Films/DVD Asylum

RE: more reflection

50.125.72.153

This Post Has Been Edited by the Author

In Reply to: RE: last 5 yrs.... posted by user510 on March 23, 2015 at 16:39:00

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Interstellar - bladder-bustingly incoherent, with lame Nolan dialogue
Prometheus - Z-grade cartoon schlock
Looper - gaping plot holes and mash-up of other movies
Oblivion - mash-up of other movies and just plain lame
Gravity - great special effects, but no actual story
Elysium - generic pap
Source Code - more generic, forgettable pap
Rise of the Planet of the Apes - ho-hum CGI crapfest
/unquote.
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Interstellar: It is coherent it just takes effort to keep up. Maybe too much science in this fiction. Some of the 'big' plot points were the product of well known physicist Kip Thorne. I guess the main point of this movie is that finding life suitable for humans out in the galaxie won't be very easy. Not entertaining, I thought.
Prometheus: Good sci-fi movie where archeologists discover a cave painting that sends a group off to find God ..... or the ones who made us, and it turns out that 'they' might not be God. I think this one will stand the test of time and be well regarded ever after.
Oblivion: I liked it. Earth is conquered by aliens from outer space. then aliens make clones of certain Earthlings to handle security of the conquered planet while they are off doing whatever other business aliens must attend to. Then one of the clones manages to discover that he isn't the real self. He's one of many clones derrived from his original self. And then with this knowledge what's he going to do about it....
Looper: Assassination via time travelers. Kind of clever idea but this movie centers around the first rule of assassination: kill the assassins. It could have been better than it was.
Gravity: Not really Sci-Fi. Fiction that takes place in present day and in orbit above Earth. Good suspense. Excellent cgi. Hardly any story. Just a movie about how to survive a major catastrophe while in orbit above Earth. I found it very gripping. but if you've seen it once, you've seen it.
Elysium: Using the pretext of a future Earth where the wealthy live in orbit over Earth while the 99 percenters live in squallor and mysery down on the planet. It uses its sci-fi pre-texts to take a stand on US immigration policy.
Source Code: Another time travel loop where the object is to avert a bomb being exploded on a train. I thought it was good. Particularly when we finally discover who our real protagonist is and then we learn of his situation.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes: I never went in for the first movie and therefore the entire franchise. Although it does present an ironic twist. The future vision of our world is evolution turned upside its head. Script of original movie by Rod Serling... Good pedigree.

I found a list (on the web) of sci-fi movies made after 2010 ....and of those in production and scheduled for release near term... It is a long list. The question is; how many of these will be worth remembering?
Exclusions:
anything by Marvel is excluded. Why... I don't know, persistent prejudice, I guess.
Inception (2010) Dream hacking for corporate espianage and illegal profit. I liked the idea of this movie better than the execution of it. But I accept it for what it is and include it among those that receive honorable mention.
Predators: 2010. Brody, Topher Grace, Laurence Fishburne. Sci-fi Horror. Not as horrible as it sounds. A well-enough made movie in the world of Predator hunters that go Gallumphing around space looking for another hunt. Here we find our protagonists have been dumped on a planet set as a hunters paradise/resort. And our heroes are the prey.
Repo Men: 2010. Body parts for sale at exorbitant rates. Can't keep up the payments...: they come and take their parts back leaving the victim to die in a puddle of his/her own blood. This could have been better than it was.
Skyline: 2010. Alien Invasion. Plays like a reboot of that 1995 movie Independence Day. I liked Independence Day better than skyline. But I found Independence Day mostly forgettable.
Tron: legacy. 2010 Sequel to the 1982 movie Tron. The first movie introduced some -at the time- novel concepts like; life within electronic circuitry. A social order within the computer; Programs and users. Users having ownership over the programs. The sequel proved to be a cgi roller coaster ride. And forgettable. Olivia Wilde was fun to watch.
The Darkest Hour: 2011. Alien invasion, action horror. The city is in the grip of an alien invasion and our protagonists must escape the city if they want to survive. It was fun watching....the first time. Then you've seen it.
In Time: 2011. In a future where people stop aging at 25, but are engineered to live only one more year, having the means to buy your way out of the situation is a shot at immortal youth.
I haven't seen this one, but will probably attempt to sit through it some day.
Limitless: 2011. theme is the same as that of Lucy. What if you could access 100% of your brains capacity....!
I haven't seen this one...but will probably find the time. Let's see if I can sit through it.
John Carter: 2012. I list this one because I've read some of those Barsoom novels by E.R. Burroughs. I hesitate to call this science fiction because Burroughs was conspicuous in never bothering to provide a plausible mechanism for John Carter to reach Mars. In the novels he seems to be 'magically transported there'. Otherwise the books are enjoyable page turners. John Carter, The movie pays homage to that on the 100th anniversary of the publication of Burroughs first Barsoom novel. ( The martians called their planet "Barsoom".)
Many will make comparisons between the star-wars franchise and this movie. However, if we want to put credit where it belongs, it was George Lucas who borrowed heavily from Burroughs in creating his Star Wars universe.
Lockout: 2012. A man wrongly convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage against the U.S. is offered his freedom if he can rescue the president's daughter from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates.
I confess. Guilty pleasure for me. And the fun part was all about the style of our protagonist. Constantly cracking one-liners invoking belly laughs. When not making sarcastic funny, our hero slaps the villains up alongside the head in a manner we all wish we could.
Total Recall: 2012. Another vision of that Philip K. dick novel; 'We Can Remember if for you Wholesale". This one, instead of going to Mars, travels from one side of Earth to the other by the shortest possible route: a straight line going through Earth's core. Lots of action in this thriller. To its credit, the acting is better here than in that 1990 movie with Arnold Schwartzenegger, Sharon Stone, Ronny cox ,etc.
Excellent CGI. Too much action. No time to think. but then that was the case with the earlier movie.
Europa Report: 2013. Excellent low budget thriller. Protagonists journey to Jupiter's moon, Europa to find and study life on the moons surface. What they discover is something more than was bargained for.
I liked this one.
Ender's Game: 2013. Fans of the novel will probably like this movie. I saw it and was mildly entertained. I thought the "payoff" was less than expected. I'm sure others will see it otherwise.
Her: 2013. A lonely writer develops an unlikely relationship with his newly purchased operating system that's designed to meet his every need. Then the new software turns into an artificial intelligence far more capable and insightful than anyone had bargained for.
I found this one mildly entertaining. The basic concept holds potentials that this movie chose not to explore. Instead it seemed more like a human interest touchy-feely kind of movie. Ecchh!
Riddick: 2013. The last, (hopefully) in a franchise that begins with "Pitch Black" then "The Chronicles of Riddick" and finally this one, "Riddick" which is a sequel to the second movie. Perhaps a minor chapter in this franchise. I thought the first movie, "Pitch Black" to be the best of the group. And this one, the least. Though there is one scene where we get to see the left nipple of...
Snowpiercer: 2013. Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges.
I payed to see this one via "on demand" on my fios cable service. A perspective I've yet to see in a sci fi movie. Probably a movie that I will re-visit when it becomes available freely.
Star Trek Into Darkness: 2013. Typical fare for Star Trek stories. Not only have we rebooted the crew of the enterprise, we've re-booted its nastiest of villains; Kahn Noonian Singh. Ricardo montalban is now deceased and Benedict Cumberbatch gets the role.
It may be extremely difficult to find a replacement for the Montalban role. Even that actor found it difficult to reprise this role in the 1982 movie. I think his series performance in 1967 episode, titled "Space Seed", is definitive and hard to match. What it was, was a sense of presence that implied malevolence and physical and mental superiority -and threat- just behind a polished gentleman's exterior. To face Kahn was to face grave danger.
Cumberbatch did manage to pull together some gravitas for the role.
If you don't expect too much, you shouldn't feel disappointed in this movie. I think of it like this; In the original series the official mission was for 5 years and to go where no man has gone before. I think it can be said of the reboot that this new Star Trek franchise will go where no Old Trek has gone before. Or whatever.
Lucy: 2014. maybe in time I will forgive this movie and accept it for its positives. Scarlett was good here.
RoboCop: 2014. A remake of the 1987 movie. Entirely forgettable. Probably what is missing here is the movie makers failed to find a suitable replacement for Peter Weller in the lead role. Weller had some presence. This new guy doesn't cut it.

Transcendence: 2014 A scientist's drive for artificial intelligence, takes on dangerous implications when his consciousness is uploaded into one such program.
Saw it once. I doubt I'd want to sit through this one again. Where did it go wrong? I won't waste any energy counting the ways.
Under The Skin: 2014 Pretty good low budget sci-fi. It's a simple story that uses actions rather than words to describe its plot. Not much dialog. We simply follow our subject around as she does her assigned tasks. Pretty good. Plus we get to see Scarlett J in the altogether.
Jupiter Ascending: 2015. A young woman discovers her destiny as an heiress of intergalactic nobility and must fight to protect the inhabitants of Earth from an ancient and destructive industry.
I wonder if after this one the Wachowski brothers (or whatever they are) will ever see another budget like the one it took to make this wreck of a movie. In any case, I liked it where Jupiter Jones shoots Balem Abrasax in the foot with her pistol. Dude had it coming.
-Steve

Edits: 03/28/15

Follow Ups:

RE: more reflection - cfraser 08:44:08 03/29/15 (0)