Weird Science (1985)
May 23, 2003Two Geeks Create the Perfect Woman
John Hughes cornered a certain 80s market on teen angst with films like The Breakfast Club. He also made this head-scratching oddity in which two nerds create the perfect woman
Joel Silver
Predator (1987)
Aug 2, 2000Action/Humans Hunted by Alien Sportsman
This takes the previous year's big hit of Aliens and fuses it with The Most Dangerous Game, swapping that story's bored aristocratic hunter for an alien hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger and a team of soldiers in the jungles of South America
Predator 2 (1990)
Nov 17, 2014Action/Humans Hunted by Alien Sportsman
Predator was one of the better Alien/Aliens copies of the 1980s. This sequel does little more than serve the same up all over again bar the substitution of a near-future L.A. for the jungle but manages to generate a reasonably intensive ride out of the action
Ricochet (1991)
Jan 6, 2003Ex-Con's Revenge
This rehashes Cape Fear, remade by Martin Scorsese the same year, with Denzel Washington as an upstanding lawyer whose life is torn apart by vengeful ex-con John Lithgow. A frequently ludicrous script is made worse by Russell Mulcahy's overwrought direction
Hudson Hawk (1991)
Apr 1, 2003Gonzo Caper Comedy
Madcap slapstick caper comedy with Bruce Willis as a cat burglar. This was a massive box-office flop at the time but remains a lunatically out-of-control mess that is frequently hilarious
Demolition Man (1993)
Nov 11, 2000Satirical Politically Correct Dystopia/Action
One of Sylvester Stallone's better films, a satirically funny work where he plays a contemporary police officer unfrozen in a future overrun by Political Correctness to chase down criminal Wesley Snipes
Richie Rich (1994)
Dec 31, 1994Comic-Book Rich Kid
From the producers of The Matrix, an adaptation of the classic comic-book about a lonely rich kid now made as a vehicle for Macaulay Culkin
Conspiracy Theory (1997)
Sep 9, 2007Flaky Conspiracy Theorist Comedy/Thriller
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
The Matrix (1999)
May 11, 1999Virtual Reality
A film that was as groundbreaking when it came out as Star Wars was in its day. The Wachowskis create a defining work on Virtual Reality themes and do so with a sublime cool and a series of breathtaking action moves that blew everybody away
House on Haunted Hill (1999)
Oct 31, 1999Haunted House
The announcement of the remake of The Haunting was cannily followed by this remake of the 1959 William Castle/Vincent Price. Where The Haunting turned out a bloated flop, this emerges as far more unpretentious and an altogether more fun film
Thir13en Ghosts (2001)
Oct 28, 2001Haunted House
After the success of their remake of House on Haunted Hill, Dark Castle Entertainment remade another William Castle film here, expanding it with a full arsenal of visual and makeup effects with intermittently impressive results
Ghost Ship (2002)
Feb 27, 2003Haunted Ship
This was a big-budget revival of the ghost ship theme by Dark Castle Entertainment about a salvage crew encountering a ghost vessel. Visual effects tend to trump spooky atmosphere
Gothika (2003)
Feb 23, 2004Asylum Haunting
Halle Berry is a psychiatrist who comes around to find she has incarcerated in her own asylum only to find it is haunted. An improbably contrived set up, some jumps
The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
May 23, 2003Virtual Reality
The first of the sequels to The Matrix inevitably disappointed on the massive build-up. The Wachowskis leave more questions than answers, while the new action scenes are often jaw-dropping they also feel boiler-plated on
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Nov 11, 2003Virtual Reality
Third of The Matrix sequels and the weakest of the series. This offers one showstopping effects sequence, on the other hand it also leaves a host of unanswered questions dangling
House of Wax (2005)
Jul 24, 2005Wax Museum Slasher
Despite borrowing the title, this has the next-to-no connection to the 1953 film with Vincent Price as a mad waxworks curator and is a modern slasher film. Nevertheless, director Jaume Collet-Serra does come up with some very inventive dispatches
V for Vendetta (2006)
Apr 2, 2006Graphic Novel Adaptation/Totalitarian Future England
Adaptation of the Alan Moore graphic novel with a script from The Wachowskis. Moore's repudiation aside, this is a fine and literate work that retells the story of an anarchist trickster and potently politicises it for the era of the George W. Bush.
The Brave One (2007)
Oct 21, 2007Female Vigilante
Neil Jordan teams up with action producer Joel Silver to make a vigilante film where Jodie Foster starts toting a gun against thugs on the streets after the murder of her fiancé
Fred Claus (2007)
Nov 18, 2007Santa's Brother
Christmas film with Vince Vaughn as Santa's younger brother, a petty street hustler. A promising sarcastic tone falls into easy predictable routines and characters arcs
The Invasion (2007)
Sep 9, 2007Invasion of the Body Snatchers Remake
Fourth film version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers that badly miscues many key scenes and is missing the paranoid mood of the original(s)
The Reaping (2007)
May 5, 2007Modern-Day Biblical Plagues
Reasonable budgeted film about a series of Biblical plagues being visited upon a rural Louisiana town. An interesting set up that flounders amid a confused script
Speed Racer (2008)
Dec 4, 2009Cartoon in Live-Action/Racing Driver Hero
The Wachowskis live-action remake of the anime series is a sublimely madcap confection, a film that is alive with vibrant visuals and all the colours of the rainbow. A box-office flop but glorious, even groundbreaking visually
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
Jan 1, 2010Sherlock Holmes vs Black Magic
Guy Ritchie's reinvention of Sherlock Holmes seemed a miscalculated disaster in the offing. It doesn't radically reinvent the basics but emerges passably well
Orphan (2009)
Sep 12, 2009Evil Child
Another variant on the evil child film featuring a maliciously psychopathic Isabelle Fuhrman
Ninja Assassin (2009)
Oct 20, 2009Martial Arts
Produced by The Wachowskis who take the opportunity to reinvent the ninja film with the same flamboyant visuals they employed on The Matrix with exhilarating results
The Book of Eli (2010)
Jan 18, 2010Post-Holocaust Action
Denzel Washington as an enigmatic Man With No Name wandering the post-holocaust apocalyptic landscape. This follows the cliches of the genre before it bizarrely morphs into a Biblical allegory partway through
The Apparition (2012)
Aug 24, 2012Haunting
This feels like an amateur film made on a big budget that consists of utterly tepid scares where the director fails to do anything not borrowed from a dozen other ghost stories