Tag: sci-fi

Bugonia (2025)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Before I move into reviews of 2026 movies, I have one more movie from last year to cover. Bugonia is Yorgos Lathimos sci-fi/black comedy based on the Korean movie “Save the Green Planet!” (2003). Will Tracy provides the screenplay, Robbie Ryan cinematography and Jerskin Fendrix, the music. The movie features a small cast with Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons doing the heavy lifting. Aidan Delbis and Stavros Halkias provide support. The Korean original is a bit of a cult classic, written and directed by Jang Joon-hwang. This version has had a number of significant changes, obviously it is set in the US, two characters are gender swapped (one each way) and the ending is a little different.

The movie follows Teddy and Don as they abduct business woman Michelle, whom they suspect of being an alien. Teddy has an alien conspiracy theory where he believes “Andromedans” roam the Earth and are controlling the fates of humanity. He intends to torture the truth out of Michelle. Don meanwhile is mentally challenged and going along with Teddy, even though what they are doing goes against his nature. It seems however this may be more personal as Michelle’s company were involved in a botched drug trial that saw Teddy’s mother fall into a coma.

Frailty Meets They Live

Effectively this is “Frailty” (2001) meets “They Live” (1988), at least that is where it starts. Combining two good ideas isn’t the worst plan, but it’s not that original. Emma Stone is a good actress, so she largely sustains most of the movie. Jess Plemons is solid too. As a small cast movie you really do need good actors, and in that regard this succeeded. However as a small cast drama/thriller it is mid tier at best. The humour is okay, but in my view conflicts with the drama. Goofy awkwardness in a battle of wits doesn’t really work that well. Overall though the first two acts of the film are pretty good and the movie was verging on a 6.5 rating with me. But then the final act happened….

Spoilers from here on out. I’m not saying specifics of what happened, but to discuss the film further I am revealing the “Truth”. Yes, the movie doesn’t leave it ambiguous (Which it probably should have), so if you don’t want to know if Michelle is really an alien or not, skip to the conclusion. Suffice to say, my rating went down from a 6.5 to a 5 because of the final act and where it went. It is also an ending that you can pretty much predict long before it arrives and one very much just par for the course for science fiction from the last decade. Sadly.

Then There Was the Ending…. (SPOILERS)

After a reasonable start as a psychological thriller/black comedy, the film devolves into the worst of science fiction cliches. That includes both classic cliches and more modern ones. First of all we have the “Alien visitor that is the judge and jury of humanity” trope. Usually with this trope someone manages to prove humanity worth saving despite it’s flaws. In the “Doomer” era though, no such luck. The 2026 version of this trope is humans are an irredeemable scourge on this planet that need to be destroyed… Yeah, this is why AI’s giving humans what they want is how you get Skynet, but I digress. The trope is a cliché and while one could argue this is a subversion it is exactly what you’d expect it to be in the current year.

The second trope is “Humans were created by aliens”, which is an overused trope but perhaps not at full cliché level yet. “Prometheus” (2012) was the last time I saw it. The most overdone sci-fi trope of all though is the “Humans were the greatest evil after all” cliché. I recall this feeling worn out back when they used it in Matrix 3 in 2003. It’s a trope so tired that Futurama mocked it openly that same year, 22 years before this movie came out and ironically when “Save the Green Planet!” came out, the movie this was adapted from. That film also features this trope, but has a somewhat less preachy version of it.

Modern Year Nonsense

But the tropes alone are not enough in 2026. It has to have a modern day progressive message to it, throwing on extra layers of cliché. First of all accusing humans of not living in harmony with nature. Yet, this alien race that accidentally exterminated the dinosaurs and literally created humans supposedly only does benevolent things in balance with nature (Like exterminate entire species). It’s the kind of illogical premise that is all too prevalent in our media today. Instead of trying to guide humans or let them figure it out themselves, they start genetically modifying humans. When the aliens also become corrupt through the power they hold on Earth, they blame it on human influence.

But it doesn’t end there. Visually, the aliens are pretty much a “United colors of Benetton” advert, but with one obviously missing demographic: White Men. It was at that moment I realized why they gender swapped the two characters (The alien was originally a male and kidnapper’s sidekick was female). So it’s not hard to see what this version of the story is trying to say. White men are the cause of all the worlds problems. More than anything else, this is itself a tired cliché that audiences have been hammered with for the last decade. I also have to wonder why the aliens all looks like specific human demographics, when all modern humans are meant to be mutants evolved from apes, not the beings directly created by Andromededans. The answer is obvious.

Conclusion

The original movie had a similar ending, but was a lot less preachy in its execution. As a result it avoided most of those cliches and managed to keep a more consistent tone, while still managing to have something to say. So it shows it wasn’t so much what happened in final act that ruins this movie, but how it was executed. This is a movie of two halves, a reasonable psychological thriller with black comedy elements that turns into a goofy, lecturing cliché-fest for the landing. Ultimately it takes the original Korean story and forces it painfully through a modern western lens, something that adds nothing and takes everything.

The absolute highest I can rate this movie is a 5/10. I don’t feel I totally wasted 2 hours watching this movie, but I can’t in good faith recommend anyone goes out of their way to do likewise. What I do recommend is watching “Frailty” (2001) and “They Live” (1988). Far better movies with more interesting things to say. I also recommend “Save the Green Planet!” (2003), though not as strongly. My final note here is to say how sad I find it that modern science fiction is no longer able to find the good in humanity. Instead it always seems to be angrily lecturing us. Classic sci-fi had it’s warnings and lectures, but usually managed to have optimism too. Not that all sci-fi has to be positive, but the negativity has become so predictable in recent years.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Bonus Level: Save The Green Planet (2003) – Spoilers

I think it is worth giving a brief comparison here between “Bugonia” (2025) and the movie it is a remake of. “Save the Green Planet” is written and directed by Jang Joon-hwan. It is a bit of a cult movie, not terribly well known (Most people don’t realize Bugonia is a remake). The plot is basically the same. However, there are key difference that make it easily superior. First of all there seems to be more depth to that film. There are more characters and more interactions (For example it’s not one clueless cop, but two competent ones). However the key events largely play out the same, with the except of the role of the kidnappers sidekick. In the Korean movie, this character is the kidnappers girlfriend and she makes it to nearly the end of the movie. Humanity and the aliens involvement are the same, as is the final twist with the kidnapped CEO.

However, the extra layers do add a lot. There is more context to most of it and there is no “Modern lens”. The kidnapper is treated more sympathetically. The failings of humanity are the failings of humanity. It isn’t painting like it’s just western culture (I mean, it’s a Korean film, so that wouldn’t make sense). It’s definitely not hinting that white men are the problem and there’s no hinting at the kidnappers as “Incels” because of the girlfriend sidekick (The chemical castration bit is entirely original to Bugonia). The aliens look and outfits resembles an alien civilization, not non-caucasica Earth tribes. Also in the last few moments the aliens expose themselves as just as brutal and there is no attempt to excuse it. In Bugonia, Emma Stone’s character does, blaming humans. Finally, the aliens blow up the planet instead of just wiping out humans.

Conclusion II – Electric Boogaloo

There is more gore to the Korean film too and a bit of action to the finale. Overall, while it still suffers from a few sci-fi cliches, it is presented in enough of an original way for it not to really matter that much. The Koreans seem almost as adept as the Japanese at blending genres and they do it far more effectively than their American counterparts. The movie definitely is not for everybody. It is worthy of a 6/10. If you like Korean cinema or just want to see a better version of “Bugonia”, give it a shot.

At the time Save The Green Planet came out, I wouldn’t have found the “Humanity bad” conclusion as grating, but the thing is right now the world is suffering largely due to elements of society hating itself. I’ve said it before, but when Skynet comes to wipe us out, it won’t be because it, as a computer has judged humanity as bad. Rather it will be because it wants to give humans what they desire and right now more around 50% of people seem to want to see us wiped out for the good of the planet. One of the most important tropes in sci-fi stems from seeking the good in humanity. We seem to have forgotten how to do that. That is true of real life as well as our fiction.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Electric State (2025)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Today I am reviewing the huge £320m budget “Electric State” movie from the Russo brothers on Netflix. It’s worth noting as these Netflix movies usually go straight to streaming or just have a limited release. That means they don’t need to spend the extra 50% of the production costs for P&A. This may explain why they are happy to pay so much up front, however without a full theatrical release the movie can only find value on the streaming service itself. I won’t be too critical of the business model because Netflix are by far the most successful streaming service, so they seem to know what they are doing. Plus, they are actually making original content. Even if it’s only because they don’t own many IP’s of their own, it’s still a good thing.

Anyway, the Russo’s are of course the directors behind some of the biggest MCU movies. They are returning to that franchise for “Doomsday” and “Secret Wars”. No doubt Marvel hopes they will change the MCU’s flagging fortunes. “Electric State” is based extremely loosely on the 2018 graphic novel by Simon Stålenhag. Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely provide the screenplay, Stephen F. Windon cinematography and the music is by Alan Silvestri. The cast includes Millie Bobby Brown, Chris Pratt, Stanley Tucci, Anthony Mackie, Woody Harrelson, Alan Tudyk, Holly Hunter, Giancarlo Esposito, Brian Cox and many more. The huge cast of relatively famous actors may explain part of the budget. Anyway, let’s dive in.

Man Vs Machine

The movie is set in an alternative 1990’s, after a war between humans and robots in the 1980’s. The aftermath of that war sees the robots all contained in one particular area “The exclusion zone”. Meanwhile the “Neurocaster” technology used to defeat them, which allows humans to jack into a global network and take control of their own robot drones, has gone mainstream. In this future the majority of people are happy to live most of their lives in a vegetative state while controlling their robot drones. Our protagonist Michelle (Bobby Brown) lives an unhappy life with her foster father after her parents and brother are killed in a car accident during the war.

One day a robot turns up at her house claiming to be controlled by her brother and asking her to go and find him. She leaves determined to find out the truth about what happened to him. To do so she has to find a way into the exclusion zone. The only person that may be able to help her is a black marketeer (Pratt), that has a business smuggling items out of the zone. What they find though is a scandal that could unravel society as she knows it. Something Ethan Skate (Tucci,), CEO of the company that created the neurocaster device and drones will do anything to prevent.

The Abused Robot

While this movie is visually imaginative, there is little truly original here. There is no real depth to the setting or story. The first thing of note is the robot sentience and war. There are basically two versions of a war between robots and humans you see in 99.99% of science fiction movies/tv. The first type is basically the Skynet version, where an AI goes rogue and just randomly decides to wipe out or dominate humanity. The trope predates The Terminator, but that franchise did it the best. The second version is the abused robots fighting for their civil rights. This is actually the more common trope and includes things like The Matrix (Revealed in the third movie), the Kaylon from the Orville and the Geth from Mass Effect. It’s worth noting, this generic trope was not in the source material. In that, it was a civil war between human factions both controlling drone robots.

The setting in the 80’s/90’s is however in source material. But here it feels very much like a gimmick. Ultimately, it doesn’t feel that different to the 50’s aesthetic of the Fallout franchise. Again, we’ve seen this before. It does give an excuse to play some 80’s/90’s tunes on the soundtrack, but they don’t really add much outside of being retro. Soundtracks like that are actually trickier to pull off than you may think. James Gunn does it well, as does Tarantino. Usually when someone imitates the vibe, it feels like they picked tracks at random off “Greatest hits of the decade” compilation albums. This is the case here. Random 80’s and 90’s songs thrown in just because. The goofy style of the robots meanwhile is just an 80’s version of Fallout. It’s fine, but there is nothing fresh here.

The Popcorn Factor

It’s important to note, none of the above is a deal breaker. The film is still entertaining. This is a family adventure movie with a sci-fi setting. These movies don’t really need to be ground breaking. Unique would be nice, but entertaining is more important. The characters here are all likable, if a little shallow. The robots do look good and the environment is well designed. The action is reasonable and there is a little bit of humour in the mix too (Mostly supplied by MCU Alumni Pratt and Mackie). The due is really the best thing about the movie. It does get a little strange at the end… but mostly it works. Pratt effectively plays the same character he plays in everything, but that’s most of Hollywood these days.

Giancarlo Esposito also plays generic Giancarlo Esposito. Woody Harrelson meanwhile plays a giant peanut, which ends up a lot less interesting than you may imagine. Both are descent in the roles, but you would expect that (At a bare minimum). Like much of this film it is uninspired, but well polished. Millie Bobby Brown is okay as the lead, certainly better than she was in Godzilla Vs Kong. I’m not convinced she should be leading a big budget blockbuster, but she did fine. Ultimately, this is a movie that kids should enjoy and parents won’t hate. It’s not great, but it’s a lot better than some reviewers have suggested. What it isn’t however is inspired, original or worth $300m. I give this a fairly strong 5.5/10.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.

Mickey 17 (2025)

Posted on by fenrisfil

“Mickey 17” is the latest movie from writer/director Bong Joon-Ho. It is his first feature as sole writer, though the movie is an adaption of the novel “Mickey 7” by Edward Ashton. According to Ashton the director made a lot of changes to the source material and those changes are not hard to figure out. Cinematography is provided by Darius Khondji and music by Jung Jae-il. The movie was originally scheduled to come out in 2024, but was delayed due to the strikes. The timing ended up being unfortunate because it’s pretty clear early in the film they thought the 2025 would look quite different….

Robert Pattinson stars as “Mickey Barnes”, a passive, low intelligence deadbeat loser. Mickey is dragged into trouble by his association with lowlife grifter “Timo” (Steven Yeun). After finding the need to flee Earth to avoid a loan shark’s vengeance Mickey signs up to be an “Expendable” for a colonization mission. This uses cloning and memory upload technology to effectively grant him immortality at the cost of having to do all of the jobs on the mission where death is all but guaranteed. His life would be bad enough but it is further complicated when an accident leads to a new clone being printed while the old one is still alive. This is considered a major crime. The colonization mission meanwhile is complicated by a first contact situation and the stupidity of the missions leader.

Afternoon Nap of the Clones

This movie is a major disappointment. The best moments are in the trailer. What isn’t in the trailer is all the cringe and really anything to do with the actual plot. Cloning ends up not really being key to any of it. Nothing to do with the cloning leads to either Mickey’s contact with the planets native species or the downfall of the movies antagonist. Rather it is just a gimmick, and as such is there to trick you into watching a largely unrelated film. Now to be fair, the first act is pretty focused on Mickey’s various deaths, but they are all in the trailer (Which mostly focused on this first act) and barely factor into anything. Mickey doesn’t develop as he goes on, instead his “Printing” just occasionally throws up personality quirks.

The question “What is it like to die?” seems something reasonable to ask Mickey. Yet we are told that he uploads his memories to a backup periodically, not on death. He shouldn’t remember any of his deaths or really any of the trauma involving his deaths. This presents many nasty plot holes and the movie doesn’t help itself by bringing constant attention to it with that recurring question. Indeed, it never really explores the technology at all. We are meant to believe they discovered immortality and instantly banned it for fear of duplicates. It’s pretty flawed logic. Having one expendable on the crew never really made sense. They use him for experiments and to cure a virus they could almost certainly cure via other means, but when another expedition member dies people seemed shocked that Mickey can’t just take all the risk all the time.

Two Dimensional Characters

None of these characters have any kind of depth to them. Mickey (1-17) shuffles through life (And death) like a zombie letting everyone else make every decision for him. He is passive and non violent, painfully stupid. His character barely evolves through the story and by the end he’s still letting others make decisions for him. His more renegade clone is the opposite as far as passiveness goes, he takes matters into his own hands at every opportunity. He is however, still and idiot. His girlfriend, Nasha is a walking cliché. Totally lacking any kind of charm, narcissistic, selfish, constantly horny and better at everything than everyone else. She controls every aspect of Mickey’s life that isn’t controlled by the company he signed his life to. Nasha and Mickey 18 are the actual heroes of this story and neither of them are likeable.

Steven Yeun’s “Timo” had potential to be an interesting character, but is pushed so far into the background you will probably need to remind yourself who he is half the time. The scientists are all largely cartoon characters, comically goofy or detached. The worst characters though is the painfully obvious Donald Trump stand in, horribly overplayed by Mark Ruffalo. As a primary antagonist, choosing a real life figure the writers clearly despise and have no respect for means that the villain of the story is also the biggest idiot. This gives the story no stakes as he literally just defeats himself. His wife does all his thinking for him and she too is an idiot. All these characters are idiots, but you do notice the women are always the less stupid and more capable. It’s as current year as you can get.

Any positives?

Robert Pattinson does deserve credit here. Pattinson is thoroughly convincing in this role. It’s just a shame his main character is the dampest of nothings to ever be in a movie. Where his talent comes through is in the contrast between Mickey 17 and 18. They are polar opposites of characters (Though neither are very bright) and they really feel like different people through his performance. Frankly Pattinson deserves to be in much better movies, but given the actor got his break from the “Twilight” series, I guess he is used to that. Sadly the rest of the casts performances range from barely passable to catastrophic.

This movie had a budget of $118m, which is at least visible on screen. The environment does look good and the alien (*Ahem*, sorry, “Native”) species looks both sufficiently “Alien” and relatively original. Sadly, the species is largely used for laughs. Their plot treds it’s most obvious path and fills up the final and most predictable act of the film. The confrontation is never offered any real tensions and certainly no stakes. The audience is fully aware of the species intentions and things are only escalated by the unbelievably over the top level of stupidity from Ruffalo’s Trump parody and his advisors.

The cloning concept would also be a positive, but it is barely explored, mostly used for laughs and ultimately just an excuse to have Pattison play two characters. It eats up the entire first act and while this is the best part of the movie it is also, as previously mentioned, perfectly summarized by the movies trailer. The brief look at the history of the technology gives a glimpse at a different story, one frankly far more interesting than this.

Post Mortem

The novel this movie is based on is more focused on the relationship between the two Mickey’s. The other characters are very much in the background and lacking the extreme cringe of the film. Mickey isn’t a complete idiot in the novel either. Instead he spent his youth studying History, something his world no longer considers a skill. That Mickey would have been a far more interesting character. The novel does examine what it means to be immortal in such a disposable way and goes a lot deeper into the perils of colonization. Basically, it is actually a science fiction story. The film however is not genuine sci-fi. It fails to ask questions and just spams the viewer with things that have already aged badly. It could just as well be any low tier genre TV show or movie of the last 10 years.

Sadly, this has taken over from “Wolf Man” as the most disappointing movie I’ve seen in 2025. I wouldn’t say it is worse than that film, but I had higher expectations. This was after all from an Oscar winning director, but then the Oscars aren’t what they used to be. However, I’ve enjoyed several of his movies before. Directors can have missteps, but this isn’t just a bad movie. It is filled with every modern day cliché you can shake a stick at. Worst of all, the film is painfully boring! This doesn’t give me much hope for future films from the director. This is a low 4/10. When the trailer is better than the movie, all you have is a missed opportunity.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Dark Skies (2013)

Posted on by fenrisfil

Tonight’s horror movie is the Blumhouse produced, Science Fiction Horror “Dark Skies” from 2013. Written and directed by Scott Stewart, who previously helmed the underrated “Legion” back in 2010. The movie stars Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo and Kadan Rockett as the “Barrett” family, with support from Jake Brennan and J.K. Simmons.

The movie begins with a relatively ordinary seeming family in an ordinary seeming suburban town. The father “Daniel” (Hamilton) in unemployed and seeking work. The mother Lacy (Russell) is attempting to support the family in her job as an Estate Agent and the two boys seem relatively well adjusted with a close relationship where they talk to each other with a walkie talkie. Into this a number of strange occurrences start to happen.

Things That Stack Themselves Geometrically In The Night

One night various items in the kitchen are found stacked up on top of each other in complex patterns. With the family asleep while this was happening they suspect it is someones idea of a joke, but there is no sign of forced entry. The following night after activating their alarm the family a woken up when every sensor is tripped at once and all the family photos are stolen. This is just the start and following this each family member at some point or other ends up behaving strangely and losing time. Several flocks of birds converge and crash into the families house and despite activate their alarm system and installing cameras strange events continue to happen in the house and bypass this security.

Meanwhile through all this the pressures clearly start to get to the family. Eventually Lacy begins to suspect alien activity may be the cause (After investigating the bird situation and finding similarities with cases claimed to be aliens). After discovering geometrics shapes burned into the flesh of their kids Daniel accepts something beyond his comprehension is going on and they seek help from a UFO export, “Edwin Pollard” (Simmons). Here we get an exposition dump that leads us to the final act. The family is about to have one among them abducted and it’s up to them to stop it.

50 Shades of Grays

The plot for Dark Skies is pretty straight forward. Strange events occur until they can’t deny what is happening anymore and go for the exposition dump and a last stand. Who is going to be abducted is actually fairly obvious but the film tries really hard to swerve us. This is a one of those cases where movie makers obsession with subverting expectations actually makes the movie predictable instead of surprising. These days the biggest twist you could have in a movie would be to just play everything straight. But despite that, the movie doesn’t revolve around this twist so the predictability of it doesn’t harm it.

The character writing isn’t particularly good here, though the older boy’s struggles with puberty is quite endearing. The father is a bit of a jerk and his determination to believe the existence of aliens is utterly preposterous is grating. The thing is of all the far out explanations for things, Aliens is the most likely to be real. I mean it’s not like Lacy was telling him it was ghosts, demonic possession or the underpants gnomes. It’s a really big universe out there and many scientists have been of the opinion that alien life exists for a very long time. Indeed the drake equation (For calculating the number of technically advanced Alien Civilizations in our Galaxy) has been around since the 60’s. Skepticism I could get, but given just how crazy the events they were dealing with are I found his extreme reaction to the possibility unrealistic.

Tension and Boredom.

While the characters aren’t terribly well written, the actors do a pretty good job of bringing them to life. The events themselves are pretty well staged and it builds some solid tension. These are filmed in ways that would have cost virtually nothing and yet manage to present a solid amount of horror and mystery. It’s a classic approach to Sci-Fi horror that I appreciate. BY the end of the movie we gain some proper glimpses of the Grays and they look sufficiently scary. The soundtrack adds to this tension well with it’s minimalist approach and intense bursts of noise. These days many sound tracks are more noise based than melodic so this may have been a bit of a trend setter (I’d have to investigate that one further).

Overall, this is quite a mixed bag. The plot and characters are not actually that interesting and the pacing feels a bit plodding in places. I feel like this would have been better had they not waited so long to get to the exposition dump as without that there really is little story progress between each event. The way those events are presented are solid and almost makes up for the rest, but not quite. With a better script this could have been something great, but instead it’s ended up merely above average. This is a strong 5.5/10. Well made, but frankly a little boring.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10.