Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 29

Love, Death + Robots
A series of animated science fiction shorts. As usual, most of these stories were more action and horror than science fiction. Some individual reviews:

“Zima Blue” – An enigmatic artist reveals his final piece. This wasn’t just the best of the entire series, but one of the greatest actual science-fiction short films I’ve ever seen, maybe second only to “Magnetic Rose.”

“Alternate Histories” – Hitler dies in various ways. Didn’t watch because Nazis are still boring to me.

“The Drowned Giant” – The corpse of a giant washes up on a British shore. This was good, but of course its penis had to play a central role in the conclusion.

“The Secret War” – A Red Army squad fights an unearthly foe deep in the Siberian wilderness. Pretty sure this was WW II-era, and the writers thankfully avoided any Nazi references, even when there was an occult experiment scene. That alone is makes this a great story, but I am also a sucker for “last stand” military conclusions.

“Helping Hand” – An astronaut rescues herself from being spaced. It was pretty good except for the torture p0rn.

“Sonnie’s Edge” – Futuristic pit fighting with mind-controlled monsters. It had a great twist at the end that almost made me forgive the corny feminism that set it up.

“Shape-Shifters” – Two werewolves assist the U.S. army in Afghanistan. This would’ve been good but it hit on too many cliche storytelling beats.

“Fish Night” – Two salesmen experience a strange night in the desert. I was with it up until the ending where there was an unnecessary death.

“Blindspot” – A team of cyborgs heist a train with a surprise. This was nearly all-action, and I was mostly into it but it exemplifies the “small stakes” problem I have with action stories involving robots or cyborgs. Cyborgs and robots can be repaired; infinite plot armor. Unless there’s something explicit in the exposition that tells me once they get blown to hell, that’s the end of them, I don’t get as invested. This is only with action stakes, where survival is a key factor, and “Blindspot” played heavily upon survival. Stories that require a mystery to be resolved don’t need those kinds of stakes, but any robotic-ness of the characters don’t always play a central role in the narrative (for exceptions to that, see “Zima Blue” above).

Skylines
A virus causes the alien-humans (don’t ask) hybrids on earth to revolt, so a team is sent to the alien homeworld to discover the cure. The third in the Skyline-something trilogy. The memory of what happened here is pretty dim, but I remember it being not great. There was a major logistics issue with one of the plot points, where the protagonists had to travel to Cobalt One, to retrieve the MacGuffin. Some of the “humans” on earth are actually Harvesters (the aliens) with human minds transplanted in them, called Pilots. One of the Pilots, Trent, was on the mission to Cobalt One. Why not just send a team entirely made of up Pilots, who are much more powerful and hardier than standard issue humans, and who wouldn’t have to sneak around Cobalt One so much? We all know why: because a movie with just really nasty aliens and not attractive men and women making up the screentime wouldn’t be appealing to most audiences. Maybe they explained why at some point, but I didn’t notice it. Glad for the producers, writers, and whatnot for seeing the franchise through a third installment, when the first wasn’t received very well to begin with.

The Rocketeer
A brash amateur pilot in the 1940s stumbles upon an experimental jetpack. This was a really fun and lighthearted Indiana Jones-type story that wouldn’t have been out of place in the pulp or radio-drama era of action and adventure. Yes, there were Nazis. Aren’t there always? In my defense, I wasn’t aware until it was too late.

Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children
The kids aren’t alright; Cloud and his big sword have to figure out what is causing all the kids to contract the Geostigma virus. It had one of those scenes where a monster terrorizes the center square of a city, and even after ten minutes of said terrorizing, there are still non-combatants running around close by and doing a very poor job of getting away. It also had really water-resistant flip phones.

Atlantis 2: The Return of Milo
Weird stuff is happening world-wide, and Milo and team investigate. This was a really obvious and poorly-done cash in sequel to the much superior original. I probably fell asleep during it. If I actually didn’t, I should have.