Science Fiction
Fire and Ash’ is part spectacle, part retread
There are moments in Avatar: Fire and Ash when it plays like a propaganda reel for Greenpeace. Like its predecessor, Avatar: The Way of Water, the film is an eco-action flick, an environmental revenge film, in which the…
Review: Tron: Ares Reminds Us That Artificial Intelligence Is Not the Enemy
Will a hyperadvanced AI be a danger to humanity? That's nothing compared to the threat posed by military contractors. That's the implicit conclusion of Tron: Ares, the third installment in the series that began with…
Earth’ is a prequel to the 1979 movie
The 1979 movie Alien was part deep-space monster movie, part dystopian extrapolation of the era's economic concerns. The movie's main antagonist was a chest-bursting alien with acid for blood, but an all-powerful…
Declassified FBI file reveals surveillance of author Vernor Vinge
Vernor Vinge—the Hugo Award–winning science fiction author who passed away in March 2024—imagined a world where individuals, not governments, held the power. His 1981 novella True Names featured hackers known as…
Edgar Wright’s ‘The Running Man’ is a shallow, socialist action fantasy
The biggest twist in The Running Man comes when the credits roll: The screenplay is credited to director Edgar Wright and Michael Bacall. I was shocked. No Zohran Mamdani? Even without his name, the movie plays like a…
Badlands Is a Kid-Friendly Reckoning With Toxic Masculinity
Long before the phrase toxic masculinity first stomped its way into our lexicon, there was a great movie about the idea it represents. That movie was Predator, a movie about a band of absolutely gigantic, utterly badass dudes…
Badlands’, the Predator takes on toxic masculinity
Long before the phrase toxic masculinity first stomped its way into our lexicon, there was a great movie about the idea it represents. That movie was Predator, a movie about a band of absolutely gigantic, utterly badass dudes…
In Yorgos Lanthimos’ ‘Bugonia’, elites are alien creatures
As movies that diagnose the modern condition go, you can't do much better than Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia. Lanthimos has always been cold and caustic, proffering oddball metaphors for the absurd state of existence.…
Ares’ is a bad movie, but a great Nine Inch Nails music video
The funniest part of Tron: Ares comes at the beginning. There's a screenplay credit. Apparently, someone actually wrote this movie. There's a separate story credit too, which is even harder to fathom. Sure, things…
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