Tag: Sci-Fi

Science fiction! Aliens! LA getting fucked over, again. These are the thoughts that I had about this movie before I knew what it was about. Which is pretty much true.

One of the many times LA has been fucked over, in recent years.

First off the movie was definitely beautiful on the Blu-Ray. Top notch cameras and CGI work. Technically this is just another alien invasion story, but this time they seem to include no battle ready war vets, no battle ready army people, nothing. Just a few regular people. The actual cast list on this thing must be low, minus random party people, random people on roofs, etc. Never really pay any attention to them anyways.

Skyline is the title, more or less, because I guess the ships are in the sky? It could be better. The main lead is Eric Balfour, but other people are played by some of America’s favorite TV stars. Detective Angel Batista from Dexter, and Dr. Turk Turkleton from Scrubs.

These group of regulars and some ladies find themselves in a big Las Vegas penthouse/hotel thing, when Aleins come down! They have crazy blue lights, and when people stare at them, they tend to kind of ‘lose their mind’ and walk towards the stuff. Bad things. In fact, that was a pun because these bad boys tend to steal brains. Why? I try not to spoil shit, so stop asking.

The ending is kind of ehh though. They could have did what they wanted, without doing all that they did. They did just too much so that they inadvertantly started a new story, and then just stopped it. And by stopped it, I mean the ending credits flashed scenes that happened next too, which was just annoying. Small movements, and that is it. Some bullshit way of setting up a sequel, that may or may not happen. YOU DON’T HAVE TO JUST STOP SUDDENLY TO SET UP SEQUELS GUYS, STOP DOING THAT. But should there be one, it will take on an entirely different tone from the first film. Hopefully less Eric Balfour too, who just has a face that makes it seem like he will rape everyone.

Bet you were expecting a picture of Flynn here, weren’t you?

I think generally I give every movie 1 less rating if the ending made me mad/felt incomplete. So there ya go.

Hey look, a sci-fi action film! I will admit, when I saw the trailer I thought that this movie would be stupid. Some weird future where everyone sits at home, and they have much more prettier versions of themselves walking around doing shit, yet the user gets to experience the feelings so it is okay? These Surrogates probably just represent our dependence on technology/better video games, gone to an extreme.

Surrogates! They have become cheap enough so that everyone can have them! There was no real hobos to speak of (maybe, I will get to that). With the perfect robot body, everyone looks sexy despite their actual appearance, all they have to do is sit in a chair and take it. The rise of surrogates brought accidental deaths down to very low, and crime to an all time low. After all, With a world full of beautiful people, what could go wrong?

Oh yeah. Honestly, this shit still creeps me out.

BUT WAIT. Not everyone has conformed. There are colonies around the US (I am not sure if other countries are really talked about here) who think it is unnatural and want to just be humans. These may just be hobos too. They live together, have no other jobs. Follow a prophet who will help end the robot scum. Speaking of ending robot scum, one guy dies from some crazy gun. His surrogate explodes, and the user is killed (first time ever). That guy is the son of creator of Surrogates.

I wonder if I have to explain this picture?

Thankfully, Bruce Willis is on the case. He has to investigate this threat, and crazy enough, he has to do it without a Surrogate. Being a real person in a robot world is crazy. Crazy!

So while the story should have been good, it just…fails. Most of the things that happen are pretty obvious. The ending you may be already to guess, even. Action scenes seemed to be better described as chasing scenes. Some helicopters got destroyed, but you know, barely any people got capped. Given the surrogates. The surrogates are also creepy of course, as they all look too perfect, but that is what they were going for.

Despite being an interesting concept, the execution of the concept left me bored. I didn’t care what happened to anyone by the end. Not even the fat dude.

This movie focuses on a about a week in the life of a West Philadelphia Café. About 96% of the movie takes place inside this cafe, through the conversations of the patrons. This is probably the most diverse cafe ever, as it has more than just hipsters.

These are the normal Cafe patrons that I am used to.

Movie magic is the only way to describe how Jennifer Love Hewitt can be a barista. Jamie Kennedy she was dating at the time, so he is also in this movie as “sketch guy”. There are tons of characters though, from guy who looks like a fat Jemaine who is flipping out about reality, to lady trying to hire people for some urban kids program, to a cop, to his drugged out cousin, to two strangers who met at a movie, to a writer who just wants to write about whats going on, to the other barista who really wants some of that Jennifer Love Hewitt.

This movie opens with tragedy, and then starts off a few days earlier so the viewer can watch the events that transpire up to the tragedy. You know, because it wants to be a non nonsensical movie. The part that intrigued me the most when I read the cover was that the last line of the synopsis mentioned something like: “…and then they even begin to question if their lives are even real.” What?

WHAT?

Is this some drama/sci-fi movie out of no where? I watched it just to find out.

Well. “Just” is a strong word.

Turns out that last line ends up being a lot more than just some smaller thing, but a big piece to the whole movie. While watching it, I was able to guess certain events would aspire. Parts are definitely cliche, and parts are just silly. The ending however is off the wall. While it is happening, you think it is just a piece of shit obvious ending. “Oh no, don’t do that!” you will say to the movie. Then it does it and you get mad. But then it goes just one step further to give a different ending than you may have expected. That is why I am giving it a higher rating. It is trying to go for something different, despite the cliches. I like trying.

Also a big shoutout to the chick from Flipped, for being in this movie as well. She’s gonna be a star!

I was told I needed to watch this movie when I revealed Source Code. Same director, and he did Moon before Source Code. Had a LOT less budget, many less actors, and was independently released.

“Independently released? Well I approve!”

This was a great sci-fi movie. Thankfully, by reading the back cover, you really have no idea what the movie is about. For the sake of everything, don’t try and figure out what it is about before watching it. Don’t watch the trailer. Here is a synopsis that will not ruin it for you:

Moon: Sam Rockwell is on the moon alone. He is there to harvest moon stuff, and send it back to earth, as a new and awesome energy source. He has a robot companion (voiced by Kevin Spacey). Then some weird shit happens.

There ya go! So once the “Weird shit” starts to happen, I continued to make guesses “Oh the ending will be blahdyblahblah” and then 10 minutes later, said guess happens. This just leaves me dumbfounded. Why would that happen so soon? “Oh!” I says to myself. “Well. Maybe this is going to be lead to this?”.

I think I did that like, three times. Until I was wrong and got an overall ending sequence I wasn’t guessing. Hooray for not knowing what will happen! The simplisticness of the movie makes it work, with only really two main characters. Sam Rockwell with a beard is cool, but I kept finding it odd his characters name was Sam Bell. What is he, trying to turn into Bill Paxton now? Either way, this does what a good sci-fi movie should do. Question humanity. And other philosophical things. (The other acceptable good sci-fi movie is of course the one that is secretly political).

Whoa whoa. Only Bill Paxton can be Bill Paxton. If you aren’t Bill Paxton, you can’t be Bill Paxton. And I am Bill Paxton. Bill Paxton.

3 out of 4.