Sci-fi and Fantasy Movies and Series Reviews, Part 31

Belle (2021)
An unassuming Japanese high school student becomes a singing sensation in a virtual reality world, but gets caught up in finding the identity of the virtual world’s mysterious Beast creature. When people talk of of remakes of older stories, in this case Beauty and the Beast, this is the direction movie makers should go in. Updating a well-known and well-loved movie solely because of better filmmaking technology or, much worse, because of updated social norms is going to miss the mark with audiences. It needs a lot more. Belle has its flaws, mostly with the pacing, but the visuals, music, and theme were on point. The voice actor and singer for the English version, Kylie McNeill, has a gorgeous singing voice. The Japanese actor was just as good, but I relate more to the English version since I can, you know, understand what she’s singing. I dislike most musical films but I would like to have heard more music from both of them in the movie.

Appleseed (1988)
A police officer and her cyborg partner protect Olympus’ main computer, which controls the futuristic city’s well-being, from terrorist attack. This was okay, but looking at one of the genres contemporaries, like Akira, Appleseed was a few steps behind in all the categories. At the time, it might’ve been something novel. As usual, maybe the manga was better.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Sherlock messes with Dr. Watson’s honeymoon to chase down Moriarty, who is trying to get various European nations to play mean with each other. It was fun to get the duo out of London for a bit and ally with some characters from a culture (Romani) with a certain reputation. It makes for higher stakes if you’re not sure if an ally is really an ally. The train cannon scene was bonkers. There needs to be a third installment in this series, because two movies that did rather well at the box office feels incomplete.

Demon City Shinjuku
The son of a master swordsman has to fight his way through a demon-infested city to take down the man responsible for the chaos. This was a Yoshiaki Kawajiri film bookended by his Goku Midnight Eye previously, and Wicked City after it, if you don’t count the kid-oriented stuff. Goku felt a little more mature in its storytelling, which is weird that it preceded this. No matter. You can watch the whole movie here. The English voice performances are questionable, the most ridiculous offense being the ramen shop waitress with the southern American (maybe North Carolinian?) accent.

The Man from U.N.C.L.E.
A CIA operative and a KGB agent team up to stop some vaguely-Nazi folks from their nuclear weapons plans. Starring Henry Cavill’s diamond-cutter cleft chin, Alicia Vikander’s marble-hewn dancer’s legs, and Armie Hammer’s molecule-perfect side part. This isn’t quite science fiction or fantasy, but anything Guy Ritchie touches might as well be categorized as such.

Dredd
Futuristic cop Dredd is trapped in a huge apartment skyscraper run by a drug trafficking gang. This was much more violent graphic than Stallone’s Judge Dredd from 17 years-ish earlier. The drug in the story makes the user experience time in very slow-motion, and there’s a really beautifully-shot scene depicting the effects. The scarred woman who took the drug in that video, by the way, is Ma-Ma, the gang’s leader. I thought dealers weren’t supposed to dip into their own stash? Or is that just in the movies.

Soul
A struggling jazz musician sort-of dies has to mentor an unborn soul. Kind of a combination of Inside Out and The Heavenly Kid, and every other Pixar movie. I don’t know what it was, but something about the film’s concept of a preborn soul felt off. The movie was fun while it was on, but I forgot it soon after.

The Principle
A documentary about the theory of a geocentric universe. Watch it for free here. I don’t mind the concept, personally, but it’s hilarious how people absolutely lose their minds when people genuinely believe alternative theories, like a differing opinion is causing them physical pain. We’re all talking about things we barely understand, not researching crucial areas of human knowledge like cancer cures or proper steak-cooking. I do, though, want to hear an explanation from geocentric universe-ists (?) that the movement of the earth around the universe via the solar system moving through the universe (an observable and demonstrable event), is actually the universe moving around the earth.

Flight of the Navigator
A boy is abducted by aliens and returned eight years into the future. It sounds like a nightmare but it’s depicted not as overly horrifying, as it’s a children’s movie. This was a favorite of mine growing up, but one exchange between Max (the alien robot) and the protagonist always bugged me. Max was supposed to have complete knowledge of a lot of the universe’s languages, but he didn’t understand the concept of “laughing” or “privacy”? Granted, that was before Max did the scan of David’s mind, after which he started to understand basic human culture a lot more, but wouldn’t have one of the other alien cultures Max studied have some form of laughter or privacy?

Starchaser: The Legend of Orin
A slave in an underground mine escapes and learns to master a mythical invisible sword to free his people. Watch it for free here. This wanted to be Star Wars really bad, and in some spots succeeded. The Hannah-Barbera animation-style was pretty good in spots, but the voice acting dates it hard. If we’re looking at something that came out as far back as the mid-1980s, when you get dialogue delivered for a cartoon compared to the same line delivered for live action, they’re going to be very different. Pure voice acting as heard in animated pieces has had a much different evolution, though nowadays I think it’s become more and more like the “natural” dialogue we hear in live action.