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IR Film Review: SIGNAL ONE [Radial]
Like "Annihilation", "Contact" or "The Arrival", good science fiction about intelligent life in the cosmos has to be done in a very specific way but with the technology we have at hand. "Signal One" from writer/director Jonathan Sobol takes quantum tech and uses it to create sounds in the air in a specific way. Isabelle Fuhrman, best known for her title role in "Orphan" takes on a very intelligent, instinctive and fascinating new role as a scientist who figures out an algorithm that can open up portals of communication.
IR Film Review: PREDATOR - BADLANDS [20th Century Studios]
With a franchise that seemed to get old in the tooth after the 2nd go around, writer/director Dan Trachtenberg has brought "Predator" back to the cinematic structure it needs to be but albeit from a different point. "Badlands" has the DNA, edge and balance of an old school "Predator" movie but it is also made and adjusted for the era we live in.
IR Film Review: MICKEY 17 [Warner Bros.]
The intention of a film like "Mickey 17" is the context of an outsider finding meaning against the authority that oversees him. Mickey (Robert Pattinson) is having a time of it on Earth but he believes in the wrong people. What Director Bong Joon Ho ("Parasite") is more interested in is the perspective of someone from nothing rising up to change but sometimes through no great enlightenment of his own. It is just where his path leads.
IR Film Review: DUNE - PART II [Warner Bros]
The progression of a story depends on knowing where it is going in an overall sense. With "Dune - Part II", director Denis Villenueve understands and motivates on the context of what Part I promised. He delivers but there are different cracks and jumps that inherently lift but also restrict the film in certain ways.
IR Film Review: NO ONE WILL SAVE YOU [20th Century Studios/Hulu]
The revelation of "No One Will Save You" comes in its ability to show both old school paranoia within the context of a creature feature not trying to make an overt statement about the state of the world. It is simply one woman's journey with the world against her in a way though she is simply in a cage of her own circumstance. In that way, the film is undeniable.
IR Film Review: PREY [20th Century Studios/Hulu]
“Prey" in a way strips it down and takes away everything except the Predator itself. And what is its purpose? To hunt. And with its technology and interstellar capability, the creatures have probably been doing it for many millennia. That is actually a great starting point. Have this apex predator hunt in certain eras. "Prey" chooses the Comanche Nation in the early 1700s.
IR Film Review: JURASSIC WORLD - DOMINION [Universal]
The approach is closing up a trilogy per se is all about context, where the story is, how it pertains to the rest of the story and how people will remember it. . There are some beautiful moments here which make one think of the best elements of the original. There are also bigger themes but this is a bigger world now.
IR Film Review: MOONFALL [Lionsgate]
Sometimes movies are just made for fun but it is understanding the tonality and the idea of who makes it without attaching any sort of expectation. "Moonfall" is a bad movie but in a wonderful elative way because it is so bonkers in so many respects (yet both derivative and original).
IR Film Review: THE MATRIX - RESURRECTIONS [Warner Bros]
The trigger point of "The Matrix" has always been what is reality and what are we? There was also a dexterity of approach that mirrored both with an intensity and with a coldness. There are some ideas in "The Matrix: Resurrections" that are quite undeniable but it doesn'‘t push it to the nth degree.