The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Atlantis is a fabled lost land. Its existence derives from two works by Plato written circa 360 B.C. In the stories, it is a vast and powerful empire that was drowned by a cataclysmic wave supposedly sent by Zeus.
Many believe Atlantis to have been a real place, although there was no evidence Plato was describing such rather than writing fiction, and there have been various attempts over the years to archaeologically pinpoint its location.
Atlantis exists far more in popular imagination where it was seen as having achieved miracles of super-science that are now lost. Its ruins are frequently being discovered beneath the waves or underground, while many works recount its survivors having adapted to living life underwater and/or its denizens having become merpeople.
Head-scratching Albert Pyun oddity made for Cannon Films with Kathy Ireland searching for Atlantis underground. This emerges as a weird mix of Valley Girl comedy and Journey to the Center of the Earth
TV mini-series released as a theatrical film in some parts of the world that resurrects Captain Nemo in the present-day. It is Irwin Allen returning to his tv roots where Captain Nemo’s adventures become a blatant attempt to copy Star Wars
A few years ago Aquaman was regarded as a joke among superheroes. James Wan dispels any notion of Aquaman’s wimpiness in a series of jaw-dropping effects sequences that propel this ahead of anything the MCU is doing at the moment
The sequel to the DCEU’s Aquaman reaches for epic effects spectacle, although the character of Aquaman undergoes a substantial shift and is now given more of a comedy playing
The first and best film version of a classic story about an expedition finding the city ruled by an immortal queen in the desert. This was shot in the real locations and comes with a stunning sense of expansiveness
The sixth film version of a classic lost world story about explorers finding Atlantis and its immortal queen in the desert. This is a more mundane version that waters down the fantastic elements
Another shabby Disney video-released sequel, in this case to Atlantis the Lost Empire. The result looks like three episodes of an unsold tv series slapped together to sell as a film
George Pal was one of the top genre producers of the 1950s. Here he aims to emulate the Cinemascope Biblical spectaculars of the day albeit with an SF spin but this ends up one of his lesser works
One of the less successful films of the Disney renaissance of the 90s/00s. Disney has never done well with animated SF. That aside, this a very nicely animated Steampunk adventure
Released at the same time as Avengers: Infinity War, this was a mockbuster from The Asylum involving a team-up between fairytale characters. The third in their Avengers Grimm series
A documentary that purports to examine the mystery of the so-called Bermuda Triangle but soon dives off into an hilarious series of claims involving UFOs, Atlantis, time warps and The Philadelphia Experiment
Yorgos Lanthimos has become a director of acclaim in recent years. Here he remakes the Korean film Save the Green Planet where crazy conspiracy theorist Jesse Plemons abducts CEO Emma Stone insisting she is an alien
Ron Howard film clearly inspired by the success of E.T.. This story about seniors being rejuvenated after swimming in a pool that has an alien pod in it received critical kudos during its day but the film operates as a simplistic and naive wish-fulfillment fantasy
An adventure potboiler from The Asylum about the crew of a plane who pass through the Bermuda Triangle to end up in Atlantis just as the Atlanteans prepare to declare war on the surface world
One among a sub-genre of 1950s outer space sex fantasies where astronauts encounter all-women planets and sort them out with some good lovin’, Cat Women of the Moon is held as the Z movie of this genre but this is an even cheaper
TV mini-series based on the Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett novel that spoofs The Omen and Biblical End Times prophecies. The series is very close to the book as though it didn’t want to edit any precious gag
An incredibly bad Hercules film from Cannon Films made in Italy by Luigi Cozzi. This was the immediate aftermath of Star Wars so we get a bizarre attempt to rework Greek mythology as science-fiction
I’m not a fan of the Hotel Transylvania films and their reduction of the Famous Monsters to slapstick yocks. This is exactly the same as the preceding films, no better, no worse and with only minute plotting difference
This is not a film, it is a money-making machine in the guise of a film aimed squarely at undiscerning family audiences that plays to familiar characters and comic routines and has minimal difference to the preceding three Ice Age films
Sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth, a supposed adaptation of Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island and a consistently silly, nonsensical film that operates at the level of a children’s cartoon
The success of Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea created a spate of Jules Verne’s adaptation. Here Verne’s tale of explorers in an underground realm has been turned into an absurdly colourful adventure
Ostensibly as a teen version of the Jules Verne novel made by Cannon Films. However, this started under one director and finished under another with totally incomprehensible results
Zack Snyder completes his run through DC superheroes with mixed results. The introduction of the characters works well but Snyder too readily throws established continuity out the window, while the visual dourness becomes tedious
Not so much a Justice League film as an Aquaman origin film, which at least conducts a character oft regard as a DC laughing stock with suitable dignity
The most ridiculous work to bear Kong’s name – an animated film with songs where Kong has two buddies who says “dude” and “bro” a lot and Kong fights the lizard people from Atlantis
A Found Footage film that has fun uniting wacky conspiracy theories into a grand unified thesis. The swim of ideas is head-spinning
Bizarrely incomprehensible film from Avi Nesher set in a Cyberpunk future in which Olivier Gruner is turned into a Neanderthal superhuman by aliens living in cyberspace
A bizarre South Korean comedy about a businessman who is imprisoned by a possibly crazed man who insists that he is an alien. Things sit in an absurdly funny ambiguity. Later remade by Yorgos Lanthimos as Bugonia
The Hollywood version of L’Atlantide about men encountering the impossibly desirable queen of Atlantis in the desert. This was made as a vehicle for famously non-acting Maria Montez but has some fine sets and a brooding quality that makes it not uninteresting
The Asylum conduct their cheap version of the Jules Verne novel, so cheap it doesn’t even look like they went to sea or underwater to film. Here the oft-filmed Verne story has been modernised
A clone of Donald Trump battles The Illuminati and the Egyptian god Anubis on Mars before travelling to Hell to sort out The Devil. The sheer dementia of the premise alone has one sitting down to watch
Not one of the Doug McClure Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations but by the same people and in the same vein. Thanks to a particularly inventive script this is the best of these lost world adventures
Zack Snyder’s original cut of Justice League is a magnificent work that restores much character depth and story. I would far rather watch this than any of the recent MCU films