Tag: SciFi

Oblivion review

Director:
Joseph Kosinski
Cast:
Tom Cruise
Morgan Freeman
Olga Kurylenko
Andrea Riseborough
Rated: PG-13

Tom Cruise’s latest blockbuster is about a simple guy named Jack. OK, there’s more too it.

Jack is a man working as part of a two person crew that is on Earth decades into the future.

The film informs that many years ago, the Earth came under attack and that while humanity ultimately prevailed, the population still had to leave the planet because of the war’s destruction. Jack works with his partner, Victoria (Riseborough), to repair drones and do mop up work as well as collect fuel for humanity’s new home.

One day, though, Jack finds a survivor named Julia (Kurylenko) from a space ship crash, this leads to questions of why a ship would crash land now. More mysteries rise when both Jack and Julia are captured by a group of other humans led by a man named Beech (Freeman) who informs Jack that the life he’s been living maybe something else entirely.

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Total Recall review

Director:
Len Wiseman
Cast:
Colin Farrell
Kate Beckinsale
Jessica Biel
Bryan Cranston
Rated: PG-13

The only thing this “Total Recall” did was make me recall how much I enjoyed the original more.

“Total Recall” is a sci-fi remake of a 1990 film of the same name which starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. The remake is much like the original, following a man named Douglas Quaid, a construction worker who is having a recurring nightmare of him and a woman being chased by armed men. The added stress eventually has him go to a place where memories can be implanted called “Rekall.”

After going there, though, he begins finding out that he actually had his memory erased and replaced and turns out to be a different person all together. It turns out that our main character is actually a special agent named Hauser and is a in the mix of a huge civil war between two major factions on Earth. Once he realizes this he has to join forces with a woman named Melina (Biel) to fight off the people who are now after him and try to figure out who he really is.

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The Watch review

Director:
Akiva Schaffer
Cast:
Ben Stiller
Vince Vaughn
Jonah Hill
Richard Ayoade
Rated: R

We’ve now had movies on Mall Cops and Neighborhood Watches, I’m kind of curious as to what’s next.

“The Watch” follows the story of Evan (Stiller), a man who lives a relatively peaceful life in a calm neighborhood. He’s part of many local clubs and is a manager at the town’s Costco. One night however the community is shaken one day as one of Evan’s friends who work at Costco is murdered.

This leads Evan to form a local Neighborhood Watch to find the killer and protect other citizens. Unfortunately the recruits he gets for the crew aren’t exactly the best. The only people that join are a young man that failed out of police academy named Franklin (Hill), a guy who doesn’t take many things seriously in Bob (Vaughn) and an awkward new resident to the town who wants to help out in Jamarcus (Ayoade). However the four have to learn to work together as they find out that their town is under a threat of an alien attack.

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Prometheus review

Director:
Ridley Scott
Cast:
Noomi Rapace
Michael Fassbender
Charlize Theron
Idris Elba
Logan Marshall-Green
Rated: R

This is the second film Michael Fassbender is in with a character who’s last name is Shaw, maybe the X-Men universe and the Aliens universe is connected…. Probably not.

“Prometheus” is actually the title of the ship that the characters we follow are traveling aboard. The main protagonist is Elizabeth Shaw (Rapace), a member of an archaeologist crew searching for the creators of humanity which they call the “Engineers.” The expedition is financed by a huge company and to make sure everything goes smoothly a representative from the company named Meredith Vickers (Theron) is also on the ship.

Eventually the Prometheus finds and lands on a planet where it is believed that the engineers could be. The ship lands next to a large organic seeming structure and the crew goes into investigate. This turns out to be a poor decision though as they quickly find that the structure is filled with deadly aliens and that the engineers themselves could be hostile.

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Men in Black 3 review

Director:
Barry Sonnenfeld
Cast:
Will Smith
Tommy Lee Jones
Josh Brolin
Jemaine Clement
Rated: PG-13

Will Smith has battled aliens now four times and robots one time, he should be able to qualify to join the Jedi order soon.

“Men in Black 3” follows up with our main characters from the previous films, Agent J (Smith) and Agent K (Jones), as they continue their day to day work of protecting the citizens of Earth from aliens living on the blue and green planet. Trouble starts brewing, though, as an alien that K locked up back in the 60s named Borris the Animal (Clement) escapes from a prison on the moon and vows revenge.

To execute his vengeance, he goes back in time and kills K so it changes history. Not only does this have J wake up with out a partner at MIB, the super secret organization also realizes that an alien invasion begins on Earth and they have no way to stop it since K hadn’t been around to get a type of defense system since history changed. Because of this J has to travel back in time and work with a young K to stop Borris.

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Battleship review

Director:
Peter Berg
Cast:
Taylor Kitsch
Rihanna
Brooklyn Decker
Tadanobu Asano
Liam Neeson
Rated: PG-13

The film follows a character named Alex Hopper (Kitsch). In the beginning Hopper is mainly a screw up, getting in trouble with the law and not having any real direction. After one night of breaking into a store to impress a girl named Sam (Decker), his brother gets fed up and tells him to join the U.S. Navy.

The film suddenly cuts to an unspecified amount of time later where Alex is now a Lieutenant and has gotten together with Sam who happens to be the Pacific Admiral’s (Neeson) daughter. We catch up with Alex as he is participating in a Naval event with 13 other nations. As they begin an exercise they come across an alien craft that begins an attack on Earth. After Alex’s brother is killed he is advanced to captain and has to fight back against the alien threat.

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The Hunger Games review

Director:
Gary Ross
Cast:
Jennifer Lawrence
Josh Hutcherson
Donald Sutherland
Woody Harrelson
Rated: PG-13

Amazing how the technology in this flick ranges from the 1800s to the control deck of the Starship Enterprise.

“The Hunger Games” is set in what can be described as a post-apocalyptic future where the main country where the story takes place is divided up into 12 separate districts and one large capital city. In the Capital resides the government and the richest of the population, where as the 12 separate districts are where the poor live.

To keep order and peace in the country and stay in control, the government created ‘The Hunger Games’ where one young man and woman would be chosen from each district and compete in a survival/fight-to-the-death competition. Our main character, Katniss (Lawrence) was originally not suppose to participate in the games however her sister gets picked and because of this she volunteers herself to take her sister’s place. The movie then follows Katniss’ journey of learning about the capital and fighting in the hunger games itself.

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John Carter review

Director:
Andrew Stanton
Cast:
Taylor Kitsch
Lynn Collins
Samantha Morton
Willem Dafoe
Mark Strong
Rated: PG-13

The movie was originally going to be called “John Carter of Mars,” then in the movie they called him John Carter of Earth. Maybe they just couldn’t make up their damn minds.

John Carter is a sci fi adventure film following the title character, a Civil War vet who is now known by reputation as being a dangerous criminal. One day when making a get away from a group of basically cowboys and indians he stumbles across a cave with all sorts of designs on the walls.

He is then transported to Mars by an amulet and finds out that the planet is made up by three different factions who are all hostile towards each other. He soon meets the leader of one of the factions named Tars Tarkas (Dafoe) as well as the princess from another faction named Helium (Thoris). After he makes some alliances he sets out to take down Sab Than (West).

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Rise of the Planet of the Apes review

Director:
Rupert Wyatt
Cast:
James Franco
Freida Pinto
John Lithgow
David Oyelowo
Andy Serkis
Rated: PG-13

Move over Burton, somebody got it right.

The latest installment with Planet of the Apes in the title is a prequel about the ape Caesar, and his rise as a leader. The film begins by following Will Rodman (Franco), a scientist who is working on a cure for Alzheimer’s disease at a genetic research facility. His reasons go deeper than just exploring things scientifically, as his father (Lithgow) has the disease as well. The genetic lab tests the experimental cure on apes however after one test goes wrong the lab is shut down and the apes are killed.

However, one ape was pregnant and gave birth to a baby before she died, Rodman is soon forced to take the young ape home. He soon learns, though, that the ape, named Caesar, had the experimental cure passed down genetically from the mother and that the cure actually dramatically increased intelligence. As the ape gets older more complications begin to pop up and he is soon forced to go to an animal control center. It is here that Caesar begins to get fed up with the life he and his fellow apes are leading and decides to revolt for freedom.

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Super 8 review

Director:
J.J. Abrams
Cast:
Joel Courtney
Riley Griffiths
Elle Fanning
Kyle Chandler
Rated: PG-13

E.T. with more explosions!

Super 8 is the story of a group of friends who must be no older than 13. The group are all movie fans who want to make their own, and are led by their friend Charles (Griffiths), who’s directing the film. His friend Joe (Courtney), is the special effects expert and the main protagonist of the film. Joe and his father have been dealing with issues since the death of his mother, which happened six months prior to the movie starting.

One night the group sneaks out to shoot a scene for their project, and bring along a classmate, Alice (Fanning), to play a part in the film they are making. They go to a local train stop to shoot the scene and while there the group sees a major train crash after a pick up truck hits a locomotive head on. After this the military comes to clean up the mess, the situation gets even more suspicious as people and appliances begin disappearing.

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