Cypher (2002)

My rating: *****
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This wonderful and underrated science fiction film was directed by Vincenzo Natali who directed the earlier better known Cube. The original title for the film was Company Man but was renamed Cypher when the film-makers found there was another film of the same name.
Cypher means a person of no influence, zero [...]

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Romulus My Father (2007)

My rating: ****
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This is a remarkable but extremely bleak film, which stays with you for days after viewing. It is based on the Australian philosopher Raimond Gaita’s memoir about his migrant parents and takes place when he is around ten years old and is told from his point of view. It is a tragic [...]

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Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)

My rating: ***
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This is of course an iconic film adaptation of a classic of the ‘chicklit’ genre. Not something that has been at the top of my list to watch but staying in a B&B on holiday this was on offer and I thought it was time I found out what it was all [...]

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I Am Legend (2007)

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My rating: ***
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This film is a remake and update of the 1971 Charlton Heston film The Omega Man. Will Smith plays a scientist struggling to survive in a post apocalyptic world inhabited by humans who have been turned into rabid monsters by a mutated virus that was originally engineered to cure cancer. [...]

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Balls of Fury (2007)

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My rating: **
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For more reviews of Walken films visit my site Walken Works
The only reason this film gets a two star rather than a one star rating is Christopher Walken. In recent years his choices of films and roles have been puzzling to say the least after a previously fairly illustrious career in [...]

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Alien Hunter (2003)

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My rating: ***
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Another collection of science fiction clichés, but enjoyable nonetheless. We have the usual group of scientists isolated in an Antarctic lab with an alien presence plus the requisite romance between two warring scientists who had previously fallen out but are forced together again by circumstances. Gabriel Byrne plays the standard role [...]

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Avatar (2004)

My rating: *
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All I can say is that Joan Chen and David Warner must have been paid a lot to appear in this shocker. It’s a totally amateurish cyberpunk science fiction ‘thriller’ filmed in Singapore about evil corporate goings on in virtual reality. The acting and scripting are wooden to say the least.

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Aeon Flux (2005)

My rating: ***
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This live action film starring Charlize Theron and New Zealand actor Marton Csokas, bears no resemblance to the MTV anime series from which it is derived, apart from the names of the characters and places and its science fiction setting. The costumes and sets are beautiful to look at but the film [...]

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Stardust (2007)

My rating: ***
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A film from the pen of Neil Gaiman set in an amusingly modernised fairytale world. What really made this film for me, however, was the performance of Robert de Niro as a cross-dressing pirate. All bluster, walk the plank and aaargh me hearties to the exterior world, in the privacy of [...]

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Equilibrium (2002)

My rating: ***
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This film is a collection of science fiction clichés. The style is pure Matrix and the writers have gone the whole hog and recognised the long black coats of the heroes of The Matrix as priestly soutanes, calling their wearers Clerics. It is the job of the Clerics – Fahrenheit 451 [...]

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