Foster on Film

The biggest mistake of Revenge of the Sith is making it so self-serious. It wants to be a Shakespeare tragedy, which is odd for a series based on afternoon serials. The second biggest was Hayden Christensen. Granted, the actor never had a chance, But Ewan McGregor managed to elevate his poor dialog while Christensen drags

In Perfectlandia, where the perfect people live their perfect lives, the outside world upsets perfection when a damaged Data reveals a Federation spy mission. The Federation is working with the Son’a, an aggressive species that violates many Federation rules, to screw with the perfect folks. Captain Picard and company must discover why Data was damaged,

It’s ten years after the close of the breach in Pacific Rim and Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), the previously unmentioned son to the first film’s stern, dead father figure, is threatened with jail or a return to the jaeger program. He chooses the latter and joins ever-squinting Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood) in training a bunch

Prof. James Houghland (Charles Hill Mailes) has invented a new technology for that newest of new products: the television. Multiple companies want his invention, and secretive people threaten him. During his demonstration, he is murdered. Nelson, the chief of police (Henry Mowbray) has many suspects, including Houghland’s assistant Dr. Arthur Perry (Bela Lugosi), medical experimentalist

In 2176 on a partially terraformed Mars, Police lieutenant Melanie Ballard (Natasha Henstridge) is discovered by the Martian authorities to be the only occupant of an arriving train. She recounts the events leading to the situation: Ballard, her commander (Pam Grier), Sgt Jericho (Jason Statham) and two new officers (Cleas DuVall, Liam Waite), arrived at

This film has a vast advantage over the other two prequel films: it has parallel stories. The Anakin stuff is again pretty bad, with Christensen putting in a career-mutilating performance as he and Natalie Portman utter uncomfortable “romantic” dialog. But with this film, if we removed the bad material, there’s still something left. Obi-Wan has

After a terrorist kills Christopher Pike and escapes with extra-super-duper beaming to the Klingon home world, Kirk is sent to kill him. Kirk decides instead to capture this mysterious man… OK, it’s Khan. We all know it is Khan. The second Abrams-verse Trek film has all the same positives as the first, and all the

Sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) finds himself at a predator crash site. Knowing the government will try and hush it up, he mails pieces of alien tech to his P.O. Box as evidence, but it ends up in the hands of his magical autistic son (Rory McKenna), who switches it on and calls a predator.

Taylor (Charlton Heston), Landon (Robert Gunner), and Dodge (Jeff Burton) survive the crash of their spaceship on an alien world in the far future. They quickly discover that apes are the intelligent and dominate life form, and the primitive, mute humans are thought of as pests. Taylor is taken captive, where chimpanzee scientist Zira (Kim

Giant monsters—kaiju—have risen up through a dimensional portal on the ocean’s floor, and caused massive death and destruction. Eventually, humans got the advantage by building giant robots they call jaegers. The robots require two closely aligned pilots whose brains are connected to the machines and to each other. Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) was such a

This film is a lot of fun, no question. I enjoyed it when I first saw it and still do. That doesn’t mean it isn’t a disaster, just an enjoyable disaster. The problems really start with the acting. Yes, all the first six films have poor acting but among the original trilogy, it stands out

Kirk, tiring of the coolest job in the universe, and Spock, planning to help breed new Vulcans, are interrupted from their angst by the survivor of a crashed ship. Their rescue mission turns out to be a trap as a bland villain with a “must destroy everything for no good reason” plan takes much of