Tag: Science Fiction
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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…
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SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE
Along comes a Spider-man as you’ve never seen him before in this deliriously entertaining animated spin on your friendly neighbourhood superhero. Joyous, thrilling and inclusive, it’s a pulsating neon kaleidoscope of jokes, action and invention as several versions of Spider-man team up to save the fabric of the universe being torn apart by the infamous crime lord,…
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Future Shock! The Story of 2000AD
Told with humorous candour by it’s creators, this thrill-powered documentary blasts through the groundbreaking history of seminal British sci-fi comic, 2000AD. It was launched as a short term cash grab on 1977’s Star Wars-inspired craze for sci-fi, and no-one expected it to be still be around in the year 2000, never mind in rude health in 2015. My first exposure occurred in…
Chris Hunneysett author 