Slither (2006)
Jun 21, 2006Alien Mutation and Zombies
James Gunn directs a film about body-snatching alien slugs that proves enormous fun and comes packed to the edges with numerous genre references and homages
Elizabeth Banks
Fred Claus (2007)
Nov 18, 2007Santa's Brother
A 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
Meet Dave (2008)
Jul 31, 2008Eddie Murphy as a Spaceship Comedy
Off-the wall Eddie Murphy comedy in which he plays an alien spaceship disguised as a human come to Earth. All the fun comes from watching Murphy’s wacky antics, which buoy it up over its weaker moments
The Uninvited (2009)
Apr 4, 2009Haunting/Asian Horror Remake
The Hollywood remake of the South Korean ghost story A Tale of Two Sisters that waters down and reduces the effectiveness of the original to generic shocks
The Hunger Games (2012)
Mar 29, 2012Future Televised Human Hunting
A Young Adult box-office hit that does little more than competently shuffle around ideas from other SF films. Jennifer Lawrence makes an impressive showing but the film also soft-pedals the moral reality of its scenario
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
Nov 23, 2013Future Televised Human Hunting/Social Revolution
The first sequel to the box-office juggernaut. The surprise is that it spends defies most of the things that made the first film, not to mention has made one of the year's biggest box-office hits into a parable for Marxist revolution
Movie 43 (2013)
Nov 8, 2013Anthology of Bad Taste Comedy Skits
An anthology of comedy skits that sets out to be in as bad taste as possible – you are left astounded how far a film has to go to offend in this post-South Park era. That and wondering if the producers had kidnapped some of the stars' family members to force them to participate
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 (2014)
Nov 22, 2014Future Social Revolution
The third The Hunger Games film starts in with a more brooding complexity but with the book being split in two parts, the story feels more thinly drawn and comes to an abrupt end just when it starts to get interesting
The Lego Movie (2014)
Feb 7, 2014Animation/Adventures in the Lego Universe
How much fun can a film based around Lego characters be? Any doubts are promptly silenced by the film itself that overflows with cleverness, wit and energy. By far, the most fun had is in the film's obtaining licensing of characters from different franchises and creating a madcap world that allows them to mix it up
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 (2015)
Nov 28, 2015Future Social Revolution
The finale of the saga comes with a tough, gritty edge that make it the best directed of the series. On the other hand, it builds well only to arrive at an ending that goes oddly sideways and throws sympathies to the wind
Power Rangers (2017)
Jun 24, 2017Teen Power-Suit Superheroes
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers with its ridiculous rubber monsters and dementedly over-the-top acting as one of the key pop culture phenomena of the 1990s. The question is what audience do producers possibly think that there might be for a dark and gritty cinematic reboot?
The Happytime Murders (2018)
Jan 25, 2019World Where Puppets and Humans Coexist
Jim Henson's son Brian trashes his father's legacy, showing puppets getting up to very adult things we never saw on The Muppet Show. Peter Jackson did it even more outrageously in Meet the Feebles
The Lego Movie 2 (2019)
Mar 23, 2019Animation/Adventures in the Lego Universe
Sequel to The Lego Movie. This time the idea of the Lego universe, the crossovers and fourth-wall breaking gags are not as fresh but this gets good mileage out of them and can be said to be one sequel that expands out on the ideas of its predecessor
Brightburn (2019)
Jul 12, 2019Superhero Gone Wrong
The rather interesting idea of Superman retold as a horror movie featuring a character that is Superman in all but name who goes over to the dark side instead of becoming a paragon of truth, justice and the American way
Charlie’s Angels (2019)
Feb 28, 2020TV Series Remake/Action Film
The second big screen revival of the hit 1970s tv series. Essentially a Girl Power version of one of the Mission: Impossible films, which turns what was originally a girl-fronted detective show into a spy caper featuring SF gadgetry