An American science fiction directed by Doug Liman, starring Tom Cruise.
A high ranking army officer flees from an order and because he is a deserter, is treated as a low level soldier. The war that is being fought is against aliens and the army is using mechanical suits to fight them. The demoted soldier accidentally kills a large alien before dying and wakes up to repeat the same day again. He meets a renowned female soldier who has been through this process before. Together they must stop the entire alien invasion.
Groundhog Day in science fiction video game format. Duration and pacing are standard for the average action film. Fast pace and an hour 45 duration. The plot was interesting and full of action, but extremely predictable. I found the characters to be stereotypical and did not care about what happened to them. Writing and dialogue was pretty standard for the genre. There was lots of camera movement. It's a spoiler, but most of the final conflict scene was just underexposed shots with lots of movement and editing cuts. There were some very good battle scenes though, with visible monsters and heroes striving to win the day. The audio seemed fine, with audible dialogue, tense musical soundtrack and realistic sound effects. 178 million dollar budget will buy some high quality sets, costumes and special effects. The armors looked good, but would have been done with physical effects in the '80s. I don't think that was the case here. The aliens were animated well, but extremely uncreative. How much thought goes into a glowing ball of tentacles? I rate this adequate because I liked the reset premise and there were lots of good action scenes.
A British American science fiction directed by Ridley Scott, starring Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Sean Bean and Michael Pena.
A hasty takeoff from Mars leaves one astronaut stranded. He must survive with the equipment he has there while a rescue is arranged.
This was very long in duration, but the pacing and action held my interest. The writing was full of stereotypical cliches, mainly in the dialogue. The plot held my attention, but I think the characters were a little shallow and stereotypical. There were also some sections of the plot that were not believable, even in a science fiction world. The camera-work was good, including lots of shot variety, movement and good composition. I could see everything that was going on. The audio was not so great. Although the dialogue was audible, the music selection was horrid. This is from 2015, not 1975. The number of characters was astronomical, but number of locations was slightly limited. Obviously, the sets, costumes and special effects took up much of the 108 million dollar budget. I think the goal of the film was to lure the money from a general family audience. I rate this o.k. because entertainment value balanced cliches.
A British American science fiction directed by Alex Garland, starring Domhall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac.
A young computer programmer is invited to the remote home of a scientist who builds robots. The programmer must test to see if the scientist's new robot truly has artificial intelligence.
This really got me into it. The plot and characters were augmented by good camerawork and audio. The whole thing hinges on who can believe whom, but in a more understandable way than film noir. The special effects did not include giant spaceships or wild monsters. It was more about getting the viewer to believe that the robots were robots and they did a great job of mixing actors with CG parts. I won't ruin the unexpected ending. I rate this good. Watch it!
An American science fiction directed by Denis Villeneuve, starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker and Michael Stuhlbarg.
Aliens land at 12 places on earth and let humans onto the ships to communicate. The American team includes a linguist and a scientist. As the 12 teams communicate with the aliens, they learn their language.
This is like what Gravity should have been. The plot and characters were amazing, including the cool aliens. The linear and non-linear parts of the story made sense in the end. There was some really bad camera-work and audio production and some really good. It looked like that may have been intentional, but I still dislike vast underexposures. The overall style or flavor of the film was very emotional. I rate this awesome because the filmmakers conveyed these emotions very well. The cool aliens helped. Watch this!
A British American science fiction directed by Alfonso Cuaron, starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.
A space mission goes horribly wrong for every reason. The only survivor of the first disaster runs into yet more problems as she attempts to return to Earth.
The main things that I want to mention are pacing and special effects. The pacing was painfully slow to the point that even the worst disasters generated no plot tension. The special effects were pretty amazing. We had zero gravity scenes and giant spaceships with little astronauts constantly bumping into them. Lots of it was visually stunning and would have been better in a 3D theater. Wikipedia says that people liked it lots and it won tons of awards. Apparently, everyone besides me liked it. Big stars and pretty images just don't do it for me anymore. I rate this bad because I wanted to turn it off for most of the duration.
An Australian American action directed by George Miller, starring Charlize Theron.
Max is captured by the thugs of a corrupt leader and forced into slavery. When a renegade driver goes off-route, he teams up with her.
Predictable, boring and stupid. It was all action and nothing else. The plot was threadbare and did not fit into the established story of the series. It seemed more like a stand-alone installment. The characters were so shallow that I could almost see through them. The video was done well, special effects, choreographed vehicle chases, explosions and all that crap. The audio wasn't bad. I could hear what people said and the music. Overall, an action-packed extravaganza full of violence with no plot and weak characters. Hey, if that's what you want, go for it. I want more out of a movie. I rate this poor for the reasons stated above. You should not watch it if you're looking for depth or thought.
An American science fiction directed by Rian Johnson, starring Bruce Willis, Joseph Gordeon-Levitt, Paul Dano and Jeff Daniels.
A man works as a "Looper". He kills men sent from the future and disposes of the bodies. In the future, a new boss called The Rainmaker takes over and starts having the Loopers killed. The main character ends up not killing the future him who goes on a quest to kill The Rainmaker as a child.
Not bad, but it sure had flaws. The plot was extremely complex to the point where different outcomes of the same event were shown. The characters were a little too shallow to be playing in this complex plot, though. They had back-story, but it was simplistic and they did not develop during the film. The video was not to my liking. It all looked fine and the special effects were amazing. My issue is that the editing made things very unclear about who was where and when. A prime example is the action scene at Sara's house. There was a shot in the middle that looked like it was taking place at a different location. The audio was decent with compression, but I would hate to imagine it without because I could hear the volume swells from the compressor compensating for drastically different audio levels. Overall, a decent film that was alright to watch, but had some major flaws. I rate this tolerable.
