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science fiction

Code 46 * Michael Winterbottom * 2003

A completely different film than “24 Hour Party People” which is from the same director. In the (near) future people live in cities and outcasts live “outside”. People have to have “warrants” for everything and there are forgeries going around. William is sent to Shanghai to investigate the fraud and falls in love with his suspect which eventually leads into problems with the totalitarian system that society is made off in those days. The red line of the film isn’t even that bad, the film itself is alright; it has a good atmosphere and the acting is fine. Irritating are the passionate love-scenes-with-cloths-on and the completely forced “future feeling” that supposedly should be made with throwing different languages through eachother. “Code 46” is alright to watch on tv on an evening that you have nothing to do, but there are better films to see.
-2-

La Cité Des Enfants Perdus * Jean-Pierre Jeunet * 1995

City Of Lost ChildrenIt had been far too many years that I saw this film and then I run into it for only 9 euros. Apparently I saw this film before I started making filmreviews. “City Of Lost Children” is just as the brilliant “Delicatessen” a cooperation between Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet. This film is in many ways quite alike “Delicatessen”, it has the same absurd characters, scenery and story and that weird sense of humour. “City Of Lost Children” isn’t as funny as “Delicatessen” though. The story is about an imaginary (future?) city in which children are abducted because some scientist cannot dream. If you know “Delicatessen” you will recognise several actors, the dark atmosphere and the great sense of humour. If you do not know “Delicatessen”, this film is hard to describe; dark, funny, absurd and pretty damn good. I hope that helps!
-3.5-

Soylent Green * Richard Fleischer * 1973

This film has been on my wishlist for ages (slumberingly). When it was anounced on a TV channel that I do not have, I decided to finally rent this old sci-fi cult classic. “Soylent Green” is nice, especially for the time it was made it. It looks a bit like “The Prisoner”, but more forced sci-fi, but still looking 70’ies. The story plays in 2022 New York where actually just one corporation has control over the people and in which ‘real food’ is no longer for the masses. A police-man investigates a murder and runs into a massive conspiracy. The film has a few nice findings and the title somehow is the main element of the film, but it can be explained in different ways. Entertaining and when you put the story on modern society, thought-provoking as well. A good classic.
-3.5-

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy * Garth Jennings * 2005

Of course I knew about the book and the film, but I never really cared to see it. A while ago I saw the DVD cheaply and later decided to just buy the film and watch this classic. The DVD makes the film into a children’s film with children’s films advertisements etc. Well, maybe the film is enjoyable for children, but it sure is for adults as well! Especially the first part of the film is stuffed with great jokes, wordplays, silly stories and odd situations. There is a subtle criticism towards the modern way of living and society. The characters are great (especially the manically depressed robot) and the big questions of life are dealt with in a very amusing and often thoughtfull manner. The guide from the title is a ‘book’ that reminds of Prospero’s Books with images coming out when opening it and a voiceover to tell a story. I really had a good laugh watching the film and I can recommand to see it to everyone still in doubt if they want to see this philosophical sci-fi comedy.
-4-

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow * Kerry Conran * 2004

I remember that when this film was anounced for the cinemas, I already wanted to see it. Still it took until it was on TV before I finally did. A shame! Not only Gwyneth Paltrow (in a nice 1950’ies journalists outfit) and Angelina Joly (as a pirate) have a part (and Jude Law for the ladies), but “Sky Captain” is a visual spectacle and a very entertaining film. It looks like a comic and also the story is rather ‘comical’, but it seems not to be a comic-adaptation. “Sky Captain” is a science-fiction playing in the past. Somewhere after WWI gigantic machines ravage cities all over the world. This seems to be a plot of a dark professor. Journalist Polly and hero Sky Captain (Jude Law) try to find out what it all is. Story-wise not always too logical, but visually impressive (‘flat colours’, great atmosphere, alright special-effects) and very entertaining. If you like “Sin City”, “V For Vendetta” and the like, you may also want to see this one. <11/9/06><4>

Metropolis * Fritz Lang (1927)

Lang had a vision of the year 2000 and made a film of it in 1927. This makes “Metropolis” a science-fiction film of course. Inspired by the Manhatten skyline, Fritz created a ‘worker’s city’ with skyscrapers, but this city is deep underground. The working men live in the underworld, while the rich people live in the upper world. Both worlds are governed by Joh Fredersen. Fredersen’s son falls in love with a woman and becomes concerned by the fate of the workers. These workers have put their hope in a visionary woman, but a failed trick of Fredersen, the workers start to rebel against ‘the machines’ (and the rich people, Fredersen in particular) causing the destruction of their own city.
Being 80 years old, “Metropolis” is a non-speaking film with very bombastic music and images with texts for explanation or what someone says. During the years the original film crumbled and got lost for 25%. According to the makers of the DVD version that I saw, their version comes closest to the original. Inspite of the loss of a large part of the film, it still takes 2 hours. The film itself is alright. The production was massive (over 37.000 people cooperated!), the stages are nice, expecially for that time and the nazis liked it so much that they asked Lang to make their films. Lang fled to Hollywood, making more films for another 30 years. A classic that you may want to see some time.

The Matrix Revolutions * Andy + Larry Wachowski * 2003

I must have have paid no attention since I don’t remember that this film played in the cinemas. It must have been Christmas last year or so or was it before another Lord Of The Ring? Anyway, I saw the last part of the Matrix trilogy on rental DVD. What I remember from part 2 was that it was too much action and too little conversation. This problem is mostly solved in the last part. Of course there is still of a lot of action and the special effects are again more impressive, etc, etc., but the Wachowski brothers made time for nihilist philosophy and quite a bit of humour. What you often hear is that this last part clears up a lot of things, and hat the end is quite surprising. Hmmmm. Of course you can imagine that there is a final battle with the machines. Since The Matrix is an American film, the people win. Also you can imagine that there is a final battle between Neo and the Smiths and a lot of time is spent on this fight. Some more things are to be expected. A line that was detectible in part 2 is continued here, which is the line of unlogical parts in the story. In order to put things to an end and to make things more impressive, grave concessions have been made to the original philosophy behind the trilogy. Just to name a few things: what is possible inside and outside the matrix, the power of the writers of the programs and even an extra world had to be created.
No matters though, The Matrix Revolutions was -to me- more enjoyable than part 2. It is entertaining, some nice ideas are posed, some questions are answered, many are asked and all in all I definately need to see Revolutions again to make a clearer picture of it. I think I will wait for a trilogy DVD box or so, so I can see them all together.

So, if you liked part 2, you will love part 3 and if you liked part 1 for the philosophy, you can also savely watch the final part. (4)

The Matrix Reloaded * Andy + Larry Wachowski * 2003

This is without a doubt the most spectacular actionfilm that I ever saw. The question is if that is what we are waiting for for The Matrix 2. I am no fond of actionfilms and in The Matrix 1 I even skip the scene in which Neo and Trinity violently enter the building in which Morpheus is captured. Oh well, I didn’t see 1 in the cinema and special effects on a large screen are usually better.

So, for the few who haven’t seen it, should you go and see “The Matrix Reloaded”? There is seriously less philosophy in this one and far too much action and special effects. All very impressive of course, but all the fighting, etc. is strenghed out beyond belief. Nice scenes tend to get boring after five minutes (or more!). The story is a bit further developed. Neo and Trinity are lovers, you get to see Zion, the city under the ground, Morpheus seems to have a boss who also has bosses, agent Smith is no longer a normal agent. Also a few new characters, some nice, some superfluous. Towards the end the story itself (the matrix, the real world, dreams and then all through eachother) becomes ununderstandable. I probably will see it again when it is available on video. So, should you go and see it? If you ask me, if you like 1 for the background/philosophy, better wait until you get a cheaper chance than the cinema, if you like actionfilms with state-of-the-art special effects which are indeed 10x better than all Matrix-clones together, when you are not afraid of some martial arts and serious shooting scenes, maybe this is one that you want to see on the big screen.
(PS, for The Matrix 1 go to the articles section)

Jin-Rô * Hiroyuki Okiura * 1998

Animation has never been really my cup of tea, yet I do like the “Animatrix”. This film was on MTV a while ago and I decided to record it. “The Wolf Brigade” is an animation with quite life-like images and it plays in an apocalyptic future where the Brigade is a para-police-unit to avoid terrorists from disturbing society. The masses are not too happy with the reign, so anti-governental groups flourish. When one member of the Wolf Brigade sees a teenager girl blowing herself up in front of him, he has second thoughts about his occupation. Then he runs into an almost identical girl.
“Jin-Rô” has a nice, quite typically Japanese, dark atmosphere and a story critical to our nowadays society. The images are quite realistic and the makers sure had an eye for detail. All this makes “Jin-Rô” almost like watching a ‘normal’ film. I enjoyed it, maybe I should see some more “anime” to get to know the genre better.

Event Horizon * Paul W.S. Anderson * 1997

How many times a friend of mine told me to watch this film with me replying “well, it is scifi, and I don’t like that”, so after asking if I have seen it a few dozens of times, he put a tape in my hands… Ah well then.
So, “Event Horizon” proved to be everything I feared: a Holywood scifi. Based on a thin story about worm-holes (as if creating these will be experimental in 2045, they have been working out theories about that for years) and the things that the spaceship picked up from ‘another place’ (“fear” of course), the people of the “Event Horizon” didn’t live to tell about their experiences and when the maker and a few other go visit the ship after it returned our very universe, things turn a bit in the way of a horror which is not too well done (very cheap computer animations), credible or enjoyable.
Better filmtips in this section for sure!