Tag: Sci-Fi

I have to tell you about this movie, it’s a breath of fresh air in a 2014 Summer of mostly dull movies. This one flies above the rest. It’s concept is not unique but if you see this movie, you’ll be talking about it for days. It’s a bit like Groundhog day in concept. By that I mean, the same way Bill Murray’s character has to keep reliving the same day over and over again until he gets it right. In this case, the conflict is fighting aliens, and scary ones at that.

We see a funny Tom Cruise for a change. I recently saw “Oblivion,” an example of his serious sci-fi side in an excellent film.

He was the rough and tough sci-fi action hero. In “Edge of Tomorrow” it’s a lot of that but with laugh-a-minute deadpan humor thrown into the mix. Much of this humor consists of Emily Blunt beating him to a pulp to train him day after repeated day: hence the title “Edge of Tomorrow.” I liked this movie for many reasons and therefore highly recommend it. I am going to try and avoid spoilers on this blog because I know a lot of people like to leave the movie a mystery as they watch it unfold. Suffice it to say, the critics of all the major movie sites say the same thing as I.

Have you seen this film? What are your thoughts?

Since I was age 10 when this movie takes place (1979) I was really excited to see the custard colored refrigerators and old school gas stations as well as other stuff from that year. I remember it as a humanistic and inspiring time. Some images of 1979 really made me nostalgic in the first hour. After that however, the movie began to sputter like a 70’s moped in need of a fill up. The homes, schools, and connectedness of the kids all was like 1979. Unfortunately, the story couldn’t continue in that era and turned to your typical violent alien film of the 90’s or 2000’s like Independence Day.

Spoiler ahead (sort of). One difference from other alien movies is that there is just one alien. It is quite ugly but not much different from most in movies extant. The alien is not as scary as the gratuitous shocks the director gives the audience. I counted 6 but there are surely more. Be warned, especially if you are annoyed by these things. There is only one thing that can save a movie with these, in my opinion. That thing is a great ending. Unfortunately, you won’t find that here either. Young kids aged 15 and below will like this movie. A couple times it looks like Transformers. Most above that age will look at their iphone to see the time as it plays out.

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Weird things are just simple things you don’t understand yet. For many, this film appears weird but I would argue it’s not quite as weird once you have a little research under your belt and of course, you actually sit down and watch it, credits to credits. If you have done those things, I’ll bet it’s less weird for you. Am I right?

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Cast

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Directed by

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Written by

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Other Info

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Jake Gyllenhaal plays this evil-eyed high school kid very well. He is haunted by this vision of an evil bunny. The research I alluded to in my introduction will tell you what that’s all about as well as how he cheats death in the beginning of the film. After that, he is unwittingly on a journey to understand the bunny and his own mental health issues. 

Donnie is seeing a therapist. She increases his medication which seemingly should make the evil bunny go away but it does not. We can only reason from that he is not a hallucination. When we start understanding more about this creepy bunny, the film takes a strange Ray Bradbury-like turn and if you can follow this as a sci-fi film, the creepy turns to sensibility.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying this film s simple ir that most viewers will “get it.” I am saying, just like Bird Man, you can read many interpretations into this. It has multiple meanings and all can be successfully argued.

I think I can safely say you will not understand this film without reading something about it on the internet. I’ve read quite a few lengthy posts about it. The general idea put forth is that there are 2 realities: the real life one and some other-worldly dimension. I’ll let you chew on that and see if you agree once you see it. I think the ending is great, it shows Donnie to have the capability of being self-less. Incidentally there are a lot of great names in this film. You have some great actors giving excellent performances. In my closing words I would just reiterate that this film is not weird. I would encourage interested parties to look around at some interpretations online and then make your own. I do wish more was explained but that’s my only criticism. I recommend this one to ’80’s movie’ fans, sci-fi geeks, and dark movie fans.

Anticipation was high for my wife and I going in to see this film. After about 20 minutes, it wore off. After 40 minutes, we had very little idea what was going on. When there was a bout 20 minutes left to the end, we walked out.

Independence Day: Resurgence

Cast

Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman

Directed by

Roland Emmerich

Written by

Nicolas Wright, James A. Woods, Dean Devlin, Roland Emmerich, James Vanderbilt, Dean Devlin

Other Info

Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
Rated PG-13
120min
Riley’s Rating: 1]

The film started in sort of a cool way. It was the type of sci fi beginning that brings you up to speed. At some point in the movie however my wife and I just lost all hope of having an interest and we walked out. Please know that we rarely walk out of movies. In over 13 years of marriage and seeing films, we’ve done it 2-3 times I think. You may know that feeling when you realize it just can’t improve.

The Basic story is that 20 years have passed since aliens nearly destroyed the Earth in the first film Independence Day. The Earth has had a lot of time to build up its defenses but will it be enough when the aliens do return in Independence Day 2.

It’s not meant to be a funny or nonsense movie but I have a feeling comedians and critics will be pulling funny material for routines and columns for decades. Take a few of these particulars for example: Liam Hemsworth’s character pees on a dead alien, there is an alien prison at Area 51, Bill Pullman goes (in a matter of an hour) from a lock down mental health facility to giving national military advice, and the queen alien is supposed to be as big as half the Atlantic ocean. Let me remind you of what I listed in the writers section: there were 6 professional writers for this film. Process that for a minute … 6. When I research most my reviews there is 1 writer, 3 tops.

Speaking of time spent on reviews, there are a slough of reviews out there on this movie that have done a lot more homework than I. I had high hopes for this film since my wife is a fan of the first one and we wanted to see what happened in the sequel. What we got instead was a convoluted mess that barely made sense and first and whirled out of control quickly to where neither of us knew what was happening.

Could it be the director was hoping for the pro-war, pro-military crowd to dance a jog just for the sake of kicking alien ass? I apologize if that offends anyone but I am really grasping in the dark to find a motive for making this film. I haven’t said this in a review for a while, I do not recommend this film to you. The end leaves room for a sequel so perhaps they’ll produce something better next time. Too bad they missed the mark with this one.