Tagged science fiction

This film was previously reviewed in September 2021 as part of our Venice Film Festival coverage. Much has been made of Denis Villeneuve’s crusade for the physical institution of cinema but one thing is...

Fritz Lang created some of the most indelible images in cinema. Most come from his German films: the rotund spacecraft from Woman in the Moon (1929), Peter Lorre’s panicking child-killer branded with a...

This review was originally published on 01/02/2018. There’s a lot going on in Alita: Battle Angel, with class warfare, a mysterious past, a conspiracy plot, a teen romance, a detour into a Speed...

"I am who?” Tima, the child robot of Rintaro's Metropolis (2001), asks just before she plunges from the edge of a high-rise tower and Metropolis collapses around her. She is parroting the first words ever...

There’s a lot going on in Alita: Battle Angel, with class warfare, a mysterious past, a conspiracy plot, a teen romance, a detour into a Speed Racer-esque take on roller derby called "Motorball", glimpses...

On a dark stormy night in 1818, a teenage girl wrote one of the most influential pieces of fiction in history. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein has always appealed to movie makers – what better source...

https://vimeo.com/255663937 Newly released on Vimeo, Terminally Happy is an unsettling science-fiction short from writer-director Adina Istrate. The premise seems mundane at first: Louis (Alastair...

Perhaps it’s a sign of how truly apocalyptic 2016 has felt that the year ends with two science-fiction thrillers, turning the lens away from the real dilemmas to focus on something a little more...

“Wait a minute, Doc… Are you telling me that you built a time machine… out of a DeLorean?!” Few films feel as simultaneously dated and ageless as Robert Zemeckis’ 1985 classic Back to the Future....

From the brief setup and first exhilarating droid deployment (complete with bot’s-eye view camerawork), Chappie appears to fulfill the premise’s potential to be this director’s masterwork. Watch with...

Elysium was the kind of movie that had a lot going against it from the moment it was announced. South African director Neill Blomkamp's debut, District 9, came out of nowhere and stunned critics and...

Alex Garland is in confident control from Ex Machina’s boldly brisk beginning to perfectly-pitched end. Carefully composed shots, swift cuts and succinct dialogue bestow the tumultuous pace and visual...

The Rocky Horror Picture Show is not considered high art, or even a piece of exceptional filmmaking. It is pulpy, frequently juvenile, and arguably nonsensical. It's a kitsch comedy musical, peddling...

Ever since 1897, when HG Wells first wrote of Martians attacking London in The War of the Worlds, science fiction has dreamed up many an idea of what might happen when we finally make contact with life from...

Barbarella (1968) is campy '60s madness – hilariously dirty, adorably silly and oddly captivating. In the far future, humanity has moved past sex, war and jealousy and created a universal harmony of love -...