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science fiction

Cypher – Vincenzo Natali (2002)

Man, what an awful film… I already did not like Natali’s “Splice” (2009) too much, but perhaps I thought to remember I found it alright?

“Cypher” is, to me, a film that fails on all points. There is a totally annoying story that has a plot shift every other second. The acting is awful. There are tries on vague scenes which are boring. For 90 minutes I have wondered how long it has been since I saw a film as bad as this. I sat it out, but when I had to go to the bathroom towards the end, I did not even use the pause button…

A dull man is hired by a company to be a spy. Then he is hired by the competition as counter spy and then by a third party. Both companies try to brainwash the man to try him to be another person. A Japanese looking lady seems to try to help him, but is that true? The aims of both companies seem to be nonexistent.

90 Minutes of annoyance. I cannot make more of “Cypher”. I like a weird film, but this is just bad.

Frequency – Gregory Hoblit (2000)

What is this? Again a time-travelling film? Is some future me playing jokes? Well, it’s not exactly time travelling this time.

There are two stories in this film. One is about the reckless firefighter John Sullivan. The other about his son Frank, a policeman whose life does not go exactly the way he would prefer. Then during heavy solar activity, Frank finds out that using his father’s old radio he can communicatie with his father 20 years back in time.

At the same time Frank is working on a serial killer case of a couple of decades ago so he asks his father to help out with the investigation. Needless to say that John’s actions in the past change the present and so we get a film with an alright story, but an awful happy end.

Retrogade * Christopher Kulikowski (2004)

The name of Dolph Lundgren and the cover made me think that was a 1980’ies scifi, but it is just over a decade old. 3.1 On IMDb, promising…

Indeed, in the first part the acting is awful. Fortunately this gets better. It all looks pretty old too, so the film itself lives up to my expectations based on the cover. The story is alright, but again I got a time-travelling film.

In the present time a group of investigators travel to the south pole to find meteorites. These unearthly remnants contain a virus which in two centuries almost wiped out the entire human race, so a group of people are sent back in time to prevent the virus from being found. Of course there are bad guys on board who have other plans changing the past. What evolves is an icy action thriller playing on a ship that sailed out to find the meteorites while the time-travelers try to prevent them from bringing the virus to inhabited parts of the world.

Indeed, the film is not very good, but neither did it bore me stiff or annoy me.

Deja Vu – Tony Scott (2006)

It probably sounded like a good idea for a story. A special investigation team found a way to look 4,5 days back in time, so they can retrace people’s steps solving crimes. Things get highly unlikely when the hardware proves to be able to see everything in that past, even within apartments. If that is not enough, the package comes with a time traveling machine.

A ferry is blown up killing hundreds of people. ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) proves to have a keen eye and his is recruited for the special team by Agent Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer). Soon the investigation focuses on a young lady who proved to have died before the ferry was blown up.

I found the unlikeliness of the hardware too annoying to ‘get into’ the film. Fortunately the acting makes up a bit, but when things take ‘unexpected’ courses, my annoyance level rises again and the end is even more incredible.

The film is alright with regards to filming, action and acting, but more thought had to be given to the central theme of the film.

Deathlands * Joshua Butler (2003)

Everything about this film looks considerably older than its actual age. I was under the impression that “Deathlands” came from the time of “Mad Max“, but the first “Mad Max” is 24 years older!

As you may now expect, “Deathlands” is a gloomy, apocalyptic film playing in a bleak future. After a massive war, nothing much is left of the world and we follow a group consisting of men, a mutant and a half-mutant (it is not really explained to what the mutants mutated) on ‘adventure’.

The first half of the film has a very good atmosphere, but in the second half the very thin story begins to show a bit too clearly and this is certainly the weaker half. There is quite some blood and brutality and action, but do not expect a whole lot of script.

“Deathlands” is enjoyable, but not much more than that.

Timecop: The Berlin Connection * Steve Boyum (2003)

Not even released in the year in which the original film played, another director comes with a follow-up of the film that was released almost a decade earlier. Safe from being based on the same comic, “Timecop 2” has little to do with the original.

Of course the story is similar. A special team has the task to prevent people from going back in history and change the present/future. The title refers to difficulties of being in a position to change the past and to decide to not do it. That very moment is the start for the whole film in which two time-travelers fight each other through time.

The whole notion of (not) changing the past, traveling back and forth, etc. has been worked out into further extremes than the original film, a bit too much so here and there. “The Berlin Connection” makes an alright scifi action with recognisable elements from its predecessor (most notably: martial arts), but it is a wholly different film with (like I said) a different director, different actors, etc.

The film is not really a masterpiece, but the 4.9 on IMDb sounds a bit low (it is about my own rating too though). Then again, part 1 also only gets a 5.8. Not that that is a masterpiece, but that is more of a classic than the follow-up will be (my guess).

Timecop * Peter Hyams (1994)

I do not remember having seen, or even heard of, this film before. Perhaps this is because scifi not really was my genre in these days. Now I ran into the film second hand and I got curious if this would a 1980’ies scifi action spectacle.

The film is not as old as I thought, but still old enough to look old-fashioned. It has elements of the films of these days such as the obligatory sex scene and of course the clothing looks wonderfully like that of these days. What is also funny that the director looked 10 years ahead and set his film in 2004 with cranky-looking self-driving cars, but also voice-activated television.

Jean Claude van Damme plays the pretty boy Walker, a martial arts policeman, who is recruited for a new force that can travel back in time to prevent the bad guys from changing history in their course. This results in a amusing film that does not really try to thrive on special effects that nowadays would look dated, but rather a well thought-through story that unfolds nicely. Not even is everything chewed out so that the viewer does not have to think for himself, some clues you actually have to figure out for yourself.

Of course the film looks somewhat dated, but not so much, and it is good enough, that you should not (re)watch it as a classic of decades hence.

Star Trek: Beyond * Justin Lin (2016)

It is starting to seem as if I like sci-fi, while in fact I am just curious to see what they would make of a contemporary Star Trek film. Like with the last Star Wars this Star Trek is “based on characters created by…”. It has little to do with what I remember of Star Trek.

We have Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, but are they supposed to be children of the original characters? In a too rapid ‘intro’ we learn about the spaceship Enterprice and the world the crew lives in. The ship is sent on a rescue mission and they end up fighting a dark enemy in an unknown area of “the nebula”.

The film has humor that does not really work (in the beginning almost on ‘screwball’ level), drama that does not really work and mostly seems to want to impress as a space spectacle with star wars, but… it does not really work.

What remains is a weak film with a few elements that you may know from the old films.

Star Wars: Rogue One * Gareth Edwards (2016)

“Based on characters created by Georges Lucas”. That about sums it up. Actually, there are not that many Lucas characters in “Rogue One”, some Troopers and Vader, but the film is entirely wrapped around new characters (to me at least). Just like with the previous Star Wars film, the story is very thin, just an excuse for sci-fi action almost.

In an almost 007-like manner we have a good man who apparently ran bad, leaving behind a daughter who gets caught up by the resistance. The bad guys create a weapon to destroy their enemies and the good guys come to blow it up.

Even though the film is 135 minutes and there is not much of a story, that story is not even ‘wrapped up’, so I guess there will be a “Rogue Two” within a couple of years.

I saw the film in iMax 3D. That sometimes looked nice, but mostly did not add much. Also I wonder why after so many years of 3D, it still does not look better as it does.

“Rogue One” is an entertaining sci-fi spectacle, good enough to watch some time, but there is no need to rush.

10 Cloverfield Lane * Dan Trachtenberg (2016)

When fleeing her boyfriend, Michelle is involved in a car accident after which she wakes up in a bunker run by Howard (John Goodman).

Trachtenberg managed fairly well to have an evolving story that both surprises and lives up to expectations. What is more, as crazy as Howard seems, as crazy the film gets. It is better to not know too much of the story before you watch this film.

“10 Cloverfield Lane” is not a terribly good film, but it is entertaining and fairly original.