Morgan (2016) - Movie Review

Among the many things that can affect the initial impressions we have when watching a film, from the marketing to word-of-mouth to just our mentality concerning what makes a good story, one of the bigger contributors ends up being other films. Once the realisation sets in that pretty much everything is a remix of everything else, and brand spanking new ideas aren’t as prevalent (or as important) as some of us may assume, the fact that we will end up seeing a lot of similar shit on screen is a little easier to swallow. Of course, when it comes to discussing what gets used and re-used, especially if it’s from more popular works, we end up drawing comparisons to the same works over and over again. Now, even though this runs the risk of limiting the overall conversation, just because it’s an easy point to make doesn’t mean it’s any less true. Tl;dr this is basically me covering my own arse because this film makes it impossible not to bring up comparisons to last year’s phenomenal sci-fi effort Ex Machina… even though pretty much every other critic already has. Ugh. Let’s just get this over and done with.

The Martian (2015) - Movie Review

To paraphrase one of the more boisterous names in space exploration: “Space: the final frontier”. However, something that is becoming clearer and clearer with every day since that phrase was first uttered is that space will always be the final frontier. Unlike our home planet, there is an infinite amount of, well, space outside of our atmosphere and it is expanding every second. The distance between points of interest (stars, planets, space fog, etc.) is occupied by a vacuum that seems to exist at the exact opposite of our ideal living conditions, and that’s if we even have a vessel that can stay in one piece during all that travel.

Is it any wonder, with all this in mind, that space travel and exploration is frequently used as the setting for dramas and thrillers? Sure, space combat will always be enticing, but the thought of how claustrophobic, hazardous and ultimately liberating leaving Earth for greener pastures can be has produced some truly amazing works of art, particularly in the realm of cinema. So, when director Ridley Scott decided to return to the cold void that yielded him a bona fide sci-fi classic with Alien (and a modest success with Prometheus), how did it turn out considering his last cinematic venture?

Fantastic Four (2015) - Movie Review

Say what you will about the progression of technology and whether or not the Amish have a point about certain things, but it must be said that there are three key things that the Internet provides alarmingly immense access to that print media is just unable to keep up with: Kittens, porn and diatribes lacking in any form of perspective. It has been a very long time since I heard so much vitriol being spewed out at a singular film, not to mention how loudly said spewing can be heard. Between its single digit rating on Rotten Tomatoes, this article that invokes a guilty pleasure version of Godwin’s Law, and a radio review I heard for it that said in no uncertain terms “[Fantastic Four] is not a movie. It is a piece of shit that runs for 108 minutes.”. I’m kind of at a loss for words here. How in the hell can this film not only be considered worse than the first two Fantastic Four movies, but one of the worst superhero movies of the last 20 years?