Tag Archives: Sci-Fi

Oblivion  (2013)    15/100

Posted on by
Reply

Rating :   15/100                                                                     124 Min        12A

This film suffers from, at least, three major problems: the trailer spoils the entire first half of it, giving away critical elements, the screenplay is full of holes and so cheesy there were audible gasps of exasperation and laughs of derision in the cinema, I felt like applauding the couple of people who left at one particularly bad moment, though it is at least matched by lacklustre acting overall, and thirdly it lifts a lot from multiple other sci-fi sources, combining to produce a pallid shell, from which any talent and creativity long since departed.

If I were to add a fourth thing, it would have to be Tom Cruise’s hair, which seems to have a life of its own, appearing down one moment, and then ridiculously erect the next – usually when he mounts his wee desert bike as if this suddenly activates ‘Mad Max Desert Bike Cruise’. Speaking of which, there’s no reason for the bike to even exist other than to have the hero ride off on one; the hero who decides finding something lost in the desert will be easier on bike rather than from the air, hmmm…

The Red Dragon actually rates Cruise generally, but there is only so much he can do when everything else around him is crumbling. Fans of the hugely popular Bethesda Game Studios roleplay game ‘Oblivion’ should be aware there is no connection to this film, instead here Tom Cruise plays Jack Harper, hot on the heels of him playing ‘Jack Reacher’, who together with Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are the last two humans assigned to the dying planet of Earth, who must protect, with the help of armed drones, huge automated machines which are to transport the planet’s water supply to humanity’s new home on Saturn’s moon, Titan. This has all come to pass after war with an alien race, a war which we won, but our own planet, and indeed our moon, was the price that had to be paid. Despite victory, remnants of the alien task force remain and attempt to interfere with the human plans…

In the course of telling their story, here is a not entirely inclusive list of the other films that are defiled in the process; ‘Wall-E’, ‘Star Trek: Generations’, ‘Terminator’, ‘Independence Day’, ‘The Matrix’, all to greater or lesser degrees, but their biggest art theft is also a massive spoiler, and so appears after the end of this review. Some of these similarities it could get away with easily, such as the drones with red ‘Terminator’ esque eyes and their screens that have ‘terminate’ on them, commonplace in sci-fi now really, but as they mount up it becomes more difficult. Cruise collects and cares for a small plant, the only thing alive he’s found in the dead lands he patrols – ‘Wall-E’. He has a hidden away, idealised cabin in a somehow fertile woods – ‘Generations’. I’ll stop there before I give too much away.

The film is written and directed by Joseph Kosinski (‘Tron Legacy’ 2010) who based this on his, unpublished (early warning sign right there), graphic novel, and he has claimed it pays homage to films from the 70’s, which may be true, but for the rest of it that fine line between homage and stealing is not tread carefully. Just as with his ‘Tron Legacy’, the visuals are the film’s only saving grace (many of the location shoots took place in Iceland), which paint a grand vista of cinematic grandeur, but are ultimately just the icing on a poorly baked cake.

SPOILER ALERT

Ok, this is basically the American version of Duncan Jones’s (son of David Bowie) ‘Moon’ (09), and, unfortunately, it’s cheesy and rubbish, whereas ‘Moon’ became a well deserved indie hit. Even though Kosinski’s graphic novel was begun in 2005, the similarities here are too great to ignore, and the screenplay underwent several rewrites over the years via several different people, had the graphic novel been published one could say for sure which came first. Strangely Jones is planning to write a graphic novel as a sequel to ‘Moon’ which he may then turn into a film – perhaps he nicked Kosinski’s idea? In any case ‘Moon’ was released first, and is ten times better, so it would have been wise to significantly alter the script to make sure no one could accuse it of plagiarism. Not the first time Cruise has been involved in an American remake – see his ‘Vanilla Sky’ as opposed to Alejandro Amenábar’s ‘Open Your Eyes’. If you are a big fan of sci-fi then please watch ‘Moon’ before you see this, as one will probably ruin the other for you and ‘Oblivion’ is bad in enough other ways to not really care about spoiling.

Dark Skies  (2013)    30/100

Posted on by
Reply

Rating :   30/100                                                                       97 Min        15

The new horror film from the makers of ‘Insidious’ and ‘Sinister’ (Blumhouse Productions), and bearing similarities to their ‘Paranormal Activity’ franchise which began before those two releases, sees many familiar motifs return and take on new cross-genre twists, actually leaving the film in danger of becoming a parody of itself. The culturally ubiquitous idea of ‘The Boogeyman’ is back, and right from the beginning we are informed this stalker of children’s nightmares will now appear in the guise of extraterrestrials. Some of the scares are decent enough, though most are exactly what we expect from previous material and the screenplay is dire to say the least, especially when it comes to the adults in the story. As per the norm the action concerns an average, struggling with bills, family of four that have mysteriously become the centre of attention of some otherworldly visitors.

What the film doesn’t swipe from its predecessors, it takes very obviously from other sci-fi sources; mention of the truth being out there and wanting to believe immediately bring the wonderful ‘X-Files’ to mind, the title is shared by another nineties sci-fi tv series about alien invasion, scenes are lifted directly from both Spielberg’s ‘E.T.’ and ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’, and at one point we witness scores of birds flying kamikaze style into windows and walls, identical to scenes in ‘Red Lights’. The introduction of alien expert and victim Edwin Pollard, played by J.K.Simmons, brings a bit more interest to the piece, and also a little more sympathy for the family, but it’s nothing more than a brief glimmer of what could have been with the application of more invention and originality. If done in the right way, this could have spawned a franchise in its own right, ‘Dark Skies’ the tv series was good until it lost its way toward the end, and long before that there was ‘The Invaders’ (and the bit more camp ‘V’), a fantastic series that highlighted the potential for ‘they are amongst us’ stories to engross and fascinate skeptics and believers alike.

This is a dilution of the genuinely quite scary ‘Insidious’ (10), and then the nowhere near as good ‘Sinister’ (12). Look forward to the next logical step from Jason Blum and co where the aliens discard their used human experiments at Fukushima, wherein they become zombies that all look like the girl from ‘Ringu’ and can only be properly seen by the naked eye via surveillance cameras, forcing the army to get involved, who originally blame immigrant Korean workers until the evidence becomes overwhelming, although the Japanese emperor still refuses to acknowledge what’s going on, until his wife turns into a zombie and eats him.

The Host  (2013)    59/100

Posted on by
Reply

Rating :   59/100                                                                     125 Min        12A

Based on ‘Twilight’ author Stephenie Meyer’s non twilight sci-fi novel, although one could possibly guess the connection by the premise and advertising poster shown above. Where ‘Twilight’ featured a horny and irresponsible young girl at the centre of a love triangle that managed to get most of the inhabitants of her town killed, here we have a teenage love quadrangle with one female INSIDE THE BODY of another. It takes Bella’s indecision over Jacob or Edward to a whole new level.

The premise is that Earth has largely been taken over by peace loving aliens who nevertheless use human bodies as hosts, dominating them completely. The main female character Melanie, played by Saoirse Ronan, is implanted but she is strong enough for her own identity to survive and communicate with her parasitic intruder. The alien shares the memories of Melanie and recalls a romantic affair with a young male in the human resistance. Driven mad with cock lust, the extraterrestrial agrees to help Melanie but, naturally, finds she gets hot flushes from someone else, cue lots of (self) bitch slapping all round.

Ronan does a really good job given her difficult task, and she really suits the bright blue contacts which denotes alien control. Similarly, William Hurt as the autocratic leader of the resistance cell is likeable, and if you get past the fact the film is trashy crap, it is not without a certain visual appeal. The brief appearance of Emily Browning towards the end suggests the possibility of a sequel, but this may be wishful thinking on the part of the producers (there are currently no other books, but since Meyer stated as far back as 2009 she sees the story as a trilogy, it seems very likely she decided to wait and see how this film performed. She could probably churn out the other two over breakfast anyway). The film is written and directed by Andrew Nicol which, following on from his atrocious ‘In Time’ (2011), quite possibly sounds the death knell on his career, and for acting support has Jake Abel (‘Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief’ 2010), Jeremy Irons’ son Max irons (‘Red Riding Hood’ 2011), and Diane Kruger as another alien hottie.

Of note, Saoirse Ronan is also rumoured to have been cast as Mary Queen of Scots in an upcoming biopic…

Cloud Atlas  (2012)    59/100

Posted on by
Reply

Rating :   59/100                                                                     172 Min        15

This isn’t actually all that bad. It is way too long at just under three hours, in fact I’m pretty sure an entire hour could have been axed from it somewhere in the middle. Half way through I couldn’t wait for it to end, but come the end I was actually quite enjoying it. The best way to think of this film is traditional adventure storytelling done in a multi-layered way, with each layer a different story in space and time over Earth’s history but each featuring the same actors playing multiple parts, ultimately trying to make the point that our actions, every crime or kind deed as the film puts it, can have repercussions for evermore, and forwarding the belief that life is both transient and ever renewing.

It features an ensemble cast including Jim Broadbent, Tom Hanks, Halle Berry (why does she always get all the worst lines? Does she improv them?), Ben Whishaw, Jim Sturgess and Hugh Grant to name some of the most familiar faces, all often wearing prosthetics and sporting different accents, to varying degrees of success. It’s adapted from the Booker prize nominated novel by David Mitchell and directed by the Wachowski brothers (or perhaps siblings is more correct since one of them has undergone a sex change, they are joined by Tom Tykwer {‘Run Lola Run’} on director duties) of ‘The Matrix’ fame, and just as in that series Hugo Weaving makes a marked appearance as the bad guy/assassin in most of the stories, and he clearly relishes being able to do so.

The script needed to be reworked as it’s pretty consistently terrible, featuring cartloads of cheese and an evolved future language that sounds altogether like gibberish, something made all the worse by the actors mumbling it as they attempt to deliver it to us. Some nice shots of Edinburgh, as well as a Scottish bar fight gag at the expense of some supposed English patrons, which went a long way toward warming the audience to the film….

Quotes

“You have to do what you can’t not do”   Halle Berry/Luisa Rey

Resident Evil : Retribution  (2012)    55/100

Posted on by
Reply

Rating :   55/100                                                                       96 Min        15

If you are like The Red Dragon, you probably have intense difficulty in remembering what happened in Resident Evil 2, 3, and 4, and your memory of the first one is reduced to the outbreak of the T-virus in the beginning, people getting diced in the corridor in the middle, and then some fairly ropey computer graphics at the end. Happily, ‘Resident Evil 5:  Retribution’ begins with not only a recap, but with the end of the last film replaying in slow-mo reverse. With some apt music playing it’s a nice intro. The rest of the film follows very much in the vein of its predecessors, which is precisely its problem. The reason distinguishing the previous incarnations from one another is so difficult, is that they all had precious little point to them.

Here, true to form, interest dwindles as the unrealistic plot is matched by an endless series of unrealistic fight/gunfight sequences. Parts look slick enough, and the characters and actors invest just enough to merit another possible sequel, but the next one must surely have more going for it for the franchise to continue in film.

Total Recall  (2012)    55/100

Posted on by
Reply

Rating :   55/100                                                                     118 Min        12A

Total Recall looks very, very good. It’s a remake of the classic 1990 Schwarzenegger film, itself based on the Philip K. Dick short story ‘We Can Remember It for You Wholesale’. The previous two incarnations of the tale all featured Mars – here it’s set in a dystopian future Earth where only the United Federation of Great Britain and the more impoverished ‘colony’ of Australia survive after global chemical warfare. Not too sure why they thought it would be a good idea to reduce Australia to colonial status once again, but the British element does give director Les Wiseman (‘Underworld’ 03) good basis to cast not only his wife, Kate Beckinsale, but also Irishman Colin Farell (Bill Nighy also appears, with what I think is supposed to be an American accent..). Graphically the settings are detailed and convincing, the only problem is there’s not much more to the entire film.

As it gathers pace, ‘Total Recall’ descends into an endless series of chase sequences and set piece gun battles, which are well constructed but nevertheless become tedious. Kate Beckinsale’s ‘Underworld’ training is put to good use and it is fun watching her whirl around like a peeved dervish of destruction, admittedly with trademark skin tight clothes on, but the story really needed a lot more depth put into it. Jessica Biel also has a sizeable role to play, but her character is fairly pointless and only really exists as an accessory to the inevitable conclusion.

It’s been a long time since The Red Dragon watched the original, but I think it’s fair to say it had more going on than here, though pleasingly they have stuck with some of the famous lines (sadly not the one from Sharon Stone and the retort) and also the three breasted girl element. If you like films with lots of mindless shooting and an attempt at a believable plot then there’s no reason you won’t like this.