121 Best Releases From the Genre Science Fiction (Page 2)
Bird Box Barcelona
SimilarA Christmas Carol (1938), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Die Hard (1988), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), I Am Not a Serial Killer (2016),
Jackie Brown (1997) Live and Let Die (1973) Mystic River (2003),
Rebecca (1940) Shaft (2000) The 39 Steps (1935), The Handmaid's Tale (1990),
The Name of the Rose (1986) The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Road (2009), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Wild at Heart (1990),
Okay, fine, Bird Box Barcelona isn’t exactly a sequel. It’s more of a continuation, as Netflix gets a belated start on making a franchise out of 2018’s Bird Box, a perfectly fine but unremarkable film that inexplicably became a smash hit. Smash or not, five years is a long time, so you might need a refresher course. Much of Earth’s population has been decimated by malevolent beings with visages so emotionally overwhelming that anyone who looks at them immediately commits suicide, and the survivors are forced to navigate what’s left of the world with their eyes covered, lest they see whatever “they” are. That’s really all you need to remember. Continue Reading →
Biosphere
Biosphere hums along through its initial 30 minutes. With focused interplay from the only two actors in the film, Mark Duplass and Sterling K. Brown, the sci-fi buddy comedy creates laughter simply with the leads’ chemistry. But, the tone of the film shifts leading into its second act, taking a concept and stretching it until it’s about to break. That tonal and dramatic change engineers a tenderness that seems unlikely considering the twists of the plot. Continue Reading →
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
SimilarBatman Forever (1995), Constantine (2005), Sin City (2005), Spider-Man 2 (2004), Spider-Man 3 (2007), The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005), The Dark Knight (2008),
Studio20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Productions,
One of the things I enjoy most about the moviegoing experience is coming out of a film feeling as if I've actually learned something that I didn't know before, or had not even occurred to me in the first place. That's exactly the feeling that I got while watching Sam Pollard’s The League, a documentary about the history of Negro baseball leagues in America. Going in, I suppose I knew the basics about the subject and could name such key figures as Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, but Pollard, who previously directed MLK/FBI, and executive producer Questlove delve much deeper, and the results are indeed fascinating. Continue Reading →
Kaboom
There’s something to be said for a ramshackle film that delights in itself and doesn’t take anything especially seriously. Unfortunately, what a filmmaker and their fans find fun may read as piffle or drudgery to less dialed-in audiences. Case in point: Kaboom. Continue Reading →
The Flash
SimilarAladdin (1992), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Happy Death Day 2U (2019), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Hellboy (2004),
Live and Let Die (1973) On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Sin City (2005), Superman Returns (2006), The Dark Knight (2008), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), You Only Live Twice (1967),
StarringTemuera Morrison,
I do not like hating movies. I make a point to try and find something good even in otherwise crummy pictures—Adam Driver's fine leading turn in the otherwise dull 65, for example. Continue Reading →
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts
SimilarA.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Aliens (1986), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Face/Off (1997), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Shrek the Third (2007),
Watch afterBarbie (2023) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), The Flash (2023),
StarringColman Domingo, Cristo Fernández,
The blockbuster landscape shifted with Michael Bay's 2007 Transformers movie. It fit his directing style, with his love of explosions and male gazing, but what it amounted to was a guy playing with big, expensive cinematic toys. There was knowledge gained from those five previous installments when the 2018 spin-off Bumblebee had more personality and excitement than any of its predecessors. Continue Reading →
シン・仮面ライダー
SimilarBatman Begins (2005), Batman Forever (1995), Batman Returns (1992), Catwoman (2004), La Haine (1995),
StudioToei Company,
Shin Kamen Rider became my favorite movie of the year when it ripped my heart out with a one-sided conversation. Continue Reading →
Hypnotic
Watch afterJohn Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
StudioIngenious Media,
There's at once too much, and somehow not enough, of the whimsical DIY spirit of writer-director Robert Rodriguez in his latest film, the shaky B-thriller Hypnotic. The Austin native made his name in the halcyon days of '90s indie filmmaking, shooting his first feature (El Mariachi) for a mere $7,000 at the tender age of 23. Since then, he's leveraged that inventiveness into a cottage industry of his own based out of his hometown of Austin, Texas, whether it's kid-friendly fare (Spy Kids), big-budget CGI blockbusters (Alita: Battle Angel), moody noirs (Sin City) or grindhouse splatterfests (Planet Terror, From Dusk Till Dawn). Hypnotic is all and none of those things, a chintzy lo-fi Christopher Nolan riff that doesn't have nearly enough life to work. And yet, there are just enough charming elements to save it from outright dismissal. Continue Reading →
Crater
Watch afterEvil Dead Rise (2023), John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
StudioWalt Disney Pictures,
Crater begins centuries into the future in an era where man has colonized the Moon. Rather than being home to thriving cities, though, Earth’s only natural satellite is the site of a run-down mining colony. People toil away, hoping to make it to another luxurious planet known as Omega. This is where Caleb Channing (Isaiah Russell-Bailey) lives. It’s also where he receives the news that his miner father (Scott Mescudi) has died. As part of his death benefits, Caleb will be transferred, via 75 years of traveling, to the bustling world of Omega. Continue Reading →
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
SimilarAladdin (1992), Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), Die Hard 2 (1990), Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995), Free Willy (1993), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), Hellboy (2004), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Night at the Museum (2006), Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), Superman Returns (2006), The Legend of Zorro (2005),
Watch afterAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023),
Barbie (2023) Oppenheimer (2023) Thanksgiving (2023), The Flash (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
StarringDee Bradley Baker,
A lot's happened since we last saw the Guardians of the Galaxy (well, besides their brief cameo in Thor: Love and Thunder). Writer/director James Gunn was fired from Marvel in 2018 after some problematic tweets joking about pedophilia were unearthed, in one of the few instances of a successful cancellation from the right wing. Of course, it didn't last long, considering how thin the ground was for said cancellation in the first place; and in the interim, he swanned off to DC, made the fantastic The Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, and eventually found himself sharing the throne of a newly-revamped DC movie universe. Continue Reading →
Schlock
When you insert the Blu-Ray of Schlock, John Landis’s 1973 directorial debut, the first thing that comes up—even before the menus—is a brief clip of Landis himself informing you of the film you are about to watch. He concludes by sheepishly adding, “I’m sorry.” Continue Reading →
65
SimilarIce Age (2002), King Kong (1933), King Kong (2005),
Watch afterAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023), Evil Dead Rise (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
StudioBron Studios, Columbia Pictures, TSG Entertainment,
If nothing else, 65 proves that Adam Driver plays a marvelous survival hero. After his ship crash-lands on an uncharted world, his Mills is dazed and wounded—but not to the point that he does not remember what to do in an emergency. He's got a checklist memorized, and he can follow it until he's back together. As Mills treats his wound, catalogs the damage to his ship, and ultimately dons an environment suit to survey his crash site, Driver's body language shifts. Wooziness gives way to groundedness, and halting movements become smooth. Driver makes it clear that even when despairing and terrified, Mills knows what he's doing. Continue Reading →
The Happening
The say goes: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But they forgot a couplet: fool me three times, I’ve just watched The Happening. Continue Reading →
Signs
I am sitting in the waiting room at an Urgent Care in Maine, waiting to see someone about a mild allergic reaction to a bee sting. It is August 2003, and I am thirteen years old. While my mother and I wait, I look up at the muted television, and suddenly I can't breathe. The news broadcast is carrying a live feed of what I recognize as the Brooklyn Bridge, and to my horror, thousands of people are streaming across it, trying to get out of New York City. My first thought, before I stammer to my mother that she needs to ask for the remote, that she needs to turn up the volume, that she needs to call our family and see if they're safe, is: It's happening again. We manage to unmute the waiting room television and watch, frightened, as the news breaks of the massive blackout that has paralyzed the Northeast. No one knows the cause, and I convince myself: It is happening again. Continue Reading →
Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania
SimilarBack to the Future Part II (1989), Back to the Future Part III (1990), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002),
Live and Let Die (1973) On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Sin City (2005), The Dark Knight (2008),
Watch afterEvil Dead Rise (2023), The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023),
StarringOwen Wilson, Tom Hiddleston,
As the Marvel Cinematic Universe got bigger and bigger and bigger, it was downright refreshing to see something as fittingly small and low-stakes as the Ant-Man films break up all the universe-ending tension. It was nice; after watching the Avengers punch through an exhausting sea of robotic baddies and set up a bunch of Infinity Stone dross, along came Paul Rudd as a smirking, kinda-dumb thief who lucked his way into a shrinking suit he used on a tech heist. After Thanos snapped half the universe away, we flashed back to good ol' Scott Lang on a caper to bring his mentor Hank Pym's (Michael Douglas) wife Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) back from the Quantum Realm. They were lighter, more carefree, a much-needed sitcom wing of the MCU. Continue Reading →
Infinity Pool
SimilarBrazil (1985), Godzilla Raids Again (1955),
Brandon Cronenberg & Chloe Domont direct stylish films about sex & violence among the bourgeoise wealthy.
A growing trend in Hollywood film & TV of late has been to put a mirror in front of the idle rich and mock the privileged and avaricious lifestyles they live. Some may say this is happening now because of honest self-reflection in the face of growing and untenable wealth-inequality in this country, but that just sounds gullible to me. It’s probably more so that hedonistic and openly, publicly vapid displays of self-promotion and consumerist propaganda through social media has made it easier to become famous and sponsored by doing less than ever before.
Brandon Cronenberg probably has imposter syndrome. In Infinity Pool, his central character James Foster (Alexander Skarsgård) is a writer plagued by a lack of inspiration and haunted by a review that boils his career down to only having a rich father-in-law, which affords him the luxury of not needing a real job. His hang-up over this connection through his wife, Em (Cleopatra Coleman), explodes in the open when they have a fight and he tells her to “run back to Daddy.” In formally and thematically finding a voice unto himself apart from his lineage, the younger Cronenberg has cultivated a filmography where the corporeal form is at odds with the sense of identity. His characters constantly feel like empty vessels and thus, the trauma their bodies endure are more a dissociative terror than a deeply internally felt one. Continue Reading →
정이
SimilarResident Evil: Apocalypse (2004),
Watch afterBlack Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022),
What would you do to know your parents? Not just as parents, but as people—even long after their deaths? How would you make the most of a horrendous moral quagmire you had no choice in getting dragged into—and what would you do when that quagmire, for all its familiarity, finally became too much to bear? On a broader level, what makes us human—and what remains when we're gone? Director/writer Yeon Sang-ho asks and answers these questions in his out-now-on-Netflix science fiction film JUNG_E. It's a solid, thoughtful film that shines thanks to its leading trio and Sang-ho's skill at depicting and delving into the uncanny. Continue Reading →
Vesper
Vesper (Raffiella Chapman, His Dark Materials), a lone teenager clad head to toe in weatherbeaten cold-weather gear, expertly ferrets her way through a blighted field. She's looking for the remains of dead crops—critical samples for her ongoing bio-engineering research. A floating drone—humanized by an awkward, endearingly childish face that's been carved on it—accompanies her. Her father, Darius (Richard Brake), pilots the drone. Left paralyzed and fragile by war and a relentless artificial biosphere, Darius does what he can for his daughter. In the distance stand colossal machines long left to rust, their purpose obscure. Continue Reading →
M3GAN
SimilarA Clockwork Orange (1971), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001),
In many ways, M3GAN is as much about its marketing as it is about the movie being marketed. That's hardly a revelatory statement, especially when it comes to horror films: Studios and producers have breathlessly promised thrills and chills with ever more outrageous gimmicks ever since the days of William Castle offering life insurance policies for audiences who "die of fright." With Blumhouse's M3GAN, the secret lies in its titular robo-tot, a cutesy android with snatched wig, Union Jack dickie bow, and murderous dance moves primed for TikTok virality, all of which have been over the film's marketing for months now. So it's a relief to learn that M3GAN has bite to go with its meme-ready bark, a horror-comedy as much about the ways we use technology to fulfill every human need as it is a sassy robot tween popping and locking with a paper cutter in its hand. Continue Reading →
After Yang
Ambulance
Michael Bay, whose 1990s actioners are—for good and ill—iconic parts of the decade’s cinema, and whose 2000s and 2010s work is reliably fascinating (from the terrific Pain & Gain to the baleful Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen) delivers a bombastic chase movie that doubles as a damn good character study. Loving but criminal brothers (Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) take an ambulance hostage to escape a heist gone sideways. Along for the ride are a masterful EMT (Eiza González) resigned to personal apathy, and a critically injured cop (Jackson White). Amidst the carefully shaped chaos of burnt rubber and bullets, Bay makes space for Gyllenhaal (frenzied and in denial about how badly everything’s gone) Abdul-Mateen II (trying to keep cool even as that becomes impossible) and González (who must break out of her self-built walls if she is to survive) to bounce off each other in a pile of compelling ways. [JH] Continue Reading →
Avatar: The Deep Dive - A Special Edition of 20/20
"Avatar has no cultural relevance." "It's just Dances With Wolves with blue cat people." We've all heard the digs ever since James Cameron's 2009 opus hit theaters more than a dozen years ago, made all the money, and gobsmacked the Academy into giving it a Best Picture nomination. But even though it didn't immediately launch a franchise and give people (apart from a select few who took Pandora way too seriously) Avatar Fever, its impact was more subtle and quiet. Sure, it launched a mini-3D boom that leaked out into the early 2010s, but its most noticeable ripples came in its normalizing of a new suite of CG technology, radical motion capture and worldbuilding, and fully-formed digital environments that could genuinely transport viewers to another place. Continue Reading →