Tag: Science Fiction

Movie Review: Death Race 3: Inferno

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IMDB, Death Race 3“Death Race 3: Inferno” on IMDB

Action, 105 Minutes, 2012

The Death Race movies are really odd ducks.  The original “Death Race 2000” [IMDB], released in 1975 by legendary producer Roger Corman [IMDB], showed us the dystopian future of the year 2000.  An annual trans-continental race (which actually started in 1980) where points are scored for pedestrian deaths and the brutality of kills is the national sport.  The star of the sport is “Frankenstein”, a disfigured racer who has never been beaten.

[There will be spoilers for the previous movies ahead.]

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Movie Review: The Watch

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IMDB, The Watch“The Watch” on IMDB

Comedy, 102 Minutes, 2012

Ben Stiller [IMDB] has been more “miss” than “hit” lately.  Well – to be fair – more “average” than “amazing”.  His last few movies, including this one to some extent, have been a little uneven, silly and too dependent on deus ex machina.  This one is saved in the end by some slick special effects and some fun (if completely immature) gags, but it is a bumpy ride.

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Movie Review: Looper

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IMDB, Looper“Looper” on IMDB

Sci-Fi/Action, 119 Minutes, 2012

H.G. Wells ushered in the modern era of time travel stories with “The Time Machine” and we’ve hardly slowed down since.  We’ll probably never stop making time-travel movies.  Some kick ass (“The Terminator” [IMDB]), some are silly (“Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel” [IMDB]) and others profound (“Twelve Monkeys [IMDB] – which, incidentally, also starred Bruce Willis [IMDB]).  Even those with a shoestring budget can get in on the fun as the mind-bending “Primer” [IMDB] ably demonstrated.  Time travel is the gift that keeps on giving.

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Movie Review: Total Recall

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IMDB, Total Recall“Total Recall” on IMDB

Sci-fi, 118 Minutes, 2012:

Whenever a new property based on Philip K Dick’s work comes along there’s a few minutes where I’m unabashedly hopeful that this time – just this once – maybe they’ll actually do the story in the book.  I’m always disappointed on that score.  Even when we end up with an excellent movie it’s always, essentially, an original story.  This is always a bad thing – these movies still tend to be pretty good – but it’s still disappointing.

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Movie Review: I Am Number Four

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“I Am Number Four” on IMDB

Sci-fi,  109 Minutes, 2011

A race of evil teethy, gill-faced aliens with big guns invade a planet and destroy it.  The only survivors are nine magic kids and their guardians who move to Earth and go into hiding.  The aliens send a team of bounty hunters to kill the kids because, for some reason, the kids could stop the aliens from destroying Earth even though they couldn’t do anything to save their own planet.

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Movie Review: Infestation

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“Infestation” on IMDB

Horror, 91 Minutes, 2009

I really adore classically staged monster movies.  The kind where everyday people have to deal with giant things – worms, bugs, crocodiles, lemurs, etc.  Whatever they are, they’re big and they’re nasty.  Classics like “Tremors” [IMDB] or “Eight-legged Freaks” [IMDB] are just plain fun.  The scares tend to be more of the shock than gore variety (although there’s a little of that as well) and generally things are more family friendly.

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Movie Review: Starship Troopers: Invasion

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“Starship Troopers: Invasion” on IMDB

Sci-fi,  90 Minutes, 2012

Hells yes, people!  This is, finally, the sequel that the original “Starship Troopers” [IMDB] deserves.  It’s an animated film – a beautiful, intricately-detailed computer animated film to be exact.  (If you still need to be told that animated films aren’t just for kids then call over whoever let you on the Internet and tell them you aren’t ready for it.)

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Movie Review: Men in Black 3

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“Men in Black 3” on IMDB

Sci-fi/Comedy,  110 Minutes, 2012

The original “Men in Black” [IMDB] has always been one of my favorite movies.  It was irreverent, bombastic and populated with insanely likable characters.  (It was also based on a comic book – so if you liked it too maybe you should bolster the flagging comic book industry and buy some?)  The effects were bright, innovative and wonderfully cartoonish in all the right ways.  Most of all it was just plain fun.

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Movie Review: Battleship

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“Battleship” on IMDB

Action,  131 Minutes, 2012

It should be obvious that making a movie based on Hasbro’s “Battleship” should result in disaster.  The game itself has no story or plot and the absolute simplest of mechanics.  There’s also the rather important fact that it’s not really all that fun.  Nobody was more surprised than me that the movie based on this silly little game was surprisingly good.

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