The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Based on TV refers to three types of films, all of which are derived from popular tv series.
The sixth of the Mission: Impossible films. Not the best of the series but Tom Cruise and associates have everything polished to an expertly honed formula by now and the film is a kinetic ride of intensive and often jaw-dropping action sequences
The best of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible films to this point. The live-action directorial debut of Pixar director Brad Bird proves an inspired move and Bird gets all the gadgetry just right along with a series of sensational action sequences
The Mission: Impossible films have become superbly polished vehicles with exotic locales, death-defying stuntwork and spectacular action sequences. This enacts it all well; the main problem is that Ghost Protocol is such a tough act to follow that this cannot help but fall in its shadow
DreamWorks animated film based on an old Rocky and Bullwinkle segment about a time-travelling genius dog and his adopted human son. This takes a relentlessly content-free approach to history that strips it down to no more than a series of giddy 3D slapstick gags for the single digit age groups
Film spinoff from tv’s The Munsters, a likeable knockabout farce featuring the original cast
Rob Zombie conducts a big-screen remake of The Munsters and surprisingly enough makes his best film yet
The first of the insipid Muppet movies made following Jim Henson’s death, directed by his son Brian. This twists the Muppets out of shape to fit them into a retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
The first and best of the Muppet films where Jim Henson spins them off onto the big screen with charm and sly humour
Another of the desultory 90s Muppet films, which fits them into a retelling of Treasure Island. Missing is the humour and creativity from back when Jim Henson was alive.
Surprisingly fun revival of the Muppets that reboots the series after the insipid entries of the last few years and succeeds by going back to recapture the sly double-level of humour that Jim Henson patented
The third and one of the better of the generally insipid Muppet movies produced following Jim Henson’s death. This tells the story of Gonzo’s origins as an alien where the film borrows spoofs the then-popularity of tv’s The X Files
The Muppets were successfully revived in The Muppets; this is a lesser follow-up that leaves us with a feeling that the creative team used their best ammunition first time around
The third Muppets film, the last Jim Henson would be involved with, this shows them putting on a Broadway show
The weakest of the Muppet movies where they are turned into the characters in a retelling of The Wizard of Oz
The big screen remake of the 1960s sitcom about a wacky alien visitor. However, this all of the original’s amusements promptly gets buried under frenetic slapstick and cheap CGI gags
Film spinoff from tv’s Mystery Science Theater 3000 and its deplorable habit of inserting jokes into old films. Here it is the turn of This Island Earth, which is a far better film than the attempt to send it up here
The second and better of the films spun off from tv’s Dark Shadows. At last the show gets production values and atmosphere that do it justice, although the series cult figure of Barnabas Collins does not appear
A flop theatrical film spinoff from the Get Smart tv series with Don Adams’ Maxwell Smart trying to stop a bomb that renders people naked
The third cinematically released film repackaged from episodes of the cultish 1960s spy tv series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Despite a scattershot plot that doglegs all over the place, the film is made with a wonderfully droll sense of humour that makes it undeniably appealing
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. tv series was construed as lighter take on the James Bond films. This, the third theatrical film recut from tv episodes, is one of the most entertaining, creating a memorable super-villain and almost entirely consisting of over-the-top death traps and action set-pieces
The first film spun off from the popular Pokemon phenomenon and animated series, this is largely incomprehensible to anyone who is not familiar with the series
The second of the animated films spun off around the Pokemon phenomenon and an altogether better film than its predecessor due to some imaginative animation
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with its ridiculous rubber monsters and dementedly over-the-top acting as one of the key pop culture phenomena of the 1990s. The question is what audience do producers possibly think that there might be for a dark and gritty cinematic reboot?
Film spinoff from the Mighty Morphin Powers Rangers tv series that became a fad in the 90s. All the same rubber monsters and shrieking over-the-top acting is preserved intact
A surprisingly good animated film about the relationship between a caveman and a dinosaur, all without a line of dialogue. From the director of the Hotel Transylvania films
Film spinoff of an anime series about a future police force that uses a system to monitor the brains of the populace for the potential to commit crime. Reminiscent of Minority Report, this is not uninteresting, although falls short of being another Appleseed or Ghost in the Shell
Mind-spinning film spinoff of the tv series H.R. Pufnstuf, this plays out like The Wizard of Oz on hallucinogens
The second of the Quatermass films. An alien body snatchers tale that suggests even the British government has been infiltrated. This is regarded by many as the best of the series
The third and in the opinion of many the best of Hammer’s Quatermass films in which Nigel Kneale introduces a conceptually wild array of ideas about Martians, race memory, psychic powers and The Devil
The first of the Quatermass films and the first major genre hit for Hammer Films. Nigel Kneale creates a literate work of science-fiction horror about a returned astronaut mutating after exposure to an alien fungus
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are resurrected in a new animated film that feels like a watered-down fix designed for Ritalin-deprived youth
The second entry in the ultra-annoying animated franchise spun off from the animated tv series that only seems to centre around poo and pee jokes, this is marginally more enjoyable than the first film
The first film spinoff of the popular animated tv series Rugrats about infants observing the adult world
Big screen revival of the famous playboy spy falls flat due to the miscasting of Val Kilmer in the title role where Kilmer’s attempts to adopt disguises and accents throughout becomes risible. The thriller plot is nothing to get excited about.
An animated film revival of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? This also makes an misguided attempt to build a shared universe among assorted Hanna-Barbera characters
The live-action film version of the popular Hanna-Barbera animated tv series. Despite James Gunn on script, this is not very good, a one-dimensional, no-brain film trying to look like a one-dimensional, no-brain cartoon
Sequel to the live-action Scooby-Doo, this is at least a better film than its predecessor, being more polished in its slapstick and effects but still has no more ambition beyond being a silly no-brain film
The tv series Firefly gained a cult following before being cancelled before its time. This was a theatrical film intended to wrap the story up.
Probably the loudest I have laughed and the most unabashed fun I have had in a theatre all year. The most 100% successful of all of Aardman’s films to date at capturing the quirky and uniquely homesy style of their short films, this comes with gags packed in every single frame
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
Reboot of the old Japanese superhero series, conducted with the epic scale, mass destruction and dazzling effects of the more recent Godzilla films
Film spinoff from the long-running animated tv series. The familiar gags are there but show feels awkward extruded out to a full-length plot. You keep feeling the film should have been more than it is.
Disastrous Hollywood version of Dennis Potter’s classic tv mini-series where a hospitalised Robert Downey jr fantasises a dream world of 1940s film noir
The first film was vaguely passable but this is an agonising piece of commercial product that has reduced everything to lazy slapstick sequences, cutsie laughs and smartass lines played for the single-digit age groups
Live-action version of the popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon series. In its favour, it is at least slickly polished and comes with far less in the way of irritating smartass humour that one expected
An animated revival of The Smurfs. This was greeted with a very negative reception. With a massive celebrity voice line-up packed into almost any corner of the film the casting director can manage
For their third Smurfs film, Sony have dispensed with the live-action/CGi animation mix of the previous two films and made a wholly animated film. Its’ the Smurfs in their more natural element but the film is never more than 3D eye candy for the moppet audiences
A theatrical release spun off from tv’s cult absurdist/scatological show. Not as sophisticated as later seasons of the tv series but with a raucously wacky bite that is frequently hilarious
A live-action remake of the 1970s anime series Space Cruiser Yamato made with stupendous effects, although now much of the plot has been rendered familiar by assorted Star Wars copies
Anime film spun off from a popular Japanese tv series. Despite crude animation, this has a colourful vigour and taps the same space opera vein as Star Wars, which came only three months earlier
The brooding space pirate Captain Harlock is one of the famous anti-heroes in manga and anime. Harlock gets a big screen revamp here from Shinji (Appleseed) Aramaki, one of the most amazing of modern anime directors, who delivers a series of epic space battles with a breathtaking beauty
The Wachowskis live-action remake of the anime series is a sublimely madcap confection, a film that is alive with vibrant visuals and all the colours of the rainbow. A box-office flop but glorious, even groundbreaking visually
The 1970s Spider-Man tv series was a miserable failure at live-action superheroics, little more than a crime show with a costumed hero. This was the best of three theatrically released films edited from it with the plot of students building an atomic bomb has an undeniable real world credibility
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
Spongebob Squarepants was a sleeper hit on the Nickelodeon Channel that crossed over to find an adult following; this is the first of the film spinoffs. The film comes with a zanily surreal sense of humour that ran through the series that is frequently downright hilarious
The fifth of the theatrically released films based on tv’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. This is one of the more overtly comic films with an entertainingly madcap plot that has Napoleon Solo forced into a shotgun wedding and Jack Palance as a mad winemaker attempting to divert the Gulf Stream
The second of the feature films repackaged from the tv series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., one of the better copies of the James Bond spy fad of the 1960s. Despite the low conceptual horizons of a tv episode, this plays itself with a splendidly droll tongue-in-cheek panache
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 second of the films spun off from tv’s Tales from the Crypt. While the first film Demon Knight took itself seriously, this does not and is killed by a campy tone and a miscast Dennis Miller keeping up a running barrage of excruciating one-liners
Film spinoff from the popular Tales from the Crypt horror anthology tv series but with more gore effects, this is competently done but does nothing to distinguish itself
Film spinoff from the Tales from the Darkside tv series, this is an anthology of three horror tales, the result is a surprisingly slick and well made film
Film spinoff from the animated tv series Teen Titans Go! This hits in with an hilairous barrage of one-liners wickedly spoofing the superhero genre and jokes at DC Comics canon
Here the less-than-serious Teen Titans Go! conduct an Into the Spider-Verse-type crossover with their serious counterparts from the multiverse
The first film featuring DC Comics; Teen Titans, a spinoff from the Teen Titans animated series
Theatrical film spinoff from the Thomas the Tank Engine tv series using several imported American actors
Very obscure horror anthology re-edited from episodes of a Canadian tv series featuring names like John Hurt, Charles Gray and Keir Dullea.
The second of the films spun off from the Gerry Anderson puppet tv series and a much better dramatically sustained film than its predecessor
This live-action film version of the cult Gerry Anderson puppet series is a disaster. Great effort is made to replicate the look of the original but the film is killed by the choice to rewrite everything as a modern formula kid’s movie
The first of the films spun off from Gerry Anderson’s cult puppet tv series. Not a completely successful transition but it is, as always with an Anderson production, worth watching for what the Andersons do best – making amazing models and blowing them up
Michael Bay takes on the 1980s toy phenomenon, turning it into a massive blockbuster filled with copious mass destruction and machines beating the metal crap out of each other
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
The third of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. While the human scenes opt for a ghastly miscalculated sense of humour, the effects houses are at the peak of their game, even if Bay allows them to drag the mass destruction out to a numbing excess
Since Michael Bay retired from the series, The Transformers films have been looking for new directions. This ventures into animation to tell a Transformers origin story
The first of Michael Bay’s Transformers sequels has even better effects and more copious mass destruction to the point it washes over you without any effect
The seventh of the live-action Transformers films, the second made after Michael Bay stepped down from the director’s chair
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
Animated theatrically released spinoff from the original Transformers tv series. The film mostly serves to highlight the considerable number of characters where to the uninitiated it is frequently difficult to tell one side from the next.
Modestly effective British entry into the 1950s alien invasion genre with people fighting invaders on a Swiss mountainside
The second of the film spinoffs from tv’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. More inane silliness played with shrieking OTT excess
Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, John Landis and George Miller came together to make this homage to tv’s The Twilight Zone. The episodes are variable but the standout is Miller’s Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
David Lynch’s cinematic prequel to his cult tv series critically divides people. Charting the last days of the doomed prom queen Laura Palmer, Sheryl Lee gives a tour-de-force performance
David Lynch’s dive into the dark underbelly of smalltown weirdness became the cult tv series of the 1990s. This is the slightly re-edited pilot issued for theatrical release internationally, which offers an ungainly wrap-up to the proceedings
Big screen version of a classic New Zealand children’s story, directed by Jonathan King with an emphasis on gooey creature effects
Excruciating and unfunny live-action version of the animated tv series about a superpowered dog. Everything is now run over with lame slapstick and smartass one-liners
Walking With Dinosaurs was an amazing documentary series that recreated prehistoric life with CGI animation. By contrast. the film spinoff is a cutsie animated film with talking dinosaurs. It is a film that is killed by the decision to let the dinosaurs talk with smartass one-liners and contemporary in-jokes
The big screen remake of the 1960s Western/spy mashup tv series is transformed into an overblown and painfully unfunny Will Smith vehicle that loudly signals it is taking none of itself seriously
Film spinoff from tv’s hit ultra-paranoid alien conspiracy drama. The film is caught in the unenviable position of trying to give fans what they want and reiterate the basics of the series for new audiences, while giving away no plot details in advance, and as a result ended up pleasing nobody
The second theatrical spinoff from The X Files, a dismally dull entry where one wonders how the people who created one of the great tv shows of the 1990s got it all wrong
Takashi Miike conducts a live-action adaptation of a 1970s anime tv series with completely madcap results. The effect is like drowning in multi-coloured candyfloss flavoured with LSD