Raising The Bear [Review: Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey 2]

Office Marlow: "F**k it, let's bounce."

Tigger: "That's my line!"

Although Christopher Robin has survived the horrors of his time in the Hundred Acre Wood, he has not escaped the nightmare. Not only has he seen his fiancée murdered and witnessed a series of traumatic killings, but he is now being blamed for the massacre, no-one believes his version of events, and even worse the story is being made into a film. And then the killings begin again.

Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey, released in 2023 and reviewed here, was a lot of fun, with plenty of action, gore and sacrilegious dismemberment of fond childhood memories. It was entertaining but never really rose above its super-low budget and amateur or student project vibe, and it felt rushed and messy in places. The 2024 Golden Raspberry Awards jury agreed with my take, awarding it Worst Movie, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Remake/Rip-Off/Sequel and Worst Screen Combo. I guess they liked the music then.

Something strange quickly became apparent as I began to watch Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey 2. It's actually rather good. There's a step up in every aspect of the filmmaking - excellent camerawork, colouring, editing, a much stronger script, and some really good performances, adding up to a complete film. The conceit of the horror-film-within-a-horror-film is a deliberate and classy callout to the Scream movies, and there are plenty of other genre references to enjoy.

There are also smart backstories for both Christopher Robin and Pooh, leading to a climax and some shocking final revelations. Admittedly some of the backstory is revealed through dialogue, but if the first rule of moviemaking is "show don't tell", then the second rule is "if you must tell, get Simon Callow to do the telling."

And I am happy to report that all of this decent filmmaking does not detract from the gore, sacrilege and subversion of the first movie. Pooh and Piglet are now joined by Tigger and Owl. Tigger takes some time to get into his stride - it's only towards the end that he really gains bounce and earns his stripes. Owl on the other hand is marvellous - played by Marcus Massey in Hammer villain style with plenty of creepy monologues. The gory body effects, one of the strengths of the first movie, are multiplied to stomach-churning levels.

This is no Get Out or Babadook, but if it's not elevated horror it's still a horror movie that will satisfy die-hard horror fans. It also bodes well for the next batch of films in the Pooh cinematic universe - the Poohniverse. I am now looking forward to Bambi: The Reckoning, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, Pinocchio: Unstrung and Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble.

Score: Three stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Here’s One We Made Earlier [Review: The Creator]

CONTAINS HUMAN-GENERATED CONTENT

I’ve followed Gareth Edwards’ career with interest ever since his short film Factory Farmed won the Sci-Fi London 48 Hour Film Competition in 2008. He went on to make the low-budget feature Monsters, in which two journalists make their way through alien-infested Mexico, followed by two mega-franchise movies, Godzilla and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and now by his new film The Creator.

The Creator is a high-budget sci-fi/war movie epic with a cast of hundreds, a globe-spanning plot and CGI effects in almost every scene – but it’s an original story, not part of a franchise or cinematic universe. It concerns the rise of AI and the war between anti-AI Westerners and a pro-AI Asian nation, seen through the eyes of American soldier Joshua played by John David Washington. It’s well cast and well acted, particularly by Washington, national treasure Gemma Chan and child actor Madeleine Yuna Voyles, and together with the consistently good effects it’s an enjoyable and satisfying movie although I would say the plot is a little simplistic and one-sided, setting up a clear good vs evil story rather than engaging with the complexities of AI that we are grappling with in the real world.

I’ve always admired Edwards’ ability to use CGI intelligently to build believable worlds. Here it contributes to the setting of a believable alternative history where robots and AI became commonplace early in the 20^th century, extended into the near future when the action takes place. Although it has its own distinctive visual style The Creator is not without influence from other movies – in particular many of the robot designs have definitely been touched by Star Wars. Roger roger.

Score: Three stably diffused stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Update 7.10.2023: The Guardian has also reviewed this film. Their review is correct (apart from the star rating).

Grow For Me [Review: Vesper]

Like literally all of the best films, Vesper begins with text explaining the apocalyptic future we are about to enter: one where biotechnology has gone rogue, destroying much of the world and much of humanity. Rich people live in distant citadels shielded from the bio threats while everyone else scrabbles around in the mud, relying on the citadels for terminator seeds.

Vesper is a young girl growing up in an abandoned farmhouse looking after her terminally ill father. They are hermits who refuse to join the collective run by her uncle, and Vesper ekes out an existence scavenging or trading for food and for the bacteria needed to keep the father alive, while studying bioengineering using materials she has stolen from an abandoned laboratory. Her life changes when a flying biomachine from the nearest citadel crashes, and she rescues its inhabitant, a strange, pale woman, and brings her home.

Watching an indie sci-fi film like Vesper was a welcome change from the Marveltsunami that has swept through cinema in recent years. Vesper’s forest setting and biological creations reminded me of another indie sci-fi movie, Prospect. Both feature a young lead character having to fend for themselves in a hostile world and amongst hostile adults, played by Sophie Thatcher in Prospect and Rafiella Chapman in Vesper. Neither pull their punches when it comes to pain, suffering and despair, and both use special effects sparingly and intelligently rather than simply flooding the screen with lightning bolts.

Along with the understated effects comes the understated villain, the uncle, played by Eddie Marsan. He’s creepy, selfish, deceitful and vicious when he needs to be, but he’s not angry with you – just disappointed. He’s as far from a Marvel pantomime supervillain as they come.

Score: Three perfectly bio-engineered stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Roland Limmerich III

 Roland Emmerich's new film is called Moonfall

The Moon's going to pay us a close call

But where will it land?

And where should we stand?

I'm steering clear of the White House, y'all.

A typical Emmerich film features

Lots of rockets and heroes and creatures

What drives this mad artist?

In the depths of his heart is

A desire to annoy physics teachers.

Your Message Could Not Be Delivered [Review: You've Got Mail!]

 I have always cited Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail! as being the worst film of all time. But everyone deserves a second chance. I gave it a second viewing to see if I had been too harsh. TLDR: I had not.

I should say that I am quite tolerant of bad films in general. I am a fan of The Asylum's brand of cheap and cheerful mockbusters, and I even sat through most of Shark Exorcist before giving up. My problem with Shark Exorcist was not the poor script, acting, CGI or editing, but the fact that this is a movie about a shark possessed by a demon (which incidentally makes no difference whatsoever to its predator behaviour) and disappointingly not about a shark who is also an exorcist.

Also, despite my love of sci-fi and fantasy I am not opposed to the romantic comedy genre in principle. Brief Encounter, Breakfast At Tiffany's, Four Weddings, Pretty Woman and When Harry Met Sally... are all great films.

So why does You've Got Mail! bring out the same reaction for me as others have described when watching The Human Centipede: First Sequence? Let's consider the evidence:

• Everyone loves a goofy screwball romcom, right? Here's a goofy screwball romcom about a manipulative creep who gaslights a vulnerable adult. Cute!

• There is no character development. Both Kathleen and Joe are exactly the same people at the start and the end. They don't grow. They don't even learn that women can fake orgasms or overcome their fear of heights. Dramatic journey? More like an hour and twenty minutes on a roundabout.

• With one exception, all the cast appear to be half asleep, wandering through the scenes in a daze and delivering their lines on half-speed. Did Ephron have to drug them all to get them to participate? Or are they dosing themselves up to forget?

• With one exception, all the supporting characters are zero-dimensional. Their only point (Ha! Geometry joke!) is to distract from the dopiness of both lead characters.

• Above all else, this is a Nora Ephron film. Nora smegging Ephron! Ephron is a legendary writer and director, responsible for some truly great films, including When Harry Met Sally... one of the most well-loved films ever. Her uncredited work on Shark Exorcist aside, her writing always, always hits the mark - so this film's greatest crime, and greatest disappointment, is that it doesn't live up to the Ephron standard.

I challenged myself to find something positive to say about this terrible film. I found two things:

• It's a highly effective Internet safety video. I'm sure if You've Got Mail! was compulsory viewing at school, the next generation would happily abandon their TikToktagrams and their Snapcords and re-discover the delights of wooden spinning tops and Knock Down Ginger.

• One character in this movie only appears in three scenes but is a delight. She's quick-witted, dynamic, energetic, superficially evil but actually extremely thoughtful. Happily she makes her escape from the manipulative creep, but this means we barely get to know her. Personally I would rather see less of Creepy Joe or MPDG Kathleen and spend the whole hour and twenty minutes in the company of someone who makes coffee nervous.

I cannot give this truly awful piece of cinematic history any more than a mediocre three stars out of five.

Score: Three stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Bad Teacher [Review: Battle Royale]

A Japanese high school class runs riot, with all sorts of behaviour in classroom and corridors, and pupils bullying and even stabbing their teacher. But this is all in a near-future Japan where, following an economic collapse attributed to a failure of discipline in schools, a law has been passed allowing classes of misbehaving pupils to be kidnapped, sent to an island, given a weapon (or in some cases a harmless item such as a shield or a torch) and some basic supplies, and left to fight to the death, with only the last child standing allowed to return home. And who should appear as the sadistic director of this particular Battle Royale but that same stabbed teacher, glorying in revenge on his former antagonists.

Battle Royale is a Japanese movie released in 2000, starring Tatsuya Fujiwara and Aki Maeda as students Shuya and Noriko, and Takeshi Kitano (the presenter of the original Takeshi's Castle) as teacher Kitano. It's a violent and darkly humorous horror movie, with frequent and graphic deaths. While it's clear that Shuya is the protagonist, most of the class are also given well-rounded characters and their alliances and duels are all played out, so the high number of characters can make the film a little hard to follow in places. Obviously this gets easier as the film progresses and more of the cast are eliminated.

Battle Royale isn't the only movie to portray gladiatorial games - of course Roman gladiators feature in Spartacus (1960) and Gladiator (also 2000), while Arena (1989) gives the concept a sci-fi twist. However there are a lot of similarities between Battle Royale and subsequent gladiatorial stories, particularly the Hunger Games books and films, and the recent Korean TV series Squid Game.

I enjoyed this movie although it does require a strong stomach and a pitch-black sense of humour. I would recommend it as an excellent revenge fantasy for any frustrated teacher. Three shuriken stars out of five.

Killing Me Softly [Reviews: The Love Witch and Season Of The Witch]

Witches are an endless source of fascination. Despite the attempts of Hans Christian Anderson, centuries of overzealous missionaries and Roald Dahl to paint them as agents of evil, our culture is full of more positive examples of witchcraft, whether in books, films, or in the real world with the modern day resurgence of Wicca. As a child I learned to read with Meg and Mog and later enjoyed reading about Mildred Hubble which should allow you to calculate my age. TV is full of portrayals of witches as powerful but sympathetic figures, such as Julia Wicker in The Magicians, or the magical cadets of Motherland: Fort Salem. Meanwhile there are plenty of films that use the concept of the witch in interesting ways - here are two recent examples I enjoyed.

The Love Witch

The Love Witch (2016) stars Samantha Robinson as modern-day witch Elaine Parks who sets out to start a new life and find love - with unfortunate, deadly consequences for her would-be lovers. It's filmed as a stylish tribute to 1960s Technicolor, with lavish settings and exaggerated colour schemes. Parks is literally a femme fatale but also a complex character, vulnerable, lonely and driven, and mesmerizing to watch. In some ways she reminded me of Alice Lowe's character Ruth from Prevenge, but Parks is not actually driven to kill (well, not often), it's just that her love is too intense for the men she charms.

The Love Witch also celebrates another form of witchcraft - that is, obsessive auteur-driven filmmaking. Anna Biller wrote, directed, scored, edited and produced the movie, spent several years finding, restoring or making the furniture for each scene, and made her own foray into witchcraft. The result is a unique and powerful vision combining feminine and feminist themes.

Season Of The Witch

Season Of The Witch (1973) is an early George A. Romero film. It's curiously deficient in brain-eating swarms of zombies, instead the story revolves around dissatisfied and Wicca-curious housewife Joan (Jan White), her controlling husband, and her daughter who is having an affair with a teacher. Joan is introduced to Marion, a newcomer to the suburb who practises witchcraft, and gradually becomes drawn into witchcraft herself. This is more of a drama than a horror film, although there is threat and violence in places, and Joan experiences some creepy dream sequences in which she faces exaggerated or metaphoric versions of her everyday life. 

Romero described this as a feminist film, and I think this is justified: it is the story of a woman in a controlling relationship who finds a way to empower herself and change her life (this escape theme also qualifies it as Science Fiction TM). The feminist aspect is simpler and less sophisticated than The Love Witch, and arguably the feminist credentials are further eroded by the release history, as a cut-down version was published and marketed (I think misleadingly) as softcore porn.

Both films portray witches as powerful and unintentionally dangerous, while at the same time portraying witchcraft as a positive feminine role and as an alternative to patriarchy and convention. I awarded both films three pentagrams out of five.

Ghost In The Machine [Review: Host]

Housebound under lockdown conditions, Haley and her friends decide to use their weekly Zoom call to carry out an online séance. Haley (Haley Bishop) has hired a medium, Seylan (Seylan Baxter), to lead them in what will no doubt be a fun, entertaining evening without anything sinister or dangerous happening. What could possibly go wrong?

Host (2020) is a found-footage horror movie that takes place in real time during a Zoom call. It’s not in any way related to The Host (2013), the movie based on Stephenie Meyer’s alien parasite rom com novel reviewed here, or to Korean newt-based horror The Host (2006), reviewed here. Host is set during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic - and it was also filmed during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, during a period of lockdown. Cast and crew could not leave their own homes so had to set up equipment and film themselves at home, with director Rob Savage guiding them remotely. The concept of the Zoom séance is a clever way to make a film under these tough conditions.

Other aspects of the film add to the improvised feel – the cast all use their own names, and family members appear in cameo or supporting roles. The script makes good use of all the Zoom cliches we’ve grown to love tolerate over the past year – sound and vision glitches, people joining while mute, dodgy animated backgrounds, pyjamas and badly-timed Ocado deliveries. Acting is excellent, there’s a lot of humour, and there’s a good, gradual ramping up of tension leading to full-on catastrophe.

In a year where making any movie has been difficult, a crew have come together against the odds to release a new, low-budget, creepy and effective horror movie not unlike Paranormal Activity, reviewed here. In fact my only criticism of this movie is that it is a little too like Paranormal Activity, with one or two fright scenes almost borrowed wholesale. For this reason, although I really enjoyed Host, I am only giving it three stars.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

Shake, Rattle and Roll [Review: Shivers]

Along with Nakatomi Plaza, Peach Trees, Wyndham Tower and the unnamed High-Rise, I have unfortunately had to add Starliner Towers to the list of high-rise buildings to avoid. It's a shame - the period architecture, the peaceful island location and the easy accessibility of the on-site swimming pool, supermarket, medical and dentist's surgeries and parasitology research lab all make it so tempting...

Shivers (also released as The Parasite Murders and They Came From Within) is a horror movie from 1975 directed by the emerging David Cronenberg and set in a tower block in Montreal. Dr. St-Luc is the resident MD tending to the inhabitants who have started to develop odd stomach complaints that are definitely not related in any way to his colleague's work on a parasitic organism designed to replace organ transplants. He is asked to investigate a suicide-homicide that took place in one of the apartments, and discovers a link to the parasites - and the possibility they have already been spread to several other residents through their fun and games.

Taking Shivers out of the context of other films, it's an uneven quality experience and mainly of interest as it shows an early Cronenberg still coming into his powers. Acting is hit and miss, sometimes sincere and convincing, sometimes melodramatic or wooden. Scenes of violence, sex or sexual violence are also variable. A few of these scenes are horribly effective, including the homicide-suicide where an older and sinister man appears to be attacking a schoolgirl, and clips of their fight are juxtaposed with a new couple being shown around the luxury tower-block. 

Other effective horror scenes betray the director's influence by his contemporary George A. Romero as the residents, turned into sex-crazed demi-zombies by the parasite, try to corner St-Luc and nurse Forsythe.  The parasite creature is fun but doesn't ever appear convincing or threatening itself - the most effective creepy scenes are the ones that don't show the creature at all but just its' trails of blood. However the legacy of this film is the continued popularity of parasite-horror, including such classics as Alien (1979), The Thing (1984), Species (1995), The Faculty (1998), the Cronenberg-inspired Slither (2008) and so on. Meanwhile Cronenberg grows in filmmaking ability and his own later films such as Videodrome and eXistenz develop the bio-horror theme further, and the high-rise genre also continues to develop - High-Rise (2015) is essentially a re-make of Shivers without the parasites.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

High School Musical Of The Dead [Review: Anna and the Apocalypse]

Anna (Ella Hunt) dreads breaking the news to her father that she doesn’t want to go to University. Her father is still grieving for the death of her mother. Her best friend John is “secretly” in love with her, while their other friends Chris and Steph are tryin

g to find their voices as student filmmaker and journalist.

Anna and the Apocalypse is easily the best of the High School Musicals. Disney’s decision not to include zombies in any of the others was clearly a mistake. It’s not too serious – more Shaun than Dawn, but still with plenty of bite, and just enough blue language and young-adult themes for a Christmas movie. Zombies themselves make a poor movie enemy. They’re slow and weak except in numbers, so there always needs to be a human threat, in this case the melodramatic deputy head Mr. Savage (Paul Kaye).

The dance numbers are fun and the songs are good, very much in the HSM / Grade 4 Keyboard style. A highlight is Turning My Life Around, a bright, joyful number as Anna dances through town oblivious to the horrors around her.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

Trailer:

Singalong version of Turning My Life Around

Bring On The Wall [Review: Deep Dark]

Hermann (Sean McGrath) is a Failed Artist TM trying to express himself through the oft-neglected medium of hanging mobiles and trying to win the attention of gallery owner Devorah Klein (Anne Sorce). Hermann’s mother sends him to his rich uncle in search of a Real Job TM – but instead his uncle sends him to a dilapidated apartment to use as an artist’s retreat until he finds inspiration. So nothing weird so far. However…

In the apartment, Hermann finds a mysterious hole in the wall. Pulling a thread from the hole leads to communication with a strange entity – one who has the power to help Hermann make his mobiles into successful art. And all the poor lonely entity wants in return is Hermann’s company. What could possibly go wrong? Surely there won’t be a terrible price to pay for all that success…

Deep Dark is a lo-fi horror movie from 2015, directed by Michael Medaglia, with shades of Being John Malkovich and Little Shop Of Horrors, but with a few more WTF scenes than either.

Deep Dark also has a wicked sense of humour and a fair helping of blood, guts and other disgusting stuff, although it’s also strangely restrained at times. Not everything makes sense. For example the opening scene features a man removing a bathplug from his abdomen. It’s a great horror scene, really inventive, well done! but I have no idea how this fits in with any of the rest of the film. However for the most part this is a well plotted movie with a strong subtext. The relationship between Hermann and his somewhat unusual muse is a metaphor for the pain of the creative process. At least I hope it's a metaphor. If all artists actually have to do this then I have more respect for them than ever.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

Midsommar Murders [Review: Midsommar]

Dani, recovering from grief after the deaths of her sister and parents, and her boyfriend Christian who wants to break up but doesn't think this is the right time, travel to Sweden with some friends to attend the midsummer celebration at a pagan commune, the Harga. They all have a happy, healing and relaxing time, there's nothing sinister about this secret community or their religious festival and there will definitely be no murders or mutilations *innocent face*.

Sorry. Midsommar is a bleak and bloody horror film about a secret commune that appears very friendly and social at the start, but it's not long before Dani and Christian are shocked to witness a ceremony where two older members of the community take their own lives by jumping from a cliff. From here the weirdness builds up quickly. The festival includes other rituals including a version of Maypole dancing as an endurance competition and a May Queen coronation, all building towards some sort of final ritual. Meanwhile there's a mysterious book, mysterious goings on at night, mysterious disappearances, mysterious glances, mysterious food and drink, mysterious lack of mobile phone signals and mysterious inability to leave the commune. As is often the case in this genre of films, this is not going to end well.

Midsommar is directed by Ari Aster, also responsible for the unsettling horror film Hereditary. Dani is played by Florence Pugh. I would describe Pugh's performances in Lady Macbeth and in this film as intense and unforgettable. Possibly because the cast is large, there are few other stand-out performances.

Horror based on pagan culture (or misunderstandings of it) is a well-developed subgenre. In some ways Midsommar is a Swedish take on The Wicker Man and there are many similarities between the films. However while Police Sergeant Howie is a sane man (if a bit of a prude) cast into an insane world, Dani is different. She's already traumatized before she arrives at the Harga and, while she is further traumatized by what she sees, she responds in unexpected ways to her situation and becomes stronger, calmer and more open to the strange ceremonies.

A horrific three stars out of five.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

It only takes a minute girl [Review: Downsizing]

A Norwegian scientist has found a way to shrink humans to approximately 12 inches in height, meaning they have a much smaller environmental impact and incidentally can live a life of luxury on the cheap – but it’s irreversible. Occupational therapist Matt Damon and his wife Kristen Wiig are the couple trying to decide whether moving to a small community is an opportunity worth taking.

There are plenty of movies about shrinking people –Fantastic Voyage, InnerSpace, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, and of course the various appearances of Ant-Man. In all of these movies the shrinking effect is reversible and the tone tends to be a mixture of action and comedy.

Downsizing takes a different approach, the key to which is the one-way procedure which gives miniaturization a whole new meaning. This is highlighted by the shrinking process – no instantaneous shrink ray or Ant-Man suit but a prolonged and demeaning medical procedure involving removal of hair and teeth and injection with a special shrinking medicine before being anaesthetised and locked naked in a giant microwave.

It’s a little hard to describe exactly what kind of movie this is. It’s not an action movie or a thriller, and it’s not a comedy either, although there’s the occasional comic moment. There's some romance, so at least we can be sure that size isn't everything, but it's not really a romantic comedy either. Perhaps it’s a little confused – too many subplots with messages about environmental catastrophe, race, immigration, poverty, social inequality and division.

However this is first and foremost a science fiction story in the John W. Campbell sense – the downsizing is the only fantasy element, and the movie takes this concept very seriously and explores the consequences, good and bad, of this new technology and its impact on the world. The result is a thoughtful movie about the challenge of taking an irreversible step into the unknown, and how this affects relationships in which some decisions are reversible.

While most of the supporting cast are poorly developed to the point of stereotyping – flamboyant European party animal, immigrant cleaner with heart of gold and so on, Matt Damon’s lead character is the exception – he’s got enough of a backstory and personality to convince that he is not a hero or villain but a likeable Philip Dick-style everyman character trying to muddle through.

Downsizing is a B-movie, and it’s disappointing in places but occasionally thoughtful or touching. It’s been mis-promoted as a comedy in the trailers when it would be better described as a drama. I found enough positives to merit the highly coveted Sci-Fi Gene three-star rating.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars
All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

Meet The Parents [Review: Get Out]

Photographer Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is travelling with his girlfriend Rose (Alison Williams) to meet her parents for the first time, and is anxious about how they will react to an interracial relationship. On arrival he is greeted warmly and his fears appear groundless - but the parents have their own eccentricities, and the more he gets to know the Armitage family, the more he becomes convinced that there is something strange and sinister afoot at their household.

Get Out is a well-received horror movie from 2017, directed by Jordan Peele. It has won several awards including the Oscar for best screenplay - and well deserved. This is a clever film. The theme of racial intolerance and stereotyping is explored intelligently to play all sorts of psychological games with the audience, while subtle clues are incepted to pave the way for a horror twist in the final act. The movie opens with a subversion of a stereotype - a black person becoming increasingly nervous as he walks through a white neighbourhood, and proceeds to a fairly brutal kidnapping - this scene signals from the start that this is a horror movie, as otherwise the build-up of tension in the first act is so restrained that you might forget this and think you are watching some other kind of drama. There is a challenge in a film like this - if you make racism the main theme throughout, how do you come up with a horror twist that's even more horrific at the end? I don't want to spoil the movie, so all I can say is that this goal is achieved.

There's little to criticise here. In addition to the script, the performances are excellent and the setting deeply atmospheric. There are one or two tiny plot holes, including an escapology feat that I still haven't figured out, and a completely superfluous and ill-advised use of a candle, but that's about it.

Meeting the parents is a terrifying concept in itself, explored in depth in the films Meet The Parents (2000) and Meet The Fockers (2004). These films are sometimes misclassified as comedies rather than psychological thrillers. They are however enjoyable, unlike the all-time worst meet-the-parents movie, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1968). I have watched this double-Oscar-winning film to spare you the pain of doing so - its' excruciating to watch in the 21st century, even knowing that it was progressive and well-meaning back in the day, and exploration of racial issues is clumsy, a million miles away from Peele's brilliant script.

Get Out succeeds on all levels. A truly horrific three stars out of five.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars

The Only Whale Is Essex [Review: White Space]

Space... the final food frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Essex, it's continuing mission to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new recipes, to boldly eat what no man has eaten before.

White Space, also released as Beyond White Space, is a 2018 sci-fi movie. It is the future, and mankind has taken up space fishing. Captain Richard Bentley (Holt McCallany) commands the starship Essex and its dysfunctional, squabbling and unfeasibly good-looking crew. Their mission: to catch space-crabs (these are giant, edible asteroid-dwelling creatures actually called Clickers, not some sort of space STD) under the watchful eye of inspector Navarro (Zulay Henao). However Bentley's father perished seeking Tien Lung, a legendary dragon-like space creature, and Bentley is obsessed with revenge. Yes, this is another sci-fi take on Moby Dick. And no, this is not going to end well.

The best aspects of White Space are the ship and the crew. The Essex is well designed inside and out, it has character - part submarine, part trawler, it's dark and atmospheric, there's plenty of blue lighting which is important in sci-fi, and by the end of the film you can feel reasonably familiar with it. Is it named after my home county of Essex, England, famed for its orange lifeforms? Or for the various towns or counties also called Essex in the US? Perhaps it was named after David Essex, who finally receives the acclaim he so deserves for the song "A Winter's Tale" in the 22nd century. We will never know. The visual effects are great for the various spaceships, a little less great for the creatures.

I enjoyed getting to know the crew - interesting characters and interesting relationships, although Hawthorne (Mike Genovese), the marinated ancient mariner, is a bit of an annoying cliché. The cast are relative unknowns, at least to me. Perhaps I should get out more.

I actually think this film would have been better if it had just focussed on the captain and crew with their various obsessions, and let their tensions, arguments and misbehaviour go even further - but instead the writers throw in such highly original elements as Space Pirates (TM)! and a Parasitic Life Form (TM)! which add little and get in the way of the story.

White Space is a decent B-movie, and as Moby Dick sci-fi adaptations go I found it more enjoyable than 2010: Moby Dick. It gets enough right to be watchable despite its flaws, and manages to reel in a leviathan 3 stars out of 5.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars

Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To Work We Go [Review: Prospect]

In what may be possibly the most unwise Bring Your Child To Work Day ever, astronaut and prospector Damon (Jay Duplass) and his teenage daughter Cee (Sophie Thatcher) land on an alien planet looking for treasure - naturally-occurring gemstones that must be harvested delicately from an underground lifeform. They only have three days before the mothership leaves the system for ever, so when they successfully recover a gem Cee wants to rush back to their shuttle but Damon insists on searching for a larger cache. The father-daughter team are not alone on the planet - there are also other groups of prospectors and mercenaries about, all looking to strike gold and get out in time, and not exactly committed to good sportsmanship and comradery. When they are ambushed by another pair of prospectors, Cee is left in the difficult position of having to cooperate with Ezra (Pedro Pascal), one of their attackers.

The low-key setting of Prospect is very clever - this is smart sci-fi written to wring the most from a low budget. Most of the action takes place on the planet's forested surface, there is a toxic atmosphere so everyone has to wear spacesuits and filters and use temporary shelters and tents. The futuristic touches include medical kits with spray-on wound treatments and electric scalpels, many different kinds of railgun. The creatures that grow the gems are pleasantly Cronenbergian. The end result is strangely Western-like, this is a disorganized, greedy gold rush not an organized campaign. There are no uniforms (redshirt or otherwise) each spacesuit, gun or any other piece of equipment is different.

This movie is a mixture of science fiction, Western, action thriller (Chekov's railguns go off in the third act, also the first and second), survival thriller and psychological thriller. The writers are clearly familiar with Kurt Vonnegut's Rule 6: "Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them - in order that the reader may see what they are made of." Cee in particular is challenged physically and emotionally throughout the movie with one Prisoner's Dilemma after another, and I can only say I am deeply impressed by Sophie Thatcher as an actor and look forward to seeing what she does next. Her performance alone justifies the perfect score of three stars out of five.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars

Hot Chip [Review: Upgrade]

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars

Grey Trace (played by Logan Marshall-Green, and yes Grey Trace is a name) is a car mechanic in the near future. This is something of a rarity when most people seem to be digital workers, but he fills a niche repairing and upgrading retro cars belonging to rich collectors. He and his wife Asha (Melanie Vallejo) return one such car to reclusive billionaire programmer Eron Keen (Harrison Gilbertson). Eron, Eron… where have I heard a name sounding like that belonging to a rich and eccentric tech mogul? No, I musk be mistaken. Anyway, on their way home Grey and Asha's self-driving car is hacked and diverted to a deserted scrapyard where they are attacked by a gang of thugs, leaving Asha dead and Grey paralysed and left for dead. He is mysteriously rescued by Eron who offers him a  cure for paralysis in the form of STEM, an experimental AI chip implanted into his spine. When the chip wakes up and starts talking to him things get a bit weird.

With it's near-future setting and speculation about human-computer interfaces and our dependence on technology, Upgrade may look like an indie science-fiction movie. Don't be fooled. This is actually a well-developed setting and backstory for what is really a violent martial arts thriller about Grey's quest for revenge. When taking on the gangsters Grey gives STEM temporary consent to take over his body and execute impossibly deadly moves - the result is a more lethal and messy version of Jackie Chan's The Tuxedo.

Upgrade is a great example of a movie that is deliberately not a blockbuster. The CGI effects are content to set the scene, add to the darkness of the atmosphere, and then sit back and appreciate the nicely choreographed action with everyone else rather than trying to hog the limelight. The fighting and action scenes do hot up as the plot progresses and Grey comes up against tougher and tougher opponents, but there's no CGI-laden boss battles, everything stays small scale and human, and it's this perfect balancing act that earns Upgrade the ultimate accolade of three Sci-Fi Gene stars.

If I Had A Thanos [Review: Avengers Endgame]

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars

SPOILER WARNING

This review may contain spoiler warnings

2018's Avengers: Infinity War ended with the destruction of half of all life in the Universe, including half of the Avengers cast. I wasn't hugely surprised to find, and this isn't really much of a spoiler, that Avengers: Endgame turns out to be about an attempt by the remaining Avengers to bring the band back together and do something about it.

I was more surprised by the downbeat, bluesy tone of much of the movie. I would expect to see more personal depth and character building in the individual superhero stories, and there's plenty of this in Ant Man and The Wasp, and Captain Marvel - it's hard to get the same depth in an ensemble movie, but Endgame does better than most. The movie opens a few years after Infinity War, in a world reacting to the shock of that Thanos moment through memorials and support groups. Meanwhile the scattered Avengers have each reacted in different ways, and there's a reality to the transformed Thor, Hawkeye and Hulk that makes a lot of sense - possibly having fewer other characters overshadowing them means these characters can be more central. There's also a lot of gentle humour to be found.

However Avengers: Endgame is still not exactly an arthouse dogme experiment - I'm gutted that Lars Von Trier turned down the invitation to direct. There are plenty of CGI set-piece battles, and these are quite lovely but also confusing if you try to follow them. Why is Captain Marvel more powerful than Thanos one moment, and at his mercy the next? I gave up and just enjoyed the fireworks. The same applies to the main plot, the Avengers' plan to address the absence of half the Universe. Giving the writers credit, they have deliberately taken a certain kind of sci-fi plot and tried very hard to give it an original twist by disallowing the obvious routes. The end result serves the movie well but really doesn't stand up to logical analysis - luckily as a Doctor Who fan I have become immune to plot holes through repeated exposure so this did not spoil Endgame for me in the slightest.

Overall Endgame is a satisfying movie and a satisfying end to both the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy movie cycles. I am sure the great Stan Lee would approve of this movie's marvellous review score of three stars out of five.

Altered Beast [Review: Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald]

Score: 3 out of 5 stars
All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars

The second Fantastic Beasts movies takes place in 1927. An Obscurius transforming-rage-monster (it's no coincidence, by the way, that Obscurius rhymes with Mr. Furious) from the first movie is missing presumed alive. It seems everybody wants a piece of him - the Ministry of Magic, the American and French Ministries, Albus Dumbledore, and the naughty wizard Grindelwald, who has inconveniently escaped his US captors. Everybody, that is, except Newt Scamander who refuses to take sides as he is perfectly happy overworking his devoted assistant Bunty and playing with his seaweed-dragon. I know, right? Hufflepuffs... In order to prevent this being a very short trilogy, the Fates, in the form of US wizard Queenie and No-Maj Jacob Kowalski, conspire to send Newt and his family of baby Nifflers after the Obscurius. The trail leads to Paris, where Grindelwald is quite possibly up to something.

There are plenty of great cinematic moments, action set pieces and characters in this film, as well as points of interest for fans of the original series of books and films. Nagini, for example, turns up and is not quite as we remember her. The hypnotic sort-of-fascist Grindelwald is played brilliantly by Johnny Depp, to the extent that you can't tell if his ability to convert followers is a magic power or just extraordinary charisma. It's a rockstar performance vaguely reminiscent of David Bowie's Tesla in The Prestige.

However there are also many disappointments. The plot hinges on Dumbledore's past with Grindelwald and the reason they are unable to move directly against each other - but we get barely a hint of the romance. The Nifflers and Bowtruckles appear to good effect once or twice but not nearly enough, and there are very few new Fantastic Beasts. Human characters also don't get their chance to shine - can we have a Bunty spin-off series please? The plot itself is disjointed and difficult to follow, lacking in flow or perhaps logic, and while in the first movie there was great pleasure in exploring all aspects of US wizard culture and the 1920s setting in general, the second doesn't really get into either real or fictionalized history in the same satisfying way.

All in all, this movie is enjoyable in places but it's less than the sum of its parts and less satisfying than the first movie or the Harry Potter series, leading to the disappointing score of 3 stars out of 5.

Follow That Town [Review: Mortal Engines]

Score: 3 out of 5 stars
All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars

A small Bavarian mining village is minding its' own business when suddenly a predator city appears on the horizon. The town packs up its' houses, shops and streets and makes a dash for it but it's too small to outrun the caterpillar tracks of London, and its' fate is sealed. However as the village is pillaged and torn apart to feed the furnaces of London, amongst the villagers being "welcomed" into London's immigration system, there is a certain young lady with a desperate agenda.

Mortal Engines is a Peter Jackson-directed movie based on the Philip Reeve novel for children, young adults and old adults, set in a post-apocalyptic Earth a thousand years into the future, where cities have been uprooted and mobilized on wheels, legs or tracks, and where "municipal Darwinism" rules - the bigger cities prey on the smaller ones, and it seems London has become the biggest of all. The challenge for this film is to bring to life this very eccentric vision of city-sized vehicles driving furiously across a desolate landscape, without losing the humanity and the stories of the characters brought together by the clash of cities.

Does it succeed? Mostly. The traction city of London is an awesome creation, topped with St. Pauls Cathedral and its' gardens, its' overpopulated levels packed with houses and office blocks and connected by a transit system that combines the Tube, the red double-decker buses and the London Eye, and the entire structure driven on massive engines topped with Trafalgar Square lions. London kicks ass, and its' colourful citizens cheering in bloodthirsty fashion from their terraces as the City gives chase to its' next victim are just the icing on the cake. Meanwhile I can't describe in detail the other cities visited without the cast as that would be major spoilerage, but they are imaginative and full of character.

The central characters of Mortal Engines are mostly played by unknowns - at least in the Western Sphere. The singer Jihae, playing the rebel leader Anna Fang, is of course well known and loved in South Korea but hasn't broken the West yet - hopefully we will see or hear more of her. The unfamiliarity means that the cast are in competition with the cities to steal the limelight, and the cities put up a good fight. However I felt the lead players, Robert Sheehan and Hera Hilmarsdottir, gave super performances, and the most familiar face amongst the cast, Hugo Weaving, is a good choice for a villain who actually gets to do some genuinely villainous things *innocent face*.

Genuinely villainous. This is an extremely violent movie for a 12-certificate release. It is a war film of sorts. There is a lot of death, destruction and injury, whether in human-on-human firefights or in the collateral damage when cities clash or fall. Blood guts and gore are sparing - most deaths are clean, off-screen or implied, Doctor Who style, and sometimes this can be confusing.

For a movie based on such an original concept, it has to be said that Mortal Engines is derivative in some ways, and this comes down more to the way the movie has been styled than the original novel. London and particularly the Londoners are highly reminiscent of the Hunger Games' Capitol, and many aspects of the movie echo Star Wars, from paternity revelations to the assault by small flying machines on the Doomsday device. The novel itself, while original in many ways, also has its' precedents, such as the Christopher Priest novel Inverted World which also features a travelling city.

Overall I felt despite the derivative elements, Mortal Engines was a decent, enjoyable movie that well deserves its' highly accurate and meaningful rating of 3 stars out of 5.