The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Robots are machines that are independently mobile and capable of actions. They have some capacity for independence, which can range all the way from mere programmed functionality to speech and the ability to respond to verbal commands to fully-fledged Artificial Intelligence.
Machines that are built to resemble human beings are referred to as Androids – all androids are also technically robots but for the purposes of discussion here, robots that resemble human form are discussed on the Androids page and less human-like and more mechanical robots are listed here.
The first screen robot was the android Maria in Metropolis (1927). Thereafter the serials of the 1930s and 40s could be counted on for an assortment of clunky men in tin suits. The 1950s brought an assortment of robots aiding alien invaders of the era but also the fan favourite of Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet (1956), the first robot to follow Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.
The next major development came during the era of Star Wars (1977), which introduced the ‘droid’ and showed that robots had become a familiar and everyday part of the world. Numerous films in the aftermath took such an approach. The era also introduced an assortment of cute and cuddly robots.
The Terminator (1984) popularised the killer android and in the spate of killer machine films that followed, there were a good many lethal and hulking non-humaniform robots on the attack.
The major development of the 2000s was Transformers (2007) and sequels, featuring vast shape-changing machines battling it out in colossal displays of mass destruction. The late 2010s brought an upsurge of real world developments in Artificial Intelligence, including a number of works dealing with robotics.
A Blumhouse film adaptation of the videogame that was a considerable hit at the box-office. Josh Hutcherson plays a security guard at a pizza parlour who faces killer animatronics come to life
Five Nights at Freddy’s, adapted from the popular videogame and featuring Josh Hutcherson fighting off killer animatronics, was a runaway success for Blumhouse. This is a sequel
The third of the Flash Gordon serials, not quite at the heights of the previous two but with a colour and exoticism that was head and shoulders above the other serials of the era
This offers the amusing idea of a softcore parody of the old Flash Gordon serials. A surprisingly well-made film in terms of effects but the jokes often seems belaboured amid the witless mugging
Remake of Disney’s The Absent-Minded Professor where the charms of the original are buried under an excess of twee – where the professor now gets a cute robot assistant and the flubber becomes sentient
A classic of 1950s SF that creates one of the most well remembered screen robots. An uncredited adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, there are few other films that devote so much attention to creating a sense of wonder
Classic anime space opera adventure made not long after Star Wars and filled with moments of glorious visual poetry including the conceptually absurd image of a spacegoing train
The final film of French animator Rene Laloux, a planetary adventure set on a world where Laloux delights in creating exotically trippy aliens and landscapes. Released in English as Light Years with an Isaac Asimov script
An anthology of short anime pieces from five different directors. Episodes range from traditional anime and Cyberpunk to mind-expanding surrealism
This US-made live-action adaptation of the cult anime is a disaster on every level. The original’s haunting meditation on the dividing line between machine and human is diluted to being no more than a Cyberpunk action film
Reboot of the Ghost in the Shell series in a quartet of prequel stories. This funnels the essence of Cyberpunk superbly, creating a dazzling world with cyborgised security services fighting terrorists hacking people’s brains
Another anime film in the Ghost in the Shell franchise. This was the fifth episode of the Ghost in the Shell: Arise reboot series that received a theatrical release
The 26th Japanese Godzilla film, the fourth pitting him against Mechagodzilla. After a slow first hour, the film delivers all the exhilarating mass destruction sequences we expect of it as the monsters go head to head
The thirteenth Godzilla film and a point that the series was no longer taking itself seriously. On the other hand, this is something that actually works in the films favour to create a sublime silliness
The fourteenth Godzilla film, noted for the introduction of Mecha-Godzilla, a robot copy of Godzilla that became a recurring nemesis. By this point in the series, the effects and quality of production had become very shabby
Underrated 1950s SF film, a murder mystery as the equipment at a space research laboratory tries to kill people. Contains the first ever depiction of a computer virus
A completely mad and all over the place film with Sam Rockwell as a time traveller (or madman) arrived at a diner to recruit six people on a mission to save the world from an evil A.I.
A film based on the hugely popular children’s horror series. The film creates a story where the creatures from all the books are unleashed. This is fun to watch, yet what we ultimately have is easy, undemanding horror for family audiences
One of the most delightful films produced during the 1960s-80s lean years of Disney animation. This was not a success but delivers a film of winning charms about a mouse equivalent of Sherlock Holmes
Takashi Miike jumps aboard the mid-00s fad for secondary world fantasy films, creating a realm of spirits where he and his makeup and creature effects team go absolutely wild
A live-action Japanese-made mecha/transformer film that creates a dark industrial world as setting and fills it with some stunning effects
Richard Stanley film where killer robot invades and takes over a girl’s apartment. Stanley transforms the film into an astonishing vision of pure unfiltered Cyberpunk. One of the most visually dazzling directorial debuts of its day
Full-length comedy from The Three Stooges where the idiots are janitors at a space centre who accidentally launch themselves into space. One of several Space Age films where popular comics where launched into space
This is considered the film that torpedoed Andy Kaufman’s film career – a dippy romance between two robots. This gets very silly but the film has undeniable charms
Cult animated film that adapts several stories from the adult fantasy comic-book Metal Hurlant/Heavy Metal. These vary but in its better moments that has a trippy cult hallucinatory quality
Sequel to the animated Heavy Metal that failed to attract the same cult audience that its predecessor did. Telling only one story instead of several, it only offers a routine space opera adventure
Fourth of the Hellraiser films. This attempts to tell a story set in three different eras but was subject to much studio interference that waters the vision down to something forgettable
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
The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was a multi-media phenomenon that has developed a cult. The tv series with a less-than-stellar BBC budget was not the most effective incarnation of these but still hits the wittily absurd nerve of Douglas Adams’ humour
The big-budget film version of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide phenomenon is a disaster that fumbles Douglas Adams’s absurdist wit and blows everything up with big-budget effects and a pitch to American audiences
The 30th film from Pixar, a strange take on Avatar where a young conservationist enters a robotic beaver body in order to venture out among the animals. Directed with a good deal of likeably snappy humour
An Asylum mockbuster aimed to exploit the release of the Transformers spinoff BumbleBee. This has the unique distinction of being a Transformers-type film shot as Found Footage
Why we needed a sequel to Hot Tub Time Machine is a big question. Essentially, Back to the Future Part II meets The Hangover, all this does is wind the original’s amiable coarseness up by a factor of ten
One of several cheap Italian copies that were made after the success of Star Wars starring Richard Kiel as a peaceful intergalactic police inspector who is mutated into a killer humanoid
A unique and original fallout shelter drama from Australia that sits in an interesting place of ambiguity. What makes the film stand out is its unique robot design
An amateur-looking film set after the robot apocalypse concerning a girl and her friendly robot who must make a journey across the wasteland. This at least boasts some well-integrated robot effects
Disappointing adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Robot stories. The film pays token acknowledgement to Asimov’s characters and universe and mostly seems interested in spectacular effects set-pieces
A space opera that was made in the aftermath of Star Wars. It is a magpie collage of influences that are not always the most coherently presented and given a comic emphasis
Hideo Nakata, director of Ring, offers his take on reality tv shows – where contestants are locked up Big Brother-style and encouraged to kill one another. The film comes with much homage to classic murder mysteries
Big hit for Pixar and director Brad Bird, a witty spoof of the superhero film that shows a superhero family trying to deal with everyday life. Enormously good-natured fun all around
A deranged madcap film produced by the Shaw Brothers featuring an enhanced superhero fighting off a bizarre menagerie of monsters commanded by an alien princess
An alternate world take on DC Comics continuity where Superman snaps and creates a totalitarian police state and the other DC superheroes come together to stop him
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
This could be Christopher Nolan’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. But where Kubrick was cold and oblique, this is a 2001 with a heart. A pleasure to see a film rooted in credible science and dealing with high concept SF
A completely ridiculous film that throws in an incomprehensible mix of an amok A.I.’s that takes over a stealth plane, UFOs, mind control and military conspiracy and proves badly made on every single count
A spinoff designed to feature Robbie the Robot, the scene-stealer from Forbidden Planet. Here Robbie has been sent back in time to the present where he is befriended by a young boy
The first animated film from Brad Bird is a sweet and lovely piece about the friendship between a young boy and a giant robot. Underrated at the time, this has subsequently become regarded as a classic
Iron Man was very enjoyable. True to typical superhero sequel form, this complicates the original by introducing so many new villains and characters that it becomes an overcrowded narrative juggling act
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 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
Amiable animated film about a juvenile inventor that only serves to show how more polished Pixar’s films are by comparison
The fifth of the Josh Kirby juvenile adventures where the young time-travelling hero sets out on a quest to the Magic Cavern to find the Shroom People
The film adaptation of the cult comic-book looks great in terms of design but misses the comic’s satiric sense of humour and simply becomes a thudding Sylvester Stallone action vehicle
Train to Busan director Yeon Sang-ho turns his hand to making an SF film about the attempts to perfect an android soldier and the fight to complete and control it
An alternate world take on DC Comics characters, who are much more morally ambiguous – Superman is General Zod’s son and Batman’s role is taken by Man-Bat and is an actual vampire
Modest British film about a unit of soldiers on an exercise who become hunted by killer robots. With effects that easily rival those of bigger-budgeted Hollywood films, this produces a very intensive little film
A classic French animated film that remained unseen for over thirty years. A fairytale about a cruel king and two lovers aided by a mockingbird, it emerges with an impressively epic sweep
Toho Films obtained the rights to King Kong to pit him against Godzilla in King Kong Vs Godzilla and then made this entertainingly silly sequel where Kong fights a robot copy of himself
Lars von Trier returns to finish off his haunted hospital saga The Kingdom after a 25 years absence, despite the death of several principals, and again milks the same darkly hilarious vein
A 1950s alien invader film that is driven by the quite imaginative image of a giant black alien cube marching across the countryside devouring all forms of energy
Wonderfully Kafka-esque film about a man who takes a job laying cable for a new internet company only to find himself in a system of nightmare rules and regulations
Visually stunning Hayao Miyazaki film about the search for a lost city of the clouds Soaring adventure in an alternate world of airship fantasies, rendered in a series of breathtaking vistas
The first film adaptation of the popular videogame is a film largely premised around the personality of Angelina Jolie. Outside of that, the film is a half-baked series of plot ends and action scenes taken from better films
Animated sequel to The Wizard of Oz that proved a charmless flop that misses the magic of the original by a mile. The familiar characters are run over with a gratingly modern sense of humour
E.E. ‘Doc’ Smith’s Lensman books are space opera classics. Here they are given the anime treatment, which abandons much adherence to the source material and ends up more as a copy of Star Wars
A spinoff from Pixar’s Toy Story films that gives Buzz Lightyear a film all of his own. A likeable if fairly routine space adventure but aargh the rewrites to series continuity
Dystopian SF mounted on a big budget by people that don’t have a clue what they are doing. This creates one of prettiest depictions of the future of any film of this era but it is only a surface deep depiction
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
Sequel to the killer doll film M3gan that is a much better work than its predecessor. If the original was Child’s Play by way of The Terminator then this is the series’ equivalent of Terminator 2: Judgement Day
A horror film about an artificially intelligent children’s doll that resembles one of the Big Eyes paintings, which then proceeds to go full-on Terminator
Really odd, even at times touching, Japanese film about a man’s thwarted attempts to have sex with his android maid
Perversely original anime about a sex robot in the aftermath of civilisation who is transformed into a human. Imagine Pinocchio by way of H.R. Giger
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
A French animated film, SF noir set on a future Mars with detectives fighting against someone who is jailbreaking robots. This deploys a strong and confident use of Cyberpunk tropes
Motion-capture animated version of a popular children’s book. The title suggests a 1950s B movie and the subtext doesn’t bear close examination but the results are engagingly put together
The third film from former Studio Ghibli employee Hiromasa Yonebayashi. Yonebayashi is seen as the carrier of Hayao Miyazaki’s mantle, so much do his films look like lost Miyazaki works. This is sweet and amiable, even if it never hits the emotional heights Miyazaki does
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
One of the better among the current fad for Young Adult dystopian SF works post-The Hunger Games. This dispenses with dystopian Coming of Age stories and gives us a fascinating conceptual mystery even if the answers prove underwhelming
One of the more enjoyable efforts from the mid-2000s dead zone where Disney animation with filled with ideas that left-you scratching your head, this quickly gets demented and emerges like The Jetsons colliding with The Royal Tenenbaums
The fourth of The Asylum’s Mega Shark films and the best of the series where they get the balance of tongue-in-cheek absurdity just right and the low-budget effects prove surprisingly good
Third in The Asylum’s series of Mega Shark films where they borrow the Godzilla series’ idea of Mecha-Godzilla and pit the Mega Shark against a robot copy of itself. Here the Mega Shark series is starting to approach the entertaining silliness of their Sharknado films but still flounder amid tatty effects
Japanese attempt to jump aboard the Star Wars fad, a vigorous and colourful retelling of The Seven Samurai as a space opera
Fritz Lang’s visionary work was something way ahead of it time and is one of the few silent films still screened today. The film’s politics are naive but Lang’s visions of the city of the future and the first screen robot are vivid.
Stunning anime remake of Metropolis based on an Osasmu Tezuka. The visuals and particularly the design are overwhelming – like a Cyberpunk film set in a stylised Art Deco world
Film adaptation of a time travel novel by John Varley, one of the finest SF writers in the world, that ends up bluntening and dumbing the story down
Episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica tv series that were recut and screened theatrically for international audiences
Film adapted from the popular German-language Perry Rhodan space operas that is cheap and quickly heads into bad movie stakes
A surprise delight, an animated film that overspills with madcap creative energy concerning a misfit family on a road trip who come up against the machine revolution
Cutley appealing DreamWorks animated film that brings together a bunch of oddball creatures clearly intended as an affectionate homage to various 1950s sf films
From Arrowverse producer Greg Berlanti, a film about a nerd who stows away on a voyage to Mars
One in a series of popular British drag comedies, this imports Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist for a series of frenetic and none-too-funny goings-on that make little sense
Rob Zombie conducts a big-screen remake of The Munsters and surprisingly enough makes his best film yet
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 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 weakest of the Muppet movies where they are turned into the characters in a retelling of The Wizard of Oz
Brit Marling is one of the most intelligent creative faces of the 2010s/20s. Here she co-writes, co-directs and stars in a fascinating murder mystery set in the tech world at a futuristic retreat
Ishiro Honda and Toho, the creators of Godzila, turn their attentions to the alien invasion film – the first Japanese entry in the great 1950s SF alien invader fad – and deliver all the same colourful mass destruction we expect
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
Whose bright idea was it to give us kid versions of The Avengers (ostensibly their children)? While Marvel have had an unparallelled string of hits on the big screen in the 00s, their attempts to replicate the successes that rival DC have had in animation have been a dismal failure
This falls short of being a great science-fiction film by a hairs breadth. Not the big space/action film it was sold as, more a Philip K. Dickian conceptual breakthrough film that seems to have borrowed large chunks of its set-up from Moon