Sci Fi – The Magnificent 60s

Disclosure Day (2026) *** – Seen at the Cinema

Thanks goodness other directors stepped up to the summer box office plate otherwise Hollywood would be left wringing its hands at this workmanlike, sanctimonious, effort. Like the recent Star Wars number, you get the impression the Steven Spielberg IP has long gone off the boil with the exception of sojourns into the prehistoric. He has not had a box office hit in years – The Fabelmans (2022) and West Side Story (2021) bit the dust along with The Post (2017) while Ready Player One (2018) only just made its money back.

Maybe it’s simply age (he’s pushing 80), but he’s lost that special magic that made him one of the all-time greats, the idea that he create something new, awesomely visual, rather than that he’s turned into an earnest lecturer.

Luckily, some other unexpected contenders – Project Hail Mary, Michael, Obsession, Backrooms – have stepped up the box office plate and Toy Story 5 is way ahead of initial projections while we we’ve still got another instalment of Minions and Spiderman to come, though judging from the trailers I’m less confident of Supergirl and The Odyssey delivering, though the latter may hit it big upfront judging from Imax advance bookings

This is a retread of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), with the same male-female characters – weatherperson Margaret (Emily Blunt) and ex-jailbird scientist Daniel (Josh O’Connor) – in search of something unknown, as though they are conduits to an alien world, one that serves up the same soup of aliens being wondrous beings, not to be illicitly tampered with. However, to peg all this on the Roswell “conspiracy” and to deck out almost every scene with men in black and men in black driving black cars seems an immense miscalculation.

The plot is full of holes, too, if you don’t mind me saying. How on earth did the rebels manage to snag a living alien from under the noses of the uber-security security forces of the quasi-government facility, or, even worse, have they made off with a baby creature and grown it themselves.

In social media world sure everyone is going to drop what they are doing and go past their bus stops or remain in situ to watch on their mobile phones “disclosure day” when an alien appears on their screen, but in the cinema world my guess is that audiences, like me, were staggered that after well nigh two-and-a-half-hours of a shaggy dog story this was all Mr. Spielberg could come up with.

Sure, there’s a bit of a chase scene here and there, and some form of telekinesis and people holding the kind of brick – that old-style mobile phones use to be made off – that has some kind of magical power, enough that Daniel’s girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) can be used as a conduit for Noah’s (Colin Firth) evil intentions, which is mainly to prevent “disclosure day.”

None of the supposed supernatural powers on show here are much to write home about, and there’s none of the wonder of Close Encounters and E.T. (1982), or even the more violent sci fi of Minority Report (2022) and War of the Worlds (2005) where aliens, whether artificially induced or not, are not on their best behavior. There’s not a single scene that you could say has the distinctive Spielberg stamp, rather a ramshackle screenplay that throws together a lot of different tangents in the hope, somehow, that they’ll all miraculously come together.

The only characters given any characterization are rootless Margaret and ex-novitiate Jane. Margaret is always on the look-out for something better, quite happy to wander from city to city to do so, the kind of ambitious also-ran who thinks they have a chance of grabbing the golden ring even if it means adding the occasional sexy shimmy to her weather-reading chores. Jane, Lord help us, is landed with the worst characterization I can remember, laden down with the idea that we might have to share the God-made universe with someone other than human beings. How on earth that 1950s idea made it into a contemporary movie is anybody’s guess and remember that Paul Schrader was yanked off screenwriting duties on Close Encounters for making it overtly religious.

Luckily, Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears Prada 2, 2026) more than holds the picture together and there’s certainly something touching in the way, using her sudden special powers, she puts troubled people at their ease. Daniel is there as a plot conduit, tasked with little more than exposition.

Noah and rebel leader Hugo (Colman Domingo) come across like the grown-ups, one trying to keep the spook in the box, the other trying to let it out.

There’s probably enough going on to keep you hooked, but the big reveal is a big disappointment.

Steven Spielberg does not save summer.

Thunderbirds Are Go (1966) ****

Nostalgia – and reappraisal – rule. Every bit as worthy a contender for a Father’s Day crown as the more favored likes of The Great Escape, 1963), The Dirty Dozen (1967) and Die Hard (1988). One of the reasons why Britain wasn’t in the thrall of DC and Marvel was that we had grown up with Dr Who and the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson portfolio of sci fi marionettes – Fireball XL5, Supercar, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Joe 90 and Captain Scarlet.

And while most of the nostalgia for the period goes the way of Ray Harryhausen, the Andersons’ achievements not so much with their puppetry but the miniaturization should not be underestimated.

It wouldn’t be too much of a call, for example, to guess that Stanley Kubrick learned a lot about the joy of spaceships coming together or moving around from Thunderbirds Are Go where a good chunk of the action is watching spaceships shift around one way or another. To top it all, and another one in the eye of Mr. Kubrick, the Andersons beat him to the psychedelia, a dream sequence set upon a “Swinging Star” and involving puppet versions of Cliff Richard and the Shadows, still a big noise in the pop world at the time despite the arrival of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Their appearance would be the equivalent to Bruce Willis, for example, doing a guest turn in Friends.

With a bigger budget, the Andersons made two crucial changes from the TV series on which this was based. They managed to erase all sight of the puppet strings and they stopped them walking around so much which always made them look most like just puppets.

This is space as we should adore it. None of the manky, worn-down, dirty cargo ships that litter modern sci fi epics. Not only is every ship gleaming but they are also colorful, not to mention color-coded. When they move it’s with the majesty that Kubrick used to great effect in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). And as Kubrick also proved, when it came to space, you didn’t need much in the way of characterization or narrative. He follows the same rule as monster pictures, focus on the big beasts as much as possible.

But Kubrick, in his wildest dreams, could never imagine as sultry a character as blonde goddess Lady Penelope, and though she’s on the side of the angels as cunning as any femme fatale. Equally iconic is her pink Rolls Royce and the chauffeur Parker which his obedient “Yes, m’ lady.” Not to mention the glorious catchphrase “eff ay bee” – in other words FAB, the catchphrase for a generation. There’s another catchphrase that only means something to Londoners who would hear this warning every day on the Underground – “mind the doors.”

The narrative is relatively thin. Zero-X is trying to fly to Mars but the flight is sabotaged and crash-lands. When a second flight is planned, this time International Rescue (the Thunderbirds team in case you are unaware) is on standby with Lady Penelope employed to seek out the saboteur.

This flight does succeed but on Mars encounters venomous snake-like rocks and scarpers quickly only to hit trouble on re-entry to Earth that requires Thunderbirds to the rescue. There are some modest attempts at characterization, Zero-X doesn’t like the idea of needing help, and the youngest of the Tracy family is frightened of failing.

I’ve never seen this before. I probably thought I was above such childish things when it first came out and it was only when I spotted it on Amazon Prime that I thought to give it go, remembering how much I had enjoyed the revamped Fireball XL5.

I sat enthralled. The first section has no sign of the International Rescue team and just like those mesmerizing minutes watching Kubrick’s spaceship revolve in space this simply involved putting together the constituent parts of the Zero-X rocket ship prior to launch.

You had to hand it to these sci-fi whizzes. You only needed one fella in the control room. Each of the Thunderbirds required only a solo pilot. You could be whisked electronically from a seat in the waiting area to the spaceship and arrive there on the same seat or go along some kind of travelator. These guys had thought of everything.

Directed by David Lane and written by the Andersons with Sylvia doubling up to provide the voice of Lady Penelope

With the removal of the strings and every miniaturization so stunning, this would look great on the big screen. The 60^th anni would be December this year so here’s a call-out to an enterprising cinema.

NOTE: today is British Father’s Day. It may not be Father’s Day where you are.

The Martian (2015) *****

You might recall how annoyed I was several weeks ago by being asked to tolerate Chris Pratt stuck in a chair in Mercy (2026) talking to the camera for what seemed like a solid hour. It struck me then how few actors could manage a whole film one-handed – Tom Hanks in Cast Away (2000) the most obvious example. But, in the wake of Project Hail Mary (2026) I realized there was another contender, Matt Damon as the stranded astronaut in Ridley Scott’s The Martian.

And sure, he eventually gets some help in maintaining audience interest once he communicates with Earth and the spaceship. But here’s the kicker. Mostly what he’s doing is exposition. That’s the one thing a star avoids like the plague. It’s usually left to the supporting actors to set the scene, explain the ins-and-outs of a situation.

But here it’s all down to Damon. He spends his time talking to camera, identifying a problem, usually so scientific you’d need academic books beside you, and then solving it. So, yes, like Cast Away, he’s a bloke on a version of a desert island who’s got to find his way to safety through how own devices.

But even so. What kind of screen persona do you need not just to keep us interested but enthralled? When he sees the first shoots of potato appear, it carries a massive emotional kick. The role of the people on Earth is wonderment and cynicism – no way he can do that sort of thing. Which rachets up the tension and then our hero does the impossible.

There’s always a moment in these space movies where someone comes up with something that’s never been done before – slingshots using gravity, Apollo 13 (1995) littered with improvisation. These scientists are I guess exceptionally brainy to qualify as lunar astronauts but even so.

As I said, I was coming to this again after Project Hail Mary so I was attuned to the science, or the expectation of science and the need to keep the audience informed. But Mark Watney (Matt Damon) comes up with unbelievably-inspired elements of improvisation, some of course pure science but others pure common sense, like pointing the camera at letters to spell out words.

It’s a heck of a ride, especially as with being under Ridley Scott’s command, there’s not a darn alien in sight, no stomach-bursting squeamishness to maintain audience attention, no rampaging monster scuttling along a spaceship. This is Mars as arid as you have been led to believe. Yes, an occasional mountain range or dustbowl to evoke the West of John Ford, and storms coming out of nowhere, but generally speaking as placid and dull a domain as you could wish for.

So in visual terms not much to help out the star. Every movement he makes is fraught with danger. He can choose to freeze through a long night or switch on the heating and thus lose vital battery power.

Every now and then, to speed things up, Ridley Scott literally does just that, characters whizzing around like they’ve just emerged from a silent movie. But mostly it’s slow painstaking going.

Of course we need a big finale and Scott obliges. And every now and then he flicks an emotional switch back on Earth and Nasa boss Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels) has to explain how the astronaut they held a memorial for is actually still alive, and the spaceship team have to come to terms with the fact that they abandoned not a corpse but a guy very much alive. There’s no room for humor, but occasionally some is squeezed in – Sanders having to apologize to the President for Watney’s profanity being globally broadcast.

Ridley Scott (Gladiator II, 2024) reins in the bombast and picks his way through a tricky scenario keeping the audience very much onside. Matt Damon (Oppenheimer, 2023) , who has surely inherited the Tom Hanks “everyman” mantle, demonstrates the power of a screen persona, in making an audience hang on his every word, even though most of what he says is scientific mumbo-jumbo. Jessica Chastain (Mothers’ Instinct, 2024) is the pick of the supporting cast.

Written by Drew Goddard who is as sure-footed here as on Project Hail Mary, again adapting a bestseller by Andy Weir.

Well worth another look.

Deja Vu (2006) ****

Trying to get this made today the elevator pitch would be Enemy of the State Meets Interstellar. Of course, this was made nearly a decade prior to the Christopher Nolan space opera but whoever made the pitch was so successful that Twentieth Century Fox shelled out a record $5 million for the screenplay.

Fans of surveillance and, conversely, those who fear that the state is poking its nose too closely into everything, might view this as a window into the contemporary world while conspiracy theorists wouldn’t find it hard to convince themselves that in some Roswell-like breakthrough the authorities actually had created a device that could look into the past.

Admittedly, this is a limited peek, restricted to just over four days ago, but it’s enough to get ATF agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington), investigating the death of his work partner, interested.

There’s another link to Interstellar and various other high-concept sci fi pictures in that the science fiction is a little fuzzy around the edges but basically once our hero skips back in time it’s for the same reason as the Nolan, the wormhole idea, and demonstrated in exactly the same simplistic way as in Interstellar. And there’s certainly an uncomfortable moment as licentiousness takes hold as the surveillance cameras catch a woman in an intimate moment – some of the male watchers are engrossed, all the females repulsed.

Anyways, the men in black are chasing down a terrorist who blew up a ferry. Thanks to Doug’s particular investigative skills, he’s invited to join the surveillance team. Doug has turned up the corpse of Claire (Paula Patton) but deduced that although her body was found near the scene of the crime she was killed beforehand, finger for some reason severed, by the terrorist. And it’s true Doug does have exceptional deduction skills that somehow whoever has put together the surveillance outfit, known as Snow White, has forgotten to recruit anything like an ace detective who can make connections rather than just watch.

A hop, skip and jump puts Claire in the eye of the surveillance team who, theoretically using a mountain of previous surveillance footage spawned from a million satellites, go back in time to link her to the terrorist. But if you hire a top detective you need to be wary of what he finds out about you. And it doesn’t take long for our man to work out that the shady guys can actually go back in time.

And, equally, a plotline beckons. Why not send a man back in time to stop the terrorist? But the men in black don’t appear to have taken that on board and it’s up to Doug, in a maverick move, to use the equipment to go back.

Oddly, that’s not because he wants to save hundreds of ferry boat passengers from being obliterated but because he wants to save Claire. Prior to this, except for Doug gazing fondly at images of Claire in a non-licentious manner, there’s been no emotion to speak of except the usual temper tantrums of people under pressure. But clearly there’s something personal going on between Doug and the woman, though what that may be is never teased out. It makes for some interesting twists when they do meet and seem to click.

Once he’s in the past the movie clicks into top gear and the narrative rattles through twist after stunning twist. And the final one – I’ll leave you to work that one out – works as a meet-cute.

This was the third collaboration out of five between Washington and action guru Tony Scott (The Taking of Pelham 123, 2009) and we know by now what the director brings to the table and his whizz-bang style certainly suits this concoction. But Washington continues to surprise. You think you’ve seen all his grins and chuckles and bursts of laughter, but they’re not always to do with humor, and here the grin is either an indication of resignation or determination, which shows just what an armory of expressions he has.

Paula Patton teamed up with Washington again in 2 Guns (2013) and you’ll find her in last year’s Finding Faith. She’s got the grit for the action stuff and the emotion required to make it all mean something.

A heck of a support cast led by a mature Val Kilmer (Top Gun: Maverick, 2022) and backed up by Jim Cavaziel (The Passion of Christ, 2004). Adam Goldberg (The Exorcism, 2024), Bruce Greenwood (The Fabulous Four, 2024) and Elle Fanning (Predator: Badlands, 2025).

The lucky guys collecting all that for dough for their screenplay were Bill Marsilii (Gunpoint, 2021) and Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, 2023).

Cracking ride with an emotional kick.

Project Hail Mary (2026) ***** – Seen (Three Times) at the Cinema

Excited as I was at the prospect of another film from the author of The Martian (2015), which I’ve seen at least half a dozen times, I was wary at the idea of spending so much time watching just one actor on screen, having been subjected to the hubris of Chris Pratt a few weeks back in Mercy (2026) where I was bored out of my skull with staring at his visage for the best part of two hours. Sure, Tom Hanks managed to hold our attention virtually single-handed in Cast Away (2000) , but he’s a double Oscar-winner and if you can’t rely on someone of that stature to hold your attention, who can. Ryan Gosling has come nowhere near the Oscar circle though this bravura performance may change his fortunes.

Since I don’t have a scientific bone in my body I’m a sucker for these space pictures where astronauts have to tinker with all sorts of technology to save their lives or the world, the two are often inseparable. Here, the object of the exercise could not be bigger. Non-astronaut and unwilling volunteer Ryland Grace (Ryan Gosling) has to save the sun from being gobbled up by pesky microbes. Turns out our sun isn’t the only one at risk. Another sun in a distant galaxy is also at threat and Grace has to buddy up with an alien, whom he nicknames Rocky, to come up with a scheme to save both suns.

So, there’s a lot of science, but it made sense to me (though I’m no expert), and plenty setbacks and it’s touch-and-go whether our heroes will meet with success, bearing in mind that this is a suicide mission and the best Grace can hope for is a peaceful death because he knows he’s got no chance of reaching home nor surviving in space beyond a few years.

But, actually, at the core of the picture is the kind of relationship that would replicate that seen in Spielberg’s E.T. (1981) except that little Rocky is more of a big brother to Grace than a hapless alien.

Every now and then we flit back to Earth for a flashback which explains how high-school teacher Grace came to be selected for the mission and, given I’m not such a mean plot-spoiler, sets a high bar for humanizing our hero, explaining exactly how when he wakes up in the spaceship he doesn’t know why he’s there. Grace and Rocky are, for whatever reason, the only survivors of the crews of their respective spaceships. I’m not sure how to describe the alien spaceship, it seems to be made of something and nothing, while Rocky is capable of cladding himself in what resembles multi-sided plastic and can construct a steel fishing rod four miles long in the twinkle of an eye.

Just as Matt Damon learns how to grow potatoes on Mars, so our intrepid pair embark on a series of unusual activities in order to win the day. Back on Earth sour-faced boss Eva (Sandra Huller) has, literally, a show-stopping scene when she picks up the mic and warbles a karaoke tune.

You might quibble at the running time (157 minutes) but in an era of overblown over-long self-indulgent epics, this makes every minute count and I didn’t look at my watch once. Andy Weir knows his stuff, or can invent enough of it to make us believe in his concepts, so part of the process of this picture is going through what works of the technology and what doesn’t and alighting on the equivalent of the sling shot to see us home free.

And in an era of the overblown etc, how welcoming to find genuine emotion so underplayed back on Earth, the connection between Grace and Eva barely tickling along until she picks up the karaoke mic.

I’ve not been a huge fan of Ryan Gosling (Barbie, 2024) of the floppy hair and stupid grin, but when he’s thrown into a serious picture that lightweight personality works wonders. Rocky, too, is a great creation, a completely new idea of an alien.

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (22 Jump St, 2014), this is a terrific experience. Written by Drew Goddard (The Martian).

The last time science met feel-good was E.T. and this doesn’t fall far short.

Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2025) **** – Seen at the Cinema

In theory a cult film in the making. In reality, how is it even possible for a film to achieve cult status these days? Back in the day, there were a variety of routes. Reissue, for example, saved The Magnificent Seven (1960) from box office oblivion in the United States – but as a tool for building cult from a genuine revival wide release that’s gone. When was the last time you saw an arthouse event revival as epitomized by Metropolis (1927) or Abel Gance’s Napoleon (1927)? Does anyone even run midnight screenings any more – the way The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) wormed its way into huge profit? Could a DVD release work its magic the way it did for box office flop The Shawshank Redemption (1994).

The “long tail” that kept movies in circulation for decades is long gone. How long do movies even survive on streaming? No streamer has the technology to literally keep thousands of movies available online for the time it would take for an underrated movie to pick up the head of steam necessary for reassessment.

For sure, this isn’t the greatest film ever made and it could certainly due with trimming, lop off the 15-20 minutes devoted to tedious exposition and cut down on the need to get reaction shots from each of its main characters any time anyone says something interesting. But it has certainly misfired at the box office, in part I guess because it was set up as Valentine’s Day counter programming but is so wacky that it didn’t stand a chance against the romantic box office powerhouse of Wuthering Heights.

Forget about the main storyline of AI taking over the world and concentrate on the other aspects which make this an enticing number. Its antecedents are appealing. For a start it draws on Groundhog Day (1993), The Twilight Zone (1959-1964), The Magnificent Seven (1960), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) – twice I should add, once in technological rebellion and once in a version of the “star child”- the cover art from Pink Floyd album Dark Side of the Moon, Interstellar (2014), Back to the Future (1985), reimagines the zombie movie if you imagine the zombies as a horde without the slime and teeth, and finishes with the kind of stinger that the best sci fi movies deliver – think the original Planet of the Apes (1968) or the original Carrie (1976).

Intrigued? You should be. Some of the concepts here are just terrific especially when it slips into flashback and we discover what kind of world the characters inhabit. School shootings are so common that the U.S. Government helps finance clones to replace your dead child. Dare switch off any teenager’s mobile phone and they come after you in a predatory pack. You can choose to live in virtual reality over the real world.

Someone being sent back from the future to save the world from apocalypse is a fairly straightforward sci fi trope. But this time, the threat emanates from a nine-year-old child. In any other picture, especially in this genre, you would just send a crack military outfit to eliminate the kid. But people here have principles. So instead The Man from the Future (Sam Rockwell), decked out like a homeless dude except with a bomb, has to recruit a team of individuals, most of whom you wouldn’t trust to form a community baseball team, from a diner.

So we’ve got grieving mother Susan (Juno Temple), lovelorn Ingrid (Haley Lu Richardson) decked out in a princess outfit who’s medically allergic to mobile phones, ineffective substitute teacher Mark (Michael Pena) and potential girlfriend Janet (Zazie Beets), and your standard grumpy guy Scott (Asim Chaudry). Their mission doesn’t look that complicated – they’ve hardly got to cover a mile to reach their destination – which is just as well because you wouldn’t trust any of them to get your back much less expect them to clamber over a fence. Not all are going to make it. The Man from the Future has done this before – 117 times it transpires – but never achieved his mission.

It does need to get quicker to the brilliant climax and the stinger scenes that follow. The truth vs reality vibe is a bit over complicated. And I doubt if anyone has been waiting with bated breath – that would be a nearly decade-long wait – for the latest effort from director Gore Verbinski (Pirates of the Caribbean franchise).

Sam Rockwell (Argylle, 2024) is covered in a beard and all sorts of stuff which conceals all his annoying acting tics, Juno Temple (Roofman, 2025) has the most emotional part and Michael Pena the most baffled and Zazie Beets (Bullet Train, 2022), Haley Lu Richardson (Love at First Sight, 2024) and Asim Chaudry (People Just Do Nothing: Big in Japan, 2021) do well and in his movie debut creepy kid Artie Wilkinson-Hunt is in the top bracket of creepy kids. Written by Matthew Robinson (Love and Monsters, 2020).

Not as wacky as it sounds, especially when all the apparently random themes start adding up and connect into terrifying logic.

It was much better than I expected. And probably the first potential cult film denied such status by the onset of streaming.

Mercy (2025) *

I’m trying to think of any actor who could carry off the central premise of this picture which is to chunter on for the best part of 90 minutes while remaining seated and staring straight at the camera. I saw this on the fourth day of its opening weekend at my local multiplex and the public had already spoken – it had already been relegated to a 30-seater screen. I can’t believe how it managed to top the U.S. box office charts. Least of all how anybody considered this a candidate for Imax or 3D.

Let me say it again. An actor sits in a chair for the best part of 90 minutes and talks straight to the camera. You what? Is this some new arthouse sensation? Some reimagining of Fred Zinnemann’s western classic High Noon (1952) what with the clock ticking away on screen?

Nope, it’s just the dumbest of dumb ideas. Usually, this kind of picture is buried in the first week of December and doesn’t try to come out all-marketing-guns-blazing in mid-January when audiences might be hoping for a breakout sleeper akin to The Housemaid (2025).

Set aside the nonsensical right-wing satire of the Robocop (1987) variety – “guilty until proved innocent” – and the drone-style helicopters and the mobile-phone style footage of chases and whatnot with a 30-ton truck barreling through Los Angeles and you’re still left with some guy stuck in a chair droning on for 90 minutes straight to camera.

Chris Raven (Chris Pratt) is strapped to a chair facing AI Judge Maddox (Rebecca Ferguson) with 90 minutes to explain why he should not be executed for killing his wife Nicole (Annabelle Raven). Chris is an alcoholic cop and his main claim to fame is that he was the first guy to put away a criminal, David Robb, under a new Minority Report-type system of law enforcement where sentencing for violent crime is immediate and without all the boring bits involving a jury. The judge isn’t quite judge, jury and executioner, but comes closes because once the clock stops ticking the suspect is immediately killed via a sonic blast, whatever that is.

So, basically, without being able to move more than an eyebrow, the cop has to scour all sorts of electronic media to put together the jigsaw surrounding his wife’s murder. He discovers she’s been having an affair and there’s something dodgy going on at her work involving stolen chemicals, the kind that could be used to manufacture a bomb. Chris calls in partner Jaq (Kali Reis) to help with the detection.

Would you believe it, turns out Chris’s AA sponsor Rob Nelson (Chris Sullivan) has built a bomb and now hijacks the truck, kidnapping Chris’s daughter Britt (Kylie Rogers) for good measure, determined to blow up the court building (which bear in mind primarily holds AI characters) and get revenge on Chris for putting away Rob’s brother (yeah, the different surnames had you fooled, didn’t they?).

Naturally, it’s all going to be down to police corruption. So that’s the end of the new-look sci-fi legal system. And it’s a dead end for a picture that had nothing going for it.

So, what could have been a relatively acceptable low-level action picture without an ounce of originality – the cop would have fled justice and tried to prove his innocence while on the run (easy!) – is turned into a monstrous mess. It just makes no sense to have the main character stuck on his backside talking to the camera for what seems like forever, with that dumb clock ticking in the corner of the screen, while all the action is shown on postage-stamp images as if viewed through a mobile phone.

Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, 2023) isn’t the most animated of actors, anyway, though I doubt if even Tom Hanks could have carried this off, and Rebecca Ferguson (Dune: Part Two, 2024) often appears too robotic for her own good anyway.

Timur Bekmambetov (Ben-Hur, 2016) directs from a screenplay by Marco van Belle (Arthur and Merlin, 2015).

So you’d be inclined to point the finger at them, but, in reality, you’d be asking who the heck at Amazon/MGM greenlit this shambles.

Mercy!

Journey to the Far Side of the Sun / Doppelganger (1969) ****

Bring Gerry and Sylvia Anderson into the equation and it’s a straightforward free pass of the cult kind. For the fanboys, the inventors of Supermarionation (Thunderbirds Are Go!, 1966) live on an exalted plane immune from criticism. however, sci fi buffs have tended to be less than impressed by the pair’s first venture into (to use a Walt Disney phrase) “live-action.” So response swings between these extremes. I fit into neither category so I come at this with something of an open mind and for a variety of reasons found it a far more enjoyable experience than I had anticipated, though I hazard a guess that on the big screen the flaws in the special effects would have been more obvious.

Some aspects even have a contemporary chime, the X-ray security screening machines, for example, and the fact that there’s no such actual entity called Europe and if you want to advance a project you have to navigate your way through the representatives of several countries as well as the hovering financial weight of the United States, bristling at being asked to pay more than its share but worried about being excluded.

And there’s no ice-cool scientific boffin. Instead we have the choleric, not to mention bombastic, Jason Webb (Patrick Wymark). Nor do non-combatants scoot through training. The rigors potential astronauts are put through in the likes of The Right Stuff (1983) or Apollo 13 (1995) are nothing to the body-wringing and mind-blowing experience of John Kane (Ian Hendry).

His companion space buddy Col John Ross (Roy Thinnes) is well-drawn for a sci fi adventure. He’s worried that exposure to radiation and worse in space has knocked his masculinity on the head, his wife Sharon (Lynn Loring) complaining it has left him sterile. Though it turns out she’s a wily creature, secretly using contraception.

We also get a spy, Dr Hassler (Herbert Lom), and it’s not so much that he has a gadget – a mini camera secreted in a false eyeball – than the detail involved in him retrieving the film. In most movies there would be no gap between the reveal of the gadget and the production of its secrets. But here Dr Hassler has to go through a whole procedure, dipping the eyeball into four solutions and dabbing it with this and that, before he can view a single frame.

The picture breaks down into a straight three-act vehicle. The first section getting to lift off, then the journey including the kind of phantasmagorical event you found in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and which even Christopher Nolan relied upon in Interstellar (2014), and arrival.

Most sci fi movies play fast and loose with audiences, rarely remaining true to the logic of their invented worlds or concepts. This sticks to its original notion even if that means ending up with a distinctly downbeat ending. Initially, the astronauts are searching for a new planet, whose orbit is similar to Earth, but on the other side of the sun. This being the year 2068, distance is no object and they reckon it’s a six-week return trip.

But what the astronauts discover on arrival at the new planet is a nightmare situation, that in terms of ability to drive you mad skews close to enigmatic British TV series The Prisoner (1967) or Lost (2004-2010) before it jumped the shark. Ross and Kane have landed on a doppelganger planet and the movie takes this world to its logical conclusion. It’s the real parallel universe, or multiverse in the current vernacular, except everything happens the same as on Earth.

So the choleric Webb initially accuses the astronauts of cowardice, to have turned back and failed to complete their mission which would have led them to our Earth. Doppelganger literally means mirror image which eventually explains why writing goes left to right and everything is a step out of normal kilter. Identical except not quite. And stuck in a world where everything that seems real is one step away from your known reality. The kind of situation that would have been created by a mad scientist intent on torturing minds.

Ross determines to attempt to return to Earth but that means connecting what remains of his spaceship with a space vessel made on the new planet but the parts that should fit exactly don’t fit because they have designed in mirror fashion. So that’s it for your chances of a happy ending.

Left me with a nightmare feeling, the ultimate what if. As far as stings in the tail go, comparable with Planet of the Apes (1968).

For the concept as much as the clever detail, I’ve given it a higher mark than maybe it deserves.

Predator Badlands (2025) **** – Seen at the Cinema

In possibly the most audacious pivot in sci fi here’s a movie minus any human characters. The leading character Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a monster straight out of the Alien back catalog and he is accompanied on his journey through the titular badlands by an android Thia (Elle Fanning), though one programmed with feelings though only for scientific purposes, and a mini-monster Bud (Rohinal Naharan) who when he’s not being fierce is quite cute.

The tale, however, has recognizably human dimensions. Dek is the runt of the litter and since weakness is despised in his clan he is scheduled to be terminated by his big brother, who can’t bring himself to do it so it’s left to his ruthless father to kill the protective brother. Meanwhile, Dek escapes to a distant planet, Genna, where everything is lethal including the grass. He hopes to prove his worth by killing the biggest monster in the universe, Kalisk. He teams up with a legless android Thia who has formed an affection of a sibling nature for a fellow synthetic Tessa (Elle Fanning).

The monsters encountered are pretty impressive and the landscape, whose rock formations suggest ragged versions of the spaceship that houses the aliens in the Alien series, is a visual treat. Though originally regarding Thia as nothing more than a “tool”, and happy to abandon whenever her usefulness ends, Dek ends up reacting in quite human fashion to her.

So if you’ve come expecting an extension of the Predator franchise where the monster merely exists to hunt down anyone in its path and you don’t get a glimpse of its character beyond the slicing and dicing this isn’t for you. But if you are open to a refreshing take on the monster universe, there’s plenty to enjoy.

And given the drought of audience-friendly pictures this last couple of months, an action picture with some emotional notes is more than welcome and thank goodness it hasn’t come with critics touting it for Oscar glory.

Turning the previous concept on its head, young Dek is the hunted not the hunter. He doesn’t have to go far to encounter venom, everything that moves or grows is dangerous. He’s got the moves and a scimitar that seems to owe something to a weapon from a different universe – the light saber. Even so, it’s often only by luck that he survives.

His teaming with Thia falls into a more conventional trope, the buddies who start out as enemies and/or the brain vs brawn combo. Thia speaks every language on the planet which helps when he is linguistically confounded. And Bud plays the unwelcome recruit which dates back to The Magnificent Seven (1960) and way before, though he turns out to play a significant part. There’s even time for some humor as when Thia’s disembodied legs stride down the street and go into vexatious action.

Given we’re dealing with non-humans, there’s a surprising emotional upside and a pay-off that provides a neat twist and suggests a sequel.

It would be non-stop action except for the interplay between hero and his “tool” and the emotional elements that spurt up every now and then. On the action alone it would be well worth your bucks, but the other elements take it a level above.

While Elle Fanning’s (A Complete Unknown, 2024) double turn isn’t as in-depth as that of Michael B Jordan in Sinners (2025) it’s still pretty good and had this been another kind of picture her misplaced affection for her scientifically-generated sibling might have received greater emphasis.

The stripped down and pedal-to-the-metal narrative is driven by director Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane, 2016) who would be one of the few directors to genuinely deserve the “visionary” tag so carelessly thrown around. He had a hand in the screenplay along with Patrick Aison (Prey, 2022) based on the Predator characters invented by Jim and John Thomas.

Hot stuff.

Logan’s Run (1976) ****

Shortly after this appeared the movie sci fi world imploded/exploded with the release of Star Wars (1977), followed by Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Alien (1979), which probably accounts for why this is such a throwback joy to watch and now very much a cult item. Takes in ageism, obsession with youth, death cult, the pleasure principle written in capital letters, some kind of primitive Tinder (where women place themselves on “the circuit”), Terminators, runaways, dystopia, escapees, eco-friendly food, mobile phones, computers in charge, lasers, plastic surgery, cannibalism, robots, an icy tomb, nuclear holocaust and the Lincoln Memorial.

There’s some shooting with futuristic weaponry but these handguns are virtually useless given how poor their accuracy – though that may be down to the incompetence of their users – and a couple of fist fights. And while the remainder of Earth’s population enjoys an idyllic life in a series of sealed domes, there is, as the posters point out, a catch. When you reach the age of 30 you are killed, although this occurs in the guise of rebirth in a ritual known as the Carrousel.

There’s no individual responsibility. Children are separated at birth from their parents and brought up in communal fashion. They eat, drink and have sex – there’s even a section set aside for sexual pleasure, full of naked writhing bodies. But generally, sex is on tap, any woman signing up to be on “the circuit” literally delivered to your door.

In this fashion Logan 5 (Michael York) encounters Jessica 6 (Jenny Agutter). He’s a terminator, chasing after runaways, she’s a virgin and much to his annoyance proves not an easy conquest, in fact sex doesn’t take place at all. However, she wears an ankh. And he’s just picked up an ankh from a runaway he just totaled. So he asks the computer for advice about the emblem. Turns out it’s worn by a rebel group – there are over 1,000 of them living in a “sanctuary” in the city – and Logan is delegated to pretend to be a runaway and with Jessica’s help infiltrate the radical organization. Unfortunately, his buddy Francis 7 (Richard Jordan) is suspicious and follows him.

After many adventures and escaping from Francis and the robot Box (voiced by Roscoe Lee Brown) who wants to freeze them, they emerge into a land that while it shows signs of devastation is not uninhabitable. They meet an old man (Peter Ustinov) and realize that it’s possible to live beyond the age of 30 and that somehow their apparent utopia is actually a dystopia. Furthermore, once outside the tomb, the internal clocks that dictate the date of their death automatically switch themselves off.

The prisoners of the dome are freed shortly afterwards.

There’s a kind of innocence about the sci fi world portrayed. Everyone dresses in primary colors, both sexes wear flimsy outfits all the easier to remove when pleasure appears imminent. Taking place three centuries on from the date of the movie’s release, the world is the kind that would be dreamed by illustrators imagining the future for an Exposition with everything streamlined.

There’s no time and really no effort to make a serious point about any of the issues raised and it’s more a smorgasbord of ideas – quite a few of which have come to fruition. The two main characters are likeable rather than charismatic and the onset of sudden romance appears narrative contrivance rather than “across a crowded room.” Logan’s dilemma, that he is switched from having four years to live to being at death’s door, gives him incentive to escape, not to complete his mission. And at times the dialog is cumbersome but equally often just flies – that cats have three names, for example.

I never saw this on initial release and didn’t hire it on VHS or DVD but gradually it acquired cult status and I was keen to see why.

It works, is the real reason for that. It exists outside the Star Wars/Close Encounters/Alien dynamic. I liked the jigsaw nature of the ideas and that they are thrown together and at you like you were on a rollercoaster, and you can pick and mix. The conversations with the computer sound very contemporary.

Michael York (Justine, 1969) and Jenny Agutter (East of Sudan, 1964) are pleasant company to spend time with. While Richard Jordan (Valdez Is Coming, 1971) is not much short of an eye-rolling villain, Peter Ustinov is remarkably good value in a role that could easily have been cliché. You might spot Farrah Fawcett-Major (newly-inducted as one of Charlie’s Angels, 1976-1980).

Directed by Michael Anderson (The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1968) and written by David Zelag Goodman (Straw Dogs, 1971) from the novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson.

Any notion that it was intended to be groundbreaking was knocked on is head by Star Wars et al, and it’s for that very fact that it’s so watchable, as in, the direction sci fi could have gone had lightsabers and Death Stars, creatures phoning home and monsters erupting from stomachs, not entered the Hollywood universe.

Surprised how much I enjoyed it.