Tag: scifi

DEVS (2020)

Minimalist contemporary-set scifi with excellent production design and a languid, contemplative pace.

Not for everyone, mostly because it’s very slow and it chooses to skew hard into heady philosophy — pretty standard territory for writer/director Alex Garland. But those inclined towards this sort of thing will love it.

Skirts around the whole “mystery box” approach pretty handily by not being coy with its premise and so spends good time with a host of characters grasping what the devs department at a Silicon Valley tech giant is actually doing.

Nick Offerman and Alison Pill are standouts and the cinematography is top-notch, there’s a good sense of real-time events unfolding as episodes take place roughly over the course of a day each but this can lead to little bits of drag here and there. Can be a bit “telly” rather than “showy” with characters but compared to how clumsily WESTWORLD has swung towards blunt expositional dialogue this season I’m willing to forgive a much smaller show a few faults when it excels in other areas.

Overall, pretty good. I’m always keen for more scifi like this so I’d recommend checking it out.

by Thomas Scott Holland

UNDERWATER (2020)

Great cast, great production design… but ultimately it’s a pretty by-the-numbers wannabe creature feature which feels stuck together at a disjointed pace in a way that sacrifices any tension or tone for predictable jump scares and expositional dialogue.

Not outright bad in any regard, just kinda middling and doesn’t flex as much on an interesting premise as it could have.

Has some cool moments but mostly it’s just okay.

by Thomas Scott Holland

COLOR OUT OF SPACE (2019)

There’s something inherently difficult in translating this specific short story to the screen, given that the titular “colour out of space” is supposed to be indescribable by nature and film is an inherently visual medium.

Still, there’s some interesting work done with colour grades and some really neat glitch-style VFX that do a fine job of translating cosmic horror in a creative way, even if the story is a little choppy and doesn’t flow together as well as it should, especially in the back half when the body horror gets turned up and things get stomach-churningly weird. It’s clumsy and clunky at times but pretty forgivable because it’s trying. Surprisingly understated from Nicolas Cage too, which is neither criticism nor compliment especially — he could have gone bigger but did it really need it?

There are some really unsetting images on display right alongside some ethereally beautiful ones and more than one homage to the big daddy of Lovecraftian films, THE THING. And it gets points for swinging out in a creative direction moreso than I was expecting.

Mostly good, if a little lacklustre overall but genre fans will find a lot to like here.

by Thomas Scott Holland

BRIGHTBURN (2019)

What if Superman hadn’t been sent to Earth as a refugee but rather as a kind of sleeper agent to a race of cruel alien warmongers?

Alternatively: Superboy the movie but he’s creepy and psychotic and it’s vaguely a methaphor for puberty.

A further case for the notion that the origin story is the least interesting part of a hero/villain fable, particularly when the morality of the protagonist is implied to have been decided for him by his host planet’s programming and no amount of nurture from his adoptive family will sway him back to “good”.

Kinda predictable despite being mostly well executed with some disgustingly visceral horror stuff in there too. It’s not bad, it just doesn’t quite live up to the potential of the premise in any way that something like CHRONICLE hadn’t already managed.

by Thomas Scott Holland

TERMINATOR: Dark Fate (2019)

Yeah, it’s fine.

Much more promising at the start with good characters old and new, some absolutely belting fight sequences and a legitimately great evolution of the Terminators into the new REV-9 model.

Gabriel Luna is pitch perfect as a faster, meaner twin machine, and the physicality of the role makes for some awesome battles with Mackenzie Davis’ augmented protector that feel right out of a kids’ imaginary action figure showdown.

Honestly, the main problem is that it goes so big so fast and then doesn’t really have anywhere to go — the stakes have been so protracted and epic action fatigue sets in. There was at least two points where I thought we were at the end only to keep on rolling on again into something more huge and bombastic but the stakes hadn’t upped to reflect it.

For example: Did we really need the whole crashing plane bit? It really desensitised me to the ACTUAL peak of the film some 30min later. Like, I get that everyone played UNCHARTED 3 and that part of the game was fantastic, but I think we’ve done all we can with planes falling out of the sky as a dramatic setpiece now.

Overall, chop out at least one action sequence or condense their more creative parts into one of the other scenes, remove flashbacks so you’re 25+ min shorter and you’d have a much more satisfying ride.

Still, FX are great, it’s an interesting parallel (alternate?) timeline and it’s better than about half of the other TERMINATOR films.

Worth a watch, even if it does drag a bit in the back half.

by Thomas Scott Holland

PROSPECT (2018)

A post-goldrush story on a micro budget that makes use of every dollar — the spacesuits and tech are charmingly analogue and cumbersome, medical treatment is harsh, the people are cruel and brutal and happy to kill for the possibility of a fortune.

Held aloft by the boundless charisma of a morally ambiguous Pedro Pascal and finding a resourceful lead in Sophie Thatcher, this is a frontier tale with a minimalist scifi angle.

Enjoyed it, worth a watch.

by Thomas Scott Holland

THOM’S TEENIES TV TOP 10

One of the things I struggled with most when compiling my top film picks for 2010-2019 was that the decade saw such a dramatic shift to a gilded era of television, much of which matched and even surpassed their cinematic bretheren.

There’s so much that is now possible in the episodic format that was unthinkable even a decade ago, and truly these last ten years represent a new high water mark.

As such, I’ve given my favourites their own list, in no particular order, here:

Continue reading “THOM’S TEENIES TV TOP 10”

by Thomas Scott Holland

WATCHMEN s01 (2019)

Mostly lives up to the impossible task of following on from a legendary piece of graphic fiction.

Takes up in the modern day, following the trajectory of the world that was created after Ozymandias teleported an engineered giant dimensional squid into New York to unite humanity against a perceived common extraterrestrial threat.

Yep, this is a continuation of the comics, not the Zack Snyder film adaptation – because while that is a tonally faithful translation of the incredibly precise graphic novel, there are key mechanical differences that are relevant here that land in spoiler territory.

But even in doing an excellent and clever job of expanding the world, it ultimately only manages to be something of a paler imitation of a superior story that was designed to intentionally be complete in and of itself.

Still, plenty to enjoy. A great modernised take on a classic, well executed social commentary and some good turns. Recommended.

by Thomas Scott Holland

LIVING WITH YOURSELF s01 (2019)

What if MULTIPLICITY but Paul Rudd?

Feels like a drawn out BLACK MIRROR episode erring on this side of existential terror. It’s good, but didn’t delve into the scifi/identity crisis aspects as deeply as I’d have liked in any ways that haven’t been explored with more complexity elsewhere.

Still, worth a watch with potential for developments in seasons going forward.

by Thomas Scott Holland