John Carter
Very ambitious offering of a story based on the excellent Barsoom book series from Edgar Rice Burroughs. The worldbuilding was nicely executed but the plot wasn’t anything unusual, but I have to give Disney credit (ew) where it’s due for making it what it was: a strange, action-filled pulp adventure.
Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
A faithful adaptation of the novel, injected with British humor that is actually funny, and with some adaptation expansions: Humma Kavula and the Point of View Gun, which I had reservations about, but author Douglas Adams had a strong part in writing the film. Really wish the sequels were adapted, but it doesn’t look like that will happen.
Hardcore Henry
The first FPS live-action movie, I think. A silent protagonist (they at least give a reason he doesn’t have a voice) wakes up with superpowered cybernetic arms and eyes, and later on does a lot of parkour and racks up an ungodly kill count. High fun factor but the endless violence is taxing. The most wholesome scene in the movie is Henry trying to tame the mustang to the Magnificent Seven theme song.
Upgrade
Like Hardcore Henry, but not as dizzying. Grey, something of a Luddite everyman, becomes paralyzed from the neck down and his wife is murdered. He gets an experimental AI chip, called STEM, implanted, so he can walk and do other normal stuff like work on his car and kill people with ease. STEM can also talk to Grey. There was the requisite twist at the end that I didn’t think was very effective; I should expect it coming from most movies now.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies
If I were cynical about this, I’d say Hollywood was milking the Tolkien franchise by stretching one book into three movies, but Tolkien’s world was so rich there was good reason to extend things out. There were literally no human women or female characters in the original novel, so one had to be inserted into the film version, for reasons. Additionally, Tolkien wisely never over-described the actions scenes; modern writers can be too explicit when portraying physical chaos, and that makes it too for the reader to really slow down to think out what’s really going on. A thirty-second fist fight turns into a two-page narrative that takes 10 minutes for the reader to get everything right. With film, all of that is done away with, so you have the barrel escape scene, which was made for the big screen, but wasn’t in the original Tolkien text.
10 Cloverfield Lane
A man kidnaps a man and woman and keeps them in his fallout shelter, to save them from a large-scale chemical attack. Or so he says. I don’t like what J.J. Abrams did to Star Wars but this movie was excellent, and it had the kind of twist near the resolution that adds to the narrative instead of disrespecting audience sensibilities. Writers: stop treating your readers like toys!
The Time Machine
Based on the H.G. Wells novel, with some changes, as expected—the worst change being the invention of the titular machine to stop the murder of the protagonist’s fiancee. In a way, I understand doing this to create conflict. The hook in Wells’ novel was the time machine itself and its demonstration to a skeptical audience. Time travel stories are much more common now, whereas in Wells’ time the idea wasn’t nearly as explored.
Ready Player One
Paint-by-numbers search for the MacGuffin. The story itself was okay, but the movie was marketed as a nostalgia bomb, with all of the pop culture franchise references and characters. Is there a name for an entire movie of fan servicing?
Mad Max
Slice of life post apocalyptic cop and gang story, nothing like the franchise’s latest colorful actionfest installment. Don’t know if I have enough interest in the story to bother with the middle two films, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, though those are more widely-liked that the first film.
The Forbidden Planet
Don’t be fooled by this film’s iconic poster, this ended up being a serious psychological sci-fi story. I didn’t know much about it beforehand, and I purposefully didn’t bother reading up on it, so it was a little surprise to me that there wasn’t any corny laser battles or rubber-suit aliens. The special effects for the time were groundbreaking and don’t seem too cheesy even today. I can’t imagine how folks reacted when they saw this in theaters back in 1956.
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During my first teaching job in the mid-90s, a student wore the trademark “Don’t Panic” logo from Hitchhiker. I passed him one day and said, “Don’t forget your towel.” He spun around and noted how rare it was for any adult to know about the series. Ended up with some respect I never could have cultivated otherwise.
Quite by accident I stumbled across the Silmarillion in a grocery store, of all places. Bought it and read it before I got into the rest of the Tolkein novels. Everything made so much more sense with the background behind me.
I thought the original Mad Max was the best, and the others were stretching to far to milk the franchise. Forbidden Planet was definitely a period piece, back when I was born, but very thoughtful. Maybe Wells was dated, too, but I really thought Time Machine was missing the point.
I don’t think I want to see John Carter at all. I didn’t like the samples of the novels I read as a younger fellow. The whole thing struck me as a Gamma Male writing masturbatory fiction.
I haven’t read any of the John Carter novels yet, so I can’t comment on his gamma-tude. He didn’t come off as gamma in the movie at all…it would’ve been obvious.
I was referring to the author. 😉
Oh! I don’t know much about him. His character was actually in the movie. I don’t know if author insertion into the narrative is in the book, though.
I loved 10 Cloverfield Lane!
‘Twas good.
Michelle’s decision at the end was a nice conclusion.