X-Men: Days of Future Past movie review: time for hope
With its time-twisting plot, sci-fi soapiness, powerful humanism, and to-die-for cast, this is the summer blockbuster done with elegance and heart.
science fiction
Godzilla movie review: sympathy for Gojira
Elegantly updates the King of All Monsters for the 21st century… but Hollywood’s tedious myopia means the movie as a whole isn’t quite so beautiful.
Brick Mansions review: bombs away
This absurd and pointlessly convoluted remake of a decade-old French action flick feels dated and out of step in more ways than one.
Transcendence review: AI yai yai
The neo-luddite attitude is bad, but this commits a far worse sin: it’s dull. If only it worked as a schlocky pile of pulp nonsense, that’d be something…
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 review: black and white and web all over
Suffers badly by comparison with the cogent, witty Avengers flicks. This feels like a campy Saturday-morning cartoon left over from the 1970s.
Divergent review: girls just wanna do everything
No, it’s not wildly different than other science fiction, hero’s journey, and adventure movies. Sometimes we call such stories archetypal. Mythic, even.
Under the Skin movie review: sex as a weapon
Scarlett Johansson is an alien serial killer who sexes men to death in a misogynist fanboy wet dream that also fails to satisfy as science fiction.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier review: politics in our peanut butter
Stuns me with its scathing commentary on the real world today, wrapped up in what is some of the most delicious, most comic-booky fantasy ever.
The Machine review: brain underpower
The bleak chic of this SF drama is intriguing, but the script that starts out smart and elegant soon slips into the shoddy and familiar.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman review: timey-wimey doggy-waggy
Wonderfully, sweetly geeky, and full of the sort of goofy yet intriguing adventures that inspire kiddie curiosity in history and art and science.
