Reviews & features: Sci-Fi
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Man of Steel
12 Jun 2013
Decent performances and safe direction results in a Superman flick that flies but never soars
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No it's another take on Superman, swooping into cinemas just seven-years after Bryan Singer's sluggish version, which in turn heavily referenced its 1978 predecessor. With Man of Steel, director Zack Snyder attempts to…
After Earth
7 Jun 2013
Po-faced sci-fi adventure starring Will Smith and son
It can be interesting to watch the placing of credits on posters. Usually it's the star of said feature with their name emblazoned above the title, but some directors move up to take that top spot. There's a tipping point when their directorial vision…
The Film Formula: After Earth
4 Jun 2013
We discover the elements behind the post-apocalyptic survival film starring Will and Jaden Smith
Coming so soon after Tom Cruise-starrer Oblivion, it's hard not to tar After Earth with the same brush. Both come bursting with nifty CGI-aided technology; both feature isolated, jumpsuited protagonists making their way across post-apocalyptic Earth…
The Purge
31 May 2013
Dark sci-fi thriller set in a future where all crime is legal one night every year
New Labour might have led with their slogan 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime', but thankfully they didn't go as far as a state sanctioned night of murder, death, violence and rape. The Purge is set in American, 2022, where for one night a…
Top 5... time manipulation movies
15 May 2013
Inspired by the trailer for About Time, we recount the 5 best chronologically-challenged movies
The trailer for writer-director Richard Curtis’ new time travel rom-com, About Time, was recently released, giving us first look at the love story between the chronologically gifted Tim (Black Mirror’s Domhnall Gleeson) and the object of his affections…
Star Trek Into Darkness
9 May 2013
Solid sci-fi story in the vein of JJ Abrams' first Star Trek film
With his brilliant restart to the Star Trek series in 2009, director JJ Abrams delivered an origin story that was both respectful to the series’ history while unafraid to take its well-known characters in new and surprising directions. Added to this…
Iron Man 3
24 Apr 2013
Director Shane Black recovers from a lacklustre second instalment with wit and subversion
The third instalment in Marvel’s Iron Man franchise has its work cut out in both bettering its own relatively lame sequel and following the massive success of The Avengers. Thanks to director Shane Black (who also co-wrote the script with Drew Pearce)…
Oblivion
10 Apr 2013
Tom Cruise's latest sci-fi outing is visually splendid but features overfamiliar plotting
His first sci-fi since Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, there is a queasy sense of familiarity with Tom Cruise’s new film, Oblivion. It hardly helps that his character, a cocky blue-collar repairman, is named Jack Harper – which sounds uncannily…
The Host
3 Apr 2013
This Stephenie Meyer-adapted sci-fi has some good ideas let down by dull scripting and wooden acting
Whoever decided to combine the talents of author Stephenie Meyer and writer-director Andrew Niccol should never eat lunch in this town again. Both have form in coming up with intriguing, high concept storylines: an adolescent human falls in love with…
Dark Skies
28 Mar 2013
A sci-fi horror with a few decent scares is let down by derivative plotting
Having previously bombarded us with (post-)apocalyptic scenarios in Doomsday, Legion and Priest, writer-director Scott Stewart now takes on the alien visitation genre with marginally more satisfying results. While Dark Skies exercises more restraint and…
The History of Future Folk
22 Feb 2013
Charming but slight sci-fi music comedy in the vein of Flight of the Conchords
Cosmic-folk twosome Future Folk started life on the underground New York music scene, playing acoustic guitar-and-banjo tunes with sci-fi lyrics to crowds of bemused punters. The gentle whimsy and a focus on music rather than jokes puts their foot…
Cloud Atlas
18 Feb 2013
Breathtaking action, profound emotion, dark sense of fun and sheer deranged brilliance
A time-trotting, globe-encircling, multi-strand plot; wigs, false noses and flamboyant accents; grandiose theories about the fate-shifting power of romantic love... Cloud Atlas has an unavoidable hint of the Mad Folly about it. One recalls Thomas…
Grabbers
21 Dec 2012
A contrived, one-note sci-fi horror comedy in which a community stays drunk to repel an alien attack
In Grabbers, an interplanetary invasion of earth can potentially be foiled, not by the fighting spirit of the human race, but due to the aversion of the aliens to drinking blood contaminated by alcohol. It’s a situation which forces the inhabitants of a…
Manborg
13 Dec 2012
This movie made for $1000 is endearingly lo-fi DIY entertainment
Can you really make a movie for $1000? Director/writer/editor/actor Steven Kostanski certainly gives it his best shot with the ultra low budget Manborg. Made with a lot of love and sticky back plastic over three years it’s purposefully ridiculous – this…
Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan
23 Nov 2012
Documentary about the work and influence of the special effects pioneer
Ray Harryhausen saw King Kong (1933) and was instantly hooked on the magic of movies. Eventually going on to work with the man who brought Kong to life, Willis O’Brien, on another great ape movie: Might Joe Young (1949). From there on Harryhausen became…
Resident Evil: Retribution
28 Sep 2012
Vacuous but delivers when it comes to action
Films based on videogames have a bad rep. That doesn’t stop some of them being hugely popular. Resident Evil, the most successful game-to-movie franchise, has so far grossed over $670 million worldwide. And it can put that success down to knowing its…
Interview: Vic Armstrong - Stuntman behind Indiana Jones, James Bond and Superman
20 Sep 2012
Stuntman and director on high falls, Superman, Indiana Jones and Harrison Ford
Vic Armstrong is one of the hardest working men in Hollywood. In the 60s he started working as a stunt man going on to be Harrison Ford’s stunt double in the Indiana Jones movies and Christopher Reeves’ in Superman. Later in his career he moved onto…
Interview: Kim Newman - film critic and novelist
23 Aug 2012
The noted writer talks Dracula, horror and vampires
Writer Kim Newman is probably most famous for his film criticism, a champion of horror and cult cinema, writing several books on the subject, while delving into the Video Dungeon at Empire magazine every issue and starting this interview with the fact…
Rian Johnson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt reunite in sci-fi thriller Looper
16 Aug 2012
Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt also star in film about hired killer with a difference
Once the lavish summer blockbusters are out of the way, there’s always a slice of brain-boggling sci-fi set aside to keep genre aficionados going. Writer/director Rian Johnson’s Looper reunites him with his Brick star Joseph Gordon-Levitt for a…
Sound of My Voice
24 Jul 2012
Brit Marling of Another Earth stars in Zal Batmanglij's time travel B movie with a difference
If time travel proved possible, how might time-travellers appear to us? That’s the intriguing question posed with considerable gravitas in director Zal Batmanglij’s taut little thriller. In ten episodic chapters, complete with miniature cliff-hangers…
Review of Reviews - Prometheus
25 Jun 2012
What we said, and they said, about Ridley Scott's return to the Alien universe
What we said ‘For all its newness, Prometheus feels oddly second hand. Inescapably, the film operates as a set of such discrete moments, rather than a fully-realised narrative.’ The List They said ‘For all its big ideas it’s not quite as revelatory…
Prometheus
6 Jun 2012
Ridley Scott's return to the Alien universe is compelling but inconsistent
When contributing to a franchise with singular cultural standing and an obsessive fan base, how does one evade one’s film being largely obscured by a firestorm of nitpicking, over-interpretation and delusional theorising? If one is Ridley Scott making…
Men in Black III
1 Jun 2012
Silly, lightweight, completely unnecessary but surprisingly fun
In these times of austerity Hollywood seems scared of originals ideas. Studios demand ‘brand recognition’ before they’ll stump up the multi-million dollar budgets blockbusters require. And they seem willing to latch onto almost any brand, from comics to…
Death Watch
16 May 2012
Well-deserved re-issue of Bertrand Tavernier's prescient Glasgow-set sci-fi thriller
Its plot is a credibility stretch even in these days of de rigueur media paranoia, and its relentlessly murky, moody tone might raise the odd giggle, but Tavernier’s long-neglected sci-fi curiosity is compelling nonetheless. Romy Schneider plays…
New Prometheus viral features Michael Fassbender as 'David'
17 Apr 2012
Fassbender plays the robotic David in Ridley Scott's upcoming sci-fi blockbuster
Following on from their previous viral clip - a futuristic TED talk delivered by Weyland Industries founder Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce) - the folks behind Prometheus have delivered this clip of Michael Fassbender in character as David, a robot built by…
