Tag: Science Fiction

Movie Review: Europa Report

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IMDB, Europa Report“Europa Report” on IMDB

Science-Fiction/Thiller, 90 Minutes, 2013

If you liked “Gravity” (my review) then you’re a smart, discerning and, if I may say, strikingly attractive individual. You’ll also love “Europa Report”. The movie presents a highly realistic space mission; in this case a multi-year, multi-national mission to Europa, Jupiter’s sixth moon. All our (actual) evidence indicates that Europa is home to massive, warm water-oceans under its geologically active crust of ice. It’s generally understood to be our best legitimate shot of finding extraterrestrial life in the solar system.

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Movie Review: The World’s End

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IMDB, The World's End“The World’s End” on IMDB

Comedy/Sci-Fi, 109 Minutes, 2013

[Wife and kids are away and I’m catching up on movies.]

Film nerds are likely aware that this film marks the third, or “Green Mint” flavor, of Edgar Wright’s [IMDB] acclaimed, but only tenuously related,  Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy. The film stars Simon Pegg [IMDB] as Gary King, a rather sad forty-something that continues to ride the questionable glories of his high-school heydays, and Nick Frost [IMDB] as Andy Knightley, his former best friend who has since cleaned up, straightened out and made something of himself.

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Movie Review: Elysium

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IMDB, Elysium“Elysium” on IMDB

Sci-fi, 109 Minutes, 2013

This is writer/director Neill Blomkamp’s [IMDB] highly anticipated follow-up to his surprise 2009 hit, “District 9” [IMDB]. While vastly different in tone and scope the two films share a distinctive feel. With a few script changes they may have quite believably been set in the same timeline. There’s a closeness, an immediacy, to the direction and staging that permeates everything.

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Movie Review: Dredd

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IMDB, Dredd“Dredd” on IMDB

Action, 95 Minutes, 2013:

The original attempt at capturing “Britain’s Number One Comic Hero”, 1995’s “Judge Dredd” [IMDB] was, let’s be honest, not a terrible movie.  It was a bit ham-fisted and trite but also had a decent story, some great design work and lots of action.  It was not, however, a good Judge Dredd movie.  It tried, lord knows it tried.  In the final judgement (get it?!) it just didn’t capture the character very well.  While some fans considered the removal of the character’s helmet pure sacrilege the issues went deeper than that.  The movie ended up too light, to uneven and just plain too Hollywood.

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Movie Review: Android Insurrection

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IMDB, Android Insurrection“Android Insurrection” on IMDB

Sci-fi, 90 Minutes, 2012

This a terrible movie full of terrible things.  But it is damn funny.  It’s not meant to be funny, but it’s damn funny.  Hard to watch, harder to follow and ridiculously difficult to take seriously, but damn funny.

It has all the problems of z-budget sci-fi.  Terrible sets, terrible green screen and terrible integration of the, honestly, actually pretty good CGI.  The whole movie gives the impression that one guy got pretty good at making robots on the computer and his dumbass friends decided that they would make such an awesome movie!

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Movie Review: Star Trek, Into Darkness

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IMDB, Star Trek, Into Darkness“Star Trek, Into Darkness” on IMDB

Sci-Fi, 132 Minutes, 2013

Like the horribly disappointing “Promethues” [Our Review], this was written, in part, by Damon Lindelof [IMDB] who seems to take a perverse pleasure in completely ignoring beloved source material.  He did the same thing, by the way, with “World War Z” which I recently reviewed at our sister site, MoreBrains.com.  This guy is getting on my nerves.

Like those other movies you can consider this in two ways.  As a stand-alone film this really isn’t that bad.  It’s got some real, ugly stupid but as a mindless summer flick it’s not that bad.  As a “Star Trek” movie?  It really sucked.

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Movie Review: Oblivion

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IMDB, Oblivion“Oblivion” on IMDB

Sci-fi, 124 Minutes, 2013

This is a good sci-fi movie.  Tom Cruise [IMDB] is still good enough to make you forget that he’s pants-crapping crazy.  Morgan Freeman [IMDB] is Morgan Freeman.  The effects are gorgeous.  The pacing is effective and the cinematography stunning.

It’s a good movie.  You’ll enjoy it.  Are we clear on that?  Good, because the movie was also really fucking stupid.

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