Category: Sci-fi
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Predator: Badlands Review: For the little ones
PREDATOR: BADLANDS (2025) Writer/director Dan Trachtenberg is on fire. First there was his thrilling character-focused Predator film Prey (2022), followed by this summer’s animated entry (and equally awesome) Predator: Killer of Killers (2025) and now third Predator: Badlands, with which Trachtenberg flips the script. Instead of a human protagonist, we journey with Dek, the runt…
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The Running Man Review: Powell’s a pleb in a Carhartt jacket
The Running Man (2025) Oh the irony. We the people are once again being manipulated, via our collective nostalgia, memberberries, whatever you want to call it, into watching a movie about big corp manipulating us. Sigh. Let’s face it, they called this movie The Running Man for a reason. That reason being we remember. We…
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The Shrounds Review: A kiss cam from a rose on the grave
THE SHROUDS (2024) As a lifelong David Cronenberg fan (and fellow Canadian/ex-Torontonian), I’m obviously and always up for his intersection of psychological and technological body horror that he aided and abetted and elevated. The beautifying of the grotesque is at the foundation of his work, whether it takes the form of well lit mutations, infection…
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The Fantastic Four: First Steps Review: Baby I love you
THE FANTASTIC FOUR:FIRST STEPS (2025) If you grew up on or rely on the cinematic Marvelverse for your superhero knowhow you may: 1. believe that back in the day the Guardians of the Galaxy was a comic series all of the youth were reading and 2. be unaware that the Fantastic Four is arguably the…
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Black Mirror – Eulogy Review: Every season has its winner
BLACK MIRROR (2011-2025) – Eulogy Black Mirror has often (and rightly) been compared to another science fiction anthology series The Twilight Zone (1959-1964); and like Black Mirror, not every episode was meant to induce dread and alarm. Sometimes they were, although haunting, downright sweet. I’m thinking specifically of The Twilight Zone Epiosde 101: The Changing of…
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Black Mirror – Hotel Reverie Review: Every season has its dud
BLACK MIRROR (2011-2025) – Hotel Reverie San Junipero (2016) is the fourth episode in the third season of Black Mirror. It is one of the few episodes that I can recall that doesn’t highlight the negative aspects of technology, but instead imagines the idea of a digital afterlife. It’s the story of a lesbian couple…
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Mickey 17 Review: Messy Mickey
MICKEY 17 (2025) Director/writer Bong Joon Ho – The Host (2006), Snowpiercer (2013), Parasite (2019) – has released his first film post-Oscar Best Picture win; and while class conflict and wealth disparity were front and centre for Parasite, new offering Mickey 17 adds a story of space colonization and printable/disposable humans to his provocative repertoire. First…
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The Electric State Review: Relax, it’s not Waterworld
THE ELECTRIC STATE (2025) So the reviews are in for the Russo Brothers’ new big budget Netflix blockbuster and thus far, they are not great. It’s a 320 million dollar cautionary tale about the potential pitfalls and dangers of technology, staring two safe bets, as in the perpetually wise-cracking Chris Pratt and a generationally beloved…
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Companion Review: She’s a doll
COMPANION (2025) If you’ve seen the poster and considered the title, you can surmise the genre and baseline plot of this movie. You guessed it, our main character is a sexbot, played with lovely, “bring her home to mom” sensibilities by Sophie Thatcher, who is making some excellent choices, e.g. Heritic (2024), MaXXine (2024) and…
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Elevation Review: Aim Higher
ELEVATION (2024) Once again we have a sci-fi monster movie (among my favourite genres) in which there are “rules”. Think A Quiet Place (2018) and Bird Box (2018), but instead of having to stay silent and avoiding direct eye contact, Elevation’s murderous creatures can’t get you if you are above a very specific elevation. An…
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Transformers One Review: More than meets me half way
TRANSFORMERS ONE (2024) In the early 1980s Transformers was a show that had me racing home from school to catch it. And if you were smart (like me), when your birthday came around you could convince a couple friends to go in on an action figure for your gift, and if your lunch box wasn’t…
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The Substance Review: Buyer beware
THE SUBSTANCE (2024) Hitchcock, Kubrick, De Palma, Lynch, Carpenter, Cronenberg, Aronofsky. All are masterful directors who boast distinct styles, are universally respected, and gave us iconic horror films. Director Coralie Fargeat is acutely aware of this as she litters The Substance with homages to these legends. Like Fargeat, I am also an enormous fan of…
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Alien: Romulus Review: The bitch is back
ALIEN: ROMULUS (2024) Everything old is new again in the latest Alien filmography offering, and after the lack of fan love for Prometheus and Alien: Covenant, this bitch is getting back to basics. The aforementioned twosome failed for some due to their lack of scares and fixation on mythology. Personally I enjoyed them and place…
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Uglies Movie Review: No Pug Fuglies
UGLIES (2024) Being an average looking dystopian movie in this bigger, better, hotter, appearance-oriented movie sphere can be really really hard. Unfortunately for Joey King (who proves once again that she can carry a film), Uglies fails to glow up. Mostly because it excited us with current issues such as our obsession with beauty, plastic…
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Subservience Movie Review: Terminator Rocks the Cradle
SUBSERVIENCE (2024) Whether or not it aimed to be, Subservience is a cheesy, campy good time with a very game Megan Fox (perfect casting). It’s not “so bad that it’s good”, but rather it’s a fun, low stakes fantasy sci-fi thriller that accomplishes exactly what it set out to do: entertain and looking good while…