SFReader Review of the Movie Ant-Man

Ant-Man? Yep. Ant-Man. I know, I know.. but Marvel hasn't turned out a stinker yet, right?

In 1989, scientist Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) resigns from S.H.I.E.L.D. after he learns about them trying to replicate his shrinking technology. Pym thinks the technology is too dangerous and decides to keep it secret. Flash ahead to present day. Pym's daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Pym's former protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) now run the company Pym started, and Cross is close to duplicating Pym's shrinking technology.

Enter Scott Lang (Paul Rudd). Lang is an ex-thief fresh out of prison who's finding life on the outside harder than he anticipated. Unable to find a decent job, Lang falls in with some old associates and agrees to perform a burglary. Said burglary finds him in possession of Pym's old Ant-Man suit. Now the real adventure begins as Pym leverages Lang into his plan to stop Cross from selling the miniaturization technology to the highest bidder.

I left the theater feeling a mixture of two main thoughts. I enjoyed the movie. Great effects, lots of action, likable characters, funny wisecracks.. there a lot here to have fun with. But I also left thinking that the whole thing was sort of dumb. My issue wasn't with the concept that a man can shrink and control ants, but rather the inconsistent way the science is treated....

Read more at SFReader [Movie Review] Ant-Man

Terminator Genisys - SFReader Movie review

I entered the theater to see Terminator Genisys with trepidation. I was disappointed with Max Max: Fury Road. Would the new Terminator movie run roughshod over my nostalgic memories as well?


I was there at the true genesis -- the first Terminator was released in October 1984 while I was a sophomore in college. Some friends and I gathered our meager funds (I think movie tickets were $3 at the time) and saw it at the local theater. Time travel, killer robots, an apocalyptic end of the world, who could ask for more?



Now that the statute of limitations has expired, I'll admit to stealing the movie poster out of the frame in front of the theater on the way out. It hung proudly in my dorm room until it caught the attention of an even bigger geek than myself. I'm ashamed now to say I traded it for two cases of Milwaukee's Best. It seemed like a good deal at the time....


So, 31 years later, it was with no small amount of sentimental longing or wistful affection that I settled into my seat to see the latest Terminator offering. Where does the time go?

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Ex Machina - SFReader Movie Review

Ex Machina (2015) Rated R
Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Corey Johnson, Oscar Isaac, Alicia Vikander, Sonoya Mizuno
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
Reviewed by Dave Felts
Rating: (4/5)

Movies about Artificial Intelligence have been around a while. I'm not sure what the first one was, but in 1968, 2001: A Space Odyssey introduced HAL. The first movie that made an impression with me was WarGames in 1983. Then you've got the Terminator franchise, A.I., I, Robot, The Matrix, Her, and a whole host of others.

Most of these films have an already developed A.I. as the adversary with humans struggling to resist extinction at the hands of the machine intelligence. The genesis of that intelligence, for the most part, has already taken place, and now we're dealing with the aftermath. I can't recall any movie that actually looks at deciding whether or not the machine intelligence is actually intelligent and free thinking.

An that's what Ex Machina does. We're introduced to a machine intelligence, but is it really A.I.?

Read more at Maggie - SFReader Movie Review

Maggie - SFReader Movie Review

Maggie (2015) Rated PG-13
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Abigail Breslin, Joely Richardson

Directed by Henry Hobson

Reviewed by Dave Felts

Rating: (2.5/5)

In this version of a post-apocalyptic zombie world, a virus called the necroambulist virus, has broken out in a deadly pandemic causes people to slowly necrotize while at the same time rendering them violent and hungry. The incubation period is typically a few weeks, so once a person is infected, they have plenty of time to contemplate their impending death, as do those around them. 

Maggie (Abigail Breslin) is a teenager who has been infected. After a certain point, an infected person is rounded up and put into quarantine. Naturally, her parents -- father Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and step-mother Caroline (Joely Richardson) want to delay this as long as possible. Its easy to commiserate with loving parents who want to spend as much time with their terminally ill child as they can. But maybe loving parents aren't best ones to decide when she's too dangerous to keep free. 

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Project Alamanc - SFReader Movie Review

Project Almanac (2015) Rated PG-13
Starring Sofia Black D'Elia, Jonny Weston, Allen Evangelista, Sam Lerner, Virginia Gardner

Directed by Dean Israelite

Reviewed by Dave Felts

Rating: (2.5/5)

What would happen if five teenager managed to build a time machine? Nothing very original apparently. 

A high school nerd, David Raskin (Jonny Weston) dreams of going to MIT. He and his nerdy friend friends Quinn (Sam Lerner) and Adam (Allen Evangelista) are up to all sorts of nerdish hi-jinks, dutifully recorded by David's sister Christina (Virginia Gardner). 

David's father is dead (one or both parents being dead is practically a requirement in any sort of Young Adult offering) and while poking through some of his father's old project stuff in the attic (Dad was apparently a nerd as well) David and Christina discover an old video camera. 

Despite being in the attic for the last 8 years, the battery still holds a charge, so they fire it up to discover footage from David's 8th (or was it 9th) birthday party, the last time David ever saw his father. But wait! What's that in the mirror? Why it's David, present-day, seventeen year-old David, evidently an attendee to his own years-ago birthday. He also has an expression of near panic, which doesn't bode well....

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Mad Max: Fury Road - SFReader Movie Review

I saw Max Max: Fury Road this past weekend. I wanted to like it. I have fond memories of my friends and I watching (and re-watching) The Road Warrior on VHS way back in the day. It was one of our go-to movies. When I heard they were going to make another, I was pretty stoked. Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron... nice. 

But, like Thomas Wolfe says, You can't go home again....

Did you know that the base of Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid is Physiological Needs? Wiki's definition is:

...the physical requirements for human survival. If these requirements are not met, the human body cannot function properly and will ultimately fail. Physiological needs are thought to be the most important; they should be met first. Air, water, and food are metabolic requirements for survival in all animals, including humans. 

OK, I hear you. This is supposed to be a movie review, so why am I talking about Maslow?

Bear with me. 

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Avengers: Age of Ultron - SFReader Movie Review

I've really enjoyed the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies over the past few years; seeing them with my teenage son and/or daughter makes them even more of a pleasure. Avengers: Age of Ultron is no exception. It has everything viewers have come to expect from an MCU movies and a summer blockbuster: large cast of characters, humor, danger, big fight scenes, villains, heroes... it's all there.

In reading some other reviews, I've seen come complaints that the combined universe is it's own worst enemy, in that it saps apprehension in that we already know, with a certainly, that none of the major characters is going to die. Thor: Ragnorak is already planned, as is Avengers: Infinity War and Captain America: Civil War. So we know without a doubt that these guys are safe an Ultron fails. 

But I think that approach comes from the perspective of someone who isn't a comic book fan. In comic books, no one ever dies. And even if they do, it was really just a clone, or a doppelganger, or a different body from another dimension. Comic book fans know that death is hardly the end-all for any characters.

Read more at Avengers: Age of Ultron - Movie Review