Tag Archives: sci-fi

Sunshine

50 years into the future, the sun is a dying star, and Earth will die along with it. We send a ship of astronauts to bomb the sun back into shining but the team goes awol somewhere out in the million miles of space. So we send another one, but this IS IT. Mankind’s last hope. We’ve officially mined all of Earth’s resources for this motherload. No pressure!

The new team includes Rose Byrne, Chris Evans, and Cillian Murphy. They’re clearly already under stress when we meet them several years into their trip to the sun, but shit’s about to get a whole lot messier. Just as they’re approaching the most dangerous part of the mission, they receive a signal. It’s a ping from the lost ship. It’s been 7 years since anyone’s heard from them…they can’t still be alive, can they?

The crew debates whether they should divert their mission to find out. But this is not a democracy, the captain reminds them. They’re scientists, and he gives the decision to the person most qualified to make it, the ship’s physicist, played by Cillian Murphy. No matter what he decides, he’s fucked. No matter what he decides, his crew will hold him responsible for the lives and the mission he’s risked. Classic lose-lose scenario. Fun!

Okay, fun is the wrong word. Writer Alex Garland and director Danny Boyle are reteamed after bring us The Beach and 28 Days Later. Danny Boyle has more recently done Slumdog Millionaire, 127 Hours, and Steve Jobs. Alex Garland wrote Ex Machina. These boys don’t do fun. They do: harrowing, intense, suspenseful. Sun-psychosis. The closer the ship gets to its goal, the more things fall apart. Fall apart literally and psychologically. And philosophically.

It starts out as an interesting, cerebral sci-fi adventure, on the lower end of the action scale, but not without daring stunts. But in Sunshine, getting closer to the sun is like getting closer to god. And reality unravels a bit like we’ve seen in Interstellar. Sunshine is ambitious. Boyle and Garland are asking us to consider some hot and heavy questions. Big Questions. Boyle manages to put story and character ahead of special effects, making this a very worthy, brainy, thoughtful entry into the sci-fi genre (and likely his last – he found this film to be extremely draining). The film makers actually want to make us understand what it’s like to get so close to our most glorious star. The increasingly fractured and subliminal scenes are almost reminiscent of some of the more hallucinogenic stuff from Boyle’s Trainspotting days, and the glimpses from inside the helmets of the striking gold space suits clutch at your throat. I had some very real autonomic responses to this film and I swear I could feel the heat. Boyle wisely uses actors who can take the heat and radiate some of their own. He even more wisely stays away from the love triangle cliché and sticks to things that feel very real for a set of humans staring into the sun and seeing their own deaths. There’s fear and panic and bravery and resolve.

If this movie was American, it would doubtless be a bunch of American cowboys being sent up with fireworks and catch phrases, but Sunshine includes an appropriately global response, which helps to underline the fact that in space, with human extinction on the line, there is no race or culture. It’s about those decisions to make sacrifices, to act for the greater good, to reach beyond which you think yourself capable. Sunshine stumbles in its final act – things get so weighty it seems to buckle a bit, but this remains a movie that is criminally underrated. Many thanks to my fellow film bloggers who pointed me toward this, and I hope maybe I’ve done the same for some of you.

The Wrath of Khan

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The Wrath of Khan’s smooth and sculpted chest, more like it.

You may have heard, thanks to our yakkety podcast, that Sean and I completed the Starfleet Academy Experience this past weekend at the Canada Museum of Aviation and Space. It’s a really cool exhibit in Ottawa until September 5th – after that, it could be in a museum near you!

We spent the day training to be Starfleet cadets. We majored in science, navigation, communications, and more. Everything was very interactive – we learned Klingon, plotted our ship’s course, selected safe planets to land on, shot phasers, and even got teleported. It was a grand day and loads of fun (our Twitter account @AssholeMovies was witness to it). But it got Sean in a Star Trek kind of mood, which is what inspired him to force me to watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan against my will.

I admit, ever since watching For The Love of Spock, I’ve been a little curious about the original series. The new movies are surprisingly tolerable to me, so why not? The original television series was cancelled in 1969. The first movie, with the same cast and characters, was in theatres in 1979, a full decade later. The Wrath of Khan followed in 1982: by then, Shatner was 50 years old. The movie is quite jokey about his age, his creaky old dotage actually, his need for reading glasses and a retirement plan but they went on to make 6 of these, chasing the series into star date 1991 (Shatner would also appear in Generations with Patrick Stewart in 1994). So yes, the Enterprise crew had aged. So had their enemies. Ricardo Montalban played villainous Khan in an earlier television episode (Space Seed) and was asked back for The Wrath of Khan. And he is the owner of that smooth and sculpted chest that kept me so enthralled. For the record, Montalban was in his early sixties when this movie was in production. It didn’t quite match the face that went along with it. Was the chest perhaps a prosthetic?

Montalban says no. He claimed that lots of push-ups did the trick. The costumers gladly put him in a plunging deep-V neckline to show it off. Khan was buff. Many of his henchmen were Chippendale dancers, so for a 60+ gentleman to flaunt his broad, oddly hairless chest among them took some doing. Good on you, Mr. Montalban. I salute your beautiful chest.

The Unseen

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A mother calls a father, concerned. Teen-aged daughter Eva is acting strange: grades suck, dropping out of sports, hanging out instead of applying to college. Bob hasn’t seen her in a while but sends checks. His ex-wife Darlene (Camille Sullivan) thinks it’s time he re-involves himself.

It sounds like the makings of a family drama, but wait: a flicker. Of something strange. unseen_(4) Mysterious. Maybe a little…creepy? In an unguarded moment Bob (Aden Young) shows us his secret. Under layers of clothes and bandages, his flesh is disappearing.

In this modern retelling of The Invisible Man, it’s clear that Bob is suffering – the physical pain leaving an ugly grimace on his face, the mental anguish evident in his isolated, tattered little life. His body’s disintegration mimics that of his family. Both leave him feeling raw. But when his daughter Eva (Julia Sarah Stone) goes missing, Bob will do anything to find her, even it means partnering with criminals to finance the trip, even if it means exposing the closely-guarded secret of his descent into invisibility.

This is writer-director Geoff Redknap’s first feature film, but if anyone can handle this gritty horror thriller, it’s him. He’s best known for his special makeup effects work on unseen2 TV’s The X-Files, The Flash, and Fear The Walking Dead, and in movies like Watchmen, Deadpool, Warcraft, and the upcoming Star Trek Beyond, but that’s just a fraction of his IMDB credits. The list is so long and impressive that you might wonder where he found the time to make this move into writing and directing, but it’s clear that movies are his passion.

The Unseen is a tensely edited thriller with a sci-fi medical twist. Redknap’s makeup FX background puts the horror back into horrific; Bob’s wounds are bloody disgusting, almost gleefully so. But this movie doesn’t coast on gore alone – in fact, it’s got a solid story, is compellingly shot by cinematographer Stephen Maier, and is well-acted by the gruff Young. You don’t often see a debut feature so self-assured but Redknap’s arrival as both writer and director make it certain that this may be his first, but it won’t be his last.

Star Trek Beyond

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vag96xveob5rjf34m2mq We were treated tonight to a marathon of the new trilogy of Star Trek movies, including a screening of Star Trek Beyond. Seeing the first two reminded me how good Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness are, and seeing them all in a row made me all the more sure that Star Trek Beyond is my favourite of the three.

The most difficult part about the movie is how it reminds us that we’ve lost both Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin from the Star Trek family. Nimoy was a larger part of the first two than I remembered, and his presence served as a nice reminder that there’s a whole alternate universe of adventures waiting to be rediscovered. He receives a nice tribute in this movie, which I was glad to see.

8_-_nurovgq Yelchin, having died so tragically after filming was complete, is a key cast member in all three and is excellent in Star Trek Beyond (as always). But it’s bittersweet to watch, as his posthumous presence is harder to take than his absence would have been. Every one of his scenes serves as a reminder that there will be no more Chekov in the instalments to come. He will be sincerely missed but it feels right that his role will not be recast. May he rest in peace.

A lesser movie would have been overshadowed by those real-life lossses. Star Trek Beyond is instead comforting and uplifting in their face, providing a classic trip to a strange new world, plenty of humanoid aliens (some good, some bad, almost all English-speaking), and some fantastic interplay between the series’ seven main characters. This time, Bones and Spock are the standouts, getting a ton of one-on-one time and delivering banter that is consistently hilarious and completely fitting for this odd couple. Writers Simon Pegg and Doug Jung do a wonderful job of capturing the sarcastic Bones and the quiet pleasure Spock takes in driving Bones crazy, while letting us see that underneath it all there is nothing but love and respect between them.

That is the way all these beloved characters get treated – with love and respect. I just wish Sulu’s coming-out moment had not been such a source of controversy leading up to the movie’s release, because in the movie it comes off as another nice nod to the original cast that also fits with the diversity that is the series’ staple.

I cannot say enough good things about Star Trek Beyond. It provides a massive amount of fan service while remaining accessible and enjoyable to all. Star Trek Beyond is a welcome and worthy addition to this classic franchise and a fitting sendoff to two absent friends.

Sean & Jay enjoyed the Starfleet Academy Experience – hear about it in our podcast:

Terra Formars

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MV5BN2JmNjVhNmEtMGZhYy00NjEyLTk2ODgtOGRjYzczNzkyZTk1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjA2OTcwNzE@._V1_ There will always be a place in my heart reserved for ridiculous movies. Ones that know they are dumb and just go for it anyway. Terra Formars is one of those movies. It is everything that you’d expect from a Japanese sci-fi battle between giant humanoid cockroaches and criminals with bug powers who are being paid to destroy the roaches so that humans can live on Mars.

Jay tells me that this is a very tame and straightforward addition to director Takashi Miike’s body of work. I would have found that hard to believe but for the clip of his work that was played before our screening, in connection with Miike being awarded a lifetime achievement award by the Fantasia Film Festival, and the descriptions offered during the presentation by the festival’s organizers. All five that spoke clearly love Miike’s work and a more ringing endorsement could not have been given, though with a clear disclaimer that his most extreme work is not going to be enjoyed by many.

001 Personal taste aside, Miike would be deserving of the lifetime achievement award based on productivity alone, as he has somehow screened 30 films at Fantasia during the festival’s 20 years of existence!

Though Terra Formars may be tame and straightforward for Miike, it is a deliciously over-the-top action romp that proudly pays tribute to its manga roots. The roaches look very cartoony on screen but that seems intentional given how closely they match the source material. Just as cartoony are the hybrid human-bug heroes, who to my delight received voice-over intros describing each of their powers. The heroes look incredible in their bug forms, and the glee with which they rip apart the roaches (and vice versa) is contagious.

That glee carries over to the movie as a whole, and is the main reason that I was thoroughly charmed by Terra Formars from start to finish. It’s such a fun and bizarre adventure, you won’t care that much of it makes no sense at all. Highly recommended for anyone whose guilty pleasures include cheesy sci-fi monster movies.

For The Love of Spock

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I know very little\almost nothing about the Star Trek universe, but I do know Mr. Spock. He’s a pop culture icon who transcended the television show with his message of peace and reason. William Shatner soon learned that though the captain’s seat was his alone, the spotlight would have to be shared. The man behind the pointy ears and the Vulcan salute was none other than Leonard Nimoy, hand-picked by Gene Roddenbury to portray this cool and calculated character.

The documentary For The Love of Spock was originally a collaboration between Leonard Nimoy and his son Adam but Nimoy Senior got sick and died very quickly, leaving his son to alter their plans somewhat, honouring the character, but also his father. It’s clear Adam Nimoy’s knowledge of the Star Trek universe is encyclopedic; the footage of the original series is a lot of fun, but also well-chosen and well-timed. A part of me badly wants to gush about all the cool things I learned watching this documentary, and I’m barely restraining myself so that you’ll have your own joyful moments of discovery upon seeing it for yourself.

Almost all of the original cast members are interviewed, and most from the new Star Trek movies as well (including J.J. Abrams), and everyone’s got glowing things to say. It’s nice when the man behind such a beloved character is a nice guy himself. In fact, the only person who seemed to have a problem with him was his son, the film’s director. So no, this isn’t a puff piece. It’s an honest look at intriguing and sometimes enigmatic man who put a lot of himself into his character, and gave a lot of himself to his fans.

Watch this documentary to see Jason Alexander to a spot-on Kirk impression, to hear Shatner pronounce who was the better singer, to get George Takai’s take on the Spock-Kirk slash fiction, to find out who came up with the Vulcan salute, to hear how Harry Belafonte inspired the character, to learn where Nimoy’s kids had to watch the show’s premiere, to note who once called it a “treadmill to oblivion”, and to discover who spent hours responding to Nimoy’s fan mail. You don’t have to be a Trekker to enjoy this movie, but by the end of it, you might just be one.

Adam Nimoy says that his father was eternally grateful to have created this character, never jaded by the experience or the fame. Clearly, the apple doesn’t fall far from the Vulcan tree. Though Leonard’s work kept him away from the family and Adam often felt he was competing with fans for his father’s attention, he still describes Star Trek as “hitting the lottery.” Creating this film was an act of mourning for the son, and absolutely an act of love. At the end of the documentary, Adam asks the many interviewees to describe his father in one word. People offer: hope, integrity, love, but the final word comes from Zachary Quinto who plays Spock in the rebooted version, with Nimoy’s blessing. Quinto throws it back to the documentarian and the son, asking “What’s yours?” Adam Nimoy was at the screening of this film at the Fantasia Film Festival, and he was able to answer that question for us in person.

He said “Passion.”

Tribeca: Equals

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In this version of the future, your feelings are genetically “turned off” in the womb. People are no longer subject to their moods, their intuitions, their base Collider_Equals-150729-b emotions. Everything is pleasantly flat. Nothing bothers them. But some are subject to a disorder in which those feelings are somehow switched back on. This disease is fatal – if you aren’t driven to suicide, you’ll be euthanatized, because being the only sensitive person in a void of flat affect is simply too much to bear.

Silas (Nicholas Hoult) contracts the disease. He’s given medication to try to suppress his feelings and is told to hope for a cure, but he knows that by stage 4, he’ll be given a painless death and that’s it. This world without emotion equals-movie feels rather cold and lonely to us, the viewers, but the people living it don’t seem to notice until they come down with the disease, which sets them even further apart from their peers. But the one good thing is that Silas can see that his work mate Nia (Kristen Stewart) must also be infected. She hides her disease from others but cannot escape his awakened intuition. The two inevitably fall in love, though “coupling” is distinctly prohibited. The only way they can be together is to leave society and head for the outside world, where primitive humans still exist.

The film is well-realized and quite stylish. The best part is the acting. I hate to admit it, but this is Kristen Stewart’s least lip-biting role yet. She and Hoult have tangible chemistry, and for a couple of kids who are experiencing sexual urges for the first time, the film is surprisingly sexy. Guy Pearce and Jacki Weaver lend a lot of credibility in their supporting roles, their performances add urgency and intensity to the proceedings.

equals-movie-kristen-stewart-nicolas-hoult-ksbr-2 The problem, however, is with the story. The truth is, it just feels recycled. It feels like you’ve seen this before. It’s like every second Margaret Atwood novel and does little to distinguish itself from other movies in the genre. What it doesn’t borrow from Atwood it steals from Shakespeare and it never really does its own thing. Equals is a highly-polished piece from a second-hand store. It’s not trash but it could never compete with the real thing. If you’re the kind of person who’s comfortable buying a couch off Kijiji, then maybe this one’s for you.

Strange Days

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What do you get when you cross Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett with Kathryn Bigelow and James Cameron? A Blade Runner wanna-be that doesn’t get over the hump but is not even close to the worst thing you can find on Netflix, as long as you can get past how dated the movie feels.

Given that Strange Days was co-written by James Cameron, it’s very odd that the
technology central to the movie feels so old-fashioned. Even if the effects don’t hold up, Cameron’s near-future technology usually does, from Terminator to Aliens to the Abyss. Not here. I shuddered every time a character waved around a mini-CD containing a clip of someone’s memories (literally a first-person-view replay of whatever the person experienced). Because I’m so over CDs; I’m a vinyl guy. That means I shuddered a lot while watching Strange Days, because the plot of the movie revolves around those little plastic relics – they’re everywhere!

While it may be silly to criticize a movie set in the year 2000 for using CDs, that sort of logic is not going to stop me even for a second. Any world that has the technology to record and replay memories in the year 2000 must also have invented storage technology that is far better than CDs, right? Who’s with me?

The acting is dated as well – it’s from the silent era. Watching these characters experience other people’s memories is entertaining for all the wrong reasons. The facial expressions, the moaning, the anguish, it’s all way, way, WAY too much. I didn’t need to see those reactions even once but just like the omnipresent CDs, we get at least one shot of each main character overacting when they plug into a SQUID (which, unfortunately, is what the memory recorder and player is called).

In particular, Ralph Fiennes’ off-the-charts overacting and general greasiness in the film makes it surprising that he ever found work again. I think in order to enjoy Fiennes’ catalog from now on, I will have to pretend that the star of Strange Days was actually Bradley Cooper. Which probably won’t be that hard since they may be the same person.

So if you’re a fan of the English Patient, you should probably skip this one. On the other hand, if you are a more a fan of cheeseball 90s sci-fi than cheeseball 90s romances, then Strange Days will be right up your alley.

Strange Days gets a score of five unrealistic Y2K parties out of ten.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant

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About a year ago, Wandering Through the Shelves had us binge-watching Movies Based on Young Adult Novels. The first two films in the Divergent series were neither the best or the worst things I watched that week. They’re not great- even “good” would be a stretch- but I was won over by the decency and unlikely strength of Tris (Shailene Woodley). I also couldn’t have done without the effortless charisma of Miles Teller as Peter, who brings much-needed personality to a series that takes itself way too seriously whenever he’s not on screen.

In the first two films in the series, the citizens (prisoners?) of Chicago have been assigned factions based on their defining trait (athletic, honest, kind, smart, and selfless). I’ve always found this basic premise to be a little lazy and a pretty adolescent view of the world but, hey, it’s young adult fiction. Besides, it’s what makes Divergent Divergent. To do away with these factions would be like the Twilight series continuing without any vampires or werewolves of the Fifty Shades series going straight edge. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what this series does.

Allegiant picks up where Insurgent left off, immediately after the fall of the faction system. Without it, not only does Chicago lose control over its population but the story loses its focus and coherence. Fearing that Evelyn, (Naomi Watts) is becoming as oppressive a leader as Kate Winslet’s character had been, five young adults venture over the walls. What follows is sillier than the other two films combined, exposition-heavy, and impossible to follow. Tris, the heroic non-conformist of the story, somehow starts towing the party line. Woodley does her best to keep her interest but it’s tough not to be frustrated with her when everyone onscreen and in the audience thinks it’s obvious that she’s being played. Even Miles Teller’s shtick is getting old. Pick a side, buddy!

The Divergent series isn’t really made for adults and for all I know may please its target audience. Because most 16 year-olds wouldn’t be interested in our site and most of our readers wouldn’t be interested in this series, you might wonder why I’d even bother reviewing it. To that, I can only say “Jeff Daniels”. Daniels, joining Winslet, Watts, Octavia Spencer, and Ray Stevenson, becomes the latest good actor over 40 to have his talents wasted by this trite material. How so many good actors got involved in this series, I have no idea. But judging by their performances, I can tell it’s not because they wanted to be there. By the third film, their talents are no longer just wasted. They’re giving bad performances.

What’s happening in Hollywood that the likes of Naomi Watts and Jeff Daniels need a job this badly? Or that any filmmaker could become so distracted by their pretty but mostly boring young stars that they would forget to give Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer even a single key scene?

This is why I care enough about this series to write about it.

10 Cloverfield Lane

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I have been trying to make sense of 10 Cloverfield Lane for months, from the moment I saw the title of this movie at the end of its trailer. And after seeing the movie I’m still searching for answers. 2834c660-9db5-0133-6e17-0efce411145f

Hinting at a connection between this movie and Cloverfield was probably not the best idea that J.J. Abrams has had. Cloverfield massively disappointed me. It seemed like a great concept, putting the camera in the middle of monster-created chaos, but Cloverfield ended up being your typical found footage crapfest from start to finish. So to suggest this is a sequel or prequel or some other form of spinoff was a weird choice, especially because the trailer for 10 Cloverfield Lane contained no hint of a connection between it and Cloverfield other than the similar name (and thankfully also contained NO FOUND FOOTAGE).

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

The common name is not a coincidence but it was a terrible idea. It ruined what might otherwise have been a nice twist two-thirds of the way through 10 Cloverfield Lane. To paraphrase Shakespeare, this same movie by a different name would have been just as mediocre, but at least the title wouldn’t have tipped off the audience that there was more outside the bunker to be afraid of than a lady with a melted face.

So if you’re making this movie, why tip your hand in the title? Does the Cloverfield brand really have that much value? Am I the only one who disliked that movie? I mean, I totally hated The Visit and others apparently thought it was good. So I’m open to the possibility that a similar thing happened with Cloverfield, but I would be surprised. Tell me whether or not you’re with me in the comments but know that I’m judging you based on your response.

[END SPOILERS]

It felt good to get that out of my system and now I think I can focus on 10 Cloverfield Lane as its own movie. In two words: don’t bother. The group of 13 year old girls sitting behind us couldn’t take it seriously and neither could I. There are way too many disparate elements at work and as a result the movie is disjointed from beginning to end. There’s nothing remotely redeeming or original here.

If end-of-the-world movies were drinks, 10 Cloverfield Lane would be a glass of three random types of bar-rail liquor, served to guests without a taste test. So it’s only fitting that 10 Cloverfield Lane gets a score of three bottles of cheap scotch out of ten.