science fiction – alan williamson

Gravity (2013)

Take a Sandra Bullock, throw in a little

George Clooney, bake in space for 90 minutes and you have an Oscar (7 of them!) winning combination. The movie starts off with them fixing a satellite as part of a scheduled EVA. They then get word of a Russian satellite that breaks up, sending debris at 22,000 mph toward them.

Naturally this rips through their mission, killing everyone but 2 from the shuttle and leaving them completely helpless above Earths atmosphere while they attempt to get themselves to the International Space Station.

The special effects in this one is simply, literally, out of this world. The vast majority of the acting that Bullock and Clooney do is simply facial, as most of the time their bodies are CGI. Yet it all flows flawlessly together without any effort at all.

The scenery with this reminds me of that time in Lord of the Rings, when they first visit Rivendell. You want the camera to simply stop on that and give you the necessary time to take the beauty all in. Gravity suffers the same. There are so many times, you just want to hit pause, and get sucked into that world and admire all the beautiful views. But the pace is fast and we don’t get time to appreciate the background as we should.

Gravity does a great job to remind us just how hostile space really is and the lengths humans have done to evolve to a point where we are moving around. Space travel is not routine and even the smallest of problems can have dire consequences.

A great movie and another one that reminds us that Bullock is more of an actor than some of her awful romantic comedies of late. It is a shame she missed out on Best Actress Oscar.

#93 in the series

Viewing Date
Thursday, 19th November 2015 (Richmond)

Rating
7/10

IMDB YouTubeTrailer

Pixels (2015)

This movie has all the ingredients to make this a complete and utter waste of time and money.

Adam Sandler staring should be everything you need to know. But it gets better, an alien race, takes on the form of the arcade games from the early 1980′s to invade the planet using pixelated boxes of energy. Oh, and did I mention we have

Kevin James as the POTUS? Watch the trailer and you will see for yourself the absurdity. A complete waste of time yes?

Well, hang fire there for a minute, as much as I am in complete disbelief that I am even typing this, but a stinker, it is not. In fact, I would even go as far to saying it was mildly enjoyable, even, dare I say, funny. I know I know, what is going on, an Adam Sandler movie worth seeing?

You see the trailer does this movie absolutely no favours whatsoever. Yes the story is absurd but in the context of the world it inhabits, it very nearly works.

The movie is filled to the brim with 1980′s references, and for anyone that grew up in this block world of computer games (holds hand up) then you will get very nostalgic for a simpler time. They actually work in the fact the computer games of those days were predictable if you could spot the pattern into the story line very well.

There is some beautiful moments, where Tetris is used to destroy skyscrapers and a PaperBoy cycling around throwing out deadly energized papers. The special effects are done very well, and even Sandler has some funny lines. He is looking old and worn mind you, so you wonder just how many more years he can play this single-man act for.

There are some big name cameos in this one, including the father of Pac Man himself, Toru Iwatani as an arcade repair man. We also have

Serena Williams making an appearance as the fantasy threesome that

Peter Dinklage wants for helping save the world. Though I will note, that when Dinklage is giving his list of demands (never pay tax again, night in the Lincoln room) from the President, he pretty much rattles off everything they did in

Armageddon. Can’t decide if it is a rip-off or a homage.

Is this a movie you should rush out and actually spend money on? No. But if you find it popping up on Netflix, or even as an in-flight movie choice, then you could spend a worse 100 or so minutes.

Viewing Date
Saturday, 10th October 2015

Rating
6/10

IMDB YouTubeTrailer

Terminator Genisys (2015)

Can you believe this is my 50th movie review in this movie-a-day-for-a-year series? What a better way to mark this milestone with a good old fashioned post-Governor Arnie terminator romp?

We can all agree that the first Terminator, from James Cameron, out 31 years ago, truly set the standard and put Arnold into the big league movie stars. There has been a number of reboots of this series, including a rather poor effort of a TV series, but none have captured the real thrill the first one delivered on our screens.

So since giving up his Californian Governing duties, Arnold is restarting his movie career, doing a number of actually that wasn’t too bad outings. It was with a natural dose of fear when I heard that he was attached to the latest Terminator outing. I hope he isn’t simply picking up a paycheck for this.

The good news … he wasn’t. The movie is little like the second Back To The Future movie when they revisited the first one but from different angles. This follows a similar format, when John Connor sends his ‘father’ back again, to help and warn his mother, Sarah Connor, but this time, she has help already, in the guise of Arnold.

Sarah Connor is played by Emilia Clarke (yes, dragon lady from Game of Thrones) and it is so weird to watch her with our pure blond hair, and well, her clothes on! She does a fantastic job in this movie and plays off of Arnold very naturally.

The humor is spot on, the pace is fast and the story line actually quite interesting. We’ve got the usual major CGI set pieces that light up the screen, but don’t feel too out of character of what the movie is.

All in all, a surprisingly good romp after my expectations where set so low.

Viewing Date
Wednesday, 7th October 2015

Rating
7/10

IMDB YouTubeTrailer

Z for Zachariah (2015)

Post nuclear war and very few human survivors are left. We open up with Ann (Margot Robbie) taking various things from an abandoned town in her radiation suit. She then walks out far enough into the country and gets rid of the suit – clearly setting up that there is an area that for some reason is not bathed in radiation.

She goes about her lonely existence, when she happens upon John (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who is living out of a trailer and she rescues him from taking a shower in a radiated waterfall.

They of course do the usual song’n’dance of trust and caring for him etc then he decides he can build an electric generator to give them electricity, except he wants to use the church as raw materials. Ann, not so keen on this, being a god fearing woman whose father preached there. So stale mate, with John respecting her decision on this.

Movie plods along at a woefully slow pace until another man pops up, Caleb (Chris Pine). Caleb is a lot sexier than John but no where near as practical. Ann is conflicted. Brains or beauty. Agony of choice. Though one wonders, in a world where you may be the only 3 people left, just have a menage a trois? little threesome sex would have picked this movie up a lot!

Pace does not pick up at all here and still plods on with no real drama or tension. The trailer makes this movie seem far more interesting than it actually is. Then it ends. Just ends. It’s as if the movie makers decided, enough is enough, just stop it now. End this pain for everyone.

Simply awful movie with no real purpose and long lingering camera shots of characters thinking, deep in thought.

Viewing Date
Tuesday, 6th October 2015

Rating
2/10

IMDB YouTubeTrailer

Galaxy Quest (1999)

This is one of those movies that creeps up on you over the years. While not an instant hit at the box office on its arrival, it has attained cult status as we learn to appreciate some of the in-jokes and references to the science fiction convention sub culture.

The basic premise of the story is simple; you have a bunch of TV stars who are still trading on their successful TV series that aired many years previous. They drag themselves, be grudgingly, to the various conventions to meet the fans. Naturally this is a complete parody on the Star Trek franchise, which is what makes it even more fun.

At one particularly convention, they meet a real group of aliens, who mistakenly believe the TV show was real. So with a wonderful series of classic mistaken identity, they both work together; with one group thinking they have the real space heroes coming to help them and the other group thinking they are part of another special fan convention albeit with serious special effects.

Tim Allen plays the Captain of the outfit, with

Sigourney Weaver providing the female lead, with

Alan Rickman and

Tony Shalhoub rounding out the core crew. Then we have the hilarious character from

Sam Rockwell who is really grasping at straws as he once appeared in an episode that when he got beamed down to a planet he was killed off.

Anyone that has followed Star Trek or any other science fiction TV series will be very familiar with the setups and scenes. This is not a parody but a good old fashioned comedy with a wonderful inherited back story.

This movie falls into that wonderful “oh well since i am here” category. You know the type, you never put it on specifically but if you find it on TV already started, you will happily sit down and give it your full attention. Time never wasted.

Viewing Date
Sunday, 4th October 2015

Rating
7/10

IMDB YouTubeTrailer

Jurassic World (2015)

Here we go again with the CGI dinosaurs 22 years from the first outing. This time we have a brand new theme park that is built upon the old Jurassic Park location. So plenty of opportunity to have the odd nod back to the original movie, complete with buildings named after the late John Hammond (Richard Attenborough).

The story is pretty much the same, the messing around with DNA has created a beast of such magnitude that no one ever predicted it was going to out of control <yawn>. Really people, you have had 3 movies to try and figure out this stuff never ends well.

Now with all that said, the movie has a surprising fresh feel with a very modern and high tech look. The park has a feel of DisneyWorld or Universal Studios and some nice touches that I suspect we’ll see in the real Jurassic areas in the Universal parks. Though on that front, this movie may take the prize for the most amount of product placement. We aren’t just talking logos or product placements. There is one pivotal scene that has the lead actively engaged with Verizon mobile executives about the discussion of a sponsored dinosaur.

Ron Howards daughter,

Bryce Dallas Howard, plays the female lead to

Chris Pratt male lead. No surprise they start off hostile, but end up getting it on at the end. I don’t think I have given up any major plot there.

The problem here is that this is more of a nostalgic journey than a dive into a whole new story with new animals. There is only so many chase sequences and dinosaur-sniffing-around-corners you can do. One of the silliest parts is when the whole crew go racing through the forest chasing a pack of dinosaurs, on motorbikes and 4x4s. Yet not one of them are bouncing around .. was there a complete tarmac road underneath all that green?

Overall a great movie to watch if the movie you were going for wasn’t available, but nothing terribly new or exciting to rush towards as your primary source of entertainment.

This 4th movie won’t be the last one, they have set it up nicely that we are definitely coming back to the island in the next few years. Woo hoo?

Viewing Date
Saturday, 3rd October 2015

Rating
6/10

IMDB YouTubeTrailer