alien invasion
It’s tough to be a sci-fi screenwriter in Hollywood — there’s a 90% chance that…
Failing to bring anything new the second time around, Pacific Rim: Uprising suffers from an identity crisis with little chance to rise up from its cinematic shortfalls to save itself.
The Fifth Element 20 years later: it’s still the packed with resplendent imagery, inventive art direction, and some well edited set pieces.
Our relationship with extraterrestrials has been a bumpy ride to say the least, but why is Hollywood so fascinated with them? Who has contributed to this ever-changing portrayal of extraterrestrials? And what are the many faces of alien life?
Independence Day came out when I was 14. I was a huge X-Files fan (I did a school project on Area 51) and so thought it was pretty much the greatest film ever. It was also at this time that I began to fall in love with movies, and Independence Day was part of that trend of 90’s summer blockbusters that opened my eyes to what contemporary cinema meant to a lot of people.
Sometimes watching a movie can feel like a duty. Maybe that’s because I take movies too seriously sometimes (okay, maybe all the time). But explaining why a movie fails is fraught with questions about my own expectations of a movie as they relate to the quagmire of unknowns about the creators’ intentions, let alone the practical budgetary constraints and other contingent aspects of an independent or studio production.
Absolutely Anything is a comedy co-written and directed by Terry Jones, he of illustrious Monty Python fame. It stars Simon Pegg and a host of other recognisable British talent and comics. In addition to this, Jones’ fellow Pythons offer their vocal talents, as does the late, great Robin Williams.
The arcade was video games’ greatest legacy. In a simpler time, before gaming consoles became mobile and placed within the home, the arcade was at the heart of the world’s most ultimate video gaming experience. As an impact, the popularity of the arcade video games snowballed into the animated characters that we now see onscreen – among them the likes of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man.
An animated film that is targeted towards young children should be colorful, with lots of movement and hopefully an outlandish character or two. Most importantly, though, it must have heart. It should tackle themes that are important to kids, and provide lessons that they can take away from the cinema and begin to apply to real life, not just in the way that they behave but also in the way that they understand the world around them.
Back in January Neill Blomkamp, the director of District 9, Elysium and the forthcoming Chappie posted online some intriguing fan/concept art for an as-yet-announced project related to the now floundering Alien franchise. The art featured some very intriguing illustrations of not only Sigourney Weaver as an almost fully evolved Ripley/xenomorph hybrid but also Michael Biehn as a battle scarred Corporal Hicks. At the time nobody knew what they were for:
I’m going to preface this article by saying I’m very set in my ways. Taken into a different context that means I’m old, and at the ripe wizened age of 27, I shun your new fan-dangled ideas of what makes a good movie. Furthermore I will use this mindset in reviewing the short film 9 Minutes.
In Edge of Tomorrow, Earth is hit by a meteor infested with a strange and highly violent alien species called the Mimics. They immediately start to destroy the world, and everything the humans do is futile. The alien species is strong and fast, and more importantly, has control over time – though no one (aside from a very select few) is aware of it.
Oblivion was a movie I’d been looking forward to as I’m a huge (dystopian) sci-fi fan. Unfortunately, it was quite a disappointment. Rarely have I seen a movie as unoriginal as this one.
