sci-fi
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom review - dinosaurs in perilFriday, 08 June 2018
I see critics elsewhere have been churlishly sticking the boot into this latest episode of the now quite venerable dinosaurs-reborn franchise (Steven Spielberg’s original arrived in 1993). While this one isn’t a revolutionary transformation of the... Read more... |
Solo: A Star Wars Story review - timid and torpidSaturday, 26 May 2018
This is franchise film-making at its worst. A Han Solo: Year Zero origin yarn makes some sense, after Harrison Ford’s piratical hero finished on the wrong end of a lightsaber in The Force Awakens. But the apparently freewheeling approach of Solo’s... Read more... |
Detroit: Become Human review – a robot story with real heartThursday, 24 May 2018
Interactive stories are a tricky proposition. Make the on-screen action too passive and your audience feels like they’re watching a succession of cut-scenes. Tip the balance the other way and it’s just a game with pretensions of cinematic story... Read more... |
Anon review - adventures in cyber-noirFriday, 11 May 2018
Though set in a futuristic (although not by much) world in which information technology has almost taken over the human psyche, Anon still relies on a crumpled whisky-drinking gumshoe for its protagonist. In this case, the relict of Sam Spade and... Read more... |
Westworld, Series 2, Sky Atlantic review - big trouble in synthetic paradiseTuesday, 24 April 2018
Some critics complain that Westworld is too complicated for its own good, and you can see their point. Even on a basic level, it’s an exploration of the nature and potential of artificial intelligence, as it depicts the consequences of super-... Read more... |
The City and the City, BBC Two review - detection in four dimensionsSaturday, 07 April 2018
It’s difficult to grasp in your imagination, never mind filming it and putting it on TV. In China Miéville’s source novel, dramatised here by Tony Grisoni, the twin cities of Besźel and Ul Quoma exist side by side, and in some areas even overlap.... Read more... |
Ready Player One review - Spielberg goes back to the futureThursday, 29 March 2018
Suddenly Steven Spielberg movies are plopping off the production line like Ford Fiestas or Cadburys Creme Eggs. It seems like only seconds ago that we were greeting The BFG and the breast-beating earnestness of The Post, and now the director comes... Read more... |
Annihilation, Netflix review - not quite a sci-fi masterpieceThursday, 15 March 2018
Mild controversy hovers over the new film by Alex Garland, the novelist-turned-screenwriter-turned-director. Garland’s 2015 directing debut, Ex Machina, was a slow-burning hit which found favour with critics and film festival juries. This follow-up... Read more... |
DVD: Jupiter's MoonsWednesday, 07 March 2018
There’s a terrific drive to Kornél Mundruczó’s Jupiter’s Moon, a cinematic powerhouse of both technique and ideas. The maverick Hungarian director’s film, which premiered in last year’s Cannes competition, may occasionally bewilder – such is the... Read more... |
Ursula K Le Guin - Dreams Must Explain Themselves review - enraging and enlighteningSunday, 25 February 2018
Essay collections are happily mainstream now, from Zadie Smith to Oliver Sacks, with more and more bits and bobs coming from unexpected quarters. These patchwork quilts from remarkable writers can be significant, nowhere more so than with those from... Read more... |
The Shape of Water review - love in a Cold War climateWednesday, 14 February 2018
Guillermo del Toro has laid down markers as a wizard of the fantastical with such previous works as Pan’s Labyrinth and Crimson Peak (though we’ll skate nimbly around Pacific Rim), and now he has brought it all back home with The Shape of Water, as... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Blade Runner 2049Tuesday, 13 February 2018
It’s not 1982 any more, but there’s still some disagreement between Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford about whether Rick Deckard was or was not a replicant. Thirty-five years on, Dennis Villeneuve’s belated sequel to Blade Runner may trigger another... Read more... |
