Tag: Science-fiction

Flexo! Shoot Flexo! | The One (2001) Review

December 5, 2025

Partway on the timeline between Demolition Man and Everything Everywhere All at Once, behold The One, a blend of science fiction and martial arts to suitably harebrained ends. Far from an expert on all things Jet Li, this first-time viewing was spurred on by its relatively recent coverage on The Greatest Movie Ever! Podcast, in which shameful secrets were revealed about past fondness for musical acts like Drowning Pool and Papa Roach (believe me, I understand). Indeed, this movie is from the year 2001 the way that people from Boston are from Boston, and as I’m currently reading/listening to two examples of popular literature from the mid-1980s, I’ve had occasion to reflect on how often not timeless movies and television are. Those books, Blood Meridian and Stephen King’s It, are both set in the past. By contrast, it’s the rare genre film from the 1980s that doesn’t feel Totally ‘80s! and thus subject to modern nostalgia-driven filmmaking. Will we have a cultural resurgence one day of movies like The One and XXX and The Scorpion King? No. … More Flexo! Shoot Flexo! | The One (2001) Review

Automatic Arsenal | Battle Girl (1991) Review

May 22, 2025

It’s true that the movie fully entitled Battle Girl: The Living Dead in Tokyo Bay has a very low budget. As much as I’d prefer to be an enlightened critic who doesn’t discriminate on such bases, in this case I’m interested in how the miniscule production influences the viewing experience. For reference, we can plot this one somewhere between, say, Nemesis and Screamers? The former is so raggedy that it’s sometimes incoherent, not only in the big picture but in the micro, where the camera and editing have to be so judicious, so careful not to show the edges of the set, so to speak. Battle Girl has a little bit of that, though its setting – the zombie post-apocalypse – is easier to render than other sci-fi worlds, where “scatter some trash in the corner” is actually workable. … More Automatic Arsenal | Battle Girl (1991) Review

Starship of Fools | Mickey 17 (2025) Review

March 8, 2025

It’s been a long winter. If I’m getting into my car these days, it’s to go to the grocery store to continue stocking up on canned goods for the coming economic recession or government collapse or whatever it’s gonna be. Tonight, as I waited for the engine to warm, I asked myself: “Do I really want to see this movie?” It was kind of an obligation, for two reasons. One, I’ve been writing a sci-fi story about clones and needed to know if I should stop, and two, Parasite was so good that I owe Director Bong. I’d also managed to avoid all trailers and plot details – even the cast list, beyond Pattinson – so why spoil that now, though it’s probably why I was feeling so neutral. What was there to excite me but the promise of another Bong Joon-ho movie? He’s been a little hit-or-miss, though I’m not sure if it’s just because I vibe so much with his friend and colleague Park Chan-wook. That man can ruin my night any day of the week, and by comparison, Bong’s sillier, more welcoming sensibilities are less appealing. As a sci-fi movie with a funny premise, Mickey 17 seemed to promise the same thrills of The Host or Okja – undoubtedly with that satirical bite. … More Starship of Fools | Mickey 17 (2025) Review

What Would ‘Ghost in the Shell 3’ Have Looked Like?

June 28, 2024

Meat Loaf once said that two out of three ain’t bad, but he obviously never saw Ghost in the Shell. Two volumes of the original manga – and then an interquel – two original movies and two seasons of the television show, and when that television show finally got a sequel almost 20 years later, it ran for two seasons. Now, each of these examples feels incomplete because the trilogy is such a natural expression of “beginning, middle and end,” and also, because Ghost in the Shell is really good, and fans always want more. I mean, for the most part. The experimental, almost anthological nature of the series means there are misses along with the hits, including an ill-advised Hollywood rendition and the franchise’s latest, a Netflix anime in 3D CG. Only until recently, on the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence could arguably be counted among them, having never generated the same enthusiasm as the original 1995 classic. Of course, even if left disappointed by Batou’s adventure, I bet fans still wonder about the follow-up that never was. … More What Would ‘Ghost in the Shell 3’ Have Looked Like?

Insects of Sea and Space | Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992) Review

June 5, 2023

This one is so close. It just needed a little more time in the oven. All the pieces are here, and they mostly fit together, but there’s something missing. Maybe an oomph? Maybe it’s the pieces themselves, each of them chipped in some unique way. Take the characters, for example. I know, this isn’t the place to start with a Godzilla movie, but that would make Godzilla movies an exception. Our protagonist this time, arguably, is Takuya Fujito, an archaeology professor who steals artifacts from tombs. After he’s thrown in jail, he’s visited by government men who want him and the feisty Masako to investigate a meteor on Infant Island. Apparently, this island is in Indonesian territory, making it off-limits to Japan, like an echo of the original Godzilla’s production. Okay, so Takuya is a man of action, unlike the sci-fi writers and journalists of Heisei movies past. He has more immediate personality, but one nevertheless expressed by whining through the bars of his jail cell. Not super appealing. … More Insects of Sea and Space | Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth (1992) Review

New World Order | Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) Review

April 17, 2023

Opening with a tease is almost never a good idea. It always feels so arbitrary, to show a moment from the middle of the story and then say “One Year Earlier.” When we get back to that moment chronologically, it never feels like anything. “Oh, great, so that’s how we know that happened.” It might not even be inherently bad but that its use is so automated, because test screenings find the beginning too slow. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah opens with maybe the ultimate tease, informing us we’re in the year 2204 before “flashing back” to present-day 1992. That’s not a good sign, and neither is our ostensible lead, Kenichiro Terasawa, being a science fiction writer. Made famous by a book on ESP, he’s hoping to break into more human interest stories, which is a dramatic need that hardly screams “Godzilla movie.” Fortunately for us, his human interest turns out to be a veteran of World War II who believes that dinosaurs still yet live. Then we cut to a classic government conference room where people in suits discuss The Situation, this time involving UFOs. There’s a lot going on already. … More New World Order | Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) Review

Shiny New Toys | The Return of Godzilla (1984) Review

October 26, 2022

It was, for me as well, a long-awaited return, as this 1984 film truthfully entitled “Godzilla” didn’t see a home video release in the United States until May 2016. By that time, we’d abandoned the term “home video!” I mean, I waited longer than contemporary audiences had between this film and the previous installment, 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla, and as such, had viewed 2016’s Shin Godzilla before this one. I knew that The Return of Godzilla was an attempt to take Godzilla “back to its roots” – that old chestnut – and featured American and Soviet politicians arguing with the Japanese in conference rooms. Sure sounds like the 1980s version of Shin Godzilla, but with a little more cheese and vintage effects. What I got was far closer to the 1954 original, a lumbering near-docudrama – with a little more cheese and vintage effects. … More Shiny New Toys | The Return of Godzilla (1984) Review

Ten Directors Challenge

August 24, 2022

This morning, a friend messaged me his list of ten favorite directors as part of a Twitter challenge, appending a note of concern that his picks were too bro-y. In retrospect, I’m not sure if that meant genre-wise or that they were all men. There are lists out there of female directors and I’ve certainly enjoyed many female-directed movies, but my own list is the same kind of bro-y. In no particular order (and because I’m not on Twitter) … More Ten Directors Challenge

The Return to Planet X

July 30, 2022

Long, long before The Battle Beyond Planet X met its frothing, pitiable demise, I had in mind the title for its sequel: Return to Planet X. Sounds more like a command than a title, but it was never implemented regardless. The Battle Beyond Planet X is a podcast I did about science-fiction movies, and because it was just me, it became uncomfortably autobiographical and later, aged. … More The Return to Planet X

Why I’m Quitting Dinosaurs

June 18, 2022

It happened with Terminator: Genisys, it happened with Godzilla vs. Kong. I will eventually see Jurassic World: Dominion and anything that comes after it, but I wish I had the inner strength to resist. The self-respect, really. Some of my favorite movies are American blockbusters, but the “artform” is in a valley phase. They’re now produced with a TV model, where every film is an episode. This works on TV where the budgets are low enough to keep the moneymen off the lot. The proud catchphrase from the golden era was “On TV, the writer is king,” though that was before we learned that a lot of those guys were mad kings. To be honest, the role of a good director in television is underrated, and the problem is that our modern blockbusters make no room for directors. Jurassic Park was directed. And given that these legacy franchises are all about worshiping older work, I can’t escape this thought even if I wanted to. “Look at how much better this earlier movie was!” the movie is saying. … More Why I’m Quitting Dinosaurs