sci-fi
emma.simmonds
Goddamn The Hunger Games movies for reminding us (after the travesty that was the Twilight saga) that films based on YA fiction could be thought-provoking and thrilling, for they've only gone and hoiked our expectations up too high. Those expectations have recently been dashed by the likes of Ender's Game, The Mortal Instruments and Beautiful Creatures. And now along comes Divergent, directed by Neil Burger (Limitless) and based on the first of a series of - if we were to judge them solely by this film - very poor books by Veronica Roth.It's set in a futuristic Chicago which is still reeling Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
The first outing of the re-tooled Captain America in 2011's The First Avenger was a bit of a hoot, thanks to its carefully-wrought 1940s setting and Stanley Tucci and Hugo Weaving portraying contrasting varieties of Teutonic craziness. Bringing the Cap into the present day after a 70-year slumber poses a few different problems, since he is quite literally a man out of time. It's really not that easy to take seriously a bloke who goes everywhere with a large tin shield clamped on his back, while everybody else has upgraded to hover-jets and laser-guided weapons.Still, while The Winter Soldier Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
In the animated cutscene that begins Out There, the game lays out its basic premise. You are an astronaut frozen in cryonic sleep and then sent wildly off course by some mysterious event. You awake in an unfamiliar solar system with limited supplies of fuel and oxygen, a newly-acquired interstellar drive and a vague plan to reach a distant star.To reach your goal you must hop from one star system to another, gathering resources and discovering alien technologies to help you on your way. At first glance, Out There looks a lot like last year's indie hit, FTL. Unlike the tense, extended chase Read more ...
Adam Sweeting
As pedigrees go, beat this - Believe [***] is the brainchild of Alfonso Cuarón, director of the Oscar-plundering Gravity, and JJ Abrams, mastermind of Lost, Fringe and the made-over Star Trek. This debut episode didn't live up to expectations, but it would be rash to write it off too soon.At least it got off to a hair-raising start, as the car carrying 10-year-old Bo Adams and her adoptive parents was barged off the road by a black SUV. Then mom and pop were brutally terminated by a hitwoman called Moore (Sienna Guillory), who has a macabre fondness for snapping necks, but Bo was rescued in Read more ...
Simon Munk
Superheroes and videogames should be a match made in heaven – the primary colour characterisations; the non-stop action and combat; the backstories sketched on a napkin, but then gradually filled in over multiple issues; the superpowers, analogous to classic videogame "power-ups". It's strange then, that videogame superheroes have had such a tough time of it in general.It's also strange to see this third edition in the series floundering so badly in the wake of two inventive and original games that flamboyantly and successfully mixed freeroaming city exploration and action reminiscent of the Read more ...
Karen Krizanovich
In a Q&A at the London Screenwriters' Festival last year, Welsh writer/director Caradog James and producer John Giwa-Amu already had fans. If that Q&A is any indication, the team at Red & Black Films have a brilliant career ahead of them, all thanks to The Machine, a dark science fiction tale of artificial intelligence and human scheming that is finally released this week. Described by some as a 90 minute sci-fi Pygmalion, or a hybrid of Blade Runner and Frankenstein, The Machine is stylish and fantastic in the original sense of the word – slick enough to be impressive but not too Read more ...
Simon Munk
Flow states – experienced by athletes, religious zealots and videogamers playing Titanfall. This explosive action game is the most eagerly anticipated and hyped-up videogame of the "next generation" console war so far. It could singlehandedly transform Microsoft's slow start for its new Xbox One console. And while being deeply dull and reactionary in many ways, it encourages a gaming flow state of constant fun like little else in some time.In Titanfall two off-world factions vie for control of a planet. Both are armed to the teeth, not just with conventional weaponry, but giant "Titan" Read more ...
Katherine McLaughlin
José Padilha’s glossy reimagining of RoboCop is entertaining but mostly forgettable. Geared towards the profitable 12A market, its good looking but illogical action sequences are no replacement for the grimy, grubby and magnificently realised dystopian world from Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 scathing satire.Just like Verhoeven did back in the 1980s, Padilha is making his way into the Hollywood arena thanks to his adept hand at fast paced action sequences, which can be witnessed in his superb Elite Squad films. Unlike in Verhoeven’s version however, the screenplay penned by newcomer Joshua Zetumer Read more ...
Simon Munk
You are staring at your computer screen; you are literally you. And now, through the wonder of modern technology, you can jump into the mind of, and take over, the security head of a near-future corporation's flying fortress. You control his speech, movements, decisions. That's how Consortium starts.You jump into Bishop 6's head just as he wakes up for his first shift on the Zenlil plane/fortress of the global Consortium security force. The game uses Bishop 6's status as new kid, and your status as new kid inside Bishop 6, to toy with you throughout.Other staff onboard regularly ask you Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Upstream Colour charts the stages of a relationship. First, Kris is introduced as external forces impact on her, turning her life on its head. She then encounters Jeff. As they get to know each other, a medical crisis brings them closer together and they get married. They then realise these forces are affecting them both and are drawn towards a way of taking control by eradicating them. The film ends with them, and others also affected by what was out of their reach, taking charge of their own destiny.Upstream Colour (the film is actually titled Upstream Color and appears thus in its credits Read more ...
Simon Munk
As ever with videogames, one great success can lead to many failures. The success in this case was the breakout "sandbox" genius of Minecraft. On its surface, Minecraft is essentially a faithfully blocky attempt to bring Lego bricks into games. But unlocking both the power of collaborative working and the sheer size and scale of Minecraft's possibilities has allowed people to build all sorts of insanely grandiose designs within their virtual worlds. Of course, where Minecraft led, others followed – more's the pity...Minecraft begat Terraria – an amiable sci-fi side-scrolling half platform Read more ...
Stuart Houghton
This might be the best smartphone first-person shooter (FPS) yet. It's a tricky genre to get right on a touchscreen. Above all the usual FPS considerations of 3D frame rate, varied levels and enemy AI, you need a well thought out control scheme that responds to the touch. Neon Shadow nails the latter and doesn't do too badly on the others.Plot-wise, Neon Shadow is a dud. Something about a rogue AI on a space station. Or something. You are a Dude who must go and shoot it in the face. Standard.It doesn't matter, of course. The plot is just there to justify the attacking hordes of security Read more ...