The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
An otherworld is a world that does not resemble this one and operates on the rules of Magic. A different world that operates on implied rules of science is either a Planet, an Other Dimension or perhaps an Alternate Reality.
Written Epic Fantasy usually takes place in an otherworld – a land that is self-contained, although sometimes can be tied to this – in the case of Narnia is reached through a Portal, in the case of Conan’s Hyboria exists in the ancient past, or Oz where it is travelled to via a tornado.
The otherworld is often filled with an array of exotic creatures, which can include Elves, Fairies, Dwarves, Dragons, Goblins and Trolls, Orcs and assorted mythical creatures, as well as ones invented for the particular story. The peoples of the land usually live in some type of feudal world, before the industrial revolution (where swordmaking has at least evolved) and the political system is a monarchy.
Fairytales can take place in some variation on this land, although details of the world are usually nebulous. An otherworld need not be a detailed world on the order of J.R.R. Tolkien. Places like Oz, Alice’s Wonderland, the realms of Dr Seuss, the world of Labyrinth (1986) and the Lego universe take place in a realm of exotic colour and design and/or nonsensical denizens and happenings.
A work of bizarre genius from stop-motion animator Jan Svankmajer. A surrealist take on Alice in Wonderland that is more Eraserhead than Lewis Carroll, filled with Svankmajer’s bizarre Claymation creatures
Absolutely extraordinary film that takes place in a world inhabited by marionettes on strings, something that is built out into a complex metaphor and worldview
The third of The Beatles films, in this case an animated work that features likenesses of The Fab Four as they trip through some amazing nonsensical psychedelic visuals
Hayao Miyazaki’s son Goro more than capably takes up his father’s mantle in a anime beautiful adaptation of one of Ursula K. Le Guin’s later Earthsea books
Peter Jackson wowed the world with this first part of his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy. This is epic filmmaking and one that shows Jackson in full command of his craft
This Hayao Miyazaki film about a girl who becomes assistant to a mysterious magician is not quite in the same league as Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away but has the sublime beauty, eccentric characters and tender charms that all his work does
Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings saga truly gains its feet here, expanding out onto an epic scale where he has fused special effects and story into a singular vision
Phil Tippett, creator of effects on Star Wars and Jurassic Park, creates a unique, unclassifiable stop-motion animated film set in an industrial nightmare world
Neil Gaiman and comic-book artist Dave McKean create a venture into a fantasy world with an extraordinary level of visual imagination and peopled with a remarkable panoply of creations. The results are quite unlike any other film you have seen
Chuck Jones, the director of numerous Warner Brothers cartoons, adapts a popular children’s book that comes with a dizzying array of surreal visuals and puns
The film that Jim Henson chose to make as successor to The Muppets. An astonishing technical leap beyond Muppetry to create an entire fantasy world in living, breathing detail all only inhabited by puppets
Before this was spun out into a series of ho-hum sequels, the original was an animated film that burst with a freshness and a series of winning voice characterisations
The welcome return of stop-motion animator Henry Selick, the director of The Nightmare Before Christmas and at his wildly imaginative and darkly menacing best in an adaptation of a book by Neil Gaiman
Forgotten Japanese film about a man searching for a friend finding a village where a bell must be struck to prevents creatures escaping from a pond. Beautiful, bizarre and quite unlike any fantasy film you have seen before
Stunning Jim Henson directed fantasy film set in a world of visual illusions where the Henson team’s puppetry effects are at the peak of their game to provide the creature effects
Studio adaptation that freely mixes elements from Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and features an all-star cast line-up, this works far better than the purists would have it
A Roald Dahl children’s film that has become a cult classic, set in a deliriously nonsensical world with Gene Wilder give a sinisterly threatening performance in the title role
Disney’s animated adaptation is usually hated by Lewis Carroll purists for its free and easy treatment of the story but for everyone else comes with a splendidly demented visual absurdism
One of the best Disney animated films in ages. Has the winning concept of the secret lives of the characters inside videogames. Imagine Tron by way of Toy Story. The animators have clever fun with the idea, while the film creates a character arc that become the strength of the film
Matthew Vaughn adapts a Neil Gaiman book in this undeniably appealing fantasy that comes with a story of epical sweep that vies between fantastic imagination and broad humour
Nick Willing conducts the first of his SF revampings of popular tales. Here The Wizard of Oz is reworked into a Steampunk fantasy with some startling reinterpetations of the familiar characters
The weakest of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films. This is the most variant from the source material and the one where Jackson allows his tendency to visual effects bloat to take over
Anime film released to accompany the computer game. Dazzling, epic-sized animation, mocapped in photorealistic detail that wows the eye on a scale that Western animators never come near
How much fun can a film based around Lego characters be? A film that overflows with cleverness, wit and energy. The most fun is in the film’s creating a madcap mix-up of characters from different franchises
Exquisitely lovely anime set in a world of creatures that live on scavenged human junk. If in the end, the heroine’s allegorical quest is on the generic side, the film captivates you with the richness of colour and detail that has gone into imagining its world
Adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s pulp adventure stories and the film that made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star. The script from Oliver Stone takes unevenly from Howard but director John Milius gives the film a brutal, primal majesty
Extraordinary Belgian fabulist film, part-animated, part live-action, that takes place in a surreal alternate world
Sequel to The Lego Movie. This time the idea of the Lego universe, the crossovers and fourth-wall breaking gags are not as fresh but this still gets good mileage out of them
Animated film spun off from a popular French online gameworld, which had also previously spawned an animated tv series. The results are amiably engaging with a sense of humour that makes the show
I had a lot of liking for Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph, a depiction of the inside of a videogame from the viewpoint of the characters. This expands the concept to the internet. Despite being the ultimate product placement film, this also rather appealingly shows Disney poking fun at themselves
Sam Raimi’s prequel to The Wizard of Oz is now; the story of how a conman fools an entire land rather than of an innocent girl just trying to find her way home. The reconceptualisation of Oz comes with a colourful sweep
The concluding chapter of the trilogy of live-action Fullmetal Alchemist films, this follows the manga’s storyline closely and brings the series to an epic conclusion
A fairly reasonable tv mini-series adaptation of Lewis Carroll – a version that excels in terms of design and in using The Jim Henson Workshop to bring the Wonderland creatures to life
The first of two sequels to the live-action Fullmetal Alchemist. The first felt uninspired but this and the third film expand the saga and its storyline out with considerable depth
Generally overlooked animated adaptation of the J.R.R. Tolkien book made for tv by Rankin-Bass. This keeps to the text very faithfully – more so than Peter Jackson – and is only let down by some limited animation
The first in a series of Terry Pratchett Discworld adaptations for tv. This makes the odd choice of adapting one of the more complex and darker of Pratchett’s usually comic books but it works fairly well overall
A film from the Pang Brothers in which a heroine enters into an extraordinarily conceived fantasy world that would appear to be taking place in her own imagination
Following on from his reworking of The Wizard of Oz in Tin Man, this is a tv mini-series where Nick Willing rather fascinatingly reinterprets Alice in Wonderland in SF terms
Way back before Peter Jackson, Ralph Bakshi made this not uninteresting animated adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien. The film was not a success and Bakshi failed to return to complete the second part of the story
Stephen King writes the script for a TV mini-series adaptation of what he considers to be his best book about a widow who discovers a secret parallel world
The 59th animated film from Disney emerges as a modest effort with a cross-Asian cultural focus that eventually builds a strong character arc
A sweet and quite lovely anime where a girl befriends the boy she pines after being offered a mask that transforms her into a cat body – only to then have her own body stolen
Live-action film adaptation of the popular animated tv series, this was widely seen as a disaster for M. Night Shyamalan. I am one of the few that liked the film for Shyamalan’s superbly designed world
The second live-action tv adaptation of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books (in fact combining two books). This is uneven and oddly padded but beautifully produced
If Hayao Miyazaki ever follows through on his threat to retire, the one most likely inheritor would be Mamoru Hosoda. This is a perfectly enjoyably film that is sort of The Karate Kid by way of Disney’s The Jungle Book
The twelfth film from Hayao Miyzaki at age 82, a quasi-autobiographical if a slightly less classic work. A renaissance of many Miyazaki themes as a boy follows a heron though into a strange fantasy otherworld
Made by Walden Media following the success of their The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, a well-made adaptation of a Christian children’s book even if it sits uncertainly between gentle realism and the push to make it a fantasy film
Studio Ghibli anime in which a girl saves the life of a cat only to be drawn into a world of cats where a cat prince decides she will be his bride
Critically acclaimed Guillermo Del Toro film set during the Spanish Civil War where a young girl finds the entrance to a dark realm. This plays like a very dark version of the Narnia films
This is an appealingly strange Charles Band produced children’s film about a kid who discovers a miniature magical kingdom that is located under the kitchen sink
Another of Uwe Boll’s videogame adaptations and one of his better. Boll is seeking to emulate the 00s epic fantasy fad and succeeds with some great action choreography from Ching Siu-Tung
Before the films, this was an earlier BBC tv mini-series version of the C.S. Lewis book, one of a series of four adaptations. This is faithful to the story but suffers from impoverished effects
The second of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, the slightest of the works where the story is reduced to two half-hour episode
Animated adaptation of the Dr Seuss book is an amiable effort that captures a certain zaniness but ultimately seems to be forcing Seuss’s slim original to inhabit the formula of the modern animated film
This was the third of the four BBC tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books. The tv versions treats the books with quite reasonable faithfulness but suffer from extremely cheap looking effects
This was the fourth and final, as well as the best of the BBC’s tv adaptations of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books, which works well enough despite the impoverished production values
Amiable if lightweight film where a live-action Macaulay Culkin gets animated and has a series of adventures in a Land of Fiction where he must pass through various classic stories
After two bloated and over-padded Hobbit films, Peter Jackson finally gets it together and produces what everyone was expecting him to deliver, even if it means dragging one battle scene out to last an entire film
Way back before Peter Jackson, there was another whole era of Tolkien adaptations, including this animated adaptation of the third book, which is a peculiar oddity if nothing else
Illumination Entertainment, the company behind the Despicable Me films, make an animated film based on the popular videogame franchise. The result was the second highest grossing film of the year
The first of two animated Hellboy spinoffs with the live-action actors returning to voice their parts. This is the better of the two animated films, developing a weirdness as it takes Hellboy inside a Japanese spirit realm
A popular fantasy film of the 80s that sits just between the imaginative, particularly when it comes to some its creature effects and design work, and the mawkish. It also comes with an intriguing level of meta-fiction that delivers some odd messages
Passable children’s fantasy film where the young deposed prince of a kingdom gains the aid of a magical creature that grows bigger each time it eats metal
Second tv version of the Raymond Briggs book about a secret society of bogeys who love all that is filthy and disgusting, This cheats when it comes to the bogeys but goes all out on the disgustingness of their lifestyle
BBC mini-series adaptation of Raymond Briggs’ classic children’s book about a secret underworld of bogeys who love all that is filthy and disgusting and their encounter with a human family
Lightweight Luc Besson directed children’s fantasy with a young boy shrunken down to miniature size to engage in a series of CGI animated adventures among a race of fairy-like people. Several sequels followed
A live-action film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland that conducts a passable run through of Lewis Carroll with the supporting characters populated by an all-star British cast
Hallmark mini-series set in a world 200 years after the classic fairytales have occurred, this wittily deflates or contrasts classic story elements with the present-day
An unusual, visually fascinating fantasy film where a knight enters into the realm of demons to save a girl, while being granted a talisman that allows him to continually be killed and resurrected
The previous Barbie animated films had adapted various fairytales but this casts her as a fairy in a magical kingdom – simplistic, but one of the most colourfully animated of Mainframe’s Barbie films
Pixar release that received uneven box-office and a critical drubbing. Despite being lumbered with a weak premise – talking elements! – it is not entirely unwatchable
Another of Mainframe’s interminable Barbie films that soon slip into a sameness. This is at least directed with a visual sweep
Earlier less well known adaptation of the C.S. Lewis book made for tv. This is faithful to the book but is badly hampered by primitive animation and an exceedingly simplistic rendering of the story
Mamoru Hosoda conducts the bizarre notion of an anime version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It is a Hamlet that Shakespeare would barely recognise, following a heroine as she makes a journey across the afterlife
Fantasy film set in a magical otherworld defended by martial arts wielding kangaroos
Outside of the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films, not much else that George Lucas has made has been a success. This Ron Howard-directed epic fantasy proved to be a big flop where Howard’s lightweight touch fails to make a one-dimensional plot fly
The first half of a two-part adaptation of the hit Broadway musical that is a prequel to The Wizard of Oz, showing The Wicked Witch’s origin story
Adaptation of a book by famous children’s writer Enid Blyton about a series of adventures in a magical tree. Blyton would be turning in her grave at some of the changes and modernisations
A live-action film based on the popular
The weakest of the Muppet movies where they are turned into the characters in a retelling of The Wizard of Oz
Big, no-expense-spared Disney production of the fairytale. The film is stunning to look at it in terms of design and costuming but has a simplicity that leaves little for adults to engage with
The third of the Shrek films settles in with a formulaic blandness where the characters turn up more because everyone expects them to than the film finds much for them to do
Shrek was a fresh and original hit. The first of four insipid sequels, this seems to merely coast by on our liking of the characters while upping the fairytale parody
The second half of the film adaptation of the musical Wicked. This essentially operates as Wizard of Oz fanfiction and substantially wrenches the characters and backstories from the 1939 film out of shape to write its own story
Russian film that creates a fascinating alternate reality where Steampunk and magic blend in an almost familiar world
Steven Spielberg’s long-planned live-action version of Peter Pan emerges as a sequel that asks the question “What would happen if Peter Pan grew up?” Unfortunately, the results are not one of Spielberg’s better films
The film adaptation of C.S. Lewis’s book sought to appeal to audiences for the Lord of the Rings films but between Lewis’s heavy-handed Christian allegories and Andrew Adamson’s inexperience as a director fails to fly
The trailer tries to build this up as a venture into a fantasy world. In reality, all that the film is is a documenting of several of Cirque du Soleil’s acts connected by a thin-to-non-existent story
The second of the Narnia films. Director Andrew Adamson seems so intent on copying Peter Jackson that the film becomes all epic fantasy flourishes and battle scenes to the exclusion of all else – even much of C.S. Lewis’s book
Seventh of the animated Barbie films, spinoff of the earlier Barbie Fairytopia, all delivered in sugary upbeat sentiments amid pastel colour schemes that would look eye-poppingly psychedelic if one were high
This sequel to Conan the Barbarian makes the mistake of watering the primal brutalism down to a PG rating and what results ends up being a pedestrian comic-book adventure
This attempted to do something different to the usual formula US kiddie animation film and creates its own fantasy world. Unfortunately, while the ambition is admirable, the film flopped badly
Sequel to the earlier Barbie animated film Barbie Fairytopia. Extremely colourful but essentially a fantasy version of a teenage girl high school drama that quickly slips into pre-packaged formula
A Soviet equivalent of Alice in Wonderland or even more so Alice Through the Looking Glass where a young girl ventures into a fantasy on the other side of the mirror
A TV mini-series based on the popular illustrated books by James Gurney about the discovery of a lost land where dinosaurs have evolved into their own civilisation
Head-scratchingly odd fantasy film produced by John Boorman and family where a young boy is transported to a world where he mingles with characters from fiction
Film based on the enormously popular roleplaying game, this appears to have been quickly thrown together in advance of The Lord of the Rings films but is a shabby effort filled with some disastrous off-tone casting
A new film based on the role-playing game. The first film several years ago is poorly regarded. This is an attempt to reboot a film series but suffers badly from being handed to two comedy directors and their flip treatment
Less a film than a phenomenon, there is something ironic about a doll that is accused of promoting negative body standards ending up leading a women’s movement. Moria has just one or two issues with this.
The Disney musical version of a story that takes place among the denizens of fairytale. Some visual nonsense but the film dies a slow lumbering death amid the sugary sentiment