Science Fiction - Cinema Crespodiso

Review: ‘The Signal’

“The Signal” is a delightfully weird little sci-fi indie movie that has more than one trick up its sleeve, and while the story is lacking an emotional thread that ties all the twists and turns together, it is pretty well made and fun to watch unfold, like a Twilight Zone episode that just goes bonkers.

The story is centered on three college kids, Nic, Jonah and Haley. Nic and Haley are a couple, but their relationship is at a tough spot because not only are they taking a cross country trip from MIT to California to help Haley relocate for school, but Nic also has some sort of physical ailment which is making him lose the use of his legs and most likely other things as well. So he’s scared of what’s going to become of himself and he doesn’t want to be a burden on Haley. Meanwhile, Nic and Jonah are computer whiz kids who are in the midst of a game of a cat and mouse with a hacker named Nomad, and while on their cross country trip to take Haley to California, they find out where this Nomad character lives and decide to take a quick side trip to pay this person a visit.

And then things just go horribly wrong.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Edge of Tomorrow’

Welcome to the fun side of war. Well, a sci-fi war against an alien threat involving a video game style restart mechanism that renders the specter of death, at least temporarily, into less of an unwanted state of (not) being and more of an asset which can be used to defeat the enemy in the most rad of ways (read: weaponized mech suit).

“Edge of Tomorrow” doesn’t want to tell us that war is bad, we know that war is bad, we’re not idiots, so instead “Edge of Tomorrow” embraces the war and the mayhem and the horrific numerous possibilities and turns it all into a romp of a summer blockbuster, into a (dare we say it) almost light film about the terror of war and the kind of guts and dedication and intensity it would take to get launched into such conditions and even dream about making it out alive, yet alone victorious.

War is indeed a force that gives us meaning, so when our main character Major William Cage (Tom Cruise) finds himself thrust onto the front lines of an invasion against an alien stronghold in Europe, his cowardice and lack of spine or discipline becomes readily apparent. When confronted with battle, he stumbles around like a lost child, someone’s sick joke writ large, as death and destruction literally rain down all around him (on a beach, by the way. In Normandy. Because you know…metaphors!), and really it is a miracle that the pathetic Cage even makes it as long as he does in the battle and manages to pull of what he can, and soon enough he dies a rather horrific death (which is saying something considering the ways people die all around him), but thanks to the exact manner of his death, something clicks and BOOM, Cage wakes up in the previous day, and finds himself having to re-live the same day or so, leading up the battle all over again. And he goes to war. And he dies. And he wakes up.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Transcendence’

“Transcendence” definitely WANTS to be a heady science fiction movie that explores big ideas and makes a big impact, but instead it lands a little short, for some reason not really having the gravity or weight needed to establish that emotional connection between the characters and the plot, and in the end just being maybe a few steps above something like “The Lawnmower Man.”

Dr. Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is the world’s foremost mind when it comes to artificial intelligence and all that scientific mumbo jumbo, and he wants to use his knowledge and creations to learn more about the world and the people living in it, while his wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) wants to use the same technology and knowledge to actively make the world a better, safer, cleaner, healthier place. And then there’s RIFT, an underground anti-technology terrorist group, led by a foxy little chick with smokey eyes (Kate Mara), and very early in the movie they make a coordinated attack on numerous computer labs, killing dozens of people and blowing up a bunch of machines, all in an effort to thwart the scientific community.

Dr. Caster becomes a casualty of this war, though his death is slower, allowing time for his brain waves and consciousness to be uploaded into an already functioning artificial intelligence machine.

Don’t focus on that little detail, that’s what “suspension of disbelief” is all about. The movie doesn’t really bother to focus on this little facet on which the entire plot hinges, and that’s fine, because that’s cinema.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘RoboCop’ (2014)

Well it wasn’t the complete piece of shit that I was actually expecting, but that does not mean that this new “RoboCop” movie is actually good. Just because a movie brings up some ideas doesn’t mean it is actually smart or even tried to do anything, especially if nothing is actually said by the movie. Anyone can stand on a street corner and yell about how “drone warfare is bad!” But that doesn’t mean people would want to stand around and listen to this person yelling for two hours. We get it. Drones can be bad. So what?

Taking the movie as its own thing, ignoring the fact that it is a remake of a beloved classic, “RoboCop” at least has a couple things going for. Set about 15 or so years in the future, the movie starts with some television pundit blowhard named Novak (Samuel L. Jackson) just going on and on and on about the use of drones and droids in other countries for reasons of forced pacification, and bemoaning how Americans are against the use of drones here in America*. And here during the beginning segment of the movie, we get some decent ideas about drone warfare and modern American imperialism, and an interesting and daring sequence in which these drones (including ED-209s) get attacked by suicide bombers, determined to make this attack unfold on a live television, and we even get to see a young kid, inspired by his suicide bombing father, pick up a weapon and go at the drones himself (which was pretty stupid on the kids part). So the movie starts with a literal bang and actually for a second seems like it might go to some interesting places.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Her’

“Her” is one of the most complete and satisfying movies released in theaters in this country in who knows how long. Equal parts rom-com and relationship drama, with a little futuristic sci-fi thrown in for good measure, this is a very emotional movie about relationships and how they evolve, whether they include romantic entanglements or not, and for good measure, it is also a movie about how humans relate to each other in the face of ever-changing technology. And it’s all done in a very sweet, melancholy, smart and funny way, which pretty much makes this whole movie a revelation, as one of the more thrilling things in this world is when a beautifully realized artwork like this is unveiled in all of its beauty.

“Her” is set in an unspecific not-too-distant future, one that is very recognizable to us but also features technological advancements that we can easily imagine. When the movie starts we are with our lead character Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), whose unfortunate moniker is pretty much the worse thing about this whole film, and he is in the midst of his job, which is to write beautiful handwritten letters (of course not really handwritten but faked to appear handwritten) on behalf of paying customers, which means he has to pour all of these heavy emotions, whether they be love, or grief, or regret or whatever, out of himself and into these letters for people whom he has never met and really doesn’t know. He then leaves his job and heads to home, where is super lonely and loves to listening to sad music to match his mood, as his world is falling apart around him due to the dissolution of his marriage to his wife (Rooney Mara). And in case we don’t get that he misses her and he is lonely, we get to see him lay in bed thinking of idyllic flashbacks of his soon to be ex-wife, whom he is very hesitant to officially let go.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Ender’s Game’

“Ender’s Game” is a nifty sci-fi movie that is more serious-minded and morally complex than most other big budget movies out there. Based on an award-winning and highly touted sci-novel of the same name, this is a story that tackles some pretty big issues, and while it doesn’t get so deep into these things that the movie comes across as a lecture or preachy, at least it feels comfortable enough to even bring these ideas up, daring the audience to actually think about the parallels between this sci-fi world and our real world. Plus there is some cool space stuff, so that helps.

In “Ender’s Game,” our protagonist is 12-year Ender Wiggin (Asa Butterfield), who has been chosen to be groomed to be the next great commander of Earth’s international space fleet, which was formed after an alien invasion years prior nearly wiped out all of humanity. Since the invasion, everyone on Earth banded together to put together a military force that could repel future attacks, and in an effort to find the best leaders possible, children were regularly drafted into the military and put through different camps and schools in order to find the absolute best of the best. Of course, as indicated with the title of this story, Ender is one of these chosen few, fortunate enough to be considered a candidate to be a great leader, and unfortunate enough to have the weight of mankind’s possible extinction placed squarely on his shoulders.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Gravity’

Holy mole, if you have not seen this one for yourself just yet, you need to do yourself a favor and check out the next available showing of “Gravity” as soon as possible. And if you like 3D, then go ahead and drop the extra few bucks on the 3D screening because this is one of the very few movies that uses this gimmick very well. But in the meantime, just go see “Gravity” and know that I love it.

I mean, woah, what a movie. Containing a very simple story structure that proves you don’t need overplotting to make a story interesting, “Gravity” is a tale of survival in outer space and that’s pretty much it. A non-professional doctor (Sandra Bullock) is trained to do a space walk in order to install a new program into the Hubble telescope, accompanied by a veteran astronaut (George Clooney), and these two become stranded when debris from an exploded satellite causes a chain reaction that sends pieces of space debris flying at them, destroying their Explorer shuttle and leaving them with no way home. So the whole movie is how these people try to survive in space and how the hell they try to get back to Earth.

Leading up to the release of this movie, it is really incredible how often I heard people muse about this movie’s story and plot, wondering how they could possibly “stretch” out this premise to a feature length movie. I just couldn’t understand these people and their concerns because that is enough of a hook to make me WANT to see this film. Exactly HOW were they doing to pull this off? What were they going to do to make this a compelling and interesting movie from start to finish, or will there be boring parts of just floating in space?Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Riddick’

So I saw the latest further adventures of Richard B. Riddick but I realized I didn’t write anything about it so here we go, a little quickie review in which we decide whether or not the movie “Riddick” is actually worth anyone’s time.

And I think this might come down to your enjoyment of the Riddick character himself and whether or not you give any sort of crap about this space outlaw and his mission to find his home planet of Furya, but then again it may also come down to whether or not you like sort of entertaining sci-fi movies that are just a couple of steps above Sy-Fy Channel original movie quality.

While there is a short recap towards the beginning of the film that recaps the very ending of “Chronicles of Riddick” and attempts to explain how Riddick is lost in the cosmos and can’t find his home planet (because it’s all about family…wait a second…wrong Vin Diesel movie…), you really don’t need to see either movie that predates this one in order to follow along with what is happening (but if you haven’t yet, you really should see “Pitch Black,” as it is genuinely quite good).Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The World’s End’

Here is “The World’s End” – from the writers, director and stars of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” comes a movie about a group of friends reuniting to recreate a pub crawl 20 years after their failed first attempt, and during this pub crawl they work out a number of issues among themselves while also coming to the realization that their old hometown seems to have been taken over all “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” style.

“The World’s End” may be about a group of friends, but really its about two of the guys, ringleader Gary King (Simon Pegg) and Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), and even then, it’s really just about Gary King, BUT REALLY in the end when it’s all said and done this movie is actually about all of us. So the movie starts with a retelling of a pub crawl attempt by five teenagers in a small UK village, with the goal being to down a pint at 12 different pubs over the course of a night. This first attempt is a failure.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Elysium’

Anyone looking for a dose of political allegory mixed with some intense action and a few outbursts of surprising violence? Want to see Matt Damon in a cybernetic exoskeleton suit? Do you desire an action movie that is more than just chases and gun fights but also includes thoughts and ideas? Then get thee to a movie theater and check out “Elysium,” because this flick is smarter than the average fare (see that? See what I did there?).Continue Reading …