Category: Sci Fi

Pacific Rim***

Guillermo del Toro gets the teen audience, totally, so much so, he’s gone and taken a bunch of Transformer Power Rangers and pitched them against alien sea monsters of centuries old-looking. This less than perfect film offers loads of thumping good 3D action, which on occasion can feel relentless to anyone older than thirteen or …

World War Z ***

Brad Pitt tries his hand at some zombie dodging in Quantum of Solace director Marc Foster’s new latter-day nightmare, World War Z. Just the title alone strikes fear into our hearts of global wipe-out, least an epidemic that could kill off mankind through some failing of our own making. It’s this that initially sets the …

Byzantium ***

Think ‘Twilight on the English Rivera’ but all the more seedier and desolate, Neil Jordan style. The director who admits to being ‘fascinated by monsters and monstrous people’ shows a sensitive side to the plight of the creatures of the night in his latest film Byzantium, taking note of the recent appeal of vampire films …

Oblivion ***

The future of mankind is ripe and fertile filmmaking ground, always holding some potential intrigue and hopefully throwing up new questions about our possible destiny. The latter is a must in the sci-fi genre, but not to the extent that some questions leave you unnecessarily hanging, in terms of simple plot explanation. It’s true to …

The Watch *

The prospect of a comedy that sounds like a possible ‘contemporary Burbs’ remodelling, starring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill is an intriguing one. With the addition of one of British filmmaking and comedy’s brightest stars in Richard Ayoade to add a little spice to the mix, battling alien neighbours, The Watch should be …

The Amazing Spider-Man (3D) ****

General consensus is Marc Webb (of 500 Days of Summer fame) has delivered a reboot of the original Spider-Man (2002). That much is true. However, he has taken a lot of the wit and sensitivity of his hit rom-com and added it to the superhero genre, effectively making a superhero reboot should appeal to a …

Red Lights ***

Headline-grabbing cast of Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, Cillian Murphy and rising ‘horror/thriller star’ Elizabeth Olsen, Buried director Rodrigo Cortés’s new film, Red Lights, promises another intriguing delve into the supernatural unexplained. It pitches the sceptics and the believers against each other as it twists and turns and convolutes its story of exploration. Psychologists Margaret Matheson …

Prometheus (3D) ***

Director Ridley Scott was quoted as saying that Prometheus was a film that would ‘stand on its own’, apart from the Alien series. It’s fair to say that the sweeping, opening 3D vistas and alien mutation on the IMAX screen are truly spectacular to watch, so there is a lot of genuine expectation from the …