No.333 : White Space (2018)

White Space at the IMDb

Problem : You want to make a sci-fi film but don’t have a plot. Solution? Just repurpose some old public domain classic and you’re good to go.

Strange as it may sound this film is ‘Moby Dick’ in space. But wouldn’t that need a big whale you may ask? Well this has one, a big space whale, like the type that definitely exist, but just haven’t been found yet. Don’t ask about what they eat or how they propel themselves; it’s probably a metaphor or something.

We start in the future, but also in the past in 2123. A big fraggin’ space whale totals a ship killing nearly all of the crew. We then fast forward 24 years and learn that one of the young survivors now has his own ship and he’s out for revenge. He has a ragtag crew of basically every space faring stereotype you can think of, from the Bourbon drinking old salt to the nerdy, misfit engineer.

The crew are supposedly out farming food in space and the best pickings are in ‘white space’  where communications are difficult and perils await in the shape of space pirates and space whales. The crew are keen to harvest the ambergris and get home but the captain is twisted by his lust for revenge on the whale who took his father and he’s got a homing beacon on it that is now giving a signal.

On the way to the inevitable showdown the crew get robbed by some pirates and the engineer gets infected by a parasite that turns him into Vincent D’Onofrio out of ‘Men in Black’. They also have to contend with a saboteur and a snooper from a government agency who want to keep an eye on our heroes’ shady practices.

Who will survive? Would Melville approve and does watching this count as me having read the book?

This was a strange offering. It had long sequences that looked like cut scenes from video games and a ridiculous premise that wasn’t really explored - I’m none the wiser as to what ‘white space’ was meant to be. At least they didn’t hide their inspiration with the ship named ‘The Essex’ (the proto ‘Pequod’) and plenty of other Melville nods sprinkled along the way. The source material meant that you knew our captain was going to go full Ahab at some point, so it was no surprise when he did so. Maybe it was to the actor though, who was unconvincing when trying to display madness, mania or even slight excitement.

The subplot with the possessed engineer was poorly delivered also with a couple of nasty and brutal stabbings - haven’t these people heard of ray guns? It was maybe a budget issue as they had the same set of kitchen scales as my wife - maybe they were space antiques?

Virtually every space film you can think of gets a nod here with the slime coming through the roof onto the metal decking a straight lift from every Alien film, and the crew appearing like a ‘Firefly’ fan convention. None of the characters worked for me and some of the backstories were poor - one woman had several convictions for assaults with a frying pan. She must have been Scottish - at least she got to use her singular talent when confronted by the baddie!

Overall this was a strange offering which, despite some decent special effects, didn’t make a lot of sense and failed to engage with me on any level. One to throw back!

Best Bit : Mr Stabby Loses His Head  ’W’ Rating 11/23

 

No.307 : White Chamber (2018)

White Chamber at the IMDb

Britain is in chaos and nationalism is on the rise! No, it’s not a documentary but a film set sometime “Soon”. The film starts with some ponderous narration with a chap waving a flag on top of Glastonbury Tor. There has been a civil war with a totalitarian government squaring up against a rebellion led by the UK Liberation army.

We then cut to a bright white box and realise that the budget has been spent on that big flag the bloke was waving. A woman wakes up in said box and starts conversing with a distorted voice - ‘where am I?’ ‘who are you?’ ‘can I get my money back?’. After some cruel treatment via the box’s handy hot and cold floor, the true horror slowly dawns on us - will the whole film just be a woman yelling at a wall?

Happily not, after a while a face appears in the wall and it’s that bloke in the black robes off the ‘Mummy’ films. The woman claims to be a new start called Ruth but our man keeps pressing for more details about the operation and her role in the shady experiments he knows that goes on there.

Eventually the chamber opens up and another compartment is revealed to contain a woman with a pretty bad chemical peel. The two fight and Ruth gives her the finger so to speak. We then dissolve to a ‘5 Day’s earlier’ caption and we realise it’s our old favourite, the non-linear narrative.

We meet our woman greeting a new recruit called Ruth - blatant identity theft right there! The man behind the voice (or at least someone who looks like him) is now in the chamber and our woman is the head scientist. It turns out interrogation isn’t their goal but to test new amphetamines that can enhance the abilities of soldiers. We get a bit more back story from an old bloke who looks like Bill Nighy and her off the coffee adverts from the 80’s.

Who will triumph in this battle of wits? Who are ‘the good guys’? and can I have my 90 minutes back please?

This was an OK film but it’s limited scope and in your face politics had me against it from near the start. The main female character played by Shauna Macdonald wasn’t likeable at all, even in the opening section where we were meant to be on her side. Later, when she was revealed to be the evil scientist, albeit one with some heartache, I still wasn’t convinced ,and she was more irritating than scary or despicable.

Coffee woman and the new start didn’t have a lot to do with the later failing to convince in her Road to Damascus type conversion. The guy off the Mummy films was OK but a bit preachy and overly manic when hepped up on goofballs.

The politics were terribly in your face - literally, with one scene having the character telling you how crappy the country is straight to camera, before cutting to another for a reaction shot. Subtle this was not.

To be fair the film did manage to keep my interest, but given we knew after 20 minutes that the roles would be reversed the tension gained was allowed to dissipate. The film did look cheap with most of the action happening in some corridors. It looked like they had broken into an office block for the shoot but couldn’t access the rooms, only the stairs and landings. In places it was almost like a film school project with ropey dialogue delivered in a flat, unbelievable manner by unconvincing actors.

It’s better than being locked in a white box - but only just.

Best Bit : Finger Buffet  ‘W’ Rating : 11/23

No.259 : What Happened to Monday (2017)

What Happened to Monday @ The IMDb

No question mark for this seemingly interrogative title - maybe it’s just a report as to the fate of the weekday monikered heroine?

This was a pretty enjoyable Netflix offering with a good cast, plenty of action, nudity and violence to keep things ticking over. The scene is set with a familiar montage over the opening credits as the world goes to shit. Over-population has led to a new policy of ‘one child per family’ with any extra siblings put into 'cryo-sleep' until things get better.

Willem Dafoe lacks a social conscience so when his wife, who dies in childbirth, hatches seven daughters he decides to keep the lot of them. As there are seven he names each after a day of the week, meaning each girl can go out on their name day each week. Lucky he wasn’t a Disney fan or Grumpy would be waiting for Bashful to get out of the goddamn toilet.

Anyway we fast forward 30 years and the plan is going well. Willem has disappeared off the scene with no explanation given - guess he was only booked for the first half hour. The girls share the identity of ‘Karen Settman’ and manage to hold down a job at a bank by giving the others a bed time run down of the day’s events so the rest can pick things up on their day. Guess Saturday and Sunday got the best of this deal!

Things go awry when Monday doesn’t come home after her day at work. The rest, all ably played by Noomi Rapace, try to work out what has happened whilst trying to keep their own secrets safe. Meanwhile evil politician Glenn Close is trying to get to high office where her plans for even more draconian laws spell trouble for everyone - well except the planet.

Soon our fish are well and truly out of the water and the hunt is on - how many will survive and what has happened to Monday?

This was an above average sci-fi thriller. It’s a pretty dystopian 2073 - pissing down and rubbish on the streets are your clues! Some of the tech like the well designed palm phones and a digital punch bag sit uncomfortably with the all rat diet but I guess you can piss away resources on some shiny stuff while making do on rodent stew.

The seven sisters are well realised with predictable quirks and differing haircuts setting each apart and the editing is excellent so you really can’t see the joins when Noomi is on the screen as seven characters all at once. The flashbacks with Dafoe are well done although they did lift that finger chopping bit from ‘The Prestige’ more or less wholesale.

What surprised me was the level of violence with some really brutal men versus ladies fist fights with plenty of blood. I was also surprised that some siblings were lost but not so much about the big reveal.

There was a bit of an attempt for some social commentary regarding climate change and overpopulation, this was however a bit muddled. Glenn Close is seemingly a mental baddie but her policies will save humanity whereas Dafoe is the hero father who's spewing out kids faster than the midwife can catch them. I guess the theme is 'difficult choices' but as Close said if everyone procreated like Dafoe the planet wouldn't last five minutes.

At a bit over two hours the film could have lost 20 minutes, with the last third decidedly flabby. It was however well constructed, so that a potentially confusing tale of seven identical twins was easy to follow. The title was a bit poor though - I’d have went with ‘The Secret Seven’. No wait, ‘Sister Act 7’.

Best Bit : Blonde Karen syncs with the guard
W Rating : 17/23

No.233 : Wing Commander (1999)

Wing Commander at the IMDb

 Films based on video games are invariably great so this should be a lot of fun…

Oh well, let’s have a look anyway. This 1999 film is based on a video game series I haven’t played but it has a pretty strong cast and has some decent special effects so hopefully it won’t be a total waste of time.

The film is set in ‘Earth Year 2654’ and opens with JFK’s speech about the benefits of space exploration before giving us a potted history of the future leading up to the ‘present day’ where mankind is engaged in a war with the Kolrathi, strange cat like beings who have shinier spaceships than us. An initial skirmish goes badly when the bad guys knock out one of our ships and steal a navigation computer that will allow them to find Earth.

The field command, lead by David ‘Poirot’ Suchet and David Warner (for once not a baddie) have to get some intel to a remote station and the only vessel capable of getting there ahead of the aliens is the lowly ‘Dilligent’ crewed by Fred out of the Scooby Doo films and strangely Shaggy as well. This pre-dated Scooby by a couple of years so someone must have thought they had chemistry together or maybe there was just a lazy casting agent with some Tip-pex.

Anyway our men get the orders delivered and join up as pilots in Saffron Burrow’s fighter squad. She’s the ‘Wing Commander’ of the title which is strange as she isn’t the focus of the film and isn’t in it too much, but a franchise is a franchise I guess! There are a few bits of conflict, mainly about Fred’s ancestry and Shaggy’s recklessness but the remainder of the film is a cat and mouse chase with the bad guys as our heroes try and save Earth whilst trotting out as many sci-fi clichés as possible.

This is a really poor film that demands a lot of the viewer who is willing to stay the course. It is hard to be invested in any of the characters who are all thinly drawn with arcs so dismal that they look a lot like straight lines. The hero Fred faces challenges as he has a ‘Pilgrim’ mother - this is an untrusted alien race and his heritage allows lots of prejudice and conflict - bit like Misters Worf and Spock really. That’s a bit unfair given Worf came later but it’s just such a familiar sci-fi trope that it is hard to get interested. He even has an ancient amulet - a bit like Lone Star off ‘Spaceballs’!

The action scenes are reasonably well done with 3-D space well rendered and the dangers quite real. The problem is that one battle lurches into another and it’s hard to keep the energy and indeed interest up. I started to lose track of what wormhole was what and where we were in relation to the eventual victory, which was never in doubt. There really just was nothing to get invested in and despite some noble sacrifices and heartbreaking losses it showed its video game roots with immediate respawns of near identical characters taking up the slack.

It wasn’t downright terrible but it just lumbered along and given the bad guys would have been laughed off a 1970’s ‘Dr Who’ episode for being unconvincing it’s no surprise that the inevitable victory was tinged with so much ‘so what?’.

It’s a shame a good cast wasn’t better utilised and I got the feeling several of them had ten minutes on set to secure their pay cheques and places on the credits to make it look a more worth endeavour than it actually was. Forgettable cookie cutter stuff.

Best Bit : First space battle was good - fourth replay less so.
‘W’ Score 8/23

No. 103 : Wedlock (1991)

Wedlock at the IMDb

‘Wedlock’ is an 1991 American TV movie that was originally titled ‘Deadlock’ but renamed for it’s DVD release. ‘Deadlock’ is a far more appropriate and better title but crucially the name change granted it eligibility for this list. The film seems to have been a moderate success having won a prime time Emmy but that says more about the quality of TV movies in general rather than the value of this forgettable effort.

The film stars Rutger Hauer and began his wilderness years period following his early promise in films like ‘The Hitcher’ and ‘Blade Runner’. Recently he’s reinvented himself playing bit part low lifes in stuff like ‘Sin City’ and ‘Batman Begins’ and I think it’s a good use of his talents given that he’s always fine in small doses but a bit tiring when he’s the main attraction.

‘Wedlock’ is set, according to the caption, ‘Sometime in the future’ but happily for the budget everything in the future looks like contemporary California. Rutger plays Frank an ‘electronics expert’ who falls in with a bad crowd and is convinced to rob a diamond expo dressed as a priest, as you do. The robbery goes bad when his confederates turn out to be loose cannons and Rutger only just manages to get away with $25 million of stones. Predictably his henchmen turn out to be double crossers and shoot Rutger only to find that he’s stashed the booty elsewhere.

Despite being shot three times by future bullets Rutger survives and the film flashes forward to his arrival at a new prison called ‘The Holliday Camp’ run by, you’ve guessed it, Warden Holliday. As the cliché demands the warden is corrupt and stops at nothing to find out the location of the diamonds, resorting even to sticking Rutger is a box and having someone pee on him.

The prison itself has no bars, with the inmates kept in check by way of a nifty neck device which explodes if the wearer tries to tamper with it or, bizarrely, get more than 100 yards from his ‘wedlock partner’. The idea that every prisoner has an unknown mate and if either tries to leave the complex both blow up. The intention here is that they will act as their own warders and not let any one leave lest they too blow up. This is a ridiculous conceit and why they wouldn’t just have a perimeter without the partner thing is never satisfactorily explained.

Still it’s the angle the whole movie hangs on and Rutger soon learns his wedlock partner is the lovely Tracy (Mimi Rogers who looks like Pat Benetar from an 80‘s music video) who found out this secret info by blowing a guard or something. The two quickly escape, with both the Warden and Rutger's former accomplices in hot pursuit. Can Rutger, the electronics expert, remove the frankly rather basic collar in time and who will get the money? Can Tracy be trusted or is she another with an agenda which may or may not involve falling for our hero. If you want to know you’ll have to watch; or just ask, I don’t care.

It’s actually not too bad a film if you look beyond the terrible premise, risible acting, clichéd characters and barrel scraping budget. It moves along at a brisk pace and there are enough exploding heads and plenty of crappy dialogue to keep you interested. The cast includes the always terrible Joan Chen, the never trustworthy James Remar and the frankly awful Ned Reyerson out of ‘Groundhog Day’, who must be the least threatening evil prison warder ever.

The low octane shootout at the end is possibly the best bit with the least convincing helicopter explosion you’re ever likely to see. No doubt the budget had been exhausted by this point, but you do have to do more than superimpose some flames and dub in a ‘BOOM’!

You will see many worse films that ‘Wedlock’ which at least offers many opportunities to have a good old laugh at its many shortcomings. Not exactly high praise but praise after a fashion, which is something.

Best Bit : Rutger steals the wrong bag for getaway clothes
'W' Score : 13/23

No.28 : Waxwork 2 : Lost In Time (1992)

Waxwork 2 : Lost in Time at the IMDb

I’ve not seen the original ‘Waxwork and I doubt I’ll bother looking it up after watching this lackluster sequel. We do get a recap of the original in the opening scenes and it seemed pretty straightforward stuff. As far as I can gather there was an evil waxworks and a couple escape after burning the place down. The sequel takes things off from there, although the actress changes mid flight.

Although the wax nasties have been defeated a disembodied hand manages to cling onto their escape taxi. The hand, which is a total rip from ‘The Addams family’, manages to kill the girl’s stepfather with a hammer before it is dispatched in the waste disposal. The police pin the death on the girl and her defence looks shaky at best. Unusually she’s free to walk the streets during her trial and the pair decide that they need to gather some evidence if she’s to be spared the electric chair.

They head over to Steed out of ‘The Avengers’ house and although dead he’s left a message and a handy time travel device. Our pair then travel through time and fiction (!) visiting the likes of Dr Frankenstein, Jack the Ripper and Dr Jeckyl. Their quest for evidence seems a bit random, but eventually they get a zombie arm from the cast of ‘Dawn of the Dead’ and try to head home. With various ticking clocks and lost time machines can things possibly be sorted out in time for the verdict, and will a zombie arm impress the jury?



This is a strange film, a sort of genre splicing horror comedy. It stars Zach Galligan (Gremlins) and a decent roster of ‘B’ list celebrities such as Councillor Troi, Martin Kemp out of Spandau Ballet and the always watchable Bruce Campbell. The cast seem to be having a great time raiding the dressing up box, although the special effects are ropey at best. The director switches filming styles for the different genres and it’s quite good fun, jumping from an ‘Alien’ style space adventure to a medieval sword fight straight to a zombie invasion.


Some scenes were dragged on beyond their entertainment value with Bruce Campbell’s a real master class in flogging a dead horse. It was fun waiting to see which familiar face would pop up next with the likes of David Carradine appearing in a single scene, presumably because he wandered onto the set. The episodic nature of the film meant it was hard to get fully invested but at least when a dull bit came along you could be sure something different was not far away.

It’s clearly all very tongue in cheek but that can’t be used as an excuse for some dreadful dialogue and risible acting. There is enough to like to keep you watching but the outlandish and nonsensical plot make it an unsatisfying experience.

Best Bit : Dawn of the dead reloaded
‘W’ Score : 12/23

No.22 : Westworld (1973)

Westworld at the IMDb

Westworld is a 1973 sci-fi adventure that see androids run amok at a futuristic theme park.

The film opens in annoying fashion with a faux TV commercial for the Delos resort that comprises the three ‘Worlds’ of Roman, Medieval and Western. A cynic may say these three worlds are fortunately similar to the sets an average movie studio would have lying around but that’s not me. The happy punters all extol the virtues of the resort in a sequence that runs for three whole minutes - at least two too many.

The film proper begins with our heroes on route to Westworld. Hunky James Brolin has been before and this time he’s taking along his wimpy pal Richard Benjamin, who’s getting over a divorce. They arrive in town and soon fall afoul of android Yul Brynner, who is a slightly paunchier version of himself in ‘The Magnificent Seven’. Of course things go to plan and our guys dispatch Yul and head off to the brothel - my kind of guys!

Throughout their adventure we also get several scenes of small things going awry, and the worried park manager asking the board for a shut down - fat chance. Inevitably things go badly wrong and the androids over come their programming to become killing machines. In an interesting twist it’s the more world wise Brolin who gets killed leaving his wimpy mate to take on the revitalised Yul on his own. For some reason the gun slinger toys with his prey and lets him lead us on a trip through all three resort worlds - well they put up the sets after all.

Unfortunately everyone, including the park staff, are dead and only fading batteries or some good old fashioned human ingenuity can save our man.

Despite its short comings I like ‘Westworld’ and it’s one of those films I always find myself watching to the end during its endless screenings on TCM. Although the tech with its whirling tape machines and bulk computers look dated it’s still a fun concept that’s well executed. Writer/director Michael Crichton liked it so much he ripped himself off when penning ‘Jurassic Park’.

It beggars belief that the park would allow the androids loaded guns, and the staff all dying due to sealed doors is plain daft. That aside it’s good fun to see people misbehave and we can only hope it becomes reality. Apart from all the killing naturally. I doubt however that if fully functional sex droids are developed people will sign up to $1000 a day Westworld - Blowjob World would have them out of business in ten minutes!

Best Bit : Yul’s relentless man hunt

‘W’ Score 17/23

No. 11 : WALL-E (2008)

Wall-E at the IMDb



Wall-e has been hard to miss this summer with a marketing blitz and merchandise frenzy that would make George Lucas blush. Items such as that pictured here somewhat undo the message of reducing waste as landfills the world over will be full of WALL-E crap in no time at all. Still it’ll keep him busy I suppose.



This animated film is set 700 years after mankind has left a rubbish filled planet Earth. The plan was to return after 5 years at which time an army of Wall-E robots will have cleaned things up. For reasons revealed later that doesn’t happen and only one wall-E is left, surviving by cannibalising parts from his expired colleagues.



As you’d expect in such a film Wall-E is eccentric and quirky. Rather than do his job he takes home a load of old crap and watches a VHS copy of ‘Hello Dolly’. His lonesome existence is interrupted when a spaceship deposits a robot ’EVE’ which tears up the joint in the search for something that turns out to be a weed. After some initial hostility the pair soon become friend through an annoying sequence of whirrs, chirps and screen displays.



The finding of the weed brings back the space ship and having taken on WALL-E as a stowaway our pals head off to the mother ship which is now populated by a crew of fat ass humans who get about in motorized chairs. Most are happy with their existence but the Captain dreams of a return home and the weed is the signal that the planet may be habitable again. But wait, that nasty ship’s computer has a vested interest in the status quo!



Given its ‘U’ certificate it’s be churlish to pick many nits with WALL-E. It looks good and it certainly deliver what it promises. I was a bit disappointed at the lack of laughs all of which seemed to be of the falling over variety. The two main robots never speak apart from the odd word and given that it’s hard to engage with the characters - no R2-D2 this pair. The messages about wastefulness and exercise were pounded home endlessly and at times I thought it was more of a lecture than an entertainment.



It is, I’m sure, great stuff for the under 5’s but for me it was a disappointment and a pale cousin of ‘The Incredibles’ and ‘Ratatouille’.



Best Bit : The montage of WALL-E looking after Eve trough rain and shine was well done



‘W’ score 13 /23

No.10 : World Without End (1956)

World Without End at the IMDb



World Without End is an 1956 sci-fi shocker that influenced such films as ‘The Time Machine’ and ‘Planet of the Apes’. The film opens in the present day, with some families awaiting news of a lost crew of astronauts who are on a reconnaissance mission to Mars. After a seemingly short mission of two orbits the crew head for home but are pulled into an anomaly that speeds up their acceleration and knocks them cold.



The ship crash lands on snow and our men have no idea of their location despite everything looking a bit Earthy. Luckily, despite it being a reconnaissance mission, our men are equipped with winter clothing and guns and they set off in search of some answers. Pretty soon they are below the snow line and in an area that looks suspiciously like California on a Summer’s day. Things hot up as they are attacked by a rubber spider and then some Cyclops cave men.



Seeking sanctuary in a cave the men find a metal door and are soon summoned inside by a fruity dude in futuristic garb. We learn that they are still on Earth (!) and that the year is 2508. Furthermore the world is post apocalyptic and resources are so low that skirts can only be one inch and the men have to wear tights. Years underground have made the men weak and bitchy and all the sexy women are over our guys like flies ‘round a honey pot. This leads to discord as a wimpy bloke plots their downfall for stealing his hot babe. Framed for a murder our men have to clear their names, defeat the Cyclops people and rebuild society, all in 80 minutes - good luck!






This film is a good old laugh if you don’t take it too seriously. It’s basically a stretched ‘Twilight Zone’ episode with cheap special effects and a muddled plot. The first encounter with the giant spider sets a low bench mark as you can clearly see the shadow of the stagehand who shoves it out its hole. The costumes are a lot of fun, as are all the uniformly sexy women who make endless suggestive comments. The wimpy men with tights and helmets are little threat, with the main baddie looking like Dick Emery in space.



The moral issues of hiding in holes and choosing a cushy life over hard graft are quickly resolved and the fate of mankind is never really in danger. I did enjoy the final confrontation with the Cyclops leader and the revelation that it’s only the ugly ones that need killing. It was also funny to see dozens of mutants killed with a bazooka only for them to be called ‘murderers’ when they have the audacity to chuck a spear back in defence.



I enjoyed this quick slab of sci-fi and if you leave your critical hat at home you will too.



Best Bit : “It’s like a big web -whoa!”



‘W’ Score : 17/23

No. 8 : Warlords of Atlantis (1978)

Warlords of Atlantis at the IMDb



I remember seeing this slice of hokum as a seven year old back in 1978 and thought it the best thing ever.



As with most childhood memories things now seem somewhat rose tinted but there is still the odd nugget of interest to be had.



The film opens on the high seas as a Victorian era crew are on an exploratory mission. They are equipped with a state of the art diving bell and a crew of Irish stereotypes. The mission is an unqualified success as the first dive reveals not only dinosaurs but a six foot gold statue to boot. Of course taking the statue is a mistake as it leads to a crew mutiny followed quickly by a rubber octopus attack.



Friend and foes alike end up on a golden beach which they are not unreasonably surprised to learn is the lost city of Atlantis. After meeting the campy ruler they encounter other surface men, including the crew of the Marie Celeste, who have been press ganged into working for the Atlantians, in their war against some plastic monsters.



We also learn that the Atlantians are really from space and have a glowing helmet which lets the wearer see into the future, which fortunately for the budget, is also our past. With the help of an Atlantean beauty our heroes escape but how can they get home, and how can the rubber octopus be defeated?






The film has suffered over the last 30 years and it’s now enjoyed only as an ironic pleasure as the ropey acting and desperate modelling vie for your attention. The opening scenes, shot at sea, wobble all over the place and the single camera follows the cast around rather than be repositioned. The enemy soldiers whom I thought looked cool in their face covering helmets now look a bit suspect in their tight shorts and how Doug McClure ever qualified as an action hero I’ll never know.



The wafer thin plot, that sees our heroes go to Atlantis and then come back again, serves no purpose other than to showcase some truly dreadful creature effects and cod philosophy. Bad acting, bad script and bad effects; but strangely enjoyable.



Best Bit : “It got my pencil!”



‘W’ Rating 13/23

No.6 : War of the Worlds 2 : The Next Wave (2008)

IMDb Link : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1183733/




It's interesting to note that June of 2005 saw the release of three separate War of the Worlds films. One was the well known Spielberg/Cruise effort and the second was a period piece that you can only buy over the web. The other version was a cash in designed to piggy-back the Spielberg effort and it must have enjoyed some success as it spawned this straight to DVD sequel.



I’ve not seen the original, and the plethora of War of the Worlds titles make it hard to pin point, but given the quality of the sequel I doubt I’ll bother. We do get a few minutes of recap at the beginning of ‘The Next Wave‘, no doubt to boost the weedy sub 90 minutes running time.




This film opens two years after the initial alien invasion has been repelled. Seemingly the victory was somewhat pyrrhic as there is no army or government and the resistance is based in a scrap yard. Unbelievably they do a have a fleet of Stealth bombers which have been adapted to fly in space using captured alien technology. No, really. It’s just as well really as the aliens are coming back and this time they have filters to stop another bacterial defeat.




Our hero and son are struggling to get by, with his birthday present being a tin of Ravioli - happy days. Things speed up as Earth resistance, helped by a scientist who thinks she’s Blanche DuBois, make a strike on the aliens’ mother ship while our man tries to find his son who has been captured by the bad guys.




This film is total rubbish. No ifs or buts, it’s crap. The main concern is budgetary with the aliens’ hive looking like the inside of a hooker’s boudoir. “Don’t touch the walls!” is the oft repeated advice - wise words, they may fall over. The big reveal that the action is actually happening on Mars is a cracker and explained by the aliens recreating a disused industrial estate as a ‘petri dish’ for captured humans. Lucky that, must have saved a fortune on special effects.




The aliens draw humans’ blood by putting a bag over their heads and the stunning alien vistas are all shown from the character’s point of view, meaning a big drawing can be used. Cheapness can be excused if there is a good script and top notch acting but alas both are missing in action. The story is a hybrid of ‘Independence Day’ and ‘I, Robot’ and the cast has the acting talent of an Ikea living room set.




Truly awful and to make matters worse they leave the door open for another sequel!




Best Bit : The downed fighter taking off with a cargo of people was pretty good even if the action was all off camera (again).




‘W’ Rating : 8/23

No. 4 : When Worlds Collide (1951)

IMDb Link : http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044207/


This classic 1951 slice of Sci-fi sees the Earth doomed by an impending planetary impact - can some desperate plans save at least some of humanity?


I saw this as a kid and my first surprise was that it was in colour, I’d have sworn blind it was black and white! The film opens with some astronomers doing their sums and fretting over some disturbing data. Things seem to be finalised in quick order, as when our courier hero requests a pay bump he gets it with the cryptic statement “It doesn’t matter, money won’t be worth anything soon anyway”. Great secret keeping boffin! Even more surprising is the fact that our man accepts this with a shrug of the shoulders.


After 20 minutes of procrastination, including a ‘Mind Your Language’ inspiring United Nations meeting, it’s finally agreed that we’re screwed. Happily there is no ‘Armageddon’ style save the planet mission and the only option is making like a shepherd and getting the flock out. The massive expense of the evacuation is quickly under written by a great wheelchair bound baddie, who declares his only interest to be self preservation. He’ll get away, no worries.


The film flies along quickly and even manages to cram in an unnecessary love triangle and a cute kid who then finds an ever cuter dog. Mankind accepts its fate somewhat stoically, but ten minutes before impact everyone makes for the ship. Will the wheel chair make it up the ramp? And will the glue on the model hold?


This is a film that it’s hard to dislike despite some ropey sets and model work. Somehow the director forgets to include any footage of the two Earth impacts, and no doubt our heroes are upset to find their brave new world is just a big matte painting . Bugger!


Best Bit : The world’s about to end ; you - make an elaborate countdown calendar for everyone!

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W’ Rating : 18/23