FASCINATING, BUT OVER THE TOP

Space exploration in the USSR is one of the major topics in modern day Russian cinematography these days and one of those fascinating stories is the one about the first exit into the open space by Alexei Leonov, but also the chaos that followed their return to Earth and the battle to rescue them from ice storm in the desolated area of the country they landed.

However, all the unbelievable elements were not always collected and arranged together by the script in a satisfying manner, so there is a overall sense of a pathetic and over the top subplots all through the entire curse of the movie.

’’Spacewalk’’ has an interesting subject, but also an unstable script as well.

SPACEWALK – 5/10

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WELL ACTED, BUT NAIVE

Contact with alien races is one of the eternal SF themes, so not even the King of trash John Carpenter resisted the temptation to tackle it.

What separates ’’Starman’’ from the rest of the b-production it shares the timeline is one of the best acting in the history of SF cinema (Bridges), as well as some decent production, albeit nowadays out of date and slightly naive.

On the other hand, the script just won’t take the viewer anywhere specific, leaving the sense of unfinished business at the very end.

’’Starman’’ is a decent movie if you are a fan of the ’80s, but not for much anybody else.

STARMAN – 4/10

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TYPICAL GENRE MAINSTREAM

Psychic powers are one the more often dealt subjects in the horror and SF movies, so the Cronenberg’s flick about the man (Walken) that wakes up from a coma with a possibility to see the future through a series of flashbacks.

As you can already guess, those predictions aren’t the nice ones, so main character soon finds himself trying to utilize his new set of skills to stop a terrifying outcome that can affect the entire country and the world.

What separates ’’Dead Zone’’ from the majority of such scripts is its ending and a smooth directing and build up of tension characteristic to muck more ’’serious’’ genres.

„Dead zone” is one of those true ’80s horror/SF/fantasy genre mainstream gems.

DEAD ZONE – 6/10

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WHATEVER...

Our childhood is officially dead. Disney took care of it, by turning one of the most influential movies of all times into a brainless amusement for children with special needs. There are no new interesting worlds, there are no more breathtaking CGI and action sequences, masterpieces of design, nor some likeable characters and lines for quotations.

No, there’s just market research, political correctness at any cost (black stormtrooper, his Chinese girlfriend), Mengele produced creatures (brontosaurus cows, chicken and gremlins hybrids, fish nuns and many, many more), self- paroding villains and no innovation at all.

The storyline just doesn’t exist and the new ’’Star Wars’’ movies are now just a series of random events with no end and no beginning, raping the serious viewer or a fan with no remorse and ending in sight. All the characters that raised entire generations will be exploited without a trace of shame and in the end, wasted with no real reason (Hamill, Fisher).

If „Rogue one” was the lonesome spark in the nowadays dark ’’Star wars’’ universe, ’’The Last Jedi’’made sure it got smothered in a second so you just wouldn't care what will happen next.

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI – 1/10

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WAY TO GO (!)

When first part of the high budget modern trashy interpretation of „War of the worlds”, crashed directly on the DVD/online movie community, the impressions were pretty much positive.

Although in a lower level of cast, „Skyline” showed decently tense and hidden story, accompanied by some pretty good CGI and action sequences. With its very ending it offered less answers then it gave and the story about the advanced alien race that kidnap thousands of people to get their brains had to continue.

And it did, and did it by raising the level of trash to the level of parody. High end budget was there one again, as well as the C-level cast, but the script was the one that evolved beyond any predictions.

Not only do the aliens use human brains to drive their slave army of soldiers, they also do not manage to control every single brain they collect. When one of those brains in one of those soldier’s bodies manages to save his pregnant girlfriend that gives birth to a very special little girl, the hunt for the key of the survival of the entire human race begins.

And it leads us to Laos, crossing the paths with lead stars of the Indonesian martial art masterpiece, „Raid: Redemption”, paving the way to the ultimate standoff between aliens with blue brains, aliens with red brains and mankind at Angkor Wat.

„Beyond Skyline” is one of the finer examples of modern day Hollywood trash SF-horrors and deserves to be recognized as such.

BEYOND SKYLINE – 7/10

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BIGGER, BETTER, STRONGER

Concept of sharknados hitting the big screen every year may just the ultimate answer to the Hollywood’s decaying scriptwriting, baring its helplessness to the bone with each new Ian Ziering’s cheap C-production long feature.

After a couple of hickups in the franchize, the final installment is just bigger, better and funnier than any of the other four previous ones.

Production is now steadily growing at an even pace, while the trademark hilarious scriptwriting just keeps getting better and better. NATOnado, Shark-God, Stonehenge, British queen, Rio, Tokyo, Pope, Sharkzilla and ultimately, time travelling with the biggest and baddest of all the cameos at the very end will just make laugh your heart out and spit in the face of modern Hollywood.

„Global swarming” is the biggest, best and strongest of all the Ian Ziering’s hillarious stories about sharks as weather phenomena.

SHARKNADO 5: GLOBAL SWARMING – 8/10

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BEAUTIFUL AND EMPTY REPLICANT

Some movies are just not to be touched, revamped and continued, since they represent cult features that changed cinematography, redefined entire genres and influenced the entire pop culture.

One of those revolutionary stories and unbeaten representations of the future is the Phillip K. Dick’s and Ridley Scott’s masterpiece SF-noir about the robots and artificial intelligence as the ultimate frontier of mankind, ''Blade Runner''.

Unlike the many similar contemporary cash driven desires to continue the story and finally give some of the much needed answers to the 80s classics, the production team for „Blade Runner: 2049” lead by the creator of the original, Ridley Scott, did their homework and did it well.

They chose one of the best directors in Hollywood right now, Dennis Villeneuve and casted one of the more stellar crews in recent history of SF making (Gosling, Wright, Leto and of course, Harrison Ford).

The visual result was just stunning, since gifted director meticulously solved every single detail in each scene. Transferring the legendary atmosphere of the first part of the (unfortunately) saga was just done with flying colors and that deserves every appraisal.

However, this is where the good things top and give way to the cancer that’s eating 21st century Hollywood.

Lame scripts.

Just to be clear, the original „Blade Runner” was probably the weakest script of all the Top 10 movies of all times it rightfully belongs to, but was also the revolutionary insight into the future, offering some of the most intriguing and so exploited concepts that followed it.

„Blade Runner: 2049” doesn’t have any of those things, since it offers neither new concepts, neither viable characters, nor acting or even some decent answers. It just wanders off, not showing any signs of life and driving the stellar crew into the average, while making the script look blunt and unfinished.

„Blade Runner: 2049” is a beautiful replicant of the original movie, with some great camera, color, production and light, but also with a mediocre script unworthy of the name it continues.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 – 5/10

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PUSHING THE LIMITS

Will Michael Bay ever let go of one of the most famous child’s franchises of the ’80s, the one about the alien robots disguising into common objects?

If there were some doubts, after the last installment of testosterone and cash driven high end production about the Autobots and Decepticons, „The Last Knight”, now there isn’t any.

Michael Bay will film Transformers until his death. The story won’t matter any more, linking Stonehendge, submarines, wizard Merlin and his Knights of the Round table with Dynobots and dragon robots spitting fire while the Earth is being plowed by gigantic... turfs falling from the sky. Budget will keep rising, attracting such acting giants as Sir Anthony Hopkins. Effects will become more and more diverse, confusing and irrelevant.

None of this will matter, since there will be more and more retarded stories about Transformers in the years to come, attracting the numbed audience just going into the theaters from the habit or because of the childhood memories.

„The Last Knight” is the most spectacular and most retarded of all the sequels in „Transfomers” saga.

TRANSFORMERS: THE LAST KNIGHT – 2/10

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ALL MONEY AND NO BRAINS

Russian cinema is rapidly changing in the past decade. Huge budgets are making their way into the mainstream movies and that cash flow is now being clearly visible.

Fedor Bondarchuk is one of the directors that received one of those productions and he managed to film a movie that looks like the modern western SFs. However, like in all the other of his flicks, there just isn’t a decent story to follow it.

In a Russian version of „Independence day” meets „Starman” there just isn’t a story at all, not even if you are a Moscow teenager. And that’s a pity, because the money isn’t the issue any more.

„Attraction” is a great looking empty vessel that not only won’t succeed in amusing you, but will manage to seriously annoy you in the end.

ATTRACTION - 4/10

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INTRO FOR A VIDEO GAME

Mangas and computer games can rarely be a decent material for a movie script and „Ghost in the shell” isn’t one of them, although it tries really hard to give us an explanation of the half robots-half men in the distant future.

Scarlett Johansson is there to attract the viewers, and the CGI is decently used. However, the script is kinda slow, while offering little explanation in this hugely stretched intro into a whole franchise.

„Ghost in the shell” is the material for a computer game/manga fans and not many more.

GHOST IN THE SHELL – 3/10

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UTTER DISASTER

There is no nice way to put it, so I'll just say it loud: Ridley Scott is ripe for euthanasia. A man who once defined genres and made legendary franchises that educated entire generations is now killing his masterpieces one by one. Just if „Prometheus” wasn't enough, he gave birth to another retarded script that surpassed even its mediocre predecessor.

There isn't one good thing about „Covenant”. Not a single one. Not even  one good action sequence, or just a decent CGI. No. Everything is just so missing the point, that you'll laugh instead of being scared, or just end up being utterly frustrated. Script is practically non-existent, with „plot” being so lame and tragi-comical that entire flick becomes a self-parody right from the opening „I am your father” scene.

If the script was made for the people with special demands, what can be said about the acting? Even the otherwise reliable Fassbender is just drowning in sea of pretentiousness. His scenes in a double role are meant to be the best ones in the movie, but they end being the worst ones. Neutron storm, scene with the pipes, taming the aliens with breathing in their non-existent mouths, self-kissing, vomiting facehugger's embryos... Just plain AWFUL. All of this wouldn't bother me if Scott just came out in the open and went honest that he made a high end budget trash. No, no, he was serious, dead serious and that can't be forgiven or forgotten.

„Covenant” isn't just a worse „Alien” movie. It's the worse American blockbuster in this decade and maybe even in this century.

ALIEN: COVENANT – 0/10

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PROUD TO BE TRASH

Story about the giant ape living on the deserted island that manages to destroy helicopters and prehistoric lizards with only two legs and a tail isn’t something that can be viewed as a serious movie, so you shouldn’t view the newest addition to the famous script as one of those flicks.

No, „Kong: Skull island” isn’t trying to be serious. It doesn’t give the elongated foreword of the Peter Jackson’s iteration and it doesn’t waste any time. Action is violent, amusing and constant. However, even its intensity and some fresh moments can not hide the basic, retarded premise of every King Kong film made so far.

Nice touch will be the homages to its predecessors and famous movies of the  past („Apocalypse now” before all other), but the ending will also see the movie makers sinking into even more deeper trash movies crossover than ever before.

„Kong: Skull island” is a decently amusing trash blockbuster without any ambition to present itself into something more than it really is.

KONG: SKULL ISLAND – 4/10

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OVER THE TOP

Story about the mutants with superpowers can hardly be considered a relevant one when it comes to movie industry, so „X-Men” franchise failed to deliver a serious script if we don’t count several moments in „First class”. Hence, the newest spin-off chapter about Wolverine follows those steps without wondering off its track.

Violence for violence’s sake will be the trademark, as well as irritating attempts to create the atmosphere of seriousness in a movie about a guy who has stainless blades in his knuckles. Hugh Jackman is precise in his role, but not even Daniel Day-Lewis would save this trashy and pathetic story without any point or decent ending.

„Logan” doesn’t deserve its praise, nor does any of the „X-men” saga parts.

LOGAN - 3/10

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DECENT CLONE

Ridley Scott's „Alien” inspired entire generations of movie creators and it continues to do so 'till this very day. „Life” is one of the exact replicas of the 1979 masterpiece of SF horror and it does its ripping off relentlessly. There is no proper introduction, just plain old action and horror. The concept of the dormant alien creature (aka Calvin) that does its growing by devouring the crew of the Interantional Space Station is something we already saw more than once. All that follows represent one great mashup of deja vus that stretches out to the ending credits.

The A-list cast will do their parts without mistakes (especially Gyllenhaal), while the CGI and camera will be heavily influenced by the makers of „Gravity”.

Script will wander off pretty early in the movie, so expect no serious and scientifically justifiable plots.

„Life” will not surprise you, but will succeed in amusing you, especially if you were raised on the trash SF horror of the '80s.

LIFE – 5/10

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DIFFERENT

Comic superhero movies are a worn out genre and exceptions from the mindless process of recycling old ideas are rare and important. Besides the dark humored „Deadpool”, very few titles earned the attention of the mainstream viewers.

„Doctor Strange” was one of the lesser known „Marvel’s” superheroes and his activation on the big screen came after an entire plethora of comic characters. Concept behind the once successful surgeon that was forced to look for the solution of his hand injury behind the mirror of the possible is in its core pretty naïve, but also some spectacular and innovative graphic presentations, finally enabled by the advance of CGI technology.

As for the cast, Cumberbatch and Mads Mikkelsen were the right choice, while the script slowly evolves to the crescendo at the end. The window for the entire franchise is left open, so expect some more adventures from the astral projections front.

„Doctor Strange” is not your average comic superhero, with some refreshing and innovative production designs and sets.

DOCTOR STRANGE – 6/10

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UNTRACKABLE

Overlapping timelines is one the concepts brought into the mainstream American SF with the „Terminator” saga 30 years ago and despite its heavy utilization, it failed to produce a decent heir to the trone established by James Cameron.

„Mr. Nobody” tries to elaborate that basic concept by giving numerous paths that branch out from the single life decision, a young boy forced to choose between splitting parents. However, the number and elaboration of those alternative realities, as well as the similarity between them will soon overwhelm the viewer, causing him to be totally indifferent regarding every single of them.

On the positive side, there is some really nicely made sequences and production design solutions.

„Mr. Nobody” laid out a solid foundation, but crumbled upon the weight of its ambition.

MR. NOBODY – 3/10

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REFRESHING, BUT EMPTY

Modern day Hollywood has a huge problem not only with the overall vast majority of mediocre scripts, but also with the ones that tend to proclaim quality, since there is a real danger that they will get stuck in the sea of pretentiousness and emptiness that follows it.

SA failed to produce a solid SF movie in the last decade and it failed to achieve that with Denis Villeneuve's new long feature, the much appraised „Arrival”.

Nevertheless, Canadian born is a good director and he masters with the innovative cuts and angles in this one as well. The production is totally up-to-date, dominated by sterile dark tone minimalistic design. Acting is correct, as well as the humane part of the backstory that follows the main narrative. Atmosphere is nicely balanced and the tension is being steadily built up in the director's trademark slow pace.

On the other hand, the script is just too empty and unconvincing in giving the answer to the main question every SF that deals with the first contact between humanity and outer space species asks:

„Why are they here?”

The answer is given, but it just so weak and anticlimatic that it hurts. Even if „Arrival” represents only the beginning of a trilogy of franchize.

„Arrival” will be worth watching, but not worth remembering it.

ARRIVAL – 5/10

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A FRESH RESTART

„Star Wars” was a drenched out franchise, downgraded to a lavish video material for children with ADD, destined to a neverending self-recycling in the decades to come. Or it looked like that, when the new owners of the copyrights decided to make a spinoff serial that nobody wanted. And not only that. The new owners decided to try to make something a little bit different, with more creative, visual and storyline freedom, wooing the new, young generation ofdirectors and acotrs along that way.

It can easily be said that Gareth Edwards and „Rogue one” saved the „Star wars” franchize from extinction. They did it by writing a real-life scenario with brutal development and outcome(s) discreetly linked to the original movies. They did it by creating a gloomy, dark atmosphere and „Bladerunner-like” production sets, followed by some serious supporting cast (Mads Mikkelsen, Forest Whitaker, Riz Ahmed). They did it without the trademark excessive pathetic and they did it with some serious cynical humor. They also managed to dose up the action sequences and to create a powerful closure without the tacky happy end.

On the other hand, they failed to generate credible two major roles (Felicity Jones, Diego Luna) and a they failed to create a villain capable of withstanding the tremendous impact of Darth Vader.

Overall, „Rogue One: A Star wars story” is a very good beginning of something that can be a great spinoff sub-franchize.

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY – 8/10

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