Category: Science Fiction
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The Mysterious Island (1975)
This brisk sixty minute animated adaptation is hand drawn in the style of the famous TinTin cartoon series, and delights in its similar sense of old fashioned derring do. Faithful to Verne in its story, character, US Civil War-era setting and spirit of adventure, it sees am intrepid band of balloon-wrecked castaways and their dog…
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Mysterious Island (1995)
A lengthy and largely location-set TV adaptation of Jules Verne’s second Captain Nemo adventure, this Canadian & New Zealand co-production is underpinned by the intriguing premise, ‘what if Captain Nemo was the bad guy, a psychopath enjoys playing mind games with people instead of helping them?’ Staying true to the sweep of the novel, the…
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Mysterious Island (2005)
This Hallmark TV movie is an uninspiring adaptation of Jules Verne’s classic colonisation adventure novel which is chiefly remembered for featuring the return of famed aquanaut Captain Nemo. Reasonably faithful to Verne’s story, a starry headline cast of Patrick Stewart and Kyle MacLachlan is supplemented, or possibly squandered alongside screen stalwart Roy Marsden, TV stars…
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Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island (2010)
If I thought the 2005 version was poor, then this dull, cheap and silly Syfy channel produced and action-lite adaptation is without question the absolute nadir of Mysterious Island screen adaptations. Bermuda Triangle time-travelling It keeps the US Civil War escape, the hot air balloon, Captain Nemo and the island, and then introduces a Bermuda…
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Ammonite
Nicola Griffith. 1992 This stunning debut sci-fi adventure novel is a celebration of survival and self-acceptance wrapped up in a cracking story where loyalty, respect, friendship and love are forged in a frontier wilderness. Marghe is an anthropologist grieving for her mother and is emotionally and physically at a low ebb. a tribal war Attempting…
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The Children of Men
P D James. 1992 The human race faces extinction in this remarkable dystopian sci-fi, which stylishly combines a scathing satire of Britain disguised as an Alfred Hitchcock thriller, with a denunciation of the patriarchal society, as well as a being warning against a slide into totalitarianism. Set in the then near-future of 2021, the human…
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The Dispossessed
Ursula K. Le Guin. 1974 A physicist becomes a pawn in interplanetary politics in this philosophical sci-fi novel by a master of the genre. As always with Le Guin’s work this is an adventure of ideas, filled with simmering drama which includes droughts, demonstrations, deaths, a murder, attempted rape and childbirth. starships and space travel…
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GHOST IN THE SHELL (2017)
Beneath the glossy exterior there’s not much spirit to be found in this curate’s egg of a sci-fi action thriller. A hard working Scarlett Johansson stands at the centre of the spectacular visuals, but even the Avengers star can’t bring the soulless storytelling to boil. The story is based the acclaimed Japanese cyberpunk comic strip which was followed by a successful big screen…
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ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL
This cyborg comic book action blockbuster grinds along under the weight of it’s many malfunctioning parts despite being manufactured by the groundbreaking director of Terminator 2: Judgement Day. To be fair, James Cameron only wrote and produced this young adult dystopian sci-fi, but it very disappointingly feels bashed together at great expense from discarded bits…
Chris Hunneysett author 