The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
The term Artificial Intelligence (often abbreviated to A.I.) is used to refer to machines that have developed the ability to think independently, human-like personalities and/or emotions. A.I.’s can range from Robots and Androids to Super-Computers.
The 1960s and 70s were filled with assorted plots involving evil super-computers turning against humanity. From Star Wars (1977) onwards, the A.I., became something cuddly and user-friendly. The Terminator (1984) brought a return to the evil A.I. and lethal killer robot.
By the time of the rise of Cyberpunk, the A.I. had faded into the background and become an accepted part of the scenery. As debates about such heat up in the real world, the latter half of the 2010s have brought a renewed interest in the possibility of artificial intelligence and what it would look like.
A.I.’s and other machines that turn against humanity are discussed under Films About Machines Amok.
A major disappointment. Stripping the superhero of the show of his suit makes for no more than a regular action hero, while the film’s reduction of Iron Man’s No 1 villain to a cardboard threat ranks down alongside a Batsuit with nipples
While the title sounds like a cheesy faux B movie, this a surprisingly serious work. Taking undeniable influence from tv’s The Tripods , it is a YA work about the fight to free Earth following a machine invasion that proves far more entertaining than anything one expects of it
Are there any new creative directions that Michael Bay feels he he has to explore for a fourth Transformers film? All the Transformers beating the crap out of each other and copious mass destruction has become hard to tell one of the films from each other
Sequel to Starship Rising, a space opera that does some amazing things with effects on a next-to-no budget
Third in The Asylum’s series of Mega Shark films where they borrow the Godzilla series’ idea of Mecha-Godzilla and pit the Mega Shark against a robot copy of itself. Here the Mega Shark series is starting to approach the entertaining silliness of their Sharknado films but still flounder amid tatty effects
A film that bites off some Big Ideas from the transhumanist movement – A.I., nanotechnology, and especially Mind Upload – and fails to do anything with them except for reach for hoary cliches of Frankenstein science. A film that, despite its self-importance, ends up as only a better budgeted version of The Lawnmower Man
This Blade Runner-influenced work about robots that develop artificial intelligence is exceptional, featuring a particularly captivating last half with Antonio Banderas journeying with strangely alive robots
Actor David Hewlett directs a B-budget film where a team of convicted hackers are sent to clean out the computers on a spaceship only to come up against a malevolent A.I.
Neill Blomkamp’s film about A.I. turns into Short Circuit dropped into the militarised future of RoboCop. Of all the rich possibilities in the idea, all we get is a goofy comedy with a pimped-out carjacking robot
A hodgepodge of competing elements – an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger, a soft reboot, alternate timelines, reintroduction of the familiar, twists to the familiar – that make no sense on a narrative level, least of all come anywhere near what James Cameron delivered back in the first two films
The first Avengers film came with a massive anticipation in seeing the characters come together and the snappiness of their interplay; here this seems more flat, while the rest is overrun by wall-to-wall action
This was made before Ex Machina and has a surprisingly similar plot – although takes it even further in many regards – where a woman journalist goes to interview a tech genius and ends up in a romantic triangle between him and his android creation
The field has been open for one work to come and set the benchmark for A.I. films. Alex Garland’s Ex Machina arrives at that work. Rather than flashy effects, this resides in a series of beautifully cool debates and sharply intelligent twists
The Resident Evil films are designed for people who were introduced to drama via the Xbox, action sequences that can be assembled in random order and where it doesn’t matter what happens. I watched this, the sixth and final entry, with next-to-no enthusiasm but then quite unexpectedly it starts to work
A pneumatically inflated heroine fights the machines amid a standard array of space opera and post-apocalyptic future tropes
This low-budget British effort seems to be making a good start as a film that deals with space travel realistically only to bog down in one of the most incomprehensible plots one has ever sat through
Near future set science-fiction noir as a cyborg-enhanced hero is drawn in to conduct an investigation on behalf of a morally ambiguous femme fatale. Despite a reasonable effort made, this is a little too low key
From Arrowstorm Entertainment, a low-budget company that make highly professional films. Here they have even roped Danny Trejo into playing a role in a passable attempt to replicate a 1990s Albert Pyun post-holocaust cyborg film
While the title suggests a series of malicious games, this is an SF film about participants in an augmented reality experiment who are locked in a facility with strangely alien children
A.I. film directed by Ridley Scott’s son. The set-up seems awfully similar to Ex Machina – unfortunately, this sidesteps any of that fascinating questions about A.I. that film dealt in, while the latter half just becomes The Terminator before reaching a frankly unbelievable twist ending that sinks the film
A reality bending film about a man held in an automated prison where he must outsmart the prison’s A.I. in order to affect an escape
Behind the generic action movie title, this is an SF about a unit of soldiers led by Wesley Snipes venturing into an automated prison to investigate the death of personnel by an unknown force
The live-action adaptation of a popular anime and manga, this takes place in an alternate history version of Japan where samurai fight following an alien invasion
Death Race 2000 was a hit for producer Roger Corman. It was remade minus the satire as a straight action film with Death Race; here Corman remakes the original (albeit very cheaply) and restores the satire
The fifth of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. This comes with more of an outright comedy focus than any of the other films where Bay seems to be second-guessing his critics and spoofing his own peccadilloes in quote marks, only to produce the silliest entry in the series yet
From the always interesting Michael Almereyda, an adaptation of a Pulitzer-nominated play set in a future where people replace their departed loved ones with holograms
Blade Runner is a landmark classic but this is well worthwhile sequel from Denis Villeneuve that recreates the fascinating Cyberpunk world in more detail and expands out on the themes laid down in the original. Made with impeccably beautiful detail
Leigh Whannell, James Wan’s BFF and co-writer on the Saw and
An SF film where a remote probe lands to Mars uncovers a mysterious artefact of possible alien origin on the Martian surface. And then things start getting weird.
The second of the anime Godzilla films and much more successful than its predecessor. The reconceptions of some of the classic monsters has a dazzling ambitiousness while Godzilla has all the ferocity it should have had in the first film
At first glance, this seems a routine alien invasion film. However, this becomes a whole lot more watchable with a mid-film twist that turns what is going on on its head
There have been a host of works about artificial intelligence in recent years. This is a worthwhile entry in the field about the relationship between a man and an android on a space mission
Film based on a full-length Swedish SF poem that concerns the despair, emptiness and strange societies that emerge among those aboard a spaceship that is thrown off course
Outside of animation, there has never been a decent genre film about cute dogs. This film about a robot dog is no exception. The surprise is that this is produced by the normally respectable David S. Goyer
Films about androids and artificial intelligence have taken off in the 2010s. This comes produced by Ridley Scott who made Blade Runner, the defining classic on the theme; on the other hand, it ends up in the hands of a director who specialises in relationship dramas
Spinoff from the Transformers films. As though all it took was a change of director, this is a small sweet film that has more in common with E.T. as opposed to Michael Bay’s mass destruction spectaculars
This comes with an intriguing central premise – a woman is imprisoned in the house of a mad tech genius where her only hope of escape is befriending his home security A.I. that is hungry for input about the world. An interesting idea alas doesn’t carry it past an ill-informed idea of how an A.I. would behave
There have been some extremely good films about androids and A.I. in the last few years. This one about an android manservant is so ridiculous it should have been played as a comedy
Amiable comedy about an annoyingly intrusive artificially intelligent mobile assistant that wreaks havoc on its owner’s life
Another among the recent spate of Artificial Intelligence film, the story of a secretary who befriends a robot. This is an A.I. film on a B-budget that you feel should have been made as a comedy
Spider-Man: Homecoming was Sony’s Spider-Man reboot where the elements came together with winning regard and Tom Holland’s politely eager nervousness made for a fantastic Spider-Man. This was the first sequel.
The MCU offers up their first superheroine with very unexceptional results. A competent enough effort but DC’s Wonder Woman easily blows everything this tries to do out of the water
The controversial remake of Child’s Play where Chucky is no longer possessed but become an artificially intelligent smart toy. This seems to misconstrues everything that the fanbase of the series celebrates by a mile
The sixth Terminator film that boasts the return of both James Cameron and Linda Hamilton to the franchise. After the troughs of Terminator: Genisys, this makes one forget about the last three sequels
TV mini-series adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s classic dystopian novel. Developed by Grant Morrison, this freely adapts the novel but does a strong and intelligent job of reimagining it in contemporary terms
SF film with Stephen Moyer as a spaceship survivor who boards a ship with the crew mysteriously dead and becomes caught up in interplanetary politicking
We have had some standout A.I. films in the last few years. This is comedy variant where Melissa McCarthy is befriended by an A.I. who adopts the voice of James Corden
One of the better in the fad for Artificial Intelligence films we have had since the 2010s with Theo James trying to place his late wife’s consciousness into an android body
Another film on the topic of androids and A.I.’s run amok. This concerns a robot maid that ends up rebelling against her human owners and turning murderous due to conflicting orders
A very different take on the Superman story that asks What if Superman had grown up in the Soviet Union rather than in the US and become a paragon of Communist virtue
Very much informed by Blade Runner, this features Guy Pearce as a futuristic detective on the trail of a missing girl in the android zone
For reasons not clear to me, Space Jam is considered a classic. Now we get a sequel that updates it to the present featuring a different NBA star LeBron James
Another horror anthology with each episode from a different directors, united around the wraparound theme of stories being told by patients in a strange psychiatric facility
One of The Wachowskis returns to the world of The Matrix and rather wittily turns it into an anti-blockbuster about her reluctance to do so
Ryan Reynolds discovers he is a character inside a videogame. This has a conceptual ingenuity and originality and is the most fun and outrightly enjoyable mainstream film seen of recent
There have been some impressive works about A.I. in the last few years. This plays out as Ex Machina by way of Training Day and is only notable in its ridiculous implausibility
Unexpectedly delightful film about a man and a robot. With Tom Hanks alone with a robot for company in the aftermath of civilisation, it becomes in effect Cast Away meets Wall-E
Imprisonment thriller where Melanie Laurent wakes up trapped inside a cryogenic capsule, this expands out to become an excellent SF film
Robert Heinlein’s time travel novel gets a surprisingly faithful adaptation from Japan. This keeps the story’s double structure that tells one story and then with considerable conceptual dexterity reveals another hidden in the margins
A directorial outing from Mattson Tomlin, a screenwriter on the rise of recent, Chloe Grace Moretz is a pregnant woman struggling to survive in the aftermath of the android rebellion
A surprise delight, an animated film that overspills with madcap creative energy concerning a misfit family on a road trip who come up against the machine revolution
Rather entertaining film from The Asylum about the machine revolution that overspills with madcap technological invention
At contrast to all the serious films being made about A.I, and androids, this is a wonderfully charming and really quite eccentric comedy where a man builds a robot out of junk
A film about a writer who retreats to a fully automated smarthome in order to complete a novel only to end up imprisoned by a malfunctioning A.I.
French director Jean-Pierre Jeunet of The City of Lost Children and Amelie fame returns with an appealingly eccentric, beautifully designed comedic take on the machine revolution
One of the best of the recent spate of artificial intelligence films. A programmer creates an A.I. for the purpose of trapping sexual predators on the internet only to be faced with ethical questions about what he has created
This is like a version of The Stepford Wives updated to the era of Ex Machina and the modern A.I./android film
SF film about a woman suffering amnesia who is sent to an automated house to recuperate only to be made prisoner by the sinister A.I. that runs the house
A horror film about an artificially intelligent children’s doll that resembles one of the Big Eyes paintings, which then proceeds to go full-on Terminator
From Arrowverse producer Greg Berlanti, a film about a nerd who stows away on a voyage to Mars
Group of young people get away to a smarthome for the weekend, which then tries to kill them. The most ridiculous amongst a mini-spate of films about smarthome A.I.’s
The seventh of Mission: Impossible films with Tom Cruise still on great form at age 61. He and the team raise the bar for the series to a new high
Guy Ricthie makes a spy action film that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is far more absurdly entertaining than anything you expect it to be. Hugh Grant steals the day as the super-villain of the show
Prequel to the Chinese spectacular about the construction of an engineering project to move the Earth, this comes with some epic-sized effects sequences
A reboot of the classic Japanese tv series about a superhero who goes into action on a motorcycle using a suit to transform into a grasshopper being
A comedy variant on android/A.I. themes where two people use robot doubles for romantic subterfuge only for the two androids to elope together
Gareth Edwards, the director of Monsters and Godzilla, makes a genre-defining work about robotics and artificial intelligence set in a stunningly detailed future world. This site’s Top Film for 2023
An ambitious film yet a;; contained within a single house, set on the eve of a space mission where the commander realises that the A.I. has started going wildly off-book
SF film that plays out like it should be an episode of Black Mirror where Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor play a couple who sign up for a process where a baby can be gestated and born externally inside an egg
We have had a spate of films in the last few years about androids and A.I. This has to count as the first film about an android stalker
Another in the spate of recent A.I. films of the 2010s/20s. Here one can buy android replacements for one’s late spouse but someone is hacking and causing them to go rogue
Brit Marling is one of the most intelligent creative faces of the 2010s/20s. Here she co-writes, co-directs and stars in a fascinating murder mystery set in the tech world at a futuristic retreat
The seventh of the live-action Transformers films, the second made after Michael Bay stepped down from the director’s chair
Another android gone amok film with former sex symbol Megan Fox cast as an android nanny who starts defying her programming
The idea of Jennifer Lopez in a transformer suit kicking robot ass has an outlandishness to it. The surprise is that this is a really good, well written SF film of planetary survival
The first film to come out following the advent of generative A.I. From American Pie director Chris Weitz, an evil A.I. film that arrives with all the hysteria of villagers with burring torches in a Frankenstein film
From the extraordinary and underrated Scooter McCrae, a dark and very disturbing film about the development of a sex robot for men who like to beat and abuse women
At age 81, David Cronenberg is still on great form with this perversely fascinating work about the development of a technology that places cameras inside graves to observe corpses as they decay
Film that imagines what might have happened if the Y2K Bug had occurred and resulted in a machine revolution
A Bollywood take on the android/A.I. themes, where a roboticist falls for an android girl and tries to have her accepted by his family
An animated film adaptation of Crisis on Infinite Earths, one of the classic DC Comics titles of all time. With superhero films now obsessed with multiverses, this seems the perfect time to bring it to the screen
A completely mad and all over the place film with Sam Rockwell as a time traveller (or madman) arrived at a diner to recruit six people on a mission to save the world from an evil A.I.
Sequel to the killer doll film M3gan that is a much better work than its predecessor. If the original was Child’s Play by way of The Terminator then this is the series’ equivalent of Terminator 2: Judgement Day
The eighth of the Mission: Impossible films. The previous entry Dead Reckoning was a high point in the series and this is left wrapping up the storyline in what would appear to be Tom Cruise’s final outing for the series
This is a film that had the capacity within its hands to be a classic work about A.I. and robotics. Adapted from the art of Simon Stålenhag and directed by the Russo Brothers who were behind the last two Avengers films
A smart and extremely clever variant on Androids/A.I. themes with Sophie Thatcher as a sex android who gains self-awareness and independence. A great script filled with hilarious whiplash twists.
Former Pixar director Andrew Stanton, known for Finding Nemo, Wall-E and John Carter, makes a cross-historical work in the vein of Cloud Atlas that takes place between prehistory, the present and the future
Director Timur Bekmambetov makes a film in the Screenlife process where the screen becomes a computer screen. Set a near future L.A. where the judicial system has been replaced by an A.I
The Scream series drags itself for another sequel but at least performs a course correction by bringing back original screenwriter Kevin Williamson in the director’s chair, along with appearances of many past cast