Catching Up On SF Movies (JP Edition)
By JP |
Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at
11:29 am
I liked John’s posts about SF movies so much, I shamelessly plagiarized leveraged the idea for my own post on SF movies I’ve seen recently.
Gamer (2009) – We’ve seen this movie before when it was called Running Man or Death Race 2000. The attempt to modernize the ‘convict must fight to win his freedom’ yarn by adding a ‘gamer’ culture falls flat. Ridiculously over the top extrapolations of the idea aside, some of the action sequences are quite decent and using Dexter as the bad guy gets a ‘one-up’ from me (as does using Juliette and Shawn from Psyche). Oh, the film’s online ‘Society’ game looks uncomfortably like a ‘hopped up on goofballs’ Second Life. Just sayin’.
Push (2009) – Ever wondered what a big screen Heroes would look like? Push is your answer and it’s not any better than the TV show. +1 for trying to create a new ‘every day people with special powers’ universe, -10000000 for failing so utterly. Campy, cheese, cliched and poorly acted, Push is barely watchable, although, if you want to see how a scream can be over acted, this is your movie.
District 9 (2009) is the gem from this group. I can see why it’s been getting a lot praise, though I’m not going to anoint it as one of the best SF movies ever. D9 has a good story married with a surprisingly good acting effort by the lead. However, the plot ha a couple of gaping plot holes that marred it for me. Still, if you haven’t seen this movie, you probably should.
Ghost In The Shell 2.0 (1995) – This version is the original GitS, but with new CGI effects and soundtrack. At only 85 minutes, the story blows by in a rush and can be confusing if you don’t pay attention. I’m a sucker for near future Earth/ A.I. vs. biological intelligence stories and GitS has that in spades. Sadly, the new CGI does not mesh with the traditional 2D animation at all and the nudity is, at times, gratuitous (that was true of the original movie as well). If you’ve seen the original, there’s no need to see this, if you haven’t, I’d still recommend the original.- The Black Hole (1979) – I have a soft spot for this movie as it was one of the few I saw in an actual, honest to goodness downtown movie house, complete with giant main floor and dark balcony (in Odessa, TX). This was Disney’s first PG-rated movie and the schizophrenic nature of the movie is testament to that. On one hand, we have the cute robots and a fairly light story, up until the lasers break out, people are Cuisinarted and other darker things happen. Add in a religious sub-text to the eponymous black hole that is half-heartedly brought up before being shoved in your face by the 2001-light ending and you’ove got a movie that could have been better, but probably not by Disney. Still, it’s a move about exploring black holes, that’s worth 3 stars right there!
Franklyn (2008) – Exactly 1/3 of the story threads in this intertwinig tale is interesting at all. I love the steampunkesque feel to the future London-ish Meanwhile City with all of it’s incredible inhabitants. It reminded me of part of Hal Duncan’s Vellum where the main character runs around using chi-guns to whack people. Interesting! The rest is pretty much a bore and how they all finally meet at the end is as disappointing as it is almost completely random. I’d watch a while movie about Meanwhile City, sadly this isn’t it.
Related posts:
- Catching Up on SciFi Movies
- Catching Up on SciFi Movies (Part 2)
- Catching Up on SciFi Movies (Part 3)
- Catching Up on SciFi Movies (Part 4)
- Catching Up on SciFi Movies (Part 6)
Filed under: Movies
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Was there gratuitous nudity in GITS? There is the scene in the beginning of Motoko being built and there is nudity there but if you are referring to the chase/fight scenes later, she is wearing a skin tight semi transparent “thermoptic” camo suit or some such. Been awhile but I recall thinking for a minute or so “whoa, naked chick” when I first saw the movie before realizing what was going on. Granted, the visual result of a fleshtone body hugging suit is, well, nudity. Almost.
Am I remembering incorrectly, anyone else who has seen it recently?
I actually liked Push. It wasn’t superb or anything but very entertaining overall with some interesting uses of powers like TK and such. Her mother was just a little too godlike though.
The Black Hole was a lame, overblown, and thoroughly dull attempt to cash in on Star Wars mania. It did manage to generate a few moments of mystery, and the outer space effects were at least not embarrasing, except maybe for the final scene which I guess was supposed to be metaphorical a la 2001. What a crock.
I hear you, Matte. Can you believe that when The Black Hole came out in 1979 at the same time as Star Trek: The Motion Picture, I opted to see TBH instead of ST out of the box due to limited time one particular weekend. I expected so much more from Disney, but considering the rest of the crap they put out in the late 60s and 70s I suppose I should have known better. Great cast, childish story, no payoff. Conversely, ST:TMP, despite all of its faults, launched a veritable industry.