Sci-fi

News, Reviews & Features
  • Review: The Creator is high-end, low-tech sci-fi with middling ambitions

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 11th October 2023

    Apologetically plonked at the end of the September release schedule like a $100m afterthought, Gareth Edwards' The Creator is a movie that does a lot with a little, although that should be no surprise to anyone familiar with the director's prudent knack of making movies that look twice as expensive as they actually are. His first movie since Star Wars spin-off Rogue One - that rare Disney-era Star Wars feature that is universally beloved - Edwards finds himself back on imperious form, crafting a zeitgeisty tale about the dangers of A.I. that couldn't be more timely if it were written by ChatGPT itself.

  • Review: The Wandering Earth seeks to save the planet but rings hollow

    Movie Review | Luke Whiston | 31st May 2019

    Think of the most outlandish thing you can think of. Now imagine it bigger. No, bigger than that. Think the Wright Brothers diving into the Trench Run. Bigger. Think Nikola Tesla wielding Mjolnir in a duel with Edison. Bigger! Elon Musk smoking weed on Mars in a mech. Bigger still, dammit! Ok, now take whatever mental image you've arrived at and multiply it by ten, then run into a wall to give yourself a concussion. Congratulations you are now somewhere close to the wild, inspirational, childish ambition of The Wandering Earth.

  • Passengers

    Movie Review | Ali Gray | 19th December 2016

    Passengers is a sci-fi with an easily adaptable premise: what if, on the 120-year journey through space to colonise another planet, you were the only person on your spaceship to wake up? You can imagine dozens of versions of this movie. The Werner Herzog version is slow and considered and intimate and depressing and everyone dies. The Michael Bay version is huge and costs a billion dollars and has bikini models in zero gravity and it turns out the spaceship is evil. Nestling uncomfortably in the halfway point between the two is Morten Tyldum's Passengers, a shiny spin on Jon Spaihts' screenplay that can't decide if it's a blockbuster or a character piece and ends up being neither.

  • Another Earth

    Movie Review | Ali | 14th December 2011

    Like Melancholia earlier this year, Another Earth is a sci-fi movie that isn't really a sci-fi movie at all. Essentially it's an indie drama, one that exists in the sci-fi universe, but is set a world away from where the action's at. Unlike Melancholia, Another Earth's director isn't a Nazi. (I should probably check that, though).

  • Movies that are more implausible than In Time

    Movie News | Luke | 6th October 2011

    A few days ago I tried to explain my fascination with In Time, and its plot that defies all human reasoning. Reminder: society *chooses* to have timers implanted to count down their remaining days, only living past the age of 25 if they can afford to top up. Riiiight. But sci-fi being the genre it is, there's always someone out there with an even more crazy idea. So we put our heads together, drained our exhaustive knowledge, and came up with a list of sci-fi movies even less plausible than In Time.

  • Pandorum

    Movie Review | Steven | 1st October 2009

    Earth has depleted its resources and become over populated. The answer to this problem? Neuter the world's idiots? Nope - in Pandorum, the solution is to send a large group of cryogenically-frozen men and women into space, hurtling towards a newly found plant that can sustain life. Far less exciting an option, if you ask me.

  • Surrogates

    Movie Review | Rob | 29th September 2009

    Movies based on computer games are usually complete balls - it's a well known cinematic fact. But it seems that finally, some powerful people have realised this. The solution: Films inspired by the gaming world but not based upon anything in particular.

  • District 9

    Movie Review | Ali | 3rd September 2009

    Alien skirmishes. Big guns. Badass military hardware. Interstellar war. Yeah, the Halo movie would have been pretty cool. Alas, with credit being crunched at every corner, a $200m budget was deemed too expensive for a mere videogame movie (but a toy movie? Well, that's another story) and the project was canned. Bummer.

  • Moon

    Movie Review | Ali | 15th July 2009

    Considering that Neil Armstrong's giant leap for mankind ranks as one of the most recent triumphs in the grand scheme of human exploration, it's a little odd that science-fiction has never really landed on the Moon. A case of 'been there, done that', perhaps? Maybe Apollo 11 robbed the Moon of its mystery. But given that every h...

  • Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

    Movie Review | Ali | 12th June 2009

    It doesn't take a genius to figure out why, out of all the big ass summer blockbusters this year, Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen was the one I was least worried about performing. Camp-as-Christmas Hugh Jackman trying and failing to unleash his inner animal? Cringe. Christian Bale's CHAN CANNAR trying to avoid termination at...