X: First Class (2011)

X: First Class (2011)
Rating: ★★★
Jun 5, 2011Comic-Book Superheroes/Origin Prequel
An X-Men origin story that serves as the occasion to recast the series with younger actors. This works far better than the previous two films, integrating the characters in a strong story, although is quiet at the superheroic action

House at the End of the Street (2012)

House at the End of the Street (2012)
Rating: ★★
Jan 6, 2013Psycho-Thriller/Crazed Family Member in the Cellar
Psycho-thriller that plays out like a creaky old deranged relative in the cellar film retooled as a teen romance until an absurd mid-film conceptual twist irredeemably kills the film off

The Hunger Games (2012)

The Hunger Games (2012)
Rating: ★★½
Mar 29, 2012Future Televised Human Hunting
A Young Adult box-office hit that does little more than competently shuffle around ideas from other SF films. Jennifer Lawrence makes an impressive showing but the film also soft-pedals the moral reality of its scenario

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
Rating: ★★½
Nov 23, 2013Future Televised Human Hunting/Social Revolution
The first sequel to the box-office juggernaut. The surprise is that it spends defies most of the things that made the first film, not to mention has made one of the year's biggest box-office hits into a parable for Marxist revolution

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)
Rating: ★★★
May 25, 2014Comic-Book Superheroes
It is nice to see Bryan Singer regain his form after several years lull. The plot is nothing world-shattering but it is nice to see a character-driven X-Men, while Singer delivers the superheroics with a cheer-out loud elan that most of the sequels missed by a wide margin

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014)

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014)
Rating: ★★
Nov 22, 2014Future Social Revolution
The third The Hunger Games film starts in with a more brooding complexity but with the book being split in two parts, the story feels more thinly drawn and comes to an abrupt end just when it starts to get interesting

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)
Rating: ★★½
Nov 28, 2015Future Social Revolution
The finale of the saga comes with a tough, gritty edge that make it the best directed of the series. On the other hand, it builds well only to arrive at an ending that goes oddly sideways and throws sympathies to the wind

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
Rating: ★★
Jun 11, 2016Comic-Book Superheroes
The seventh X-Men chapter arrives with a certain ennui. Bryan Singer creates some epic scenes but the sprawling ensemble and the series' ragged continuity makes it hard to invest in the characters, while the new villain looks like a B movie wizard and the mass destruction climax comes surprisingly by the book

Passengers (2016)

Passengers (2016)
Rating: ★★★★
Jan 21, 2017Cryogenic Sleepers Awake Aboard a Space Voyage
The gratifying pleasure of a solid conceptually-driven science-fiction film – all based around the premise of "what if a cryogenic sleeper woke up halfway through a deep space voyage?" and the moral choices he must make. Strong, intelligent character-driven science-fiction and possibly the best designed film of the year

Don’t Look Up (2021)

Don’t Look Up (2021)
Rating: ★★★★
Jan 8, 2022The End of the World/Satire
The perfect film for the Covid era. A devastatingly on the ball satire on the ineptitude of people’s response in the face of an extinction level threat to the Earth from an oncoming comet as government agencies tries to minimise the news