Which will rank and which will stink? I’m probably the least qualified person to rank movies but… well, Next made me so mad…
Spider-man 3: Tobey Maguire says SM3 lets him explore the web-slinger’s dark side. Well, Tobey doesn’t even HAVE a dark side. Special effects look phenomenal, but the hype is so thick. Stupid situation set up in first movie and gotten stupider in second reaches apex of stupid here (no, Spidey didn’t kill your dad. Your dad was EVIL.) It’ll make a ton of money and then be forgotten.
Next: “Based” on the Philip K. Dick story, “The Golden Man”. In the future, the aftermath of a nuclear war has left humanity giving rise to monsters. One is a golden-furred boy more animal than human who can see into the future. Will humanity be supplanted by a race of mindless creatures whose entire lives are laid out for them before they’re even born? Read the story, because the movie, about a nightclub magician who can see into the future, has nothing to do with it. Nobody will see this movie anyway, so PKD can rest easy. Still. Why didn’t they adapt “The World Jones Made” instead? Similar plot (hero lives a year ahead of everyone else), much more a vehicle for Nicolas Cage.
Sunshine: A ragtag group is sent on a desperate mission to save the planet. Armageddon? The Core? Independence Day? This time our Sun is dying. Remember, the Sun is about a million billion times the size of the entire Earth. Yeah, one ship should do it. Or maybe it will sink without a trace into the Sun, just like this movie will.
Alien vs Predator 2: Answers all the questions left hanging at the end of AvP 1. Who watches these things?
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix: I really like the movies and the books, but with the final book coming out this summer and answering all the questions, will there be as much enthusiasm for the movies? I’ll see this one, though. I dunno. I just like the world of Harry Potter. It will be interesting to see if they let it get as dark as the book. If they shy away from it, that will be the end of the franchise.
Transformers: I never saw the cartoon. Sorry! I was at a scifi con once and I saw this guy in a colorful robot costume. “Voltron?” I asked. “No…. I’m Optimus Prime!” he said, huffed, and walked away. Optimus who? I know there are millions of people who grew up loving the cartoon, and I guess this movie is meant for them. Should do as well as Doom.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: I enjoyed the first movie more than I thought I would, though it wasn’t worth the price of a movie ticket. In this sequel, the silver-skinned herald of the world-chomping giant Galactus comes to warn Earth that its about to be chomped, but soon decides to defend it instead. Anyway, that’s what the comic was about. I think it will do moderately well. I don’t think it will be any more worth a ticket than the first one, though… rent it!
The Invasion: Remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Um, we should love and support the people who made this movie. They need it. I feel so sorry for them.
28 Weeks Later: Sequel to 28 Days Later. The first movie was an edgy rethinking of the venerable zombie movie, and I enjoyed it a lot. In this one, the US Army occupies a London devoid of any troubling Brits, at least living ones. We’re only there to stabilize the region until the zombie Brits can form a democratic government! Honest!
Southland Tales: Director’s follow-up to Danny Darko. I never saw that, but heard it was twisted, and this one looks to be no less. The summary sounds almost Philip K. Dickian, more so, anyway, than the actual movie this summer supposedly based on his work.
I Am Legend: This oft-filmed tale of the last man on Earth not afflicted by a vampire virus this time stars Will Smith. Now, I don’t blame him for I, Robot. I think he did as well as anyone could have done with that. Wild, Wild West, though…. *shudder*. The previews hit some of the same marks the book did, but the twist in the book… surely everyone knows it by now… how can you make another movie with it when the first couple are on TV so often? If the Spiderman 3 hype machine doesn’t completely destroy the summer, there should be enough hype left to make this decent money.
His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass: I never read the book on which this is based, so, I dunno. It’s being called a family friendly fantasy movie, which instantly makes it sound dull. Should do at least as well as the last kid-friendly fantasy franchise, Eragon.
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: I’ll probably go to Hell for saying this, but I never really liked the original books. They seemed way too childish when I first discovered them. Anyway, the kids are back again, whee. Why not just forget making movies from the Narnia books and just do Out of the Silent Planet? The controversy would be fun!
Logan’s Run: Who cares? I don’t. Watch the original.
Deathrace 3000: I can’t think this would be anything more than a watered-down version of Roger Corman’s classic Deathrace 2000. A pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone, David Carradine, the points system for running down pedestrians explained… Watch the original, it’s so good they figured they should remake it.
Terminator 4: Who cares?
So, to sum up… I’ll see Spidey 3 for the effects, Harry Potter for the story, and maybe Southland Tales just to support SF in movies. Looks like another thin year for SF, though.
3 thoughts on “Your Guide to 2007 SciFi Movies”
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Holy crap, Tipa. You’ve not read the “His Dark Materials” books?! Do so now! Phillip Pullman’s work surpasses JK Rowlings and rivals the best in the genre (LeGuin especially). It’s some seriously well-written philosophical fantasy stuff. It at 1st seems like just another fantasy book, but becomes so much more as the trilogy goes on.
Get them and read them and love them.
His Dark Materials… Yes, overall they’re good, but I’ve never been able to get past PP’s annoying habit of having major plot points summed up in about one sentence. God I found that annoying – I’d be reading along, when suddenly a major character is dead, but because of the way he’s written it I don’t entirely pick up on it until half a page later when I have to then go back and find the brief wording describing the event because I’m not quite sure what has just happened.
Then there’s the slow obscurity of the setting – around the begining I’m thinking “oh cool, its a steam-punking-victorian setting”, then BAM! Airconditioners. I figured it all out eventually, but it was frustrating having this weird changing image in my head of the world for most of the first book… It was like he was writing as though everyone already knew the world it was set in.
I think Transformers might be a bit of surprise since it looks like it used the old cartoon more for inspiration then followed it exactly. Anyways Michael Bay is the producer and that usually means lots of explosions so it might good action flick fodder.