There’s lots to like in Chappie, a gritty sci-fi crime thriller from the director of the District 9. So much, that at times it felt like this was a retelling of that film with robots instead of aliens. If you imagine a mashup of Robocop and District 9, you’d be on the right path to understanding Chappie. Like many films in the sci-fi genre, however, this also tries too hard and wants to cover too many…Read More
Review: Maleficent
There are no bad guys in movies any more, just good guys who are misunderstood or had terrible childhoods. Whether it’s the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, the band of car thieves in Gone in Sixty Seconds, or the terribly misunderstood, abused-as-a-child Norman Bates from Bates Motel (and thence Psycho) our society seems obsessed with trying to understand what causes people to be bad. And those Disney films we loved…Read More
Review: Europa Report
The problem with most space films is that they substitute drama for verisimilitude. Space exploration is characterized by long periods of nothingness followed by fractions of a second where things happen and, possibly, go awry. This doesn’t make for a great film, however, so directors have been adding drama by injecting aliens, mechanical failures, psycho crew and similar for decades. That’s one reason why I really enjoyed Europa Report, an indie sci-fi film that you’ve probably…Read More
Review: Elysium
I went into the theater primed to fall in love with the dystopian sci-fi thriller Elysium. I mean, what’s not to like, with Matt Damon in the title role as Max and wunderkind Neill Blomkamp as the creative visionary behind the film, serving as both writer and director. Set in the future, the film addresses a post-collapse world where the have’s have a whole lot more than the have not’s can even dream of, as…Read More
Review: The A-Team
There are some movies that are good date films but are really “guy films”, then there are guy films that are really just for men and would most likely go down in the annals of bad dates if you, a guy, were to bring a gal with you. Yeah, that’s sexist, but think of The A-Team as the guy version of Sex and the City 2 and you’ll understand what I mean. Based on the…Read More
Review: District 9
Wow. That was the first word out of my mouth when this astonishing, intense hard sci-fi exploration on prejudice and apartheid ended. Director Neill Blomkamp and producer Peter Jackson have crafted a fascinating film that, while flawed, is a significant new addition to the ranks of serious science fiction movies, along with Alien, Blade Runner, The Matrix, and the like. Bookended with opening and closing documentary-style footage, District 9 posits a race of extraterrestrials having their…Read More