The Sci-Fi List Discussion and Suggestions (Genre Project)

[Michael Kerpan]

Blade Runner. while it looked good, always struck me as a pretty pale reflection of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Disclaimer: The only PK Dick adaptation I (mostly) like a lot is A Scanner Darkly.

[swo17]

Like time travel, I assume that movies about clones are automatically sci-fi? (Or is there a distinction to be made between clones and doppelgangers, the latter of which might fall more in the realm of fantasy?) I'm thinking of things like Double Life of Veronique, Us, The Prestige, any of the Body Snatchers, or that great trio of movies about doubles that saw U.S. release in 2014, which I will leave for the forum to remember by name

[Never Cursed]

Us is definitely sci-fi given how

Spoiler

the doubles in that film were clones created by the US government,

no? I mean, I would sooner vote for Diamantino (side note: someone else please vote for Diamantino with me for the sake of it), but I can't imagine either one not being eligible. I can't think of a doppelganger film that fails to explain the doubles' existence in a pseudoscientific way but does not fall into the "persistent unexplainable phenomena" category described above (except I guess Twin Peaks: The Return, which people will still vote for), so I would suppose all the titles you list above are eligible.

And there is one more great doppelganger film that you have omitted from that shortlist (though talking about it in those terms is also a spoiler)

Spoiler

Triangle

[knives]

If I remember correctly the Kieslowski doesn’t go into details and is more magical realism then science fiction?

[therewillbeblus]

Double Life of Veronique is a tougher call for personal inclusion, since it uses the two souls for philosophical purposes and the connection seems more inspired by a spiritual energy than anything concrete. Still, if people are voting for it, it’s one of my all-time favorite movies so I’ll give it another watch.

And of course The Double, Enemy, and (spoilerboxed because it’s best to go into this one without knowing)

Spoiler

The One I Love

are the three doppelgänger films that swo’s talking about, definitely more in that sci-fi realm, and all well worth consideration.

Hint: the spoiler’d film was on my initial shortlist, so if you watch everything on there, you’ll get to it eventually!

[Mr Sausage]

Never Let Me Go is an interesting case for being a sci fi story about clones as well as dystopian sci fi while not resembling those things in the slightest.

[knives]

Speak of the devil.

Never Let Me Go (dir. Romanek)
This is quite a bit different from its Sad Times at Ridgemont High reputation as Romanek really digs into the characters before even really hinting at the premise. There’s a certain joy that beyond some opening text the film just allows itself to be this genuine coming of age story. There’s some issues with the premise if taken literally which were covered fairly well be a favorite childhood book of mine House of the Scorpion. It doesn’t make sense for these children to exist as a piece of science fiction, but as a piece of speculative fiction it’s a genius premise that really gets at the heart of a few elements of the human condition such as longing which all ultimately fold into an ultimate subject of friendships.

Beautiful night not be the word, but I was indeed touched with how the film gives us their self taught ignorance for a kind of happiness before the full implications of their reality hits leading to hard questions of class, social programs, and self worth amongst others. The title at times is a cruel irony asking for hope when really the power to either fight or accept plays a more central role.

A Boy and His Dog (dir. Jones)
This is a bizarre, little horny film that I've heard about for years and yet didn't expect to be like this at all. It's a pretty hard Mad Max type of film, though I liked it a fair bit better then Miller's series, about terrible people surviving on base instinct. In a lot of ways it's basically a western, mostly modeled on Ride the High Country. A crazed young man does everything in his power to get laid is the whole of the plot and it really shows in an uncomfortable fashion the cruelty baser instincts can create when dealing with real people. I think it might be too light on its protagonist though who after suffering a little gets the girl which just doesn't seem right. It's a bit as if Jones wanted to make a movie about sexism, but couldn't figure out how to do that without falling into sexism.

The Meg (dir. Turteltaub)
It's pretty fun to see this with production values. These sort of movies are mostly left to the swamplands of the Syfy channel nowadays, but with a charming cast, umm Jason Steakums, and some basic quality control this is a pretty enjoyable movie that's only a couple of steps behind Deep Blue Sea. This is a completely stupid movie, but enjoyable in its base stupidity.

[colinr0380]

"Why'd they have to go and kill her? She could have been used three or four more times"

I love A Boy and His Dog (Jason Robards in whiteface!) but yes its not exactly treating its female characters with respect (it could be suggested the entire film was made for the sake of that final punning joke! Though our lead character himself gets trussed up himself at one point too!), although I do end up feeling the most for Susanne Benton's character being torn between two equally vile cultures. She's not blameless in the plot to lure young men to the society below, but horribly the turn in her character from being callous and calculating to needing help and revealing a certain naivety becomes her downfall in such a callous world. She jumped ship and allied herself with the wrong boy, unfortunately, and maybe the final line is a brutally correct assessment of her after all.

The film makes quite a tonal shift at the mid-way point from perhaps the most lovingly detailed post-apocalyptic society ever put on film into a very strange satire on conservative American values ticking along as if nothing has happened above ground (I do wonder if it has had an influence on the 1950s-style Fallout video game series!). If the blackly comic satirical tone was not already evident, the original theatrical trailer leaves little doubt about it, being very much in the tradition of A Clockwork Orange's!

If I remember correctly the Kieslowski doesn’t go into details and is more magical realism then science fiction?

Its difficult because a doppleganger story can fit into horror (The Man Who Haunted Himself) or even comedy (Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Doppleganger which despite being made to look like a thriller in that trailer is actually more of a black comedy!). So I would not say that the presence of a doppleganger is inherently a sci-fi concept. It even may be more of a development of the 'good twin-evil twin' psychological dramas of the 1940s like The Dark Mirror.

That said there are a couple of films that are both sci-fi and have doppleganger confrontations, the big one being the (major spoiler) ending of The Stepford Wives. And whilst I would class Double Life of Veronique as more of a drama than sci-fi, I'm more borderline on Another Earth even though all of the sci-fi trappings are really just set dressing for a film that eventually is more about working through First World problems of guilt.

[therewillbeblus]

Never Let Me Go (dir. Romanek)
This is quite a bit different from its Sad Times at Ridgemont High reputation as Romanek really digs into the characters before even really hinting at the premise. There’s a certain joy that beyond some opening text the film just allows itself to be this genuine coming of age story. There’s some issues with the premise if taken literally which were covered fairly well be a favorite childhood book of mine House of the Scorpion. It doesn’t make sense for these children to exist as a piece of science fiction, but as a piece of speculative fiction it’s a genius premise that really gets at the heart of a few elements of the human condition such as longing which all ultimately fold into an ultimate subject of friendships.

Beautiful night not be the word, but I was indeed touched with how the film gives us their self taught ignorance for a kind of happiness before the full implications of their reality hits leading to hard questions of class, social programs, and self worth amongst others. The title at times is a cruel irony asking for hope when really the power to either fight or accept plays a more central role.

Have you read the source novel? For a book that has been lauded by everyone I know, I wasn't quite as taken with it, but found it more thematically interesting than the film which fell completely flat for me. I'm sure that can be chalked up to the obvious problem of comparing movies to books, and since I'm an outlier in my ambivalent feelings on both works it probably didn't stand as much of a chance, though if you liked the film I think you'll find those interpretations to be even more impactful if you choose to read the novel. It's definitely existentially insightful and emotionally impactful, just not as intensely as my high expectations hoped for.

[bottled spider]

...side note: someone else please vote for Diamantino with me for the sake of it...

I have just read a plot description of Diamantino ("soccer phenom Diamantino reacts to a devastating World Cup loss by adopting a Mozambican refugee who claims to be a teenage boy but is actually an adult lesbian on an undercover mission from the Portuguese government to investigate a money-laundering operation run by the athlete’s evil twin sisters") and I'm willing to vote for it on that basis alone.

Regarding Double Life of Veronique as sci-fi, I thought I once saw (without reading in detail) an analysis somewhere on this forum that drew parallels between the structure of DLoV and concepts from particle physics (quantum entanglement, probably). I've tried a few combinations of search terms and can't find it though, and not having read through the discussion at the time, I'm not sure if it lends weight to DLoV being sci-fi or not. Hope that's helpful!

[knives]

Never Let Me Go (dir. Romanek)
This is quite a bit different from its Sad Times at Ridgemont High reputation as Romanek really digs into the characters before even really hinting at the premise. There’s a certain joy that beyond some opening text the film just allows itself to be this genuine coming of age story. There’s some issues with the premise if taken literally which were covered fairly well be a favorite childhood book of mine House of the Scorpion. It doesn’t make sense for these children to exist as a piece of science fiction, but as a piece of speculative fiction it’s a genius premise that really gets at the heart of a few elements of the human condition such as longing which all ultimately fold into an ultimate subject of friendships.

Beautiful night not be the word, but I was indeed touched with how the film gives us their self taught ignorance for a kind of happiness before the full implications of their reality hits leading to hard questions of class, social programs, and self worth amongst others. The title at times is a cruel irony asking for hope when really the power to either fight or accept plays a more central role.

Have you read the source novel? For a book that has been lauded by everyone I know, I wasn't quite as taken with it, but found it more thematically interesting than the film which fell completely flat for me. I'm sure that can be chalked up to the obvious problem of comparing movies to books, and since I'm an outlier in my ambivalent feelings on both works it probably didn't stand as much of a chance, though if you liked the film I think you'll find those interpretations to be even more impactful if you choose to read the novel. It's definitely existentially insightful and emotionally impactful, just not as intensely as my high expectations hoped for.

Haven't read it. Have Remains of the Day in my literary kevyip though. I took the film to be focused in on two areas, one British reserve and two why we decide to live, with the story as just a way to emphasize how strange we are. As a result of this working primarily in a mode of curiosity on the later point I didn't need it to actually examine these things, but merely illustrate why they are good questions. The former point, which I assume is left over from the book, is just something that's personally interesting to me though it weaves into the later point given how passive the characters are. There's no fight against society or other external actions that other stories like this one, Bay's The Island or Solyent Green for instance, focus in upon rather having the characters emotionally figure out a way to live in such as system.

[therewillbeblus]

And whilst I would class Double Life of Veronique as more a drama than sci-fi, I'm more borderline on Another Earth, despite all the sci-fi trappings being just set dressing for a film that eventually is more about real-world guilt.

I definitely think Another Earth counts, since even the kick-off to the plot is caused by a distraction of the other planet (representing a reminder of our insignificance which then begets a life-altering supremely significant event?) though if we discounted all the Sci-Fi films that use their genre as allegories for our real social/emotional/psychological realities, then I'd have to throw out my entire list! The line is definitely blurry on some, but this certainly won't be one of them for me.

Since we're on the subject of 'sci-fi trappings as set dressing for real-world emotion' that are borderline qualifiers, I just revisited Mauvais Sang again and finally decided to include it on my list for a few reasons. I’ll spare the board a repost of my unusually long (even for me) writeup in the Carax thread, but its Sci-Fi plot is a vital part of the film, as a projection of love’s enigmatic power that colors the world into a detailed, beautiful, and confusing place for Lavant; directly countering the other genre of crime that represents the coldness of individualism divorced from interpersonal affection.

The announcement of a new STD killing young people who have sex without love comes into being at the exact moment Lavant is having an existential crisis and falling for Binoche, reinforcing the externalization of our inner experience onto one’s environment. To qualify this as sci-fi even further, I forgot about Halley’s Comet heating up the earth, where the concrete is burning hot even during darkness, disallowing a clean break between would-be lovers and forcing Lavant to carry Binoche across the street intimately. The emphasis on peeling back onion layers of self-imposed walls to accessing the abilities to express and observe beauty transforms the world into Godardian popping colors and meditative cosmic appreciation (the declaration to "caress each cobblestone and thank each step" is sublime).

It's notable that stealing the concentrated virus to ‘cure’ to the love disease is driven by the crime syndicates for logical, monetary purposes, but matters not to Alex or any of the younger people in the film (who isn’t able to reap the benefits of his mission regardless), as if the concept that a life could exist where love wasn’t so high-stakes is the real unimaginable science fiction scenario for the youthful!

[CJG]

(I do wonder if it has had an influence on the 1950s-style Fallout video game series!).

Yup, the developers have cited this as one of the big cinematic influences on the series, together with the Mad Max films.

[knives]

And whilst I would class Double Life of Veronique as more a drama than sci-fi, I'm more borderline on Another Earth, despite all the sci-fi trappings being just set dressing for a film that eventually is more about real-world guilt.

I definitely think Another Earth counts, since even the kick-off to the plot is caused by a distraction of the other planet (representing a reminder of our insignificance which then begets a life-altering supremely significant event?) though if we discounted all the Sci-Fi films that use their genre as allegories for our real social/emotional/psychological realities, then I'd have to throw out my entire list! The line is definitely blurry on some, but this certainly won't be one of them for me.

I do think perhaps it would be helpful to as a thought experiment look at and make distinctions in 'sci-fi concepts' which are being used with an investment towards sci-fi and those which treat the science as a real thing. 2001 and Ad Astra are just as allegorical and thematically structured as After Earth and Melancholia, to give a quad of hard line cases, but the former is invested in the science of their science fiction whereas the later is exclusively invested in its thematic potential. The terms I've been using, and I believe are generally accepted, are hard and speculative science fiction to distinguish these categories. Of course there are other categories as well such as fantastical science fiction, e.g. Star Wars and soft, e.g. last season Parks & Recs with the list of subgenre being near infinite.

Speculative is going to be a hard one for me because true to the saying that a sufficiently advanced science is indistinguishable from magic and many of these films are much closer in identity to magical realism then science fiction. Or to be phrased another way, I suspect Marling had Borges more in mind then Asimov.

[therewillbeblus]

There's definitely a distinction but those parameters get too rigid for me. I'm surprised you'd be including Unbreakable on your list under that stance, and the idea that Solaris counts while Stalker doesn't, because of the latter's inability to actually delve into manifesting the specific scientific risks that outline the necessity of the Stalker's role or actuality of the occurrences in The Room beyond passed-down stories, just feels wrong. As I said before though, the line is definitely hazy and I hear you that some of these could be inclusive of magical realism as well.

My own understanding of 'magical realism' though is that it supposes that these magical inclusions are accepted by the occupants of the milieu in an otherwise familiar world to the audience. So Another Earth, Melancholia, Stalker and even Mauvais Sang treat these insertions as anxiety-provoking and intrusions on their realities, rather than nonchalantly expected within an internal logic.

[domino harvey]

These kind of genre distilling reindeer games never appealed to me and I think it's a curse placed upon me that no matter what kind of rules I enforce (super open - Vote For It! / super confined - Here's specific aspects that need to be present) y'all always go out of your way to find loopholes or wrap yourselves up in knots about something that doesn't need a flowchart to navigate. Give yourself a gift of freedom to vote for what you like so long as it fits the perimeters stated

[movielocke]

These kind of genre distilling reindeer games never appealed to me and I think it's a curse placed upon me that no matter what kind of rules I enforce (super open - Vote For It! / super confined - Here's specific aspects that need to be present) y'all always go out of your way to find loopholes or wrap yourselves up in knots about something that doesn't need a flowchart to navigate. Give yourself a gift of freedom to vote for what you like so long as it fits the perimeters stated

Yeah agreed. I’m just gonna include what feels like sci fi from my point of view.

Sci-fi is like obscenity: you know it when you see it.

[bamwc2]

These kind of genre distilling reindeer games never appealed to me and I think it's a curse placed upon me that no matter what kind of rules I enforce (super open - Vote For It! / super confined - Here's specific aspects that need to be present) y'all always go out of your way to find loopholes or wrap yourselves up in knots about something that doesn't need a flowchart to navigate. Give yourself a gift of freedom to vote for what you like so long as it fits the perimeters stated

Welcome to my world, Domino. I'm about to write a book chapter on defining 'pornography'. No matter what I say, someone will come up with a counterexample.

[therewillbeblus]

I wholly agree with that liberal flexibility (clearly, by my own considerations between this and horror) but find some of these conversations, when posed -not as an aggressive "how could you vote for that" rigidity- but as questions about personal parameters, to be helpful in facilitating multiple perspectives or new readings on the film(s). Plus it can be helpful to know who else is considering your film sci-fi and/or campaign for a film under an argument for genre-inclusion, that might otherwise be forgotten. I could have been convinced to include The Killing of a Sacred Dear for the horror project, for example, had whoever listed it explained why it was making their list based on horror concepts, but just never thought of it that way when compiling my list.

Anyways, I also find it irritating when subjective ancillary-conservative/exclusive definitions are projected onto the forum as objective, but I'm not sure that's what's happening now (though that's certainly happened before). I see a distinction from trying to eliminate one's freedom to vote for what they want and guiding inclusive conversations through prompts that challenge thought and may actually grant additional freedom to view a film in a novel way. Maybe I'm misinterpreting the conversation on this page though.

[dustybooks]

The discussion about Blade Runner is really interesting to me, because it's one of the films that made me realize I wasn't really a "sci-fi" buff. (My mom and my sister are massive fans -- film, tv, literature -- so this was like extricating myself from the family and really gave me no pleasure.) There are certainly sf films I really love, enough that I'm sure I'll be able to come up with a list, but with Ridley Scott's film in particular, my finding it deeply unsatisfying has long been the film opinion I was least comfortable bringing up in mixed company.

All that said, I have no trouble thinking of 2001 as my favorite film, and of seeing it in IMAX a couple of years ago as my favorite theatrical experience ever. I periodically see something like Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel's original, just recently) that unexpectedly blows me away. But when I look at people who are passionate about the genre, it feels like there's something inherent to its tropes that they find interesting that simply doesn't speak to me. I can't explain it and don't really understand why, I wish I did. (I have even more trouble with horror, which I think is probably a bigger sin at this board.) But I'm still really interested in this lists project and am excited to read all the discussions, I just wanted to express solidarity over this particular film.

[knives]

I agree with the flexibility as well, it's just that taxonomy is a hobby of mine (I need better hobbies). I'll just blame it on being groomed on epistemology during undergrad. In case it wasn't clear I was including all of those things as sci-fi, just of different breeds.

[therewillbeblus]

knives, I took your process of distinction as you intended

But when I look at people who are passionate about the genre, it feels like there's something inherent to its tropes that they find interesting that simply doesn't speak to me. I can't explain it and don't really understand why, I wish I did. (I have even more trouble with horror, which I think is probably a bigger sin at this board.)

I think that's why my favorite genre films within the broad non-era-specific categories of horror and sci-fi (excluding movements like noir and classic-era westerns that channeled more historical tones from their eras) tend to take the ideas or moods and do something new with them to elicit emotional or philosophical experiences outside of the literal qualifiers of the genre. I know it drives people crazy, but if I stuck to just ghosts/monsters, or future/time travel, etc. that fully embraced their worlds other'd from ours, I couldn't come up with 50 films I loved for either list.

All that said, I have no trouble thinking of 2001 as my favorite film, and of seeing it in IMAX a couple of years ago as my favorite theatrical experience ever.

I didn't see it on IMAX, but saw a print at the Somerville Theatre in Somerville a few years ago where, during the owner introduction, he stated that they were one of only a few theatres that had a certain sound system to play the film "right" (I have no idea what the specifics were, sorry). Even though I'd seen the film many, many times by this point, I was literally jumping in my seat during scenes where I knew what to expect, and my ear drums were at times pulsating. I've never had a theatrical experience quite like it.

[Michael Kerpan]

2001 (and Citizen Kane) were in my (even then honorary) top 5 for decades -- until I discovered Japanese cinema in 2000, which triggered tectonic change. (Mind you, I don't love 2001 even the tiniest bit less now than I did when I saw it during its initial super-wide screen run). It's not that it's flawless -- but it's still "perfect".

Science fiction was one of my favorite genres for reading for many decades -- and I could probably list hundreds and hundreds of books I treasure. Yet I too doubt I could come up with anywhere near 50 science fiction films I love. Now that I think of it, almost none of my favorite books/stories have been adapted at all (and some have only been adapted very poorly).

If I WERE able to make a list, probably the most recent film on it would be Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Before we Vanish.

[bamwc2]

Viewing Log:

Diamantino (Gabriel Abrantes and Daniel Schmidt, 2018): Diamantino Matamouros (Carloto Cotta) is Portugal's greatest footballer, but when he misses a penalty shot (and his twin sisters induce a stroke in their father), he suffers a dramatic fall from grace and retires. As he embraces the new world of retirement, he vows to adopt a refugee child, but becomes embroiled in far right politics. A lesbian federal agent named Aisha Brito (Cleo Tavares) goes undercover as a young refugee boy in his care to try and get information on the embezzling that his sisters have framed Diamantino for, while they at the same time, seek to use a mad scientist to clone him and create a team of unbeatable soccer superstars. At every turn, the plans are thwarted thanks to Diamantino's colossal stupidity. With innovative visuals, and an absurdist story line, this was a bizarre film to try and follow. Some semblance of sense can probably be made from it on repeat viewings, but I'm not entirely sure I want to try. To paraphrase Ghostbusters, it was either the work of a mad man or a genius. I can't figure out which.

Genocide (Kazui Nihonmatsu, 1968): A plane carrying three American servicemen and a nuclear warhead crashes off the coast of Japan on an island with a remote village. It's brought down by a swarm of kamikaze insects flying at an unusually high altitude for them, and the same bugs quickly kill two of the survivors in a cave while driving the third serviceman into a coma. A local entomologist is blamed for their deaths, but those who believe he is innocent keep investigating and find that they can establish a psychic rapport with the collective insect consciousness after being bitten by them. The bugs are angry at humanity for developing nuclear weapons and take it upon themselves to wipe out our species before we kill them in an atomic armageddon. Another part of Criterion's "When Horror Came to Shochiku" set, this was just as cheesy as the other entries in the release. Thankfully, it was a fair bit better than The X from Outer Space, which I reviewed last time. It's still not good, but certainly had more thought put into it.

H. (Rania Attieh and Daniel Garcia, 2014): A pair of seemingly distinct stories are linked by both geography and the anomalous behavior of a "meteor that wasn't a meteor" that passes over a small rural town in the northern New York. In the first story, Helen (Robin Bartlett) is a sixty-something-year-old woman who spends her days caring for a "reborn" doll--a lifelike infant doll that she treats as if it were a newborn. One day her husband Roy (Julian Gamble) goes on a fishing trip right before the meteor passes over, and disappears. At the same time, another Helen (Rebecca Dayan), who is the pregnant wife of a photographer, experiences weird phenomenon including involuntary hypnosis when the meteor strikes. She begins to worry about her baby, and when she gets an ultrasound done, no fetus can be detected. The film tells a slow burning, narrative without ever providing any answers. It's definitely worth checking out, but don't expect it to go down easily.

The Mechanical Man (André Deed, 1921): There's only a twenty-six minute extract remaining of the Italian sci-fi silent, but what a bizarre and entertaining fragment it is. A scientist creates a metallic robot that does the bidding of its controller, but after he's killed by a gang of criminals, it comes under the control of a woman named Mato. She uses the mechanical man to wreak havoc on the well to do, including jewelry theft and kidnapping. A brave rapscallion infiltrates Mato's liar and electrocutes her as he sabotages her equipment. Like the majority of silent films, most of this one is lost to the ages. It's a shame, because what's left is bonkers. It's great to watch the mechanical man walk around and fuck things up. Unfortunately, the version on YouTube has Italian intertitles. Even though I don't speak the language, I found most of it easy to understand. The rest of it was translatable using Google.

Predestination (Michael and Peter Spierig, 2014): Ethan Hawk stars as a time cop known only as The Barkeep in this adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein's "All You Zombies" by the Spierig brothers. Time travel is invented in 1981, and an elite group of 11 temporal agents spend their days trying to prevent atrocities committed in the past. The Barkeep is obsessed with stopping the deaths carried out by the "Fizzle Bomber", a maniacal killer who blows up ten square city blocks of NYC in the mid-70s, killing over 11,000 people. As part of his project, he attempts to recruit John (Sarah Snook), who's backstory takes takes up a sizable chunk of the movie. He began life as Jane, a girl who grew up in an orphanage and sought employment as a sex surrogate on a space flight. Instead she becomes pregnant, and undergoes a radical hysterectomy. Unbeknownst to her, she was a true hermaphrodite, and her doctors reconstruct her body as male. The barkeep recruits her into the temporal agency, setting in motion a series of events that can never be broken. I've never read the Heinlein novella, but the movie was an interesting exploration of free will and fatalism. As someone who considers libertarian freedom (not in the political sense!) an illusion, the movie's message was preaching to the choir. It's an interesting time travel story with all the requisite twists and turns. I really enjoyed this one.

Resident Evil: Extinction (Russell Mulcahy, 2007): My next venture into the "Resident Evil" franchise took me to this supremely dumb sequel. We begin with a very naked Alice (Milla Jovovich) (why is she always naked?) waking up in an Umbrella facility which she attempts to break free of before she's killed. But, surprise, she's just one of many Alice clones made from a sample of her blood taken in the last movie. The real Alice now has telekinetic powers because why not, and has transformed into the road warrior as the T-virus escaped Raccoon City and turned the world into a desert wasteland where small bands of human survivors attempt to eek out an existence against zombies and encroaching sand. Alice meets up with a small band of survivors led by the single named Claire (Ali Larter). The group plans to travel to a supposed utopia in the wild lands of Alaska, but Alice is psychically drawn to the Umbrella facility in Nevada that houses her clones. I love Milla Jovovich, but this is another unforgivably dumb sequel. Her talents are reduced to poorly choreographed action sequences and frequent nudity. Paul W.S. Anderson can't write a screenplay to save his life, and Russell Mulcahy, who showed some real talent with Highlander, turns in an incoherent mess.

War of the Worlds (Steven Spielberg, 2005): Steven Spielberg is a really hit or miss director with me. I love some of his previous sci-fi endeavors like Minority Report, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, while I absolutely loathe A.I. Artificial Intelligence, as one of the worst, most manipulative movies I've ever seen. Given my polar reactions to him, I was a bit surprised when my opinion on his take on the H.G. Wells classic came between the two extremes. The film begins when divorced father of two Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) spends a week as the caregiver to his teenage son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and young daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning), Strange electrical storms occur, which result in enormous tripod machines of war emerging from the ground to wipe out humanity. The three of them run for their lives and try to make their way to Boston where they can meet up with Ray's ex, while the military finds themselves completely impotent to stop the tripods of death.

Spoiler

Like in the original novel, the Martians are brought down by germs, this time narrated by Morgan Freeman.

It's a merely okay production, with both overblown pathos, and genuine moments of horror. In short, it's Spielberg at both his best and his worst. User mileage may vary.

[domino harvey]

It’s very possible that a Spielberg film may be my number one on this list— but it’s not a title you mentioned anywhere in your post!