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: Exodus: Gods and Kings
When it comes to back stories, there’s no work more frequently tapped than The Bible. A rich document with thousands of stories, it’s produced solid cinema, like 1956’s The Ten Commandments, 1988’s The Last Temptation of Christ, 1959’s terrific Ben-Hur, the silly fun of Life of Brian from 1979, and even daft reinterpretations like the recent Noah [read my review of Noah]. There’s something inherently epic about the mythic story of the origin of humanity, and the…Read More
Review: Avatar
Avatar is a movie about manifest destiny and second thoughts, a sweeping epic retelling of a classic theme about a soldier “going native” as he learns that the enemy isn’t a faceless monster, but an intelligent race. The most obvious parallel is Dances with Wolves, but director James Cameron has taken the basic storyline and created a visual masterpiece that’s almost a perfect sci-fi film. Avatar takes place 150 years in the future, on the…Read More