Skip to content

science fiction

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.

Hardcore Henry * Ilya Naishuller (2015)

Wooha, cult! “Hardcore Henry” is a very fast, very violent and very original film. It is a bit of a B-film, in style anyway, with a corny story and corny dialogues, all only to be able to make bloody scenes and grim humour. The film looks like a first person shooting game, shot through the eyes of Henry. Fun to see, but I find these constantly moving cameras somewhat sickeningly.

Henry wakes up in some dystopian, futuristic Russia. He proves to be some half man / half robot fighter not knowing who his allies are (if he has any). He is tossed between his ‘wife’ and some hippy resistance group, constantly getting assignments to fight somebody. The childish bad guy keeps popping up with his robot army allowing the director to make a load of chasing and (huge) fighting scenes.

“Hardcore Henry” is a bloody violent adrenaline rush with fast music. A highly amusing full-length debut of Naishuller.

Ex Machina * Alex Garland (2015)

And again a philosophical scifi. The genre seems to be booming.

Caleb is a promising programmer at a Google-like company. He is selected for a special experiment at the house of his boss, Nathan. Nathan lives in a remote forest in an extremely futuristic house where he is working on AI (artificial intelligence) robots. It is Caleb’s task to interact with the robot (Ava) and when he gets the idea that he interacts with a human, the AI has passed the test.

Ava proves to be a manipulative robot who sets out to seduce Caleb. Of course Nathan follows the two’s every move. The film is very slow and somewhat meditative, but inspite of throwing up some questions about what consciousness is, it is not convincing. Some of the obligatory surprises are visible a mile away and especially when the director felt the need to explain a bit more towards the end, things become a bit flimsy. The end contains a major flaw in the story as well.

“Ex Machina” is not a boring film and it is also nicely shot, but there are better films in the hip genre of philosophical scifi.

The Zero Theorem * Terry Gilliam (2013)

This wonderfully weird film has been on my watchlist for a while, but my DVD-rental kept sending me other titles. Here it is at last.

Qohen (no mistake about the name) is a black-dresser in an outrageously colourfull retro-future. He has an occupation solving riddles, but since his is socially inapt, he tries to quit his job or at least be allowed to work from his own house. His house is a massive former cloister by the way. Gilliam came up with all kinds of weird computers and strange futuristic ways of advertising. The film has a bit of a Jeunet-atmosphere, but not as dark. To stay with the director, think of “Tideland”.

Qohen seems to be successfull in his attempts when he gets a new job assigned that he can do in his house. At home he is visited by his odd manager, a youngster he met at his job and a foxy lady. The job is as hard as Qohen was predicted, driving him mad.

The title refers to the riddle that Qohen has to solve for “management” and the film makes a very amusing and odd film with good humour and wonderfull findings. Recommended!

Insurgent * Robert Schwentke (2015)

Part of the “Divergent” ‘series’, this two-hour-scifi is done by another director. I do not remember a whole lot of part one, just that it is not really good. Not bad enough to discard “Insurgent” apparently. Too bad, because this film of Robert “Red” “The Time Travellers Wife” Schwentke is very, very weak.

Again we follow “Tris” who is ‘divergent’, different from the class-society that was made up by the leaders of the only remaining city on earth. Of course ‘divergents’ are a threat to the government and hunted down, especially when the leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet) realises that she needs a ‘divergent’ to solve a mystery. This makes a drama playing in some future. There are action elements and of course scifi as well.

The acting is largely unconvincing, especially of the main characters. The story is not particularly interesting either and there are not really other elements to lift up the film a bit. “Insurgent” is not completely horrible, but it is just a (below) average film.

The Martian * Ridley Scott (2015)

The time that the genre “science fiction” consisted of space epics has clearly been closed a while ago. More ‘serious stories’ have been worked out for a while more trying to bend the genre to ‘science fact’, a story that seems probable with things that can happen nowadays or in the near future.

The beginning of the film reminds quite a bit of “Mission To Mars” from 2010 and therewith perhaps one of the first films in this ‘new style scifi’. There are also things incommon with “Gravity” (2013).

During a mission to Mars, the grew is caught in a storm. One crew member is hit by flying debris and assumed dead. The rest of the crew is just in time to early start their way back to earth. The presumed dead member is Mark Watney played by Matt Damon. He survived the storm only to be woken up by his space suit warning him the oxygen level is getting low. He manages to get back to camp.

There are a few strange flaws in the story. The first weird thing is that NASA somehow thought to set up camps for future missions and in these camps everything is available except a way to contact earth. So Watney is alive with the food supplied of his departed fellow crew members, but without a way of letting NASA know this. What follows is an elaborate attempt to survive until the next mission is to come to Mars four years ahead.

The inventive Watney first manages to grow potatoes and then even finds a way to contact NASA. This encourages NASA to start a rescue mission. Of course not everything goes as planned to some extra drama and tension could be added to the film. The result is a fair scifi drama with a few interesting scenarios and a couple of (very) illogical elements.

The 8.1 on IMDb is a bit too much praise for me, on a scale of 10 I would come to a 7.0.