LAPSIS (full article at The Guardian Australia)

Armed with a unique premise and some thoughtful ideas, Noah Hutton’s 2020 film Lapsis is a sharp piece of job-hell science fiction that takes a shot at exploitative casual labour and the gig economy. The world of Lapsis is almost identical to ours but with one significant difference: the advancement of quantum computing, which has revolutionised society.

Quantum trading is a huge business and, to support it, an equally huge infrastructure must be set up. Enter the cablers: a casually employed workforce who trek through the forests of upstate New York, armed with only a GPS device and a spool of cable, to connect quantum trading nodes situated throughout the countryside.

Read the full article at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/jan/31/lapsis-film-2020-noah-hutton-best-thriller-movies-sci-fi

IMDB: Lapsis

DARK ANGEL aka I COME IN PEACE (full article at The Guardian Australia)

There’s always a lot of conversation at this time of year surrounding what does and does not constitute a Christmas movie. For some folks, only James Stewart appreciating the joy of existence in It’s a Wonderful Life will do. Others want to watch the Peanuts gang in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Personally, I want to watch Dolph Lundgren fight an alien drug dealer and kick people in the face in Dark Angel.

This 1990 action film is an underrated piece of festive lunacy with an extremely fun if slightly overcomplicated plot, but there are a lot of stunts and explosions to smooth things over. If you doubt its festive credentials, the opening scene involves a guy crashing his car into a Christmas tree lot. You can’t get more Christmassy than that.

Read the full article at The Guardian Australia:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/dec/27/dolph-lundgren-alien-heroin-and-evil-yuppies-dark-angel-is-fun-festive-lunacy

IMDB: Dark Angel aka I Come In Peace

STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER (full review at Screen Realm)

Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker sees JJ Abrams returning to the director’s chair after original director Colin Trevorrow left following ‘creative differences’. With Rian Johnson’s divisive The Last Jedi splitting an increasingly toxic ‘fanbase’ into two camps, the outraged and the overcompensating, the reactions were extreme to a movie that was neither the franchise killer, nor the masterpiece, that each side claimed. So Abrams finds himself with a tricky job ahead of him, returning to a trilogy that started out brightly but has gotten a bit lost along the way.

While staying as far away from spoilers as possible, The Rise Of Skywalker sees our trio of heroes back together once more. Rey (Daisy Ridley), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) find themselves tearing around the galaxy once more, with a familiar team comprising Chewbacca and an assortment of droids. Their mission is to locate the mythical home planet of the Sith before an infamous nemesis of old can raise an army with which to subjugate the galaxy. With this basic, but traditional Star Wars plotline, JJ Abrams concludes the trilogy he started in 2015 with The Force Awakens.

Read the full review at Screen Realm:
https://screenrealm.com/star-wars-the-rise-of-skywalker-movie-review/

IMDB: Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker

TEN MUST-SEE SCI-FI MOVIES ON NETFLIX ANZ (full article at Screen Realm)

The age old ‘What-do-I-watch-on-Netflix?’ question is almost as old as time itself isn’t it? But fear not, we have you covered. Here’s our rundown of ten must-see sci-fi movies, ranging from classics to underrated gems, currently available on Netflix ANZ.


Pacific Rim
There’s not really a lot more you need to know about that time Guillermo Del Toro brought a giant robot to a Kaiju party. Pacific Rim is as self-explanatory as it is deliriously enjoyable. For all its simple maths, Pacific Rim grabs you by the hand and leads you straight down into an intricate universe laden with heroic mech pilots, colossal interdimensional beasts from the depths of the sea and eye popping black markets in monster guts...

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
https://screenrealm.com/ten-best-science-fiction-movies-netflix-australia-new-zealand/

STAR WARS : THE LAST JEDI (full review at The Reel Word)

After the events of The Force Awakens the Resistance is on the run. Pursued with merciless intent by the First Order, and unable to escape their tracking systems. In a last ditch attempt to save the waning Resistance fleet, Finn (John Boyega), Rose (Kellie Marie Tran) and BB-8 set off in search of a hacker who can disable the First Order’s hyperspace tracking device. All the while, far across the galaxy, Rey (Daisy Ridley) looks to Luke Skywalker for guidance and teaching as her force powers become unleashed, preparing to either recruit Luke in the fight against the First Order, or confront Kylo Ren on her own.

Read the full article at The Reel Word website:
https://www.thereelword.net/star-wars-the-last-jedi-movie-review/

IMDB: Star Wars The Last Jedi

DOWNSIZING (full review at The Reel Word)

Downsizing is the seventh feature film from American writer / director Alexander Payne. It takes an irresistible sci-fi notion, populates it with typically rich characters, and to top it all off, decides to say a thing or two in the process. In other words, it’s absolute magic.

Norwegian scientist, Dr Jorgen Asbjørnsen (Rolf Lassgård), makes a historic scientific breakthrough. He discovers a way to shrink organic matter down to a fraction of its original size. This irreversible shrinking process, or ‘downsizing’, is used in a bid to combat overpopulation. Participants who downsize are given incentives. Not only are they helping the planet, but their quality of life increases exponentially, their smaller footprint means they can live in far greater luxury.

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
https://www.thereelword.net/downsizing-movie-review/

IMDB: Downsizing

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (full review at The Reel Word)

In the year 2049, blade runner’s operate as an arm of the police force, ‘retiring’ rogue and older model replicants. K (Ryan Gosling) is a newer model replicant blade runner. Sent to a protein farm to retire the replicant Sapper Morton (Dave Bautista), K happens on a discovery that will lead him to question everything he knows about replicants and humans, as well as his own existence. Played by all sides, he is ordered by his boss Lt Joshi (Robin Wright) to cover up his findings, while simultaneously pursued by the Wallace Corporation, and its enigmatic head Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), who have absorbed the Tyrell Corporation and lead the market in replicant manufacture. K’s investigation leads him inexorably to the doorstep of former blade runner Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford).

Read the full article at The Reel Word:
https://www.thereelword.net/blade-runner-2049-movie-review/

IMDB: Blade Runner 2049

GHOST IN THE SHELL

In an unnamed, neon flecked future city, the Major (Scarlett Johannson) heads up a counter-terrorist squad called Section 9. Following her parents’ death and severe personal injury in a terrorist attack, the Major’s brain is loaded into a cybernetic body. In a world dominated by robotic appendages and cybernetic enhancements, the Major represents the first complete merger of human and artificial intelligence. Her consciousness within the metal frame personifying the ‘Ghost in the Shell.’ Torn between her desire to remember more of her former life, and dedication to duty, the Major and her team must track down the illusive cyber terrorist Kuze, as he wreaks murderous havoc upon the executives of the Hanka Robotics company.

Drawing on elements from Masamune Shirow’s revered manga, the TV series and Mamoru Oshii’s iconic 1995 animated feature, Ghost in the Shell is a lustrous piece of cyberpunk tech noir, which impresses on a visual scale, but struggles to make a connection elsewhere.

Scarlett Johansson gives an oddly subdued performance as the Major. Disturbed by glitches and memories of her former life, she comes across Robopcop-Lite, but remains perpetually aloof. Where Verhoeven’s android copper drew us in, Ghost in the Shell keeps us firmly at arms length, so we’re never fully on board with what she’s trying to do. The movie’s heart has been replaced with cold circuitry.

Juliette Binoche has more success as Dr Ouelet, scientist and surrogate parental unit in charge of the Major’s general wellbeing. She brings much needed emotion to the sterile proceedings. Takashi Kitano also fares better, on reliably good form as the enigmatic head of Section 9, muttering in Japanese yet being fully understood by his English speaking subordinates. Most of the other characters fail to leave much of an impression. The villains are uncharismatic, and the Section 9 team have no real motivation beyond catching bad guys and patting dogs.

Structurally, the set up is unclear. At some points Section 9 are beholden to the whims of Hanka Robitics, and at others they adhere to orders from the (unseen) Prime Minister. It feels underdeveloped, as if the filmmakers didn’t quite make their minds up about how this universe operates before they started filming.

Ghost In The Shell’s problem is not style over substance, because there is substance here – the meaning of existence, personal identity, simultaneously conflicted and sympathetic protagonists – it’s just never satisfactorily explored. And whether or not it’s bringing anything new to these themes rolled over from the original, is a question for the fans to debate.

The fans will also likely be pleased to see scenes lifted directly from the source material, and the tightly packed, hologram enhanced cityscape makes for a perfect Tokyo/Blade Runner mash up. There’s an extensive array of stylish tech and robots on display, intricately designed and perfectly realised, that nail the ‘high tech, low life’ aesthetic.

What makes Ghost in the Shell disappointing is the hints that it was nearly a great film.  It’s better paced than the slow burn anime, and credit is due to any sci-fi in the modern era, that doesn’t feel compelled to over explain or over contextualise its universe. But it’s too loosely drawn, and we never really understand the importance of the stakes involved. The ultimate irony is we have a movie that centres on what it means to be human in an artificial world, yet it comes across so impersonally.

IMDB: Ghost In The Shell

NEWS: Freak Shift

Ben Wheatley participated in an audience Q&A following a screening of his latest movie Free Fire, at The Lido Cinema in Hawthorne last night. Wheatley fed us a few facts about his next movie, Freakshift, a science fiction movie originally mooted as his follow up to Kill List back in 2012. He confirmed that Free Fire’s Armie Hammer is on board and that at this stage it looks all set to begin in August.

The eponymous Freak Shift are a special police unit engaged to fight monsters who emerge at night to terrorize the populace. Wheatley went on to succinctly summarise it as “a group of women fighting giant crabs.”  Freakshift, once again co-written with Amy Jump, will be Wheatley’s seventh feature film and his first foray into science fiction in a filmography that comprises an eclectic mix of genre and art house fare.  His latest movie Free Fire opens in Australia this week, and is a hugely entertaining black comedy / action movie meld.

Ben Wheatley has an almost perfect track record so far and it sounds like Freak Shift is ticking all the right boxes.


IMDB: Freakshift

SOYLENT GREEN (full review at The Reel Word)

Richard Fleischer’s 1973 science fiction movie, Soylent Green, is a hard-boiled detective yarn set against the backdrop of a dystopian future, ravaged by the effects of overpopulation and the greenhouse effect.

The year is 2022 and the Earth is running on empty. The soil and seas have been poisoned by industry, and population growth has strangled the planet. Set in a crammed, breadline New York City, there is so little room people sleep on stairways, and the majority of the population exist on rationed food cubes (the titular Soylent Green, as well as Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow). Opportunism is rife, and luxury is seized with both hands whenever it presents itself.  It is a world of food riots, unemployment and endless stifling heat.
Read the rest of the review at The Reel Word:
http://www.thereelword.net/reel-classic-soylent-green/

IMDB: Soylent Green

THE ONE

Jet Li's mind bending, high concept, sci-fi, martial arts actioner The One is another addition to the underrated list. Lost to many people in the post-matrix deluge of slow-mo, CGI heavy bullet-time movies of the early 00s, The One deserves reassessment. Bestowed with an intriguing, albeit loopy concept, The One delivers an interesting meld of science fiction and action movie joy.

The bonkers concept essentially sees Jet Li trying to kill all the other Jet Li's across various dimensions, so that he can absorb their strength and become the most powerful Jet Li in the Universe! As his evil bastard alter ago, Gabriel Yulaw, he attempts a spot of interdimensional homicide, but just as Yulaw (Jet Li) gets stronger with each assassination, so too does good guy cop Gabe Law (Jet Li). As the number of interdimensional Jet Li's dwindle, it falls to Gabe and a pair of agents from a parallel universe police force called the Multiverse Authority (MVA) to stop him.

Generally you go into a Jet Li movie wanting to see Jet Li hand some bad guys their ass, but in The One Jet Li hands himself his own ass! Through a variety of  gravity defying action scenes and super pumped fisticuffs, The One's effects have held up well. The wire work fight scenes are convincing as Gabe battles both himself and battalions of cops, and there is an awesome set piece where a powered-up Yulaw attacks a motorcycle plod with a vehicle in each hand!

The One also has a pretty great cast going for it. Veteran character actor Delroy Lindo provides the acting chops, as World-weary MVA Agent Harry Roedecker.  Dean Norris from Breaking Bad also features; and it has an early appearance by Jason Statham who stomps around with another dicey accent, but gives the film cred by playing it totally straight and taking the material seriously. In fact, Crank aside, this might very well be The Stath's finest hour, despite the fact he doesn't really get to show off his fighting prowess.

Director James Wong and writer Glen Morgan have a notable back catalogue in the form of the first, surprisingly enjoyable, Final Destination movie, alongside consistent work on both Millennium and The X Files.  I doubt there are that many folk who are enamoured enough with this movie to sit down with the director’s commentary on, but let the record show I am that person. In an enlightening talk track we learn that one of the characters in the hospital morgue scene is played by none other than Mark Borchardt from the incredible against-the-odds movie making documentary American Movie. We’re then hit with the revelation that Jonathan Ke Quan aka Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and Data from The Goonies, assisted on the fight choreography! Much is made of the fact the production was hit with budget constraints and a studio desperate for a PG13 rating, resulting in the elimination of a spectacular souped-up car chase, and a planned Statham versus Li dust up.  We are therefore left to only imagine the lofty heights The One might have soared to, were its wings not clipped by a reduced budget and a concession to tone down the violence.

Critics have accused The One of being too similar to Highlander, but ultimately that's a little lazy and unfair. That assertion overlooks one crucial fact... Highlander is cack. If there are a couple of negatives it's that the excellent Carla Gugino is wasted in a generic-wife role, and I could have done without the Nu Metal on the soundtrack.

Otherwise, there is plenty of fun to be had with The One. It does everything you want it to, and it’s just a tall, frosty glass of enjoyment.

IMDB: The One

IT FOLLOWS

David Robert Mitchell's sophomore feature It Follows is that very rare bird indeed: an original NEW horror movie. It follows (see what I did there?) Jay (Maika Monroe), who having had sex with her new boyfriend for the first time discovers she has been passed on a sort of curse, whereby she has become the target of a creature that will follow her relentlessly, intent on killing her. The creature only walks and can disguise itself in the form of any person.  Channeling classic sci fi Bodysnatchers / Thing suburban paranoia, via an STD allegory (for those of you too highbrow to get down with genre horror) and a clear tip of the hat to Halloween. The creature (if indeed it IS a creature) is left perfectly ambiguous. Its remorseless pursuit and edge-of-the-frame lurking come straight out of Michael Myers's book of moves.
But if all this makes it sound derivative, then rest assured it most certainly is not. Rather, It Follows crafts the sum of its parts into a genuinely creepy and effective horror film. Unsettling because of what it DOESN'T tell you, and a concept raw enough to give you the heebee jeebees. With a cracking synth score to further grind those nerve endings. Recommended.

IMDB: It Follows