It! The terror From Beyond Space (1958) directed by Edward L. Cahn

 

A second mission to mars arrives at the red planet to discover the fate of the previous crew sent there. Only one is left alive, the rest were killed by some creature... according to the survivor who is not believed and taken back with the to stand trial for multiple murders. It  seems he wasn't lying afterall when the creature is discovered to have made it's way on to their ship and is now travelling back to earth with them and killing the crew along the way. 

This film is certainly a low budget product of its time but does have good points. One of those isn't the monster, however. it's pretty ridiculous looking. The acting isn't great and neither is the writing... what's left? The effects of the ship are fairly well done and some of the shots are well thought out. It made me realize how much can be told by one shot and not need further explanation. An example if this is when the nurse disconnects a bottle of blood from a patient injured by the monster, she puts it on a table and there is a shot of the table with about 10 more empty bottles and it tells you right away there is a now a shortage and the treatment isn't working. The basic setup is also interesting and will remind filmgoers of "Alien" as the the ship is divided into layers separated by hatches and the deadly Martian comes from them floor by floor, hiding in ducts and picking off the crew one by one. 

Not the best or the worst of this sort of 50s sci-fi so something to watch if you happen to catch it and can deal with the acting. 

Earth VS the Flying Saucers (1956) directed by Fred F. Sears

 

One of the lesser know Ray Harryhaussen films, mostly because of the lack of giant monsters I think. Its interesting to see stop motion used for spaceships, robot aliens and scenes of destruction, though. It's very typical of film of this type... aliens arrive and humans attack them so they assume (rightly) humans are hostile. Things escalate and there is an all out war between the saucers and the military. 

It's really hard to think of the aliens are the bad guys, though the story keeps trying to show them as cold killers, they only kill when attacked, at least at first. The film is hardly a Star trek episode, the earth people never really try to makes things work and the saucer people who have kidnapped the main female character's dad and a police to suck information out of their brains (promising to put it all back later) throw the bodies out of the ship from the air in a horrifying scene after the military shows it can makes their spaceships lose control. As shocking as this is it's still not more horrible than the humans having already murdered several of the visitors right from the start. The whole thing ends in a spectacular fight over Washington DC which destroys several well known buildings and monuments until the "invaders" are destroyed and things go back to normal. 

The looks of the spaceships and aliens are cool, the flying saucers are exactly what you think they would look like and the robot suits that contain the aliens are unique... sort of goofy and stiff but original in design. The stop motion destruction is well done and pacing is quick enough between effects shots to keep you interested. 

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) Directed by Robert Wise

Based on short story "Farewell to the master" this early sci fi 50 classic sets the high bar for films even made today. The music is one of the first time the theremin was used in science fiction and it has become synonymous with the genre ever since. Filmed in a pseudo documentary style and using actual reporters  know to the public, the film has a certain realism to it lets say lacking on other futuristic films from the later 50s. 

Spoilers:

The story is not complicated. One day a spaceship lands, in effect, on the White House lawn and a human-like being gets out. He is immediately shot. As he struggles on ground bleeding the gathered crowds suddenly notices a giant humanoid robot has exited the craft and it destroys all the gun and weapons in sight until the injured alien tells it to stop.

In hospital, the visitor, named Klaatu tried to get a meeting with world leaders so he can transmit a serious message to the people of Earth. When made clear this is not going to happen, he escapes to learn about the people by living among them for a while. This causes hysteria and conspiracy theories. He decides to meet a famous Einstein-like scientist to see if he can talk at least to the scientist of Earth and to convince them he agrees on a display of power that won't hurt anyone but will basically scare the crap out of everyone. By stopping all activity on the planet for 30 minutes, the scientists gather to meet him at the spaceship. Sadly this action also increases the pressure to capture him and he is killed trying to escape from the authorities. Before dying he tells a woman he has befriended to go to the ship and say a phrase to Gort, the robot which tells it to get him and bring him back to the spaceship. 

Inside the ship, Gort revives Klaatu and he leaves the ship to give an ultimatum to all the humans on Earth. Keep your weapons and violence on your own planet or Gort and other like him, who keep the peace between planets, will return and destroy the Earth to "a burnt out cinder".

This is a classic for a million reasons. The effects are sparse but very effective and still look good, the performances are very good and the actors, especially Rennie take their roles seriously and the message of peace, or else is pretty effective. 

Klaatu lives in boarding house while trying to get a feeling for your everyday human and there he meets a single mother and her son. The father was killed in the war and her new suitor is determined to marry as soon as they can. Billy Gray is the child actor and for once, it's role that doesn't grind the film to a halt. Patrica Neal is amazing as the mom who is career oriented, smart and one of two people Klaatu trusts. There is a good rapport between them and it never gets romantic, something that would have seriously undermined the film. When she is stuck in an elevator with him during the world-wide shutdown and he tells her who he is why he is there (which we don't see happen) she is shook to her core and we get how badly this meeting or worlds could go. Her boyfriend, on the other hand sees only ways to become known and make money off Klaatu's real identity and she dumps him without regret. 

Micheal Rennie is perfect. Unknown at the time his performance is a mix of superiority, confusion and bemusement as he tries to navigate human society. He has no patience for foolishness but his goal is to warn not punish humankind... Gort will do that if needed. I love the scene where he asks for a flashlight and can't figure out how it works and when the child shows him his look says "How cute! A switch!". its endearing but also character-wise shows he really doesn't come from around here. When he takes the boy to Arlington Cemetery to visit the father's grave he is touched and it manages to relay how dying in a war is completely, for lack of a better word, alien to him. 

The restored Blu-ray is worth buying. Though there are a few nonsensical things in the movie (only 2 guards for the spaceship at night? How does Gort walk from the ship to where Klaatu's body is with no one noticing an 8 foot alien robot on the streets?) there is only one shot that takes me out of the story. When Gort is seen by the crowd they run away... sort of. The film is sped up and it looks cartoonish. Apparently the untrained extras just couldn't get it right and Wise had to resort to the film trick or not get the shot at all. 

Gort, Klaatu Barrada Nicto! 

Forbidden Planet (1956) directed by Fred M. Wilcox

 

(my interpretion of elements of the film)

 Inspired by Shakespeare's "The Tempest", Forbidden Planet is film with a list of firsts in Science Fiction  cinema. It was the first science fiction film to depict humans traveling in a man-made faster-than-light starship.It was also the first to be set entirely on a planet orbiting another star, far away from Earth and the solar system. Robby the Robot character was more than just a dumb machine that walked and has a distinct personality. The film was groundbreaking as the first of any genre to use an entirely electronic score. The film was nominated for special effects and for good reason, they are really over and above other films at the time. The design of the saucer shaper spaceship is iconic and stands out to this day. 

The story centres around a crew from Earth sent to discover the fate of an expedition on the Planet Altair which was lost 20 years previous. After arriving in orbit, they warned off by Morbius telling them their safety cannot be guaranteed if they land and he has no need of them. They do land as per their orders and discover every one of the expedition except for Morbius and his daughter, who has never seen other humans, are all that is left. 

Spoilers:

It turns out the previous crew were all killed by a mysterious force when they tried to leave the planet and for reasons unknown Mobius and his daughter were spared. They feel immune to the attacks but also do not think the threat has gone away by any means. The residence they live in is on top of the entrance to what was a super advanced civilization that all died out thousands of year ago overnight. Morbius has been trying to understand how and why and learning how their tech works. His daughter seems happy enough but even he realizes she must return to earth at some point to have a normal development. 

The visiting ship is attacked and people start dying from an unseen force which turns out to be an invisible monsters which is briefly seen as it breaks though the force field around the ship as it kills several more crewman. 

The daughter decides to leave with the earthmen and the monster now seems to be after her as well. In a really great twist, it turns out the machines that Morbius has been using to boost his intelligence has tied him into the very system that doomed the origin race, the Krell. It was supposed to let them make their thoughts become real with no need of physically making things but their "Id", the subconscious mind, hid horrors and violence that an advanced race could suppress but not rid itself of. The monster was produced by Morbius himself to avoid leaving the planet and to keep his daughter in his control. When he realizes that he is at fault he he tries to unsuccessfully disown the monster of his Id but is killed in the process, but not before he has the ship captain set off a series of explosion that will destroy the planet and keep this technology away from mankind before they too disappear. 

If you have never seen Leslie Nielsen as anything other than Frank Drebin from the Baker Gun films and series this is a great film to expose you to his career as a handsome young leading man in serious films. Robby the Robot has been in so many movies and films you might not know this is where he was first seen and his design and character are fantastically realized. Ann Francis is an odd character, both naive and very aware and in control of herself and not a screamer in search of a man to save her, though she of course falls in love with the captain and they head back to Earth as a couple. 

As recent as November 15th of 2024 there was word of script for a remake but I am not sold there needs to be one, this holds up on its own! 

When Worlds Collide (1951) directed by Rudolph Maté

A George Pal production that almost seems to be part of an unintentional trilogy including The Time machine and War of the Worlds to me. Not in subject but in tone. Maybe that's just me. 

Astronomers have spotted a sun with a companion planet streaking at incredible speed towards the earth and have calculated that the planet will pass us first, causing massive destruction and death, followed by the sun finally engulfing our planet destroying it completely.  As science-y as the film tries to be it is a product of its time and this scenario seems preposterous with what we know about the universe now. it is all presented in a serious enough way that you can just go with it.

The characters are pretty interesting, the scientists are trying to save what the can of humanity by building an ark to land on the passing planet, hoping life is possible there while the pilot hero falls in love with his daughter who is a scientist in her own right. There is a selfish, handicapped billionaire who agrees to fund the ark as long as he can be on it and many minor characters fleshed out more than this type of movie  typically does. There is a love triangle, that I thought was used to show emotions connected with knowing the world is going to end in a few months and not just there for show. 

Pacing, like most Pal movies is good and we get some dated but effective disaster scenes. New York getting flooded from a tidal wave is particularly effective. 

Spoilers:

 For me a disaster film is usually a natural unstoppable event is the source of the disaster, like earthquakes, fire, tidal waves etc. so this could be one of the first disaster films. No magical do-hicky is miraculously invented at the last minute to save us all, the world does get destroyed. The ark also gets to the new planet and while the getting there and landing are pretty awesome, the final shot is a bit confusing and seems tacked on. They land on a snow covered valley but when they step out, on to a not very good painting, it's like a spring day and they watch the sunrise on the new world and NEVER mention the massive buildings and structures directly in front of them. The place is already inhabited and no one notices! This was based on book with a sequel, neither of which I read so I hope that is addressed in second book. 

Fun, exciting and while maybe a slightly lesser Pal film, it's still going to keep your attention. 

The Time Machine (1960) Directed by George Pal

 

George Pal made a few iconic science fiction films and this is up there with version of War of the Worlds which also was from a book by HG Wells. It is the story of a man obsessed with time who arrives late for a dinner with friends at his own house in a terrible state. He is cut and exhausted but insists he tell the story of what happened to him. He has discovered a way to move through time, but not space, using a very cool looking victorian machine that is worth watching the movie just to see it. 

With this device he has travelled to the distant future where humans have been divided into two distinct species. One docile and dependent on the other aggressive and living underground. Our traveller meets a beautiful girl, don’t they always, and finds himself trapped in that time period when the aggressive race, the Morloks, drag his time machine into his layer behind doors he can’t get through. 

There is plenty of of adventure that follows but before all that we a treated to a few great moments of him moving through time, stopping a few decades later when he meets his best friend’ s adult son, who wasn’t born when he got into the device and then decades later still when a nuclear bomb goes off forcing him to jump into the far future. The passing of time is demonstrated by a women’s dress shop window at first and with stop motion, it shows time by the animation of the changes of the dresses in the window display. 

I don’t want to spoil the movie, old as it is, because its old enough that younger people might never even heard of it and its worth saving it surprises for them. The costumes and make up is great and the special effects have a few weak points but mostly still work today and have that look that War of the Worlds and his other Sci fi film When Worlds Collide have. Its distinctive and wonderful. The players are all good, I like the maid a lot and Rod Taylor is perfect as the scientist. 

A hit when released, it stands up by keeping the exposition to a minimum and the story moving always forward… well when it isn’t moving backward in time. 

Poster project: War of the Worlds (1953)

 

I decided on a look I thought fit the film and it's style. The stars are a photo I took in Colorado years ago with my brother and the earth is a 3D render I made in Cinema 4D years ago. I had a Mars 3D render and the martian probe ready for the poster but that was way too crowded and counter to my ideas  on what I wanted it to look like. The title is remade from the original post and I used Paramount logo from the 50s. The Martian war machine and hand were drawn in Affinity Designer. 

Poster Project: The Day the Earth Stood Still

 

After about 35 hours of work this poster is done. I thought I was done earlier but I rewatched the film and noticed some robot details I missed. After drawing the elements in Affinity Designer I moved them to Affinity Publisher and composed the poster, added the title and other information. I made a 1940's- 50's style earth that was to go under the hand of Klaatu but it didn't look right and didn't really add to poster for me. Gort, the robot, was a bigger challenge than I thought as he is smooth, reflective the costume lacks some details, his superman undies always look a little goofy to me but I knw why they are there from a practical costume making viewpoint. 

I would like to make a "war of the Worlds" poster from the George Pal movie but I have come up with a decent way to pull it off. I might have to make a 3D model of the spaceship, the creature, the martian probe... maybe all of that and work out my composition when I see what looks good or not. 

The Wild Robot (2024) directed by Chris Sanders

 

The Wild Robot tells the story of a robot programmed to be of service shipwrecked on an island inhabited only by animals. It learns to communicate with them and after accidentally killing a bird in a fall discovers the bird was a mother and finds itself taking the place of mother and has to raise the chick on its own, developing real emotional feelings as it does so. 

As this is brand new movie, I will try not to spoil too much. The film is lovely to look at the animation has a storybook/ studio Ghibli style to it that really works. Its very well made, the voice acting was great but I saw it in French so I can’t speak to the all star English cast version which I would guess is at least as good. 

The film’s biggest faults might have more to do with my expectations than anything else. I saw the first trailer and thought the animals would not talk… but they do. If you had had asked me to guess ho the story would progress before I saw it, I would pretty much have nailed it. The trailer, like far too many trailers, basically takes you through the entire film and to honest the scenario is a typical by the numbers story. No real surprises, though it is well told. 

This is well worth seeing but it falls short of being great because it plays it too safe. 

Laserblast (1978) directed by Michael Rae

 

The is by no means a good movie, even at only 80 minutes it drags but it' isn't completely unwatchable for me. for one thing as. a stop motion animation fan it's has surprising competent stop motion aliens that are in the film much loner than one would think for such a low budget endeavour.  The acting is very wooden but the there might be a serviceable story in there somewhere, we just never see it. 

Billy is skinny bullied kid in a town of REALLY underfed locals. MST3K makes not of this in their version of the film which is maybe the best way to see it. Roddy McDowell picks up a quick paycheque in a roll that really goes nowhere but he doesn't phone it in completely. Billy finds and alien weapon left by some other kid who found it first or an alien race that looks much more human than the other aliens that  come looking for the weapon a points throughout the film. The weapon and the amulet that lets you use it begins to transform Billy and he get revenge on those who bully him mostly by blowing up their cars. Oh and a billboard on the highway for "Star Wars"  as well for good measure. 

Eddie Deezon gets his cinematic debut as the nerd character he played throughout his career. he seems to have a good sense of humour of about it. This is a B Movie that meanders its way along and while not exciting, I did find I could sit through it. I won't say everyone will, I have seen alot of bad movies in my time! 

Marooned (1969) directed by John Sturges

 

While 2002 A Space Odyssey is rightly lauded for its ground breaking realism depicting space travel, Marooned is no slouch in the department either and has the advantage of being produced as man was really going to the moon for the first time. 

The effects are excellent, not the level of Kubrick's epic film but more, if one can say this, down to earth. They are based on current NASA tech and design and the story of astronauts trapped in their capsule and slowly suffocating as mission command tried to find some way to help them. This film was still in release during the Apollo 13 mishap so what is shown was no hypothetical sci fi plot to viewers, it was really happening. 

The cast is quite amazing, so many good actors giving very good performances and the entire production is treated with the gravitas it deserves considering men were very much risking their lives at the time.  The whole thing reads as real life, including some heart breaking understated moments when the wife of one of the crew is given bad news. 

As the situation in space gets worse, they are aided by soviet cosmonauts who have come to deliver oxygen as that is all the can do. A very hopeful message for the time.

At 134 minutes I did not find it slow moving, so some might. It was very well received but lost money on initial release and while it seems to be forgotten mostly It does not deserve to be. 

Dune 2 (2024) directed by Denis Villeneuve

 

There will be some spoilers in this one. 

Starting immediately where the first film left off, Denis Villeneuve hits the ground running with no recap of the previous film and manages to make a film that looks like it filmed at the same time as the first part. All of that is to the credit of this sequel which had a lot to live up to after the huge critical and financial success of its predecessor. 

I am a long time Dune fan I could say, I reread all three of the books in the original trilogy before part one came out and that was maybe the fourth time for all three. I was not a huge fan of the Lynch film in the 80s while liking some things in and thought the SciFi channel miniseries was OK. Neither really captured the story but that is a tall, if not impossible order for such a complicated and galaxy sprawling story of political intrigue and complex cultures. I am a Montrealer and have been admiring Villeneuve’s films for a long time and was excited to see how he would handle Dune and was not disappointed. I would not expect a word for word recreation of the book and didn’t get that. As a filmmaker myself I know that sort of thing isn’t possible or even a good idea. That said this second film strays pretty far from the text in ways I would not have expected. sometimes this worked for me, Lady Jessica switches from concerned mom to villain which takes three books to happen and I can see the reasoning for that. The story is compressed into month when it should have taken place over years and this is a detriment to the story telling. Jessica is pregnant at the end of the first film and still is at the end of the second meaning one of the book’s best moments and most intriguing character, her daughter born with generations of past knowledge, doesn’t really appear and worse, (spoiler warning again) doesn’t kill the Baron and that crucial scene is given to another character leaving her role in future films nebulous. 

This is not the say the film doesn’t work, while losing my favourite part of the book is annoying it didn’t kill the movie for me. Its a HUGE beautiful film and the almost three hours past before I knew it. I think Timothy Chalamet looks the part but lacks the charisma Paul Atreides should have. The rest of the cast is fine to great and the film does a lot of interesting cinematography that might have failed in a lesser production. 

Babylon 5: The Road Home (2023) Directed by Matt Peters

 While waiting for a rumoured reboot of Babylon 5 the groundbreaking TV show from the 90s we were treated to a surprise animated movie with the original characters and starring the voices of the surviving cast. 

The story revolves around a time travel/ alternate universe concept that has new Interstellar Alliance president John Sheridan leaping around reality because of an accident involving a new power source starting up. It was written by J. Michael Straczynski who created the original show and all it's various spinoffs. The animation is pretty good and some of the shots are beautifully done and while it might be heavy on fan service, seeing these characters in a new adventure that takes place before the end of the series was nothing short of wonderful. This will limit it's appeal to newcomers but it obviously wan't made for anyone not familiar with the original but it also likely added new enthusiasm that the reboot, long spoken about but never materializing might actually be coming. 

I admit I am a fan of the show and this was at treat for me even though multiverse/time travel plots are not my favourite thing in the world. The proposed new show will not be a continuation so this was a last chance to see it in it's old form with the characters and actors fans like me love so much. 

High Life (2018) directed by Claire Denis

 

I have seen more Robert Pattinson led films than I ever imagined I would the last couple of years and I have been amazed at how he has grown as an actor and how open he is to interesting roles. So I can see how he was drawn into this film, it is Claire Denis’ first  English language film and on paper I am sure it looked profound. In practice however, the film produced makes little sense. Juliette Binoche, another interesting performer is also a main character and like  Pattinson is wasted in à confusing nonsensical role. 

In short, this film lacks any sort of sense on most levels. For some reason criminals with death sentences are experimented on spaceships heading to black hole(s?) looking for an energy source. The lack of a coherent story and poorly drawn characters make it impossible for the actors to give decent performances and even harder for the viewer to figure out what is going on. Sometimes you can see the seed of the great idea behind a disappointing movie but this one seems more concerned with appearing profound without putting the work into putting anything behind those appearances. 

The Man Who Fell to Earth (2022) created by Jenny Lumet & Alex Kurtzman

 I will have to state I was pretty much against this TV series from the announcement. It seemed a bad idea and to remake the Nicolas Roeg film starring David Bowie was a fool's errand. Luckily it's done cleverly enough with some nods to the film but allows itself to become it's own thing. 

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays a new alien coming to Earth find Jerome Newton, David Bowie's character from the film and basically discover what the fuck happened to the guy sent to get water to save their planet 45 years ago. Lots of fish out of water stuff the first few episodes which is amusing enough and also some new world building never even hinted at in the movie. We see much more of the alien planet and that culture and over 10 episodes we get a better idea why they have chosen earth. Some of it is hand waving nonsense but works on a symbolic level and a lot of time is spent more on the machinations of the CIA, Jerome Newton and the new spaceman who has named himself Faraday.  Naomie Harris plays a scientist who has given up on her career after a terrible radiation accident that was her fault but she is the only person on Earth who can interpret the alien tech to help Faraday complete his mission. Kate Mulgrew plays a ruthless CIA agent and Bill Nighy takes over the Bowie role. 

I don't want to spoil much but it's safe to safe the story gets complex and is pretty engaging and while they keep away from trying to be anything like the Roeg film (a very good call), each episode is named after a Bowie song and in the episodes Bowie lyrics are woven into the dialog which is interesting as an idea but often seemed forced to me. 

Visually well filmed and effects that work and look great but don't overwhelm the story or call too much attention to themselves. Too many of the characters are damaged, some to the point it would be impossible for them to work in a Walmart, never mind be CIA agents. The two leads work well but some of the others are really hard to relate to. Too much attention is paid to their flaws and not to who they are so it's hard to know what we are supposed to feel about them. This doesn't keep the series from building and twisting in ways they are entertaining and engaging, though. Despite the title and sure material it stays pretty grounded in its storyline and while not a classic like the movie it stands enough on it's own that I would say to give it a try. 

Everything, Everywhere, All at once (2022) written and directed by Daniel Kwan Daniel Scheinert

 I have been seeing a lot of A24 films lately and they vary in content but the quality is usually pretty high but this one... this one is jumps the shark in so many ways and so full of ... everything... it is in multiworld of it's own. I will watch Michelle Yeoh in anything, she never disappoints and she give a great comic but grounded performance in a movie with no ground at all under it's feet. After a short period of introduction it begins is frantic journey of a woman who starts to jump across the multiverse as she tries to settle her laundromat tax situation and keep her family together. It's funny, touching and I can't remember a film where I said "What the fuck?" so many times. David Lynch, eat your heart out  fro weirdness, this story literally has it all, everywhere and at once. Your brain just can't hold all the stuff this throws at you. 

It was a surprise hit, not Marvel multiverse hit territory but it goes places marvel never can and manages to do so on a 25 million dollar budget. It's effects are amazing but not out of control and don't need to be because you are so involved in what's happening and knocked off balance every few minutes with something more bizarre and so out there you never recover. For such concept it is a surprisingly human film, the characters are all great and Jamie Lee Curtis has such an over the top role that goes from comedic, to terrifying within an instant and then to a place where she is completely relatable and sympathetic. 

There might be a universe where someone doesn't like this movie, but I do not want to go there. It's a revelation of a film. 

The Midnight Sky (2020) Directed by George Clooney

Maybe it's just the result of the pandemic the world has been living through and how it has effected me, but I found this to be a little gem of a film. I like the slow pace some critics held against it and some of the plot elements are tropes but I thought they were well integrated and well done. 

After what appears to be nuclear Holocaust that is hinted started from a mistake, one man (Clooney) who is dying of an unnamed illness decided to be left behind at an Arctic station while everyone else is evacuated, knowing he will die there alone. While there he discovers he is not alone and a little girl had hidden herself away and he must deal with her. There seems to be literally no one on earth who can come and get her and her fate is as sealed as his in the long run. At the same time, a ship is returning back to earth from a  habitable moon the Clooney's character discovered as almost a second chance for earth. They do not know what happened but as they get closer to home with no contact, they are faced with a mystery of what could be going on. they get in touch with Clooney and he tells them to turn back and has calculated a route for them to take so they can start again on the moon. 

Since this is new and I really don't won't give away some of the plot turns, I won't say more. It's true at least of two of them are a little to coincidental for me but it still works. It's not hard sci-fi but it has the look and feel. It benefits greatly by not trying to explain too much. The holocaust, his sickness and the tech that takes them to another planet are all taken as fact without having needless exposition. I will say setting it in 2049 is a bad move, too soon and usually a bad idea to "date" a sci-fi film. Nice performances, nice effects and only what I would describe as a "soft" feel to the whole thing. A welcome change from movies that feel they need to overstimulate the viewer from start to finish giving no time to breathe. 

The Man from Earth: Holocene (2017) directed by Richard Schenkman

 

This is the never asked for sequel to the 2007 film I reviewed a few years ago. Written by Emerson Bixby the son of the man who wrote the first film and who worked tirelessly to get that film produced when his father died. The film also had actors from Star Trek, (notably Michael Dorn who is really good, I wish he was in more things) and includes Vanessa Williams as the main character's new love interest. 

SPOILERS

The story is more complicated than the first film and it suffers from that in some ways. The immortal college professor is in another job and a group of his students put a series of dubious facts together and discover his secret, tell a character from the 1st film (William Katt) who wrote a book about that experience and lost his career as  result. John, the immortal who is also beginning to age and heal slower,  is about to leave and move on again when the students come to his house to delay him so the discredited professor can identify him with certainly. So they knock him out and tie him up, leaving him with the born again Christian of the group who decided he is not Jesus but the anti-christ, stabs him and then...  it sort of becomes a narrative mess. The other students arrive with his old friend and find blood everywhere and the student and John gone. They somehow get away with not calling the police. I guess the kid's mom never wondered where her son went or filed a missing persons claim The same goes for John's now ex girlfriend who lived there with him. She came home, finds blood and a chair covered in duct tape in the basement and never freaked out and called for an investigation? The worst part is the after titles sequence... back at the discredited professor's house the "FBI" comes in the form of one man who we never see and causes John of being an immortal serial killer... What? Is it Christian boy or the "other" immortal John mentioned forth first film or... ?

The adult actors are well played but the students are cardboard cutouts for the most part and needed more acting guidance to pull off their roles. The film seems more like a TV movie and was maybe a sort of pilot for a proposed series. The standoff between Christian boy and John is interesting in many ways but the result of that scene is just confusion all around. Apparently, John WAS Jesus in some sense who accidentally started a religion after a particularly good talk he had on a mount. He's been hiding ever since. This lacks the mystery and ambiguity that made the first movie work so well. Bixby, the son, does have a good handle on his father's characters but it would be impossible to get  job at any college without proper ID, a work history etc and the police would most likely find John and the missing kid in time. We live in a very different world these days and hiding from it in the present day United States is not really possible. 

There is a love of the subject that carries this film away from being just plain bad, it's not. It still held my attention but didn't affect me as the previous film did. I would have explained less, not more and spent more time on the plot... probably cutting the students out it completely and making more about the personal relationships John has left behind over the last few decades. If does deal with that here and there and those parts are the best parts to me. 

Would I see a third film or a TV show? Maybe. There is something good in here left over from the first film that still could be molded into something more than a made for TV followup. Please cast Michael Dorn for that one and I'm in. 

Godzilla VS. Kong (2021) directed by Adam Wingard

I thought the first Legendary Godzilla movie had a ton of flaws like killing the one engaging character 20 minutes in and showing most of the monster fight scenes on TV screens instead of giving us clear shots of the action but it wasn't unwatchable and the effects and cinematography was pretty good. The second gave us even less characters to get involved with but did have a ton of posters, including an awesome King Ghidorah with a fight between him and Godzilla in Boston's (my home town) Fenway Park which was enough to keep my attention for a goofy movie about giant monsters. Godzilla VS Kong continues the trend of making the humans not just uninteresting but somehow makes them so dull you feel like that might be sapping your own personality out you since nature abhors a void. 

To try and find a positive... it's colourful. That's it. The monsters fight for no good reason they story isn't one and every element seems to have been pulled out of hat and just inserted randomly. It manages to make less sense than any of the early Toho monster movies and introduces conspiracy theories like the hollow earth and fluoride in tap water! WTF? The characters are so dumb and unappealing cardboard cutups that there is suspense, not way to care about is going on even if you could decipher a plot line form this mess. You can't even figure which characters are where on the earth. There is no sense of time as they seem to go form the USA the Hong Kong without having to book a flight, pack or get a hotel room in more seconds. There is no sense of scale either. The giant monsters could be any size, they have no real sense of weight or how huge they are. There are not consequences you would care about to anyone or anything in the entire film. It just happens and they mix dull over tropes with confusing and incredibly dumb but not fun elements.  then the put in Mechagodzilla for 10 minutes.

No one wins this battle of the titans. We all lose. 

Lucy (2014) Directed by Luc Besson

 

Luc Besson has made some amazing films and some pretty bad ones. It is a mixed bag. To me, this movie exemplifies that. It had some great actors giving interesting performances and some nice visual touches but while the sort starts out with promise the undeniable dumbness of the main conceit of the film catches up to it by the end and it left me feeling... MEH. The main character is hard yo feel anything for and the whole using only 10% of your brain thing one of those stupid ideas that has never.... never... had any validity to it but somehow keeps itself alive in the mind of popular culture. It would have worked better as a super hero original story where it could have dropped all pretence of trying to transit anything "deep" to the audiences watching it. 

It moves along at a pace that I think works and the effects are very well done but without a sympathetic lead and a ridiculous premise it takes far too seriously, it just falls flat by the end.  So not boring but not something to go out of your way to watch and if you do, expect very little from it and you'll be fine.