The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Sequel to Stephen Fung’s Taichi Zero. The first film was distractingly self-conscious and hyper-active; by contrast, this is much less so, allowing it to settle down and start being the fantastic martial arts film it sets out to be. Even so, classic Wu Xia directors leave everything Fung does for dead
Action film starring Lorenzo Lamas as a detective drawn into underground fight clubs while discovering a mystic sword owned by Alexander the Great
The third in the Hong Kong Wu Xia/flying swordsman series. After a sensational second entry, this one figures it has to top it, resulting in some utterly whacko scenes even by the usually OTT, anything-goes standards of Hong Kong fantasy
Sensational example of the Hong Kong Wu Xia/Flying Swordsman film. Ching Siu-Tung delivers an amazing series of martial arts battles with fantastical moves that are quite out of this world
The first in a highly enjoyable series of flying swordsman films produced by Tsui Hark. The series hit its peak with the second film but this is an enjoyably energetic and busy effort in its own
Made on the coat-tails of Conan the Barbarian, this is a low-budget sword and sorcery film that crackles with the essence of Robert E. Howard. The first film from regular genre director Albert Pyun
Nicely animated film from Richard Rich that tells the story of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in which a princess is turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer
Wes Craven makes a film based on the DC Comics character but reduces the mood of the original to something cartoonish. One of Craven’s worst films
The work on which the cult of director Dario Argento was built. The film consists of a series of extravagantly arty deaths at a girls boarding school, although comes without any real plot connecting this
George Romero’s sixth and final zombie film where he writes characters and a script with much more of a richness of theme than he did in the last two entries
This has a bad reputation but Bryan Singer does a wonderful job in bringing Superman back to the screen in a version surprisingly reliant on the Christopher Reeve films. The superheroics soar and Kevin Spacey makes for the best screen Lex Luthor ever
Aside from two earlier serials, this was the first Superman feature film, featuring George Reeves in a dry run for tv’s Adventures of Superman. With its crude effects and avoidance of much in the way of superheroics, this makes fascinating contrast to the modern Superman of Man of Steel
This is where the modern comic-book superhero began on screen. A film that is almost completely successful in banishing campy silliness and taking itself seriously, allowing Superman to fly with magnificent effects. Christopher Reeve shines as the ultimate boy scout
A 15 chapter serial that marks the very first live-action screen appearance of Superman. The superheroics and effects are painfully primitive today (where Superman flying is represented by animation) but the serial gets many aspects of the comic-book down right
The last of the Christopher Reeve Superman films after the series was taken over by Cannon Films. Usually regarded as the series low point due to the cheapness of the effects, this to its credits abandons the comedy focus of the preceding two films and has some not uninteresting aspects
The nadir of the Christopher Reeve Superman films, one where the desire to add a comedy element in the form of Richard Pryor overtakes and wrecks what is already a random and unfocused plot
The original version of Superman II became mired in problems over the firing of director Richard Donner. After the rediscovery of the original footage, Donner was able to go offer up a restored version. Seeing the storylines the way they were meant to be and Marlon Brando’s original scenes as Jor-el make for a work that is superior in every way
Shot back-to-back with the first Christopher Reeve film, this then became a mess behind the scenes. The end result emerges fairly well with the show dominated by the magnificent Phantom Zones villains and giving depth to the Superman-Lois relationship
Sequel to the animated The Super Mario Bros. Movie, which was the second highest grossing film of 2023. From the people behind the Despicable Me films, this exists as little more than eye candy for five-year-olds
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
Fourth of the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan films, which performs a confusing continuity reset to recast the role with the younger Ben Affleck. The film’s release was delayed by 9/11, which makes the plot about nuclear terrorism on US soil seems absurdly tame in retrospect
The first in a series of vampire films from Charles Band and Full Moon Productions. Several sequels followed.
The third of the Stuart Little films, this one animated instead of its live-action predecessors
The sequel to Stuart Little proves as equally likeable as its predecessor
Taking its its cue from the mix of animatronics and CGI in Babe, this is a live-action adaptation of the E.B. White book. A sweet and charming film about a family that adopts a little mouse boy that proved an unexpected hit
The third of Disney Dexter Reilly films in which teen inventor Kurt Russell creates a super-strength cereal
The very first film with the plot of a woman cop going undercover in a strip club. The police procedural plot and psycho element takes a very clear backseat to the stripper set-pieces, some of which are imaginatively staged. On the plus side, the film is directed by a woman
An Indian horror film about a folk tale of a witch spirit the Stree, this was a popular success that was then built out into an Indian version of The Conjuring Universe
The Strangers has been cited as one of the best horror films of the 2000s. This sequel emerges as a by-the-numbers entry that plays out no differently than a generic teen slasher film
The concluding chapter in a desultory trilogy of films based on the eerie home invasion classic The Strangers. The surprise is that this ends up being the best of the three films
The Strangers was an incredibly eerie home invasion story that has become a modern classic. This is the second chapter in a trilogy of reboot films that have been handed over to the perpetually terrible Renny Harlin
The Strangers was one the sleeper hits of the 2000s. This is the first chapter in a three film reboot. On the minus side, it has been handed over to Renny Harlin, who should be on any worst directors list
A harrowing home assault film that highlighted the debut of Bryan Bertino, a new director of considerable promise. The surprise about the film is just how much influence it has had on other works subsequently
The third of the films based around Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry’s Genesis II concept where a cryogenic sleeper awakes in a post-apocalyptic world
The Pang Brothers are some of the most exciting genre directors in the world. Here they take on the Wu Xia film and make a sequel to The Storm Riders that feels fuelled by too many viewings of 300
A solid variant on the Hong Kong flying swordsman genre that contains some epic plotting This is the point where the Wu Xia film discovered CGI effects
Cheaply made video-released sequel to Lilo & Stitch, which is only a rehash but does surprisingly reunite all the voice talents
Stir of Echoes was a spookily effective film. Alas in this sequel, we go from Kevin Bacon as a medium to Rob Lowe as a haunted Iraq War veteran amid a series of routine pop-up scares
Enormously underrated directorial effort from screenwriter David Koepp in which Kevin Bacon gains the ability to see the dead. A film filled with some genuinely spooky moments
Ira Levin’s original novel wherein the men of a town replace their wives with subservient android duplicates seems to have its satiric point blunted when it comes to the film adaptation
The second of three sequels to The Stepford Wives. I found the original implausible on any level and this is quadrupled when you get to replacing their children with android duplicates. A film that has been generated without anybody sitting and thinking about the premise on a practical level
A shabby sequel where the classic original where Terry O’Quinn is replaced by another actor and everything reduced to no more than a routine slasher film
Sequel to the hit psycho-thriller. Terry O’Quinn is back and on fine form but this just repeats the original, bumps up the number of killings with extra gore to become no more than a B psycho film
Great psycho-thriller with Terry O’Quinn as a man determined to marry into the perfect family who then slaughters the family when they fail to meet expectations. This digs into 80s Family Values with scabrous regard
The fifth of the films in the series begun with Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers. The best of the series was the previous entry Starship Troopers: Invasion where they turned it over to anime director Shinji Aramaki. This is a sequel to that, although the same mix fails to work again
The importation of anime director Shinji Aramaki to helm the latest Starship Troopers film provides dazzling animation and hardware, along with some hard, furious military action that easily outstrips all the other films. On the other hand, the film never goes beyond being about soldiers shooting up bugs
Travesty of Robert Heinlein’s classic SF novel from Paul Verhoeven. Heinlein’s philosophical argument for militarism is junked in favour of blackly comic mindless violence
Passable video-released Starship Troopers sequel the heads more in the direction of a body snatchers film. Directed by Phil Tippett
Modest space opera from British director Neil Johnson that achieves things with its effects on a low-budget that easily rivals A-budget films
Sequel to Starship Rising, a space opera that does some amazing things with effects on a next-to-no budget
The first of Roland Emmerich’s special effects epics. Emmerich rehashes Erich von Daniken’s Ancient Astronauts theories but casts it as a planetary adventure on an epic canvas with surprisingly entertaining results
Theatrical spinoff from the Star Wars prequels, released to introduce the popular animated series. This shows it is time for George Lucas to move beyond recycling something that was successful three decades ago
The tv special that George Lucas would have all copies destroyed, a work of legendary badness – a Star Wars Thanksgiving special featuring most of the original cast and a series of variety performances that are mind-boggling in their ineptitude, not to mention complete and utter fumbling of everything that Star Wars was
The concluding chapter of the third trilogy of Star Wars films. After the critically divided The Last Jedi, J.J. Abrams opts for a return to the safety of familiarity and nostalgia
I’m not one of the haters on this. It’s the first Star Wars sequel since the 1980s to invigorate the series with fresh action sequences and place more focus on the characters instead of the action
It’s not another Empire Strikes Back but it makes up for the prequels. A good part fanservice to the original – if overly reliant on rehashing elements from Star Wars – this also does many things right
A disappointing end to George Lucas’s original Star Wars trilogy. The script lazily wraps up loose ends while sidelining the new characters introduced the last time, and the climax rehashes the climaxes of the two other films
George Lucas’s first sequel to Star Wars and a work that holds up every bit as well as its predecessor, in many places betters it. The story darkens the mythos and introduces new characters, while the special effects sequences are the peak of the series
The last of George Lucas’s Star Wars prequel trilogy and the last opportunity for him to get it right, which he generally does. The effects are expert but are not allowed to dominate as much as they did previously and the focus has come back onto the story and Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader
The second of George Lucas’s Stars Wars prequels is no particular improvement. The romance is stiff and awkward, badly written while the effects sequences seem to be running out of new things to do and so just up the scale of what has happened before with so much going on it reaches a point of visual overload
George Lucas’s return to the Star Wars series after a sixteen year absence and a build-up rivaled only by the Second Coming. Instead most audiences went away disappointed. Lucas has used the interim to push the technology to its heights but the story and characters are lacking
The single most influential science-fiction film of all time, one that created a massive industry of sequels and spinoffs, not to mention copycats, and changed the way that people thought of science-fiction
Long-awaited revival of the tv series on the big screen. While this has a mixed fan reception, it is well worth re-evaluation. It is the only one of the Trek films that reaches for epic, mind-expanding places to find something of a 2001: A Space Odyssey
The last of the films spun off from Star Trek: The Next Generation and a dismal flop that killed the film series off. Tom Hardy as a bad guy Romulan is a cardboard threat while the uninspired plot rehashes The Wrath of Khan
I had mixed feelings about J.J. Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek This time around the actors seem more at home in the characters and the plot works a good deal better (for the most part), while Abrams creates a hurtling effects spectacle that is the most action-oriented of the Trek films
Third of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films has Jonathan Frakes back in the director’s seat where he again plays to his strengths with great visual effects scenes but the story feels like a filler episode
The first of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films is an odd affair that seems like a routine episode of the series that accidentally gained a big-screen budget. This crosses over with Classic Trek where William Shatner mugs his way through a grand old airing of Captain Kirk
The second of the Star Trek: The Next Generation films where series regular Jonathan Frakes takes the director’s chair and delivers an exciting adventure, showing an excellent hand with the special effects. Far more satisfying than the previous film
Gene Roddenbery created a tv series that was about boldly going, confronting different ways of life. The choice to hire the director of The Fast and the Furious films to helm the film made for the show’s 50th anniversary says how wrong-headed the reboot series has become – all about cool young leads and hurtling effects sequences
J.J. Abrams revives the Star Trek franchise by recasting it with younger faces and rewriting continuity. But in the appeal to a hipper, sexier vibe, it feels a long way from Gene Roddenberry’s creation – nowhere in evidence is the original’s concern with galactic politics and social issues of the day
The last of the classic Star Trek films. Nicholas Meyer, who made the last good Trek film The Wrath of Khan, returns to give the characters a moving send off, while the plot that reenacts the fall of the Berlin Wall with the Klingons gives the films a political immediacy that was missing since the tv series
William Shatner tries to emulate the success had by Leonard Nimoy in directing a Star Trek film but falls on his face, badly overstressing the comedy elements and delivering the worst of the Classic Trek films
Leonard Nimoy steps into the director’s chair of the third Star Trek film and his doing marks the shift of the films from intergalactic adventuring into the regulars engaged in a safe, easy set of adventures playing to fan audiences
Second of the Star Trek films, usually regarded as the fan favourite because of its often moving character focus on themes of life, death and aging. Ricardo Montalban makes a grandly theatrical villain and the film gets some great suspense out of space war sequences
Stake Land, set in a beautifully wintry post-holocaust world where vampires had taken over, one of the best films from Glass Eye Pix. This is a sequel that reunites most of the same elements from the original but fails to ignite them as memorably as the first film did
Strong and highly original film that takes place in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by vampires. This has more the feel of a zombie film or an existential Western but does some highly original things with its ideas
Robert Rodriguez revisits his juvenile spy capers franchise after a twelve year absence. Not perfect but it improves over the last couple of sequels
A series that reached its maximum level of cuteness two films ago is dragged out for another pointless entry that nobody was asking for. Robert Rodriguez delivers shabby juvenile slapstick
The third in the series is no longer even a Spy Kids film but a Virtual Reality videogame film. Robert Rodriguez has some fun creating the virtual worlds but the parody that the other films engaged in is missing
The second of Robert Rodriguez’s Spy Kids films is slightly the lesser of its predecessor – it makes the mistake of stripping out the gadgets – but is still fun and has the wacky surrealism Rodriguez gave the first film
Robert Rodriguez has a huge amount of fun by recasting James Bond antics with kids. The film was a success that spawned several sequels
One of the earliest films from Ron Howard as director, a bubbly infectiously light comedy with Tom Hanks in a romance with mermaid Daryl Hannah. This was a hit and offered major career breakthroughs for Howard, Hanks, Hannah and John Candy.
The Saw series is revived sort of, featuring the activities of a Jigsaw copycat, otherwise this offers up all the familiar essentials in all but name
The black sheep among the Japanese Ringu films. A sequel released the same time as the first film, this lacks the other’s uncanny atmosphere and was ignored
In a whole bunch of ways this – plausibility being a big one of them – is a bad film. On the other hand, it does boast an entertaining array of giant spiders all emerged from a space shuttle crash
The third and last of the theatrically released films recut from the 1970s live-action Spider-Man tv series. The near sleep-inducing plot takes Nicholas Hammond’s Spider-Man to Hong Kong
Sony’s Spider-Man franchise ingeniously competes with Marvel’s shared universe by bringing all their previous incarnations of Spider-Man together
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 animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse proved an unexpected success. This sequel builds on that ups the artistic quality of the original to something quite extraordinary
Last and by general opinion the least of the Sam Raimi-Tobey Maguire Spider-Man films. With three super-villains present, the plot feels as though it is bursting at the seams juggling the various origin stories and ongoing dramas, although Raimi still delivers some solid superheroic action scenes
Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire get it just right in the second entry in their trilogy of Spider-Man films. The writing team deliver a fantastic Soul of the Superhero script while Raimi delivers some superheroic action sequences that are about as exciting as it is possible to get (*)
A huge hit and one of the key influences that created the box-office dominance of Marvel Comics in the 2000s/10s. A fine incarnation of the comic-book, Sam Raimi brings it to life with exhilarating web-slinging scenes but overdoes the winsome innocence of Peter Parker
The first big screen incarnation of the Marvel Comics character, the theatrically released pilot for a dreary tv series starring Nicholas Hammond that stripped Spider-Man down to being no more than a superpowered detective in a tv cop show
Fourth entry in the Species series where at least the series seems to have gravitated to the arena of the trashily absurd B movie it belongs
The third of the Species films, which follows Sil’s daughter. Some okay makeup effects but the plotting gets fairly silly
Slick and rather silly copy of Alien that conceptually cross-hatches it to emerge as essentially Basic Instinct with tentacles
Sequel to Species that this time offers up the male of the species. The film feels put together as an exercise in makeup effects but their physiological absurdity causes the film to topple into silliness
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
An animated film about NASA experimental chimpanzees. Not quite up there with Pixar but an amiable and unpretentious and amiable outing
A Roger Corman produced slasher film, which spawned two sequels. The plot draws heavily on Halloween and comes with all the usual scenes of co-eds being stalked by a maniac escaped from an asylum