Science Fiction Films
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Jurassic World: It’s No Wonderful Life (PG-13)
“Oh, my God! We finally, really did it! You maniacs….Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!” The righteous invective Charlton Heston bellows in the final moments of The Planet of the Apes seems similarly suited to the resurrection and public opening of Jurassic Park. Bewilderingly, though, Jurassic World (both the film and the […]
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Tomorrowland (PG)
In the opening minutes of Tomorrowland, a young boy shows us his homemade jetpack. It is meant to be fun and inspiring, but has one problem: it doesn’t work. It’s always nice when a movie hands you a metaphor for itself. It’s not nice when that movie breaks your heart in the process. There may […]
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It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad Mad Max (R)
It’s hard to appreciate paganism properly. I can’t think of many convincingly pagan characters from motion pictures, because most cinematic pagans are nothing more than Republicans or athletes in togas. They talk like us, think like us, dress like us dressing like pagans, opine like us. Our ancient Greeks are suffragettes and our ancient Egyptians […]
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Avengers: Age of Ultron (PG-13)
Halfway through Avengers: Age of Ultron, the eponymous robot waxes poetical and says to a few of his cronies, “Everyone creates the thing they fear.” It’s possible that this line was added by the writer and director, Joss Whedon, as an indication of how he felt about this movie. In many ways, Ultron is not […]
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Ex Machina (R)
Ex Machina derives its title from the Latin “Deus ex machina,” meaning “god from the machine.” The film’s removal of God from its titular equation is apropos, as is the allusion to classical tragedy. In this polished directorial debut, Alex Garland (writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine) has crafted something of a modern Greek […]
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Chappie (R)
Whither Blomkamp? Chappie is the third feature-length film of South African director Neill Blomkamp, and, sadly, a disappointing attempt to reheat most of the ingredients of his acclaimed debut District 9. In that thoughtful and naturalistic variation on the familiar aliens-invading-earth premise, Blomkamp revealed a considerable gift for evoking pathos with the least likely characters: […]
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Children of Men: Rachel Weeping In The 21st Century (R)
A little less than a decade back, the greatest Christmas movie of all time came and went with disappointingly little fanfare— I say “disappointingly little” despite the fact two dozen top American film critics put it in their top ten lists at the end of the year. A few of their reviews dabbled in the […]
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Big Hero 6 (PG)
A group of misfits band together to stop an evil, mysterious villain and become an unlikely team of superheroes. No, that wasn’t a one-sentence description for this summer’s Guardians of the Galaxy; it’s a one-sentence description for this fall’s Big Hero 6. Big Hero 6 focuses on child prodigy Hiro (Ryan Potter), who is encouraged […]
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Interstellar : Do Not Rage (PG-13)
“Do not go gentle into that good night,” says the old scientist. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” These lines, repeated throughout Christopher Nolan’s film Interstellar, are used to signal a fight for survival. Humanity is on the verge of starvation; abuse has broken the earth and blight has wiped out all crops […]
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The Giver (PG-13)
A brilliant sunset. A wedding dance. The color red. Each person who reads these words will see a unique image. Humanity may share experiences, but because of our memories—and our emotions—we approach these commonalities in vastly different ways. Variety and choice aren’t just the spice of life. They make us human. In The Giver, a […]
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Divergent (PG-13)
Why do we eat candy canes at Christmas? Why are they red and white? Why do we fold our hands to pray? If you ask a child these questions, they often offer an acrobatic answer. By the time they enter middle school, at least in this day and age, the answers become less and less […]
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Lucy (R)
As a student of the life sciences, I’m somewhat baffled by the persistence of the “ten percent” misconception. The idea that humans only use ten percent of their brains seems entirely implausible not only under the basic principles of evolution, but empirical study of the brain has thoroughly debunked it. Yet the misconception persists, and its […]
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Snowpiercer (R)
Joon-Ho Bong’s Snowpiercer starts with an intriguing premise: the world has frozen solid after a global warming experiment gone wrong, and all of humanity now inhabits a high-tech train that perpetually circles the earth. (Train wreck jokes would, perhaps, be too obvious.) Snowpiercer squanders this premise on a hackneyed tale of the struggle between the […]
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Transformers: Age Of Extinction (PG-13)
You can learn a lot about Michael Bay by the numbers. In the last twenty years, he has directed eleven films, and all but two were released in June or July. All his films but the first, Bad Boys, top the two hour mark, and more than half exceed two and a half hours. The […]
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Edge of Tomorrow (PG-13)
“I always say, ‘If I could start my marriage over, I would do this or that differently.’ But I’m flattering myself. My marriage starts over every day, and there are things I don’t do differently. Everything starts over every day.” I said something to this effect at confession several months ago. I often feel as […]
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Godzilla (PG-13)
By this point, further cries and moanings over the seemingly endless procession of reboots and remakes of too many franchise pictures must themselves begin to have the air of reboots and remakes, but I beg your forbearance nonetheless as I add just a few more paragraphs of reproof. Godzilla, starring Ken Watanabe, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and […]
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RoboCop (2014) (PG-13)
I feel like a sucker. I liked the Robocop remake. I make it a point not to read reviews of movies I’m reviewing, because I have this lingering hope that maybe there’s something incorruptible and true and creative and my own, right down at the core of me. So I haven’t read any reviews. But […]
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Inception (PG-13)
In the same way genealogies provide foundation for expounding upon and explaining the personhood and character of real human beings, so any good author deserves to have any individual work placed into the context and trajectory of their oeuvre. Whether or not Christopher Nolan is a good man, I cannot say, although by this point […]
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Her (R)
Her, written and directed by Spike Jonze, contains three scenes of strong sexual content, and at least two other scenes with frank sexual language. All the sex is varyingly virtual. The movie uses sex both to demonstrate closeness between characters, and the gaps between them. Taken as whole, however, it’s not clear that Jonze understands […]
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Pacific Rim (PG-13)
I remember as a child having near hallucinogenic nightmares after watching Jurassic Park for the first time on our old black and white, sixteen-inch television. After not being able to sleep at all the night after, I wanted to watch it again the next day. Such is the magic of cinema, I suppose. A well […]