of those movies where every single thing that is said mentioned or done in the first half of the film becomes essential to the plot in the second half. On one hand I really admire that kind of writing. I could never do that. On the other hand, I find it kind of irritating because it makes everything so artificial and precalculated that it sucks some of the believability out of it.
If you know anything about the character or have seen the trailers you know pretty much the plot. Stark makes weapons. Stark gets captured by bad guys and makes an iron suit to escape. Someone makes a great big iron suit and Stark has to beat the great big iron suit. There really aren't any surprises but it is well done. It works really well.
five thumbs up
stay until the end
to see the special surprise
you motherfuckers
Jumper is an example of the first kind of ending. Simply put, the ending of this movie is horrible. Nothing gets solved. No storyline are resolved. Nothing is ended. It is obvious that they really really want to make another one but after seeing this completely unsatisfying ending I won't be paying to see a sequel if one develops.
Really, if you have seen the trailer there is no reason to see this film. The trailer tells you exactly what happens. Guy can teleport. Guy is chased by Samuel L. Jackson. Guy meets another guy who can teleport. The end. That's it.
The poster says that it is by the director of the Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. I've never seen Mr. and Mrs. Smith and maybe it isn't his fault but whoever edited this film should be fired. I'm not talking about how individual scenes are put together. That's fine. But the way the film is put together there are scenes that suck any potential drama or surprise right out of the film. It might have been interesting to just have Jackson show up but instead he is shown following him. It also might have been interesting to have the other "jumper" show up but we also see him following the main character.
Now, I'm not expert but it seems to me that when we have these characters that surprise the main character by revealing something that the main character didn't know, it might be good to also have the audience surprised. Sure, there are reasons why it might not be the best way but it is so obvious who these people are that there is just no energy or excitement.
three thumbs down
boo-urns to this one
catch it on television
or you can skip it
There are people out there who are saying that this is better than the first Aliens vs. Predator. There are also people out there who say that the Earth is only 6000 years old. In short, they are wrong.
Don't get me wrong, the first Aliens vs. Predator wasn't perfect but it did have some sort of story and it didn't have a million different characters. The story in Requiem? Aliens start killing people and a Predator tries to kill them. Ordinarily that wouldn't be a bad thing but there's nothing going on. The kills are just so lame and uninteresting. The characters? There are millions of them. I suppose that the two main characters are brothers. One is coming back to town and is assumed to have been in jail but we're never really told anything. But the older brother is met by his old friend a cop. Then we meet the deputy and the deputy's waitress girlfriend and the little brother delivers pizzas and there's a girl he likes and there's the girl's boyfriends and his friends and there's a mom who was in the military and her husband and daughter. Each of them is given like their own subplot and of course all we want is to see the aliens and predators fight but the fights are all in the dark and in the rain so you can't see anything and whenever someone is killed no one ever refers to them again even if one of the people is the little girl's father. Cut out half of these lame characters who don't matter and turn some lights on when the aliens and predator fight and you might have something. but as it is, you got a big pile of crap. Alien vs Hunter at least had the sense to take place during the day so that we could see what was going on!
one thumb down
people disagree
but this movie really stinks
believe me people!
Nightmare City 2035 is kind of a neat cross between the setting of Equilibrium and the gimmick of They Live. It is the future and of course there is a totalitarian government in charge. Like Equilibrium there are some rebels and the person in charge is corrupt and evil and the main character is a law enforcement officer who gets involved with the rebels. It turns out that not only are these government officials totalitarian and mean but they are also greedy. You see, apparently there was a war or something so civilization was largely ruined. Instead of rebuilding things, though, style, the government leaders have implanted everyone with chips that make them see the world around them as happy and shiny instead of the decaying ruin that it really is. As in They Live, the goal is to shut down the towers broadcasting the signals so that they can see the world as it really is.
It is a fairly solid concept but it just isn't executed very well They tell us right away that the world is a ruin but don't really show it to us in any detail. There is a nice moment where the male lead sees what he is really eating and a couple of quick shots of the city but that is about it.
The real downfall is the female lead and the lame backstory she is given. Apparently the actress is known mostly from her soap opera work and it shows. She is supposed to be this tough Milla Jovovich complete with the sleeveless belly shirt and photographer-style vest but her voice is really squeaky so it makes it hard for the listener to take her seriously. Then we find out that she has this bionic eye thing which lets her be a superhacker and we learn that she just happens to have a history with the person that invented the tech that makes people see what they want them to see.
two thumbs up
in the near future
shirts will no longer have sleeves.
Let's hope Gore is right
