Machete Kills review: justice is bloody (hilarious)
Forget about the socially conscious core that fueled the exploitation engine of the first film. This one is flat-out, no-message action comedy, outrageous and hilarious.
science fiction
The Colony review
A small-scale science-fiction horror story full of big, troubling ideas about what a new Dark Ages might look like.
About Time review: creep trick
Arbitrary and inconsistent rules of time travel in aid of creepy romantic manipulation and temporal stalking. But hey, at least it’s got Bill Nighy!
Riddick review: men will be boys
Dispenses with all pretense that the modern action blockbuster is anything other than the confused, terrified power fantasy of a particularly sheltered and emotionally stunted teenaged boy.
Bounty Killer review
The genre equivalent of soft-core porn: it doesn’t care how strained and derivative it is as long as it is delivering flying bullets, fast cars, and closeups on women’s sashaying asses.
Upstream Color review: higher dimensions of storytelling
A confounding intellectual mystery, an enigmatic philosophical science fantasy that’s like a cinematic Moebius strip.
Elysium review: third world rock from the sun
Neill Blomkamp cements his science-fiction credentials as a filmmaker with a genre vision the likes of which we haven’t seen since the socially conscious SF of the 1970s.
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (aka Devil’s Pass) review: mountain high
A deliciously ooky, X-Files-esque chiller that’s a scary-fun hoot and a half; a lean, smart example of the found-footage flick.
Europa Report review: quest for fire (of knowledge)
I didn’t think we were making movies like this anymore. Very near future. Hard science. Nothing fantastical. Space geekery galore, gorgeous and authentic.
The Wolverine review: prickly on the outside, cuddly on the inside
There’s plenty of good summer popcorn fun, with fresh and exciting action setpieces, but this is mostly an intimate story about Logan, as a mutant and as a man.
