Tag: SciFi

REVIEW: Underneath the sheen of great visuals, ‘Dune’ is a dull experience

This marks the second time the book “Dune” has been adapted into a feature film, with the first attempt coming out in 1984.

Having never heard of either the book or the 84 movie, I walked into this experience with a fresh perspective.

The film’s main character is Paul (Timothee Chalamet), a young man who’s heir to the throne of House Atreides. The house is one of several noble families who control planets and hold most of the power in the cosmos, second only to an unseen emperor.

The film opens with House Atreides, under the leadership of Duke Leto (Oscar Isaac), preparing to take control of the planet Arrakis, which was previously ruled by the rival House Harkonnen. The planet is one giant desert with dangerous conditions and even more dangerous inhabitants.

It’s not just the Arrakis inhabitants Atreies has to worry about, though, as there are other forces working against the house, too.

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REVIEW: ‘The Tomorrow War’ weakened by convoluted concept

Sometimes you come across a movie where you ask “what the hell did I just watch?” when it gets done.

“The Tomorrow War” is one of those flicks.

The movie follows Dan Forester (Chris Pratt), a family man and retired soldier-turned school teacher in the year 2022. The story starts when the family watches a group of soldiers walk out of a portal on live TV. The soldiers inform those watching at home like the Foresters that they’re from the year 2051 where a massive war is taking place against aliens, and it’s not going well.

In order to push back against this threat, humanity developed a time bridge back to 2022 in order to get more fighters. The present day leaders agree to start a draft to send soldiers to the future and Forester ends up getting sent back into combat.

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REVIEW: ‘Bliss’ breaks down due to story, pacing issues

During my viewing of “Bliss,” I was starting to have flashbacks of 2019’s “Serenity,” another January release. At the very least, “Bliss” is better than that feature, but only slightly so.

Owen Wilson plays Greg in “Bliss,” a man who seems to be lost in thoughts of a dream home while at work. Unfortunately, his lack of attention ends with him being fired from his position. Not long after, he finds himself in a bar with Isabel (Salma Hayek), a woman who informs him that she can manipulate reality around them.

She’s able to do this because, according to her, the world they’re living in isn’t actually a real one. Basically, Isabel says the simulation theory is real and what she and Greg are in is an artificial reality. With this new information, Greg begins being pulled in two directions, and has difficulty in determining what’s real and what’s not.

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REVIEW: ‘The Vast of Night’ is a stirring film about radio worth tuning in for

Late night talk radio about UFOs is always a good time, so much so that the late host Art Bell made a career out of it with his show “Coast to Coast AM.”

That concept can now be enjoyed in movie form, too, thanks to this enjoyable indie thriller.

“The Vast of Night” takes place in a small New Mexico town in the 1950s and centers on two characters. One is Fay (Sierra McCormick), a switchboard phone operator, and the other is Everett (Jake Horowitz), a radio station DJ. Both teens are working the night of a big basketball game, so the town is rather quiet. As she’s connecting phone lines, though, Fay hears a frantic caller, and later a strange sound coming through the system.

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REVIEW: Moss, special effects boost ‘Invisible Man’

No Dark Universe, no problem.

After the shared cinematic universe idea for Universal’s famous movie monsters crashed, plans were reworked to have more independent, individual films. The first one up is “The Invisible Man,” written and directed by Leigh Whannell. The movie stars Elisabeth Moss as Cecilia, a woman who just left her abusive boyfriend.

Cecilia is shaken from the relationship and is left with anxiety, fearing that her ex, Adrian, (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) will come after her. However, she soon learns that Adrian has supposedly committed suicide. Just as she begins trying to rebuild her life, though, Cecilia begins to feel stalked and terrorized by an unseen force, which she believes is Adrian.

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REVIEW: Final ‘Star Wars’ falls, rather than rises

A person can say a lot about the “Star Wars” prequels. They certainly had their fair share of flaws. However, at the very least, it was a trilogy that had a clear blueprint for where it was supposed to go.

That, unfortunately, didn’t seem to be the case with this sequel trilogy.

“Rise of Skywalker” is the ninth film in the main “Star Wars” story, and 11th overall when including the spin-off features. Right from the opening crawl, viewers learn that Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) survived the second Death Star’s destruction, has actually been pulling all the strings with the First Order and has (somehow) built like 90 new Star Destroyers that have planet killing cannons.

In response, a rather depleted resistance force explore their options to fight back. They determine the best course of action is to find out where Palpatine’s fleet is and launch an attack with help from across the galaxy. To find out the location, the new Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley), former storm trooper-turned resistance warrior Finn (John Boyega) and ace pilot Poe (Oscar Isaac) begin a search for a dark side Sith artifact.

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Best of the Decade: Sci-Fi

This is a series called “Best of the Decade.” It’s a list including 10 movies that I found to be the best in a specific genre from 2010-2019.

Whether films were part of established franchises or simply stand alone features, this past decade was pretty darn good for sci-fi. Here are some of my favorites from the past 10 years.

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REVIEW: ‘Terminator: Dark Fate’ excels where it counts: the action

So this is a “Terminator” film where a person or machine from the future has to fight off a far more deadly machine also from the future in order to protect someone.

Sound familiar?

This time around, the movie is more focused on a new character, rather than Connor family like previous installments. Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes) is the main protagonist in “Dark Fate” and is being hunted by a terminator. Because of the action taken by Sarah Connor in “Terminator 2,” though, the terminator hunting Dani is from an AI program in the future called Legion, rather than Skynet.

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REVIEW: Technically ambitious ‘Gemini Man’ fails in other areas

Young Will Smith returns in “Gemini Man” but unfortunately, he hasn’t made a rap song to compliment his latest movie like he used to.

The movie stars Smith as Henry Brogan, an aging government operative and assassin who’s looking to retire from his career in combat. His dreams of retirement are dashed, though, as he becomes a target by higher-ups just as he’s leaving the business. An attempt on his life forces him to go on the run, with the help of another government agent named Danny (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).

The problem though, is the person they sent after Brogan is exceptionally skilled and is also relentless. On top of being a force to be reckoned with, though, Brogan soon learns that the one hunting him is actually a younger clone of himself.

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REVIEW: ‘Ad Astra’ is in the upper echelon of the space adventure genre

A star studded cast like this deserves to be on a grand scale film across the stars. That’s what we get with the new sci-fi “Ad Astra.”

The movie takes place in the fairly distant future, with mankind now able travel to the Solar System’s inner planets regularly and launch long range expeditions beyond the asteroid belt. The film follows Roy McBride, an experienced and fearless astronaut working for the United States’ Space Com.

However, Roy still lives in the shadow of his father Clifford (Tommy Lee Jones), a great, accomplished American space explorer who went on a venture to the outer reaches of the solar system near Neptune. The expedition was lost, though, decades ago, with the crew written off as dead. When power surges begin hitting the earth generated from a powerful space ship engine, Roy is tasked with finding out if his father is still alive and if so, if it’s the lost ship starting these power surges.

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