The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Secret Government Agencies refers to government agencies (usually branches of the US government but there are a number of examples from other countries) who are tasked with protections of the realm and usually operate within a veil of secrecy.
The Spy Film of the 1960s created an array of government agencies with colourful acronyms and their engagement in spying activities. In wider genre material, there are a great many agencies with missions to protect against alien invasion, monsters, occult forces or entities from other realms.
There are also another whole side to government agencies – that of the sinister government agency. Here such agencies are constantly trying to cover up evidence of alien activity, obtain control of those with psychic powers or superpowers, capture aliens or monsters or appropriate scientific advances for weapons purposes. The more paranoid of these imagine such agencies as having incredible reach and control. One of the most common of these agencies is often assumed to be the Men in Black.
Scott Derrickson film with a captivatingly original premise – a sniper is assigned to a guardhouse overlooking a gorge filled with mysterious monsters and ends up in a forbidden relationship with his counterpart across the divide
A Star Trek film spun off around Michelle Yeoh and the secret service that appears in the modern revival series
Third of the Sonic the Hedgehog films and surprisingly far more entertaining than you expect from such a lightweight formulaic film
More from the world’s cuddliest super-villain and those manic ritalin-deprived kids that are the Minions. Is there are life and creativity left in a franchise that has been milked for six films now?
Christopher Landon, director of Happy Death Day and Freaky, makes a comedy about a family who turn the ghost in their house into a viral sensation
The seventh of the live-action Transformers films, the second made after Michael Bay stepped down from the director’s chair
The third screen adaptation of John Wyndham’s book, previously filmed as Village of the Damned, this gives the story an update in some interesting ways
One of Stephen King’s best books is given a new film workover by Blumhouse. Keith Thomas who made a standout directorial debut with The Vigil but this is a disaster, one of the worst of all King adaptations
Robert Rodriguez makes a film with Ben Affleck as a detective dealing with a man who can control others’ minds. However, this develops into a considerable mind twister
James Gunn takes over the Suicide Squad franchise and welcomely rescues it from the dud first screen outing
The director of The Troll Hunter returns with a stunningly shot film about a mystery man with godlike powers
Cheaply made and frequently unintentionally hilarious variant on UFO conspiracies that wheels out all the usual cliches – alien implants, the Men in Black, recovered memories etc
Lightweight action in which a young carjacker gains possession of a teleportation device and is pursued by government agents
Ang Lee dips his feet into the action genre in a conceptually fascinating work where assassin Will Smith facies a younger clone of himself. Smith’s performance and the effects used to de-age his double are top-notch
Aardman Animation return with a sequel to Shaun the Sheep Movie. More of the same absurdly nonsensical capers and gags, this comes with much in the way of homage and in-jokes to classic SF films
The appealing idea of a romantic comedy/road movie where both characters are zombies. The plot is all over the place but the premise is conducted with some amusement
The original Men in Black was a witty parody of alien coverup conspiracy paranoia; the sequels became slapstick films about pop-up aliens and hi-tech gadgets hidden behind everyday things. This offers a new cast line-up but little else that is new
A superpowers rather than a superhero film about a woman with abilities on the run forced to seek refuge with her estranged family
The anime Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade became a cult hit for its fascinating play of metaphors that mixed terrorism and Little Red Riding Rood, all taking place in alternate history Japan. This is a live-action remake from South Korea, which locates the story in the future and plays as much of a tough, hard-edged action film
Quite a decent little low-budget film about a top secret government agency set up to despatch Lovecraftian Elder Gods.
Not to be confused with Tod Browning’s shock classic, this starts with a mind-bending quality that leaves you wondering WTF is going on, before logically and ingeniously unfolding as a psychic powers film
Despicable Me was a delightful debut for Illumination Entertainment but has come close to making them a one-hit wonder they have milked for all they can. After the weak likes of Despicable Me 2 and Minions, this recapturing some of the charms of the original
The fifth of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. This comes with more of an outright comedy focus than any of the other films where Bay seems to be second-guessing his critics and spoofing his own peccadilloes in quote marks, only to produce the silliest entry in the series yet
Japan’s Kiyoshi Kurosawa is known for his intensely uncanny and bafflingly cryptic horror films. Here he makes an alien invasion film, although a minimalist and very different one that proves quite fascinating
Live-action adaptation of a manga about a teenager who becomes part of a secret world of flesh-eating ghouls. The set-up comes with some imagination but the film suffers from an uninvolving story and a reliance on unconvincing CGI
This has cult midnight hit written over it. It’s a loopy trip into people doing drugs, alien impregnation and government conspiracy that should have been quirky and funny but sort of goes asleep at the wheel
Australian SF film about a man’s discovery of an alien artifact that helps regenerate body parts and gives him prophetic dream warnings of a coming nuclear war. An odd little film more than it is necessarily one that keeps you interested or dramatically engaged
Are there truly any new creative directions that Michael Bay feels he he has to explore for a fourth Transformers film? For me, all the Transformers beating the crap out of each other and copious mass destruction has reached a tipping point where it is hard to tell one of the films from each other
Film that nostalgically homages, if not outrightly borrows, from E.T. and a spate of cute alien films it inspired. The film does the build-up and sense of wonder extremely well but then the plot dissolves into far too much near-identical running around and seems to lose the magic
Captain America’s second solo outing feels more like a Mission: Impossible film or an episode of 24 than a superhero film. Lots of Marvel continuity and fanservice and you are taken aback at how political it is prepared to be
Fascinating tv mini-series set around the notion of a generation ship – the show explores the scenario in interesting ways then proceeds to put some wild spins on what we think is happening
This is more of a Suicide Squad than a Batman film. Based on the popular Arkham videogames, this a Justice League-type adventure but with super-villains where the emphasis is on dark humor and gleeful mayhem
This is fake SF, an animated film that has no interest in its concept, one that exists solely as a series of pop culture jokes, cutsie supporting characters, thrills and feelgood epiphanies
Zombie film with a party of survivors trying to make it through a zombie-infested L.A. to safety
Despicable Me was a charming lightning in the bottle hit for Illumination Entertainment. Here they merely opt for recycling the familiar and already the cute sweetness and sidesplitting gags of the original are starting to feel like processed formula
The culmination of one of the most ambitious cinematic exercises ever conducted, with Marvel weaving storylines through several films to finally merge here with flawless regard. The characters get far more depth than in all of their previous films
Found Footage film as survivors from a commercial airliner that has crashed on a top secret government test site find themselves hunted by mysterious creatures
One hardly greets the attempt to generate another entry out of this franchise with any enthusiasm. This mostly consists of tired and familiar gags, where maybe the most generous compliment you can pay is that it is better than Men in Black II was
Another cheap Syfy Channel disaster movie. With the sheer amount of these films, many have been straining to come up novelty threats – you cannot deny the idea of a tornado of alien origin holds your attention
Hilarious Simon Pegg-written homage to science-fiction fandom and alien visitor cinema. imagine Starman recast with two science-fiction fans and tv’s sarcastically wisecracking ALF (voiced by Seth Rogen)
UK/USA. 2009. Crew Director – Grant Heslov, Screenplay – Peter Straughn, Based on the Book by Jon Ronson, Producers – George Clooney, Grant Heslov & Paul Lister, Photography – Robert Elswit, Music – Rolfe Kent, Music Supervisor – Linda Cohen, Visual Effects Supervisor – Thomas J. Smith, Visual Effects – CIS Hollywood, Special Effects Supervisor […]
Live-action English-language remake of the anime short about a demon-hunting vampire girl. The original is reduced to no more than a series of slick by-the-numbers action poses
In the second and the best of his two Hellboy films, Guillermo Del Toro expands the first out with an amazing menagerie of eccentric and offbeat creatures, while Ron Perlman is again on winning form in the title role
Low budget vampire action about a vampire woman who is recruited into a secret government organisation
The second of two animated Hellboy spinoffs, this disappointingly renders down around the level of children’s animation what might have been impressive superheroics had they been conducted in live-action
The first of two animated Hellboy spinoffs with the live-action actors returning to voice their parts. This is the better of the two animated films, developing a decided weirdness when it takes Hellboy inside a Japanese spirit realm
The first of Guillermo Del Toro’s adaptations of Mike Mignola’s comic-book about a demon superhero. Not as good as the sequel, the film’s ace in the hole proves to be Ron Perlman in the title role
This comes with the undeniable influence of the then recent Minority Report in its story about a telepath recruited by law enforcement
TV mini-series in ten two-hour parts that deals with UFOs, covering several generations from the 1940s to the present. An interesting take on UFO encounters with the benefit of some phenomenal performances
TV mini-series sequel to Stephen King’s Firestarter that now sees Charlie McGee in her twenties played by Marguerite Moreau. The story feels under-plotted and over-padded
Sequel that turns a witty original into overblown slapstick that never consists of anything more than absurd gags with aliens and technology popping up from behind everyday objects
Dean R. Koontz adapted mini-series about plane crash survivors and psychic powers that comes with a series of wild twists that the script fails to offer adequate explanation for
Stunning Mamoru Oshii-prodcued anime short about a vampire girl who operates as an American agent eliminating vampires in post-War Japan
Fred Olen Ray and Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson combine forces on a low-budget action film about psychic powers. The action scenes are competent but the film lacking in the script department
The third and one of the better of the generally insipid Muppet movies produced following Jim Henson’s death. This tells the story of Gonzo’s origins as an alien where the film borrows spoofs the then-popularity of tv’s The X Files
he second of two cheap video-released sequels to the Jean-Claude Van Damme film. This has the novelty of featuring Burt Reynolds as the bad guy
A British mini-series that offers an ingenious modernised reconeptualisation of the vampire genre, depicting the activities of a secret agency of vampire hunters
Katsuhiro Otomo overseen anime about the discovery of Noah’s Ark, an alien artifact that gives a child vast psychic powers in a swathe of destruction not dissimilar to Akira
Way back before Marvel Comics’ extraordinary domination of cinema screens and Samuel L. Jackson’s airing of the role, there was this tv pilot with David Hasselhoff; Although the film has a ridiculed reputation today, David S. Goyer delivers a tongue-in-cheek script filled with side-splitting one-liners
This should have been a witty film – Mel Gibson as a conspiracy nut who discovers one of his theories is true and is hunted by government agents – but the result is a confused mess that turns into an overblown action vehicle
A huge box-office hit in its day, this comedy turns UFO coverup conspiracy of
A tv movie revival of the hit 1980s tv sitcom ALF. Looking back it’s hard to wonder what ever seemed funny about the show at the time
An action movie inspired by tv’s The X Files involving space shuttle pilots returned to Earth possessed by aliens. The emphasis is more on action scenes than a coherent plot
Ridiculous action film produced at the peak of The X Files popularity about two detectives against a body-hopping alien and sinister government agency
Live-action version of a manga that was previously made as an anime. This Hong Kong-made version is the lesser, lacking the perverse sexual imagery of the anime. It does feature the wildly fantastical action scenes typical to HK fantasy of this era but this has been conducted on a low-budget and looks rubbery (*)
Standout thriller set around the world of computing, one of the earliest techno-thriller to adapt to the new internet age
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the Stephen King story that was about a Pan-worshipping lawnmowing service and is a film about Virtual Reality and enhanced intelligence. Harnessing some top-drawer CGI effects of the day, this was highly influential on subsequent VR films
Dean R. Koontz adaptation in which Corey Haim adopts an unusually intelligent dog unaware it is part of a genetically engineered killing machine
Anime from Yoshiaki Kawajiri about a war with a demon dimension that falls halfway between H.P. Lovecraft and a hard-boiled detective thriller and brims over wit fascinatingly pathological sexual imagery
Film adaptation of the popular Destroyer novels about a martial arts super-spy that proves enjoyably tongue-in-cheek. Clearly launched as an attempt to make another James Bond type series, this was not successful but is so appealing you wish had it been
John Carpenter abandons horror to make one of the better E.T.-inspired cute and cuddly alien visitor films. The film’s grasp of science is sometimes shaky but the film gains an enormous amount from Jeff Bridges’ performance as the alien trying to adjust to being in a human body
Adaptation of the Stephen King novel with Drew Barrymore giving a fantastic performance as a young girl with pyrokinetic powers on the run from a sinister government agency
The original version of Inception almost, featuring warring psychics entering into dreams. Despite much promise, the idea is prosaic in its handling
Brian De Palma returns to psychic powers themes in this successor to Carrie but this is a much more sprawling and often incoherent narrative shot through with occasional moments of De Palma’s directorial flourish
The film spinoff of a popular 1970s British tv series about a group investigating scientific and ecological abuses. The film depicts an investigation into an outbreak of aromegaly on an island near where growth stimulants have been dumped.
This has the distinction of being the first film to depict cloning. An edgy conspiracy thriller where Senator Bradford Dillman wakes in a secret medical facility that clones important people
One of the most unique 1950s atomic monster movies – in which the monster is an amok radioactive isotope. Low-budget SF film that is pushed into the decidedly watchable by a driving documentary-like urgency and in being one of the few 1950s SF films reasonably grounded in scientific methodology