1970sThe film that executes the concept earns a 6, primarily because of an ending that retreats from the horror it spent ninety minutes building. The domed city is a closed system, finite resources, finite population, managed by a computer that…
1990sJames Cameron's most audacious decision in Terminator 2 isn't the liquid metal effects or the freeway chase or the nuclear dream sequence. It's taking his own iconic villain and making him the film's emotional center.
1980sEmpire earns its 8 by doing what no Star Wars film before or since has managed: it takes the universe seriously. Lucas's original Star Wars is a myth engine, archetypes, simple morality, the pleasure of a world with clear rules.
1980sThe film is thrilling on its surface and interesting underneath, which is rarer in the action genre than the genre's reputation suggests. This is not a film that accidentally achieved something.
1980sThe Thing earns its 9.5 primarily through Rob Bottin's practical effects work, which remains the gold standard for creature design in horror cinema more than forty years later. Carpenter built something rare: a film where the monster is original, the…
1990sThe Wachowskis accomplished something that almost never happens in blockbuster cinema: they made a philosophy lecture into one of the most viscerally entertaining action films ever made, and the philosophy and the action are the same thing. This review is…
1980sAliens earns its 8 by doing the one thing sequel filmmaking almost never manages: it doesn't compete with the original. Ridley Scott's Alien is a horror film about isolation and violation, one creature, confined space, systematic elimination of everything between…
1990sThe Fifth Element is a perfect film. Not a perfect science fiction film, not a perfect action film, a perfect film, period.
1970sExperiencing it blind, in a dark theater, with an audience that had no idea what was coming, that was specific and unrepeatable. The 8 reflects both what the film achieved and what watching it now is like, which are different…
1990sWaterworld had one genuine asset going in: a production design concept that was visually striking and physically coherent. A world covered in water would look exactly like this.
AdaptationFrom inside the book, these are the right criticisms. The short version: Villeneuve made two visually extraordinary films that get many of the big things right and a handful of things badly wrong.
1970sWestworld is great and deserves considerably better than its current reputation as merely the prototype for the HBO series. Michael Crichton's original concept is tighter, scarier, and structurally cleaner than anything the television adaptation produced in its first two seasons.
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