This movie nails both the comedy and the sci-fi halves of its script, and provides a shining beacon in the silly time travel sub-genre, as well as the pub crawl sub-genre. It’s a self-contained knock-out that neither overstays its welcome nor overplays its hand. This film is a solidly good time, no two ways around it.
Closest comparison: It’s like Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure by way of The World’s End.
Setting: Adventure
Plot: Time Travel
Tone: Comedy
This movie is a pretty faithful remake of the original, complete with pensive pacing and inherent ambiguities in the plot and its resolution. It’s cerebral sci-fi that doesn’t have as much to say as it seems to think it does, using an interesting concept to propel a somewhat less interesting story.
Closest comparison: It’s like Ad Astra by way of Melancholia (2011).
Setting: Grounded Sci-Fi
Plot: Mind-Bending Sci-Fi
Tone: Dramatic Sci-Fi
This movie is a pensive sci-fi arthouse piece from Russia in the ‘70s. Its glacial tempo is on pace with Meek’s Cutoff even more than Ad Astra. There’s about 40 minutes of movie here stretched out into 2h45m. And for all that, it offers no conclusions for the questions that it recognizes exist while being careful to not actually pose them. It’s more nebulous than it is confusing, and much like Blade Runner the mood is a much larger part of the story than the plot.
Closest comparison: It’s like Forbidden Planet by way of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Philosophy
Tone: Drama
This movie is a modern B-movie that does a lot with a little. In several places the acting is actually pretty good, and the practical effects on many of the aliens often works well. Some of the action scenes, though highly derivative, are surprisingly fun. That being said, it unfortunately doesn’t amount to more than the sum of its parts and the flaws intercut with the gems bring the whole movie down together.
Closest comparison: It’s like a B-movie cross between Independence Day and District 9.
Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Action
Tone: Action
This movie would be hillariously bad if it weren’t so boring. It makes incessant references to the previous films, calls them out, and goes nowhere with them beyond surface-level nostalgic fan service. Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss are fine doing their standard routine, but Jessica Henwick and Neil Patrick Harris bust out great performances for what they’re worth. The messaging is very muddled, and usually shakes out to mean the opposite of what it is meant to. The action is downright pitiful, all close-up shaky-cam nonsense with no sense of who is doing what or even what the stakes are most of the time; it’s easily the worst action I’ve seen all year.
Closest comparison: It’s like The Matrix: Reloaded by way of Jupiter Ascending.
Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Hidden World
Tone: Coffee Shop Drama
This movie is a paragon of adaptation, sticking incredibly closely to the source material and making only the changes necessary to deliver the same emotional beats on the big screen. It is the masterpiece Denis Villeneuve was born to film, making his previous work look like practice by comparison. The few parts I didn’t like or made me uncomfortable were taken directly from the book, which made me feel the same way reading them and instead of being drawbacks only serve to make the film a better adaptation. And it manages to convey convoluted political intrigue with ease, due in no small part to the outstanding acting, which is second only perhaps to the cinematography.
Closest comparison: It’s like Blade Runner by way of Ad Astra.
Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Political Intrigue
Tone: Arthouse Drama
This movie’s visuals are as amazing as the plot is baffling. The monsters look great and the action is well choreographed for the most part, but the film undercuts the tension by setting up rules about the monsters and then completely ignoring them. There’s no angle from which you can think about the time travel that makes sense, but if you can turn your brain off completely and manage to not think about how or why anything is happening this could be a pretty fun movie.
Closest comparison: It’s like reverse Terminator with monster vibes from Pitch Black.
Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Action
Tone: Action
This is an uneven slow drama with some good ideas and several good attempts at acting. After a bit of action in the beginning, most of its runtime mills around the same intellectual ground without attempting any progress until the last 20 minutes. There are some great camera tricks that convey not a whole lot, though the film seems to think it’s profound. Still, it’s much better indie film making than most, and it neither comes together nor falls apart completely.
Closest comparison: It’s like Frequency by way of Ink.
Setting: Crime
Plot: Sci-Fi
Tone: Drama
This movie is yet another small scale first contact movie set in the heartland of America in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It’s very competently made, as are all films with John Carpenter at the helm, but it also has nothing to separate it from the crowd apart from a brief special effects shot early on that is up to Carpenter’s usual high standards. Jeff Bridges and Karen Allen have dynamic chemistry and Bridges does especially well with a strange role. While it’s certainly worth a watch for fans of quirky first encounter movies, most cinephiles can give it a miss.
Closest comparison: It’s like E.T. in the the era road trip trappings of Smokey and the Bandit.
Setting: First Contact
Plot: Road Trip
Tone: Fish out of Water
This movie is hot garbage. The CGI is both dodgy and terrible, even for 2001, the acting is laughable, and it’s all built around a story that isn’t even a good idea in theory. There’s no heart to it, like everyone involved doesn’t want to be making the movie. Could be a good contender for Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Closest comparison: It’s like The Asylum production company’s attempt at an Alien or Arrival type movie.
Setting: Adventure
Plot: Sci-Fi
Tone: Discovery
The second season of The Mandalorian keeps introducing great characters, moments, and setpieces like the first season, it sprinkles in painfully terrible characters, dialogue, and character choices. The action is often good, though sometimes absolutely terrible, and Amy Sedaris, Sasha Banks, Katee Sackhoff, and even occasionally Rosario Dawson are painfully grating every instant they are on screen. Boba Fett gets many outstanding moments that fans will appreciate, though he gets Worf’ed in another pointless and irritating scene. Overall it’s like nice dinner of filet mignon and lobster tail with a diarrhea gravy; the wonderful things in this show get completely ruined by the vomit-inducing parts. If you can ignore the bad and enjoy the good, or just have selective memory, then it’s worth a watch.
Closest comparison: This is the Shanghai Nights of the Star Wars saga.
Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Western
Tone: Adventure
This is a tense escape room film with a few gruesome deaths. Its superb acting and story far outweigh its very low budget, which will keep cynics guessing what turns the plot will take. As with many sci-fi movies there is a lot of speculation among the characters as to what exactly is going on, and although there are plenty of ambiguities left unanswered at the end for the most part it’s a smart and satisfying conclusion.
Content warning: brief gore
Closest comparison: It’s like Saw (2004) by way of Primer.
Setting: Sci-Fi
Plot: Escape Room
Tone: Horror
This is an intellectual sci-fi piece more interested in tense mood than meaningful dialog. Captivating acting keeps the audience riveted, and moments of gorgeous cinematography give breathing time in between the implication-heavy scenes. It’s more paranoid than profound, but it’s still fascinating in its own right.
Content warning: female nudity
Closest comparison: It’s like Jurassic Park by way of Moon.
Setting: Tech Sci-Fi
Plot: Existential Sci-Fi
Tone: Slow-burn thriller
This season is an unmitigated disaster. The first several episodes are great and set the show up with a lot of potential; unfortunately, the rest of the episodes just get dumber and dumber. Where the first season explained why the main characters made their bad decisions, here all of the main characters make bad decisions randomly, often directly contradicting previously established character traits with no explanation. By the middle of the season everything becomes drama for drama’s sake, dumb for tension’s sake, and needlessly obtuse. By the final few episodes the show drops all pretense of internal consistency, destroying all of the beautiful potential and adding layers upon layers of insult to injury. It’s not worth watching for anyone, especially fans of the show.
Closest comparison: It’s like Heroes Season 2, but so much worse.
Setting: Super Hero
Plot: Adventure
Tone: Family Drama
This is an impressively well-conceived iteration on the Groundhog Day formula by combining it with a twist on the sex comedy genre. There are the predictable sexual scenarios, cranked up to eleven by virtue of the era in which it was created, but it quickly turns philosophical about long-term relationships. Instead of getting long-winded and heady, the film addresses all its points practically in subtext that doesn’t disrupt the flow of the comedy antics.
Closest comparison: It’s like The Hangover by way of Groundhog Day.
Setting: Family Drama
Plot: Time Loop
Tone: Sex Comedy
There’s good news and bad news. The good news is this is the third best Terminator film to date. The bad news is it’s still pretty disposable. The action setpieces are big and iconic, the new terminator is well-conceived, and the returning combination of Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger is worth the price of admission alone. On the flipside, the acting is pretty bad in a few key places, the CGI is sometimes cringe-level rubbery, and the actions scenes each have several moments of dark lighting shaky cam that make them very hard to read. James Cameron’s presence is palpable, but it would have been a much better film if he’d directed it. If you’re a fan of the series this movie is a must-see, but beyond that it’s a pretty stock action flick.
Closest comparison: The Terminator franchise goes the route of The Fast and The Furious.
Setting: Sci-fi Action
Plot: Protect-the-girl Action
Tone: Sci-fi Action
The audience reception of this movie is going to vary wildly by political affiliation, as to whether the heroes or the villains win in the end, though the film certainly portrays them as heroes. The setup is clever and the core ideas intriguing, but unfortunately it ties its resolution too closely with preconceived notions of social issues that aren’t addressed within the film, only taken as a given. There are distinct similarities both visually and thematically to other high-concept sci-fi films, but the film falls victim to some huge sci-fi plot holes in the process. For all that, though, it still has a compelling story, very solid acting, and a high level of overall polish.
Content warnings: blood, some language.
Closest comparison: It’s like Mr. Nobody or Predestination by way of The Place Beyond The Pines.
Setting: Police Drama
Plot: Social Sci-fi
Tone: CSI Drama
This movie is a mess. The action is decent, but all of the good parts (with one possible exception) were shown in the trailer and, bafflingly, were better executed in the trailer. The acting ranges from passable to poor, with a few pretty cringe-inducing moments. There are a few times where the cinematography is beautiful, but for the most part everything just looks boring. Even the special effects, while mostly top-notch, have a few scenes that look rough to the point of being unnerving. There are some good ideas buried within the story but the script is never able to do anything with them.
Closest comparison: It’s like Killer Elite (2011) with the art direction of Oblivion (2013).
Setting: Government Thriller
Plot: Sci-Fi
Tone: Action
This movie is very slow, yet constantly engaging. Its gorgeous cinematography accentuates the dichotomy between the claustrophobic ship interiors and the limitless vastness of space. The story nicely mirrors the setting and gives the impression that nothing in this film is accidental. I don’t have the affinity for astronomy that many others do, so a significant percentage of this film’s viewership will likely rate it higher than I have.
Closest comparison: It’s like 2001: A Space Odyssey by way of Arrival (2016).
Setting: Near Future Sci-Fi
Plot: Adventure
Tone: Slow Sci-Fi
This movie is the quintessential happy-go-lucky entry into the surge of rebellious teenager movies that were pervasive at the time. It’s goofy and fun with an aloof, almost bizarre plot that has sequestered it solidly into the ‘cult classic’ category. It has all the low-fi heart of an indie movie combined with the eventual star power of Keanu Reeves and George Carlin. Even though the version of time travel used here hilariously makes no sense, it’s all in service to the over-the-top screwball comedy and the whole thing comes together in an excellent way.
Closest comparison: It’s like Back to the Future by way of Wayne’s World.
Setting: Time travel
Plot: Sci-Fi Comedy
Tone: Comedy
