Ex Machina movie review: damselbot in distress
There’s nothing fresh or even usefully true in its cartoonish dichotomy about men, but this pseudo-SF flick will expound upon it with pretentious tedium.
science fiction
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I movie review: image manipulation
One of the best SF series ever deepens its critique of the power of propaganda in ways complicated, intriguingly contradictory, and a little bit horrifying.
Hangar 10 (aka The Rendlesham UFO Incident) movie review: where has all the sci-fi gone?
Found footage has come to be an excuse for storytellers to completely bypass drama, character development, and plot in an attempt to be “authentic.”
Interstellar movie review: trading worry for wonder
Thrilling intellectually and viscerally, full of stirring notions of what humanity is capable of, and full of hope. A wonderfully refreshing sort of SF.
Extraterrestrial movie review: no intelligent life on Earth
Utterly empty. It’s aware of the tropes of the new mythos of alien abductions, but makes no attempt to find anything even the slightest bit fresh in them.
The Maze Runner movie review: a terrible feeling of deja vu
Bland and generic beyond the small pleasures of its theme-park-ride-esque thrills and its half-intriguing, half-infuriating mystery.
The Giver movie review: give it back
A very simplistic Dystopia for Dummies — with a bit of Terrence Malick for Dummies — and inoffensive enough until it devolves into all kinds of stupid.
The Guest movie review: making cheesy 80s sausage
THE SOFT PRETTY ENGLISH ACTOR: I’m tired of all these damn television costume drama roles. Get me something totally badass.
Lucy movie review: head case
In this pile of adolescent heavy-metal-deep pseudo-sci-fi philosophy, the meaning of humanity depends on how “cool” something looks onscreen.
Guardians of the Galaxy movie review: empty space
Just another rote space adventure. It’s not actively awful, but there isn’t a single damn thing in the least bit surprising or memorable about it.
