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Showing posts with the label science

LOOPER - REVIEW

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Time travel movies are a gamble: they either work or they don't.  Or they work well enough that you feel too dumb to figure out if they actually make sense. Remember Twelve Monkeys ? Man that film made me feel f***in' stupid back in the day... So along comes Looper , a film which once again takes the "let's send Bruce Willis back in time" scenario and puts a brand new spin on it. This time, we follow Joseph Gordon-Levitt who plays a younger Willis whose job it is to kill whoever the mob (who have somehow gained control of time travel technology) sends back. One day, his older self is sent back by order of a mysterious mob boss known only as The Rainmaker who is closing all the "loops" for whatever reason (getting every "looper" to kill their older selves, basically). The lines between hero and villain get blurred as young Joe's mission turns out to be more righteous than older Joe's, which involves killing random childr

LOOPER - VLOG 16/10/12

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TOTAL RECALL (2012) - REVIEW

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What kind of a world do we live in where people are remaking Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and making them worse?! I mean, it's not like they're remaking the shitty ones either, Conan The Barbarian and Total Recall get remade when the likes of Red Sonja , Hercules In New York and Junior  still roam the Earth? I don't get it. But ok, fine. It's a Philip K. Dick short story so there's room for interpretation and I guess with all the new CG technology available to us, a slicker version of Paul Verhoeven's film could serve at least as decent popcorn entertainment. Or, if it's smart enough, as a kind-of-good companion piece to Minority Report . The trailers promised striking visuals, loads of action and a solid cast so chances were we'd get something half-decent if not quite as retrogasmic as the original film. Alas, what we got was a mixed bag to say the least. Technically, Total Recall is not a bad film. It follows the basic formula of the orig

DREAMSCAPE - REVIEW

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Look at that poster. What the hell were they thinking? When did Dreamscape become Temple Of Doom ? I know Kate Capshaw's in this movie but honestly, that's not enough to justify making a full-on Indiana Jones poster for a film which mostly sees people talking rubbish in rooms and labs, with the occasional wacky dream sequence. Besides, the little kid on the left: SO not a main character. The poster makes it seem like he's Short Round or something. Honestly, if you've seen the movie, this poster's hilarious. Dreamscape stars Dennis Quaid as a dude with some kind of telepathic/telekinetic ability who is hired by Max Von Sydow's scientist to be part of an experiment which involves entering dreams and controlling them somehow. A villainous Christopher Plummer learns that the US President is having these strange nightmares and decides, with the old man's permission of course, to send someone in his mind to sort it out. Of course, Plummer's more intere

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: SEASON 1 - REVIEW

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A hard one to review this one... Mainly because I'm still trying to figure out if I liked it or not! I mean, it has all the ingredients that make up a cool sci-fi series and for someone like me, who grew up watching the likes of Star Trek , Farscape and Lexx , it should have had me at "hello". Having never seen the 80's Battlestar Galactica series, I wasn't really sure what to expect from this remake. After a viewing of the pretty decent TV movie, I was really looking forward to more spontaneous Cylon cruelty (Number Six snaps a baby's neck in the movie for crying out loud!) and more OTT space opera drama/action. The first two episodes pick up where the TV movie left off: with the Battlestar Galactica valiantly... fleeing Cylon attacks and worrying about the amount of water the crew has left. It's pretty standard socio-political stuff but frankly they could have started the season with a plot bearing a little more "oomph". Thankfully G

WE, THE MINDTHINKERS - NEW BLOG

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Here's a plug for a new blog I'm working on called We, The MindThinkers   which will see me writing random, silly sci-fi stories under various, increasingly dumb-sounding pen names. I will upload short stories one chapter at a time, 2 to 3 times a week so if you're in any way interested, don't hesitate to check it out! ;) The first short story is called The Red Moons Of NeOrion by Norman L. Brisbane, the first chapter is now up. It involves moons and bubbles.

FRINGE SEASON 1 - REVIEW

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Following a hugely popular show like Lost was always going to be tough but who knew that J.J. Abrams had one more trick up his sleeve? From the very first scene of the Fringe pilot you know you're in good hands as a bunch of passengers on a plane (so far so Lost) start melting... Yeah. You guys just wait till you get to the zombie baby episode. What Abrams has skilfully and seemingly effortlessly managed to do is single-handedly reinvent the FBI cop series into a sort of sci-fi/50's B movie/CSI hybrid which on paper really shouldn't work but actually does just that, and beautifully so. It might take a bit of time for Fringe to grow on people but it's pretty clear for anyone having followed it from the very beginning that this is the natural successor to X-Files . Not that aliens are at all involved but in terms of sheer serious out-there-ness and cleverness of concept, Fringe is right up there and has a definite sense of fun to it not to mention lots of creati

SKYLINE - REVIEW

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Skyline is to movies what my dung is to gourmet cooking. I've seen some bad films this year. I mean, for the love of god I saw Furry Vengeance ! But this was BAD. Oh my days...where do I start? I think saying Skyline is derivative is understating things quite a bit: Skyline has nothing new or interesting to offer. Sure there are special effects but they're hardly impressive and it just looks like someone played Crysis on their PC and pasted some alien ships from the game in an otherwise derelict straight-to-video sci-fi turkey. Oh, and the aliens look like vaginas. I kid you not: vaginas. What is it derivative of? Cloverfield , War of the Worlds , every sci-fi film EVER MADE? What is really painful about Skyline, I must say, is the acting. Holy god the acting... Skyline has some of the worst acting I have seen in a very long time. It is shameful that these people were even paid for such horrendous performances. It made The Happening look like A Clockwork

RETURNER - REVIEW

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  A rubbish title does not a rubbish film make. Then again if you call a film Returner you have to expect some rubbish to make its way into the final product regardless. To be fair, the first half hour of Returner is actually pretty good. When the film remains a straight-forward sci-fi action thriller it works. Unfortunately, the Americans and the CGI aliens show up and it's all downhill from here. Some very silly lines ("I can see the bullets") and dodgy special effects bring down an otherwise cool and fun little film. Kaneshiro and Suzuki make a good team and Goro Kishitani's devilish villain is a lot of fun. The story is patchy at best and the ET -style ending is a mess to say the least. Then again, I'd never seen a plane transform into a weird insect-like Transformer controlled by tiny friendly aliens in big metal suits... By all means check out Returner but I can't promise you'll find much in it to really make it worth your while.

LEPRECHAUN 4: IN SPACE - REVIEW

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Up until this moment, the Leprechaun films were just a bunch of stupid but oddly enjoyable, trashy horror comedies. With Leprechaun 4: In Space, I'm pleased to announce, we're entering Ed Wood territory. Going in, I just wanted to know how in hell they were going to explain the Leprechaun's space presence. They don't. Not even a bit. I'm not even sure the word "leprechaun" is even uttered at any point throughout the film! We're told a group of human space marines are going on some planet to kill some alien...which turns out to be Warwick Davis' critter. Leprechaun 3 was no masterpiece but it did have quite a few redeeming qualities about it, but In Space is just...chaos. It's like a weird mix of a Starship Troopers -style action B movie, a Leprechaun horror film, a Mel Brooks, Spaceballs -type Dr Who spoof and a cheesy Star Trek The Original Series episode. Yeah... This is one of those rare films where nothing works. Story? Nope. Visuals

IMPOSTOR - REVIEW

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Philip K. Dick film adaptations are hit and miss. For every Minority Report or Blade Runner you get Paycheck or Next . Based on one of the legendary sci-fi writer's short stories, Impostor is sadly not one of the good ones. It's not terrible but about as bland as a sci-fi film can get. Dick's stories never really rely too much on their final twists, usually the stories themselves are told on a twist after twist basis. Here however, the film has little else to offer so it really builds up to the final revelation...which fails phenomenally. The entire film is based around Gary Sinise's identity: is he actually an an alien spy or is he being set up? Unfortunately early on he freaks out and basically yells out "I am a Centauri!" before escaping. This is never mentioned again during the film so when it is finally revealed that he is, in fact, a Centauri...imagine my lack of surprise. Aside from the ending, Impostor doesn't go to great lengths to look gr

INCEPTION - REVIEW

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It has been a while since a film has sparked so many discussions. Inception, whether you liked it or not, most probably already got you to debate about a million ridiculous dream-within-a-dream scenarios. With a film this rich, this dense, there's certainly a lot to ponder. Philip K Dick meets The Matrix in one of the biggest concept movies ever in which a team of dream...thieves pull their resources to try something different for one last big job and attempt to implant an idea into some guy's head. We are then thrown into multiple layers of dreaming as Tommy from 3rd Rock From the Sun flies around a hotel room, Di Caprio gets hit by a train in a city street and Marion Cotillard goes psycho. This is all great stuff! Great action, impressive special effects, very good cast, a complex and gripping sci-fi story...what more could a sci-fi nerd such as myself ask for? And yet there is something a tad underwhelming about Inception, a film which, in its trailers, promised the a