sci-fi

REVIEW: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Still reeling from the loss (and sort of reappearance) of Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Peter Quill (Chris Prtt) rallies the team to save the universe and one of their own as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) sends out mercenaries including Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) to retrieve one of his past experiments – Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper).

The Guardians of the Galaxy films and characters have always been a bit of a mixed bag for me. Some characters I really like, others I find annoying and the films themselves don’t always work for me with the kind of humour they have running through it. So, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. That James Gunn-humour is still there, and while I heard other people in the cinema laugh out loud a lot, I don’t think I did once but would still regularly grin a joke. Unlike in other MCU films where a joke undercuts any dramatic or emotional tension, Vol. 3 didn’t really have that and actually let some more dark and serious moments settle with you.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 delves into Rocket’s backstory and his connection with the High Evolutionary. It is almost hard to watch all the animal experimentation going on even though they’re all computer-generated and it definitely skirts the edges of body horror at times. The High Evolutionary is also one of those kind of old-school villains in the sense there’s no tragic backstory and instead they are just a horrible, manipulative person who does evil things to innocent people and you want to see get them get their comeuppance. It’s kind of nice to have a villain that’s there to be awful and for the audience to hate without being like “well they kind of have a point to an extent”. The High Evolutionary has a huge ego and a god-complex and does horrendous things because of it and thinks he’s right. He’s just the sort of villain you want to see beaten. (more…)

REIVEW: Glorious Poison by Kat Dunn

Glorious Poison is the third and final book in the Battalion of the Dead trilogy so there may be vague spoilers for the previous books, Dangerous Remedy and Monstrous Design, in this review.

Robespierre is dead. The Reign of Terror is over. As Royalist strength grows, the Duc de L’Aubespine plots a coup that will consign the revolution to history. With Olympe in his clutches and one of the Battalion playing spy, they will all have to rely on one another – however hard that might be – in order to make the right choices and potentially save France’s future.

Boy was Glorious Poison a bit of a tough read in comparison to the previous books. There are still schemes and political machinations and friendship but everything looks so bleak for the heroes that it can be a painful and sad read at times. As well as the overarching plot of trying to stop the Duc which seems like an impossible task, so many of the characters are going through life changing events and are having new traumas added to the ones they already had.

Friendships and loyalties are tested as characters are each going through some form of emotional turmoil and are often trying to hide their true feelings and motivations from the others. This trilogy has always been about the choices people can make, both good and bad, and then the consequences from those choices and that’s never been so prominent as it is in Glorious Poison. The choice to live, the choice to love, the choice to fight, the choice to trust – it all slowly builds as uncertain alliances are made in order to achieve their goal of saving Olympe and stopping the Duc.

Throughout the trilogy the setting has always been vivid and now in Glorious Poison we’re back in Paris and with a sudden change of leadership the city, and the country, is on a knifes edge. The differences between the upper and lower classes are stark once again as those who were under threat by the Revolution, are now able to be more free with their luxuries.

Though it is often a story where the characters feel hopeless, Glorious Poison is a testament to the strength of friendship and found family, and when one character might not believe in themselves, they’ll find others will. Overall Glorious Poison is a smart and satisfying end to this trilogy. 4/5.

REVIEW: Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon (2021)

After Mona Lisa (Jeon Jong-seo), a young woman with telekinetic powers breaks out of an asylum in Louisiana, she makes her way to New Orleans where she meets fellow misfits and outcasts.

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon starts off strong with this neon-infused New Orleans setting but everything does peter out in the second half. It’s a film that has both comedic moments and more serious ones and the blending of those two doesn’t always work. When it’s focused on the more eerie side of things that’s when it really worked for me.

There’s a level of tension throughout the film as though Mona Lisa has these powers which allow her to make people do whatever she wants, she’s been locked away from the world for so long that she doesn’t really have many social skills or awareness of how the world works. She’s naive in some ways and it’s easy for her to be taken advantage of. Especially at the beginning when she’s just got out of the asylum and is just wearing a straight jacket, because of Jong-seo’s size it makes her look even more vulnerable. (more…)

REVIEW: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

After Cassie Lang’s (Kathryn Newton) prototype goes awry, she along with her father Scott (Paul Rudd), Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) are pulled into the Quantum Realm and have to rely on each other to find a way back home.

I do have mixed feelings about Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania as it’s a film I enjoyed when watching it, but then thinking about it in hindsight there’s stuff that really didn’t work for me.

One of those things is the editing – it was really all over the place. Some of the shot choices were weird and the way things were edited together it was often hard to tell where characters were in relation to each other. This was annoying and sometimes confusing in action sequences but it was downright strange in scenes where characters are sitting around a table talking. Some edits were jarring and took me out of scenes that should be really simple to follow.

Ant-Man is known as one of the more comedic characters in the MCU and unlike Thor: Love and Thunder, Quantumania finds the right balance when it comes to humour. No joke is over done and new and quirky characters are some nice, fun light relief and are used well.

As the vast majority of Quantumania takes place in the Quantum Realm special effects and CGI is abundant and for the most part it’s pretty good. Some things do feel flat and the creature designs and environments kind of feel like they’d fit in well in the world of Stars Wars, but other creatures are pretty cool. I think some of the issues are that no doubt the actors filmed a lot of this film on green screens and you could tell as at times a couple of actors were supposed to be looking at something and their reactions were out of sync or they were looking in slightly different directions so their sightlines were off. Again, this may well have been improved with better editing choices.

Besides the general problems that arise being in an unknown world, Scott and his family have to contend with secrets from Janet’s past, which includes Kang (Jonathan Majors). Majors is a really imposing and compelling presence throughout the film and Quantumania does that always helpful thing of building a mythos around someone before you even meet them. Majors really has a sense of gravitas in his performance and even when Kang is talking to other characters in a perfectly reasonable tone it always feels like there is an underlying threat there.

Quantumania straddles the line between being a nice, self-contained story about a family trying to make their way home and setting out the building blocks for the MCU’s next big villain. This also makes the film a bit awkward at times and while Kang is an effective presence in Quantumania, rightly or wrongly he out shines the heroes of this story.

Overall, I did have fun while watching Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania but it’s not without it’s faults. I will say that while I’m not sure how memorable this film will be in terms of the rest of the MCU, at least I enjoyed watching it unlike Thor: Love and Thunder which actively annoyed me as I was watching it. 3/5.

REVIEW: Poster Girl by Veronica Roth

What’s right is right. Sonya Kantor knows this slogan – she lived by it for most of her life. For decades, everyone in the Seattle-Portland megalopolis lived under it, as well as constant surveillance in the form of the Insight, an ocular implant that tracked every word and every action, rewarding or punishing by a rigid moral code set forth by the Delegation. Then there was a revolution. The Delegation fell. Its most valuable members were locked in the Aperture, a prison on the outskirts of the city. And everyone else, now free from the Insight’s monitoring, went on with their lives. Sonya, former poster girl for the Delegation, has been imprisoned for ten years when an old enemy comes to her with a deal: find a missing girl who was stolen from her parents by the old regime, and earn her freedom. The path Sonya takes to find the child will lead her through an unfamiliar, crooked post-Delegation world where she finds herself digging deeper into the past – and her family’s dark secrets – than she ever wanted to.

I’m not one who often comments on the writing style in a book so it has to be pretty bad or pretty different for me to notice it – I tend to be more focused on characters and how the story makes me feel. Veronica Roth has written a few adult books since her YA dystopian juggernaut series Divergent (which I read over a decade ago) but Poster Girl is the first I’ve read. I have to say, I did have to check a couple of times to see if Poster Girl was supposed to be YA or adult as the writing style is quite simplistic and it felt more like a YA story. Also, Sonya herself felt juvenile at times. Perhaps this was intentional as she was put in prison when she was a teenager and so has simultaneously been forced to grow up but everything in her life also stopped for the past ten years so she hasn’t matured in other ways. Either way, Sonya often felt younger than someone in her mid-late twenties.

It was interesting seeing how a society moved on after being a dystopian one for so long. So often dystopian stories are about the rise of the people and overthrowing the corrupt government and they end once they’ve succeeded in doing that. Having Poster Girl set ten years after the revolution was interesting as you could see how some characters attitudes have changed and how others were still stuck overthinking everything as they were so used to having an implant in their brain that automatically quantified if something they said or did was worthy of reward or punishment.

There is a romance element that is underdeveloped and just feels like it was added for the sake of having a romance subplot and added nothing to the overall story or to Sonya’s character. It’s kind of enemies-to-lovers but the transition from reluctant allies to lovers is far too rushed and there’s little chemistry when it comes to the romance side of things. I preferred the mistrust and jabs Sonya and her former acquaintance had before they started to be on the same page.

The case of the stolen child that Sonya is tasked with finding has its moments but the mystery isn’t particularly compelling and some of the twists can be guessed from a mile off. I think that is the crux of the problem with Poster Girl. While it is a pretty quick read at less than 300 pages, the case doesn’t have enough tension and Sonya isn’t that interesting as a character either. While the setting is a good and intriguing starting point, the story isn’t memorable or event that satisfying because so much was predictable. 2/5.

REVIEW: John Dies at the End by David Wong

Normally I’d give a general overview of the book I’m reviewing, whether that’s what’s on the blurb of the book or my own synopsis, but with John Dies at the End I’m not really sure I can. The blurb is weird and vague and gives now real information except warnings not to read the book, but now that you’ve picked it up bad things are going to happen and you can’t unlearn the fact there’s an “otherwordly invasion currently threatening to enslave humanity”. So needless to say, going into John Dies at the End I really did not know what to expect. I will say it’s about two friends, John and David (the book is from his perspective and parts of it has him recounting events of the book to a reporter), and how they can see things that aren’t there and go on adventures as they try and figure out what’s going on.

Even though I’ve now read John Dies at the End, I still can’t describe it. It’s a weird, creepy horror story with paranormal elements and drug-induced psychoses and a dog that’s perhaps immortal. At this point I’m not even sure I really liked it but there was something about it that was super compelling and kept me reading. Perhaps it’s because so much strange and/or unsettling things were happening all the time so I ended up feeling like I was just going along for the ride and was waiting to see what on Earth was going to happen next – and if anything was ever really explained.

There were some answers but not enough for me and the answers we did get often led to more questions. There’s so many moments when characters aren’t sure they can believe what they’re seeing and as this is being told from David’s point of view, you end up doubting things too. It’s really quite the strange reading experience.

I think I preferred the first third of John Dies at the End, mainly because that really set the scene in terms of the creepiness with horrifying creatures and the general unnerving feeling of something not being right. While I knew John Dies at the End was classed as a horror story, the kind of weirdness and horror it had was so unexpected that it was more shocking and interesting to begin with. There’s also a time skip about a third of the way though and I’m generally not a fan of time skips so that didn’t really do much for me, especially as the first third was so action-packed and interesting. As John Dies at the End is a 460-page book, variations of the same weirdness did get a bit repetitive over time and I did find the last 100 pages or so a bit more of a drag even though more and more things were being revealed.

Character-wise David seems to be a bit of a spectator to his own life and gets dragged into this situation by John and though he’s pretty resourceful, a lot of it comes down to dumb luck. The same can be said for John but pretty much everything that came out of John’s mouth was cringe-inducing as it often revolved around his penis or making himself seem more strong/smart/skilled than he was. These two guys are just average twenty-somethings and so there is the internet-related, kinda gross boys’ humour that you might expect which at times I did find myself skimming over.

John Dies at the End was an interesting reading experience. As I said, I preferred the beginning when it was all new and unexpected (one of the first sequences inside a supposedly haunted house was genuinely suspenseful and surprising) and as the plot progresses it gets more and more wild which some may love while others may find ridiculous – I was on the fence about it. I didn’t like John but being in David’s head wasn’t so bad and his sense of imagination really did paint a vivid picture when it came to some of the creatures they encountered or horrifying (and sometimes really gross) situations they found themselves in. 3/5.

REVIEW: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 (2015)

Teamed with a group of her closest friends – including Gale (Liam Hemsworth), Finnick (Sam Claflin), and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) – Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) goes off on a mission with the unit from District 13 as they risk their lives to stage an assassination attempt on President Snow (Donald Sutherland) who has become increasingly obsessed with destroying her.

While Katniss and her team have to take part in guerrilla-style warfare, the themes that have been prevalent throughout this series are still there. Katniss’s march through the boobytrapped Capitol is like she’s back in the Arena and both President Snow and President Coin (Julianne Moore) are doing their best to manipulate the situation and Katniss to their advantage.

Josh Hutcherson deserves a shout out for his performance in Mockingjay – Part 2. Naturally Jennifer Lawrence is still fantastic and she is really the glue holding this franchise together, but in this film, Hutcherson gets to do more than just be in love with Katniss and be a way for her to show her softer side. Peeta has been tortured and had his mind manipulated while being captured by the Capitol and as he slowly starts to break out of the confusion of not being able to trust his own mind, Hutcherson’s performance is often both impressive and heart-breaking.

Katniss and her team’s mission is tense and exciting as boobytraps of any kind can spring up out of nowhere and when Peeta joins the team he’s a wildcard that gives Katniss extra stress. There’s a couple of moments of levity at the beginning of Mockingjay – Part 2, mostly down to Finnick and Annie (Stef Dawson), but really it is almost relentless grim as it doesn’t shy away from the realities of war and Katniss has to face losing the ones she cares about in a way she hasn’t before.

Sure, an argument can be made that Mockingjay should’ve been one film (like many last books in YA series film adaptations) but it really is a solid end to a series of films that have always been somewhere between good and fantastic. I think The Hunger Games films are some of the best adaptations of YA books and is truly the high point of an influx of dystopian media we had a decade ago. Mockingjay – Part 2 is an impressive and satisfying end as it pulls together all the themes and characters the series has been dealing with. 4/5.

REVIEW: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

After surviving the 74th Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) become targets of the Capitol as unrest rises in the Districts of Panem. Then when the Quarter Quell is announced, they plus twenty-two other former victors, are forced to return to the arena.

Catching Fire is honestly perfect. It’s one of the best sequels ever and best book to film adaptations. It does exactly what you want from a sequel (even one that’s a bit of a rehash of the original), it builds on the character work done before, increases the stakes and tension, and it leaves you wanting more. Just like when I reread the book, I was amazed that half the film happens before Katniss and Peeta arrive in the arena and you’re never wishing it would hurry up and get to that point. The pacing is truly excellent as the civil unrest throughout Panem in the first half of the film is like an ever-increasing boiling pot of tension, threatening to explode at any moment. Meanwhile the latter half in the arena is tense and exciting as there’s a whole load of new creatures and elements ready to kill Katniss and her potential allies.

Hutcherson’s Peeta and Liam Hemsworth’s Gale are still kind of pushed to the side and like the first film, any thoughts on focussing on a love triangle are soon forgotten as Katniss does what she can to keep herself and those she loves safe. Because that’s the thing throughout the books/films, it’s clear that Katniss does care for both of them but she’s never allowed herself to think of a future where a happily ever after was possible.

The cast is expanded with a whole host of new – or rather former – tributes. Having the competitors being former victors adds an extra edge to this Hunger Games and there’s alliances and friendships that Katniss and Peeta are unaware of. Finnick (Sam Claflin), Beetee (Jeffrey Wright), Johanna (Jena Malone), Mags (Lynn Cohen) and Wiress (Amanda Plummer) are some of the major players but with everyone having their own agenda it’s hard for Katniss to know who to trust.

Jennifer Lawrence really is fantastic throughout all these films and she’s the backbone to this franchise. The final shot of Catching Fire though is outstanding though. It’s a close up of her Lawrence’s face as Katniss goes through all five stages of grief before staring straight into the camera with a look of fiery determination in her eyes.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire is truly an excellent film and is pretty much the gold standard for a YA book to movie adaptation. It’s exciting, heartfelt, and tackles big themes like cruelty and dictatorship in an engaging way. 5/5.

REVIEW: The Hunger Games (2012)

After revisiting the books for the first time in about a decade it was time to revisit the films – many of which I probably haven’t seen since they were first released.

Every year in the ruins of what was once North America, the nation of Panem forces each of its twelve districts to send a teenage boy and girl to compete in the Hunger Games – a fight to the death on live TV until only one victor remains standing. When her younger sister Prim (Willow Shields) is chosen, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) volunteers to take her place. Katniss is forced to rely upon her sharp instincts as well as the mentorship of drunken former victor Haymitch (Woody Harrelson) as she and her male counterpart, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), are pitted against bigger, stronger representatives, some of whom have trained for this their whole lives.

From the outset it’s clear the difference between the Capitol and the Districts aka the haves and the have-nots. The Hunger Games opens with two men with brightly coloured hair and vibrant clothes talking about the Games and then cuts to District 12 where a woman screams and everything is bleak and grey.

Even before we get into the arena, the camera work is shaky and frantic. While it works in the arena, encompassing the fear and the adrenalin as the tributes fight to survive and quickly moving away from children’s bloody bodies allowing the imagination to fill in the gaps, in Katniss’s day to day life it feels jarring. I’m not one to feel queasy due to shaky cam, especially not when watching a film on my laptop, but some of the sequences in District 12 did make me feel funny and my eyes hurt due to the camera work.

Some of the most interesting moments in The Hunger Games comes from things we’d never have seen in the book as it was all from Katniss’s point of view. In the film, you get to see the Gamemakers, the people pulling the strings behind the scenes on their holographic screens as they set traps for the young competitors. Again, it goes to show that for people in the Capitol this is just entertainment or just a job but for the tributes it’s the worst time of their life.

I feel like there will be more to comment on performance-wise as the films progress but the likes of Stanley Tucci, Elizabeth Banks, and Toby Jones looking like their having a whale of a time. They all play citizens of the Capitol and are used to lives of luxury but Banks manages to ensure that Effie comes across as well-meaning if a bit insensitive as she’s never not on Katniss and Peeta’s side.

Jennifer Lawrence is really does a fantastic job at Katniss. She’s not the most expressive or potentially even likeable character as she’s had to have so much responsibility from a young age but Lawrence makes it work, showing the girl behind Katniss’s stoicism and the moments when she truly lets her emotions out, often when she’s with her sister or Rue (Amandla Stenberg), you truly feel what she’s going through.

Overall, The Hunger Games is a solid, though sometimes a little slow, adaptation and with stellar performances bringing to life such interesting characters it sets the franchise off on a good foot. 4/5.

REVIEW: Sea Fever (2019)

Marine biology student Siobhán (Hermione Corfield) joins a trawler crew to conduct research as part of her studies but things soon go awry as she and the crew, marooned at sea, struggle for their lives against a growing parasite in their water supply.

Written and directed by Neasa Hardiman Sea Fever is one of those more subtle, quietly haunting horror films. It has a great script and cast but one thing I think it really has going in its favour is it doesn’t try and overly explain the creature. You just see glimpses and Siobhán has theories based on science but nothing is ever proven. Sometimes with “creature features” having to have answers for everything leads to plot holes and an unsatisfying threat. Sea Fever embraces the mystery and having the creature, the parasites and how it functions being an unknown quantity means that there’s always a danger to every decision the characters make.

Though there’s hints of more of a gruesome outcome for the crew, the third act focuses in on the horrors of panicking people rather than the horrors of some unknown creature. Siobhán is a scientist first and foremost and believes everyone should quarantine and not get ashore as soon as possible for fear of infecting others, while the rest of the crew just want to get home and be safe, even if they don’t know whether or not they’ve already been infected. Personally, I thought that worked really well as sometimes a group of people are their own worst enemy. Seeing how these characters react in close confinement and when and how they turn on each other was riveting.

Sea Fever is super atmospheric little Irish indie film and one that I’m really glad I watched. The sound design is great too as is the score by Christoffer Franzén. It suits the tone of the film perfectly and never oversells a moment. 4/5.