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 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 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 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
For his third outing in the series, Tom Cruise made a smart bet on giving the reins to J.J. Abrams who made his directorial debut and turned in the most enjoyable entry in the series to that point. One of the best moves is in the casting of Philip Seymour Hoffman as the villain of the show
The second of Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible films where he has the smarts to hire John Woo as director who brings his customary stylish flair with action to transform the film into something exhiliraing
Episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica tv series that were recut and screened theatrically for international audiences
An ill-conceived attempt to compete amid the high stakes box-office superheroics enjoyed by Marvel and belatedly DC, this had one of the most disastrous box-office showings of 2016 … Based on a popular line of action toys, this gets nothing right – it’s hard to tell it is meant to be a superhero film for half the show
A reboot of Masters of the Universe, this fully embraces the mythology of the animated series and gives them great life. But is also a work that is constantly deflating any chance you are taking it seriously
Live-action film based on the Mattel toy line and popular animated tv series. Given a Cannon Films budget, it emerges as a cheesily absurd Flash Gordon/Conan the Barbarian knockoff
A spinoff film from The Mandalorian tv series, this is the best film set in the Star Wars universe this side of the 2000s for the simple reason that it has invested in characters rather than slavish fanboy callbacks
Surprisingly halfway reasonable big screen remake of the 1960s tv series, this welcomely dumps the campy silliness of the show for a grittier, much more realistic take on the characters
Film spinoff from the popular British comedy series sees the familiar characters entering the real world to meet their creators and deal with the cancellation of the show
A film from the comedy collective Rooster Teeth about four screw-ups who pick up power suit items from an alien spaceship only to find they are to defend Earth in a tournament
Lazer Team was an easy predictable comedy about four screw-ups that accidentally obtain parts of an alien power suit. This sequel is all the same gags on rinse and repeat.
Film spinoff from a YouTube channel that features two comedians giving absurdly over-the-top survivalist tips. What works as a series of short clips has difficulty extending the gags to a dramatic plot
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
Big screen revival of the children’s lost world tv series that is now a loud and excruciating Will Ferrell vehicle that reduces the original into lowbrow farce. A majorly unfunny bomb on every level
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
One of the appealingly colourful theatrical films edited together from the tv series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. – although surprisingly given the title this is not a martial arts film
A live-action film based on the animated tv series about a girl rock band who originally appeared in Archie comics, this gets buried under its own efforts to be cutely ironic
A theatrical film version spun off from The Jetsons, the popular Hanna-Barbera animated tv series about a space age family. Not too much has changed since the 1960s
The original animated series was one of the pop oddities of the 80s – part teen pop fantasy, part superheroics and secret identities. This live-action remake is an object lesson in how to strip all the fun elements out a series
A video-released sequel to the live-action Matthew Broderick film starring French Stewart. This is played as much more of a cartoon and amped to a maximum level of slapstick inanity
A live-action adaptation of the popular animated series, one of the spate of such films made after the live-action The Flintstones. Amiably silly and frequently slapstick fun that proves to be exactly what one expects of it
The very first ever team-up between Marvel Comics characters on the screen in which Bill Bixby’s Hulk meets Thor. The film has a camp reputation because of its Thor who resembles a Swedish bodybuilder
The theatrically released pilot film for the 1970s/80s tv series based on the Marvel Comic that tells the Hulk’s origin story. This is one of the better episodes of the otherwise banal series
Painfully unfunny big screen revival of the 1960s spy tv series. This has been reduced to a series of plotless gags that involve Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson doing nothing except bickering with each other
The eight and last of the films recut from episodes of tv’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. This starts to show the strain of trying to make what were originally designed as tv episodes work as feature films
The first film based on the cult Gothic tv soap opera Dark Shadows, this is designed to highlight the series breakout character of Jonathan Frid’s vampire Barnabas Collins
The fifth of the Highlander films. It is hard to believe people could actually make a film worse than Highlander II but this is akin to Edward D. Wood Jr on a multi-million dollar budget
The fourth Highlander film sets out to merge the film and tv series, bringing together Christopher Lambert and Adrian Paul. This only produces a continuity nightmare that is a headache trying to follow
US-made live-action adaptation of a popular manga/anime about a power-suit superhero. Directed by two makeup effects artists mostly as a vehicle for their creature creations
The Green Hornet was a tv series based on the radio and serial masked hero. Following Bruce Lee’s ascent to superstardom, three episodes of the series were re-edited as a feature film
The long-planned big screen adaptation of the popular radio and tv masked hero becomes a disaster by placing the script in the hands of a badly miscast star Seth Rogen who plays everything for comedy
The first in a trilogy of Russian dark fantasy films featuring the real-life horror writer Nikolai Gogol as an occult detective investigating a series of supernatural mysteries
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
There seems something crushingly redundant about conducting a big screen revival of tv’s Get Smart in the era after Austin Powers. The film is a middle-of-the-road comedy that never finds the zaniness of the original
Likeable live-action adaptation of the animated series, which was construed as a parody of Tarzan. The sight gags work well and the creature effects are accomplished
Film spinoff from the popular anime tv series that seems caught between a film and a tv episode. While the film reaches for epic scale, the usual run of power blasts, there is nothing that we haven’t seen before
Sequel to the live-action The Flintstones film. Whether we asked for it or not, this offers up a Flintstones origin story where we see familiar elements of the series fall into place
The first in what later became a fad for replicating cartoon tv series as big-budget live-action films, this does an exacting live-action version of the Hanna-Barbera series
One of a spate of films of the 90s/00s that adapted animated tv series in live-action – in this case Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Here all we get is the animated characters emerging into the real world for slapstick inanity
The big screen remake of the popular 70s/80s tv series about an island that makes guests fantasies come true. In the hands of Blumhouse, this has now been turned into a horror film
This was the fourth film in the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot film series and concludes the saga. Rather than offering any answers or solution to the cryptic world we are in, this opts for a major letdown of a wrap-up
Third of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot films. These films are frustrating – filled with stunning scenes of mecha battling cryptic alien machines but baffling as to what is going on
The second of the Neon Genesis Evangelion reboot films, this gets the essentials right and delivers some stunningly epic anime action scenes
The first in a series of film reboots of the Neon Genesis Evangelion anime tv series. Epic animation but you need to the part of the fanbase of the original to understand what is going on
Most classic monsters have undergone an adult movie interpretation at some point – here it is the turn of The Invisible Man
A film remake of one of the great tv series of the 1980s. A complete betrayal by the original’s director Martin Campbell that strips all the politics and simply makes it into a Mel Gibson revenge film
The first film from Steven Spielberg, a tv movie that was released to theatres. Spielberg demonstrates style to spare in the gripping tale of a lone man on the road who finds himself stalked and followed by a murderous truck
A live-action film adaptation of the old animated tv show with Brendan Fraser in the title role as a bumbling mountie. This drowns in excruciating slapstick and one-dimensional pantomime caricatures
Disastrous and miscalculated live-action Hollywood version of the anime series. which turns the characters into just regular teenagers. Nobody involved seems to be making any effort.
Film spinoff of a popular children’s animated tv series Doug about a kid and his observations on life. The film’s story has the title character befriending a local lake monster
The film spinoff of a 1970s British tv series about a group who investigate scientific and ecological abuses. The film depicts an outbreak of aromegaly on an island near where growth stimulants have been dumped.
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
This was the first of two Doctor Who movies produced during the height of Dalekmania during the 1960s. Alas a comedy element in the form of the asinine buffoonery of Roy Castle is allowed to dominate and kills the show off
Extraordinary anime where the members of an after school club secretly harbour great powers. From there, this expands out with reality-bending scope
The first film from Mamoru Hosoda based on a tv series that was a blatant attempt to copy the Pokemon phenomenon and concerning cute creatures that live on the internet
A two-part episode of the Gerry Anderson tv series Space: 1999 that was repackaged as a feature film to take advantage of the late 1970s post-Star Wars SF boom
Tim Burton’s slide into mediocrity continues with this comedic update of the cult Gothic soap opera tv series, which is now played at a level of cartoonish unseriousness that resembles the Addams Family
The second of the theatrically released Doctor Who films intended to highlight the popularity of The Daleks, this is an improvement in that it dispenses with the first film’s buffoonish comedy elements
The feature film spinoff of a cult anime tv series
A Russian SF film about humans who have been selected to participate in an intergalactic sports tournament. This feels that it has been construed as an anti-Alita: Battle Angel and has some stunning design work
The third of the theatrically released films spun off from the original Battlestar Galactica. This is compiled from episodes of the dire follow-up series Galactica 1980 where the show relocates to contemporary Earth
Film spinoff of a Dan Aykroyd skit on Saturday Night Live about a family of aliens ho attempting to maintain ordinary suburban life on Earth The film has a really wacky sense of humour, which is probably why it was a box-office flop
Irwin Allen offers a variant on Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea in this film about an underwater city. A tv pilot that was foisted onto international audiences as a theatrical film after it failed to be picked up as a series
The second big screen revival of the hit 1970s tv series. Essentially a Girl Power version of one of the Mission: Impossible films, which turns what was originally a girl-fronted detective show into a spy caper featuring SF gadgetry
Live-action film based on an anime series where the original is built out with a series of of extraordinarily gorgeous over-ornamented visuals set in a strange retro-future world
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
A TV movie that was released theatrically outside the US with Dale Robinette as a James Bond copycat with Dale Robinette up against villain Patrick MacNee who has weaponised the ozone layer
The hit 1960s sitcom is repackaged as a frothy Nora Ephron romcom that suffers from a fatal mismatching of a showboating Will Ferrell and a more subdued Nicole Kidman who do not seem to connect in any way as Darren and Samantha
This was the second of the films spun off from the 2000s Battlestar Galactica revival series, and ingeniously retells the events of the series as seen through the eyes of the Cylons
A spinoff film from the Battlestar Galactica revival series that flashes back to tell the story of the divisive figure of Commander Cain, featuring fine performances and the series’ usual high level of writing
The original Battlestar Galactica tv series was an incredibly blatant copy built on the success of Star Wars. This is the pilot, which aired on tv in the US but was released theatrically to theatres in other countries
Web-series/film prequel to the 2003-9 revival of Battlestar Galactica with a rookie Commander Adama arriving aboard the Galactica. Easily one the best of the Galactica spinoff films to date
Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders, an animated homage to the 1960s Batman tv series reuniting Adam West and Burt Ward, was a quirky delight. This is a sequel in the same vein, although more a case of a joke that tires in the retelling
A film spinoff from the animated The Batman tv series, this offers a great title match but proves a disappointment. Moreover, it has to twist comic-book canon to make the plot work
Film crossover between the 1990s Batman and Superman animated tv series from Bruce Timm. The script does an interesting job in playing the characters, their secret identities and principal villains off against each other
Someone figured out Adam West and Burt Ward, Batman and Robin from the 1960s Batman tv series, were still around and put them in this animated film that replicates the look of the show and pays homage to its willful silliness
Theatrically released film based on the 1990s animated Batman tv series. This allows the series to stretch its wings and do things it never could on tv, although the creation of a new super-villain never quite comes off
Film spinoff of Batman Beyond, an animated tv series set in the future as a youngster inherits a hi-tech Batsuit from an aging Bruce Wayne. The film resurrects The Joker but fails to do anything interesting with the character
A film spinoff from the popular 1960s Batman tv show starring Adam West. At half-an-hour twice a week, the series was an enjoyable piece of surrealistic zaniness but its appeals seem stretched at feature-length
In the what the feck department, this is a gore-drenched horror remake of a Hanna-Barbera children’s show, one that now depicts the original anthropomorphic animals as murderous killer robots
The Avengers was the height of 1960s chic. Amid the 90s/00s fad for big screen remakes of tv shows, this was a miscalculated disaster that gets everything about the original wrong from the casting to the droll humour
Sequel the demented Attack of Titan with its wild images of humanity under attack from mindless giants that bite their heads off, which was shot back-to-back and released a few months later
The live-action adaptation of a popular manga series, this comes with a completely WTF premise about humanity defending itself from an invasion by a horde of misshapen giants that like to bite people’s heads off
This animated theatrical remake of the old Astro Boy cartoon series is nicely made, although the film often feels over-simplistic in its scripting and use of cliches
Film spinoff of the cult animated tv show. This feels like a film overtaken by the effort of trying to be surrealistic, wacky, scatological etc more than it is ever a film that creates gag that are funny
A film spun out around a YouTube channel of videogame reviews. This sinks down into unfunny fannish in-joking, while the attempts to be a mock bad movie only seem silliness for its own sake
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
The first of the sequels to Alvin and the Chipmunks. Marginally less grating than the first film but that’s being relative – all the things that one hated the first time are back
The end of Western civilisation is surely upon us that studios have devoted multi-million dollar resources to making four of these films and that audiences flock to them despite universally terribly reviews. Ok so maybe I hated this one marginally less than the preceding three
The squeaky helium-voiced Chipmunks are brought to life via CGI in this live-action film, featuring the chipmunks causing chaos, cracking smart-ass one-liners and lots of pee and poop jokes. The results are excrutiating
It may say how doomed the Western world is that people have paid to watch three films so far all centred around these annoyingly cutsie helium-voiced chipmunks. This is marginally less annoying that the preceding two
The pilot for a tv series that was theatrically released outside of the US. A blatant copy of Blue Thunder, this concerns the hijacking and retrieval of a hi-tech helicopter
Disappointingly watered down live-action adaptation of the cult animated series. Karyn Kusama creates some interesting visuals but eventually everything lapses to Hollywood formula
Cinematic revival of the old Rocky and Bullwinkle series having the two animated characters emerge into the real (live-action) world. A film that you feel should have been funnier and more energetic than is
A rather slight film spinoff red-furred Elmo, the popular character from Sesame Street. A film designed for very young children.
An animated film revival of The Addams Family. You feel that a PG-rated film sold to family audiences is a bit tame for the Addams’ dark humour, nevertheless this gets much of the kooky silliness.
The big screen version of the 1960s tv series and Charles Addams’ cartoons is a highly enjoyable Hollywood Halloween Party, a chance for name actors to put on costume and ape life with a ghoulish, mildly perverse, moderately subversive spin