Well here we are again.

For this new watch-a-thon, I’m returning to sci-fi, and in particular the elements that I love about sci-fi — forget about story and thoughtful metaphors for the human condition, I just want spaceships and robots and hardware. Bring it on!

Atlas (2024) – Netflix

We kick off with this recent actioner from the guy who brought us Rampage (2018), San Andreas (2015), and, um, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012), Brad Peyton. Brad knows a thing or two about spectacle, and he shovels it on in spades for this one.

Atlas Shepherd (J-Lo) is a top analyst with a deep distrust of A.I.. Through her intimate knowledge of an A.I. terrorist called Harlan (Simu Liu), Atlas joins a crack team of space rangers to go to Harlan’s planet base and stop him from launching an apocalyptic attack on humankind. Along the way, Atlas must learn to overcome her wariness of tech when she has to sync with her robotic exoskeleton, and therein lies her character arc. But hey, I’m not here to discuss the basic plot, the clunky dialogue, or the predictable story beats, I’m here for the tech. Does it deliver?

Oh God yes. This is a future-tech junkie’s wet dream. The design of everything, from the city, to the transportation, to the spaceships, the weapons and, most importantly, the battle mech that Jenny from the Block must bond with, are all wonderfully designed and pushed to 11. I smiled so much during the disastrous attempted landing on the planet. Not only that, but the filmmakers were perfectly blatant with their genre theft.

Expert mocked by grunts on a military ship? There’s Aliens for you.

Pear-shaped deployment of battle-mechs? Hello, Edge of Tomorrow!

Luminous biodomes? I see you, Avatar!

Energy swords and panel-beating? Pacific Rim, welcome!

If you go by the ratings and scores, this is a terrible film — but I’m just going by the technology, and I had an absolute blast.
8/10

Anatar (2023) – Tubi

Here is your reminder that not all of the films I’ll be watching are top quality.

A race of blue, alien ducks is looking for a new planet to call home, and settle on a world called Pandoro. Their emissary, Princess Avia, disguised as a human-type, flies an egg ship down to the surface, where she encounters a medieval population of ignoramuses, and in particular a useless dreamer called Germano. Cue relentless stupidity, tedious romance, a Duck Vader double-cross, and an insane fourth-wall break.

So yes, it’s as dumb as a sack of spanners, but I’m just here to check out the sci-fi tech.

The duck ship is a rebel blockade runner (it wouldn’t be an Italian genre flick if they weren’t ripping off something), the interiors are rough-edged cardboard, and the blasters are repurposed nerf guns.

Rubbish.
1/10

2149: The Aftermath (2016) – Prime

A Canadian effort this time, filmed in Sudbury, On.

2149: The Aftermath aka ESC aka Darwin aka Confinement is a story about a war-ravaged world where the remaining population live in cylindrical, concrete pods, sitting in a large chair and playing games or remote controlling mining equipment, with the occasional break for a shower or fish sticks. They dare not venture outside, as their daily weather report reminds them of the toxic air quality, and so the inhabitants wither away without human contact, save truncated text messages, and eventually lose the ability to speak. To my teenage son, this sounds like paradise.

Darwin has been living this existence for half of his young life since being placed in a pod by his mum, but he is forced to leave his tiny home when it is struck by lightning and his computer systems, including life support, go down. What will he find on the outside? Will he be able to breathe? Will he walk from future Mississauga to future Kingston and back again several times (a three day hike)?

Watch, to find out!

At the end of the day, it’s a slight story with great dollops of social commentary hanging off it like snow clumps on a short dog, but what about the tech?

I liked the pod set-up, and the texting is interesting, with language having evolved (?) into an aggressive L33T-speak. The world (or at least the Greater Toronto Area) is patrolled by police drones, and they are a funky and interesting design, like flying scythes with bad attitudes. That’s about it though, so, I guess it’s okay.

In the immortal words of D.A. — “mostly harmless.”
6/10

Robot Riot (2020) – Tubi

An interesting mish-mash of ideas that is failed by its script and miscasting, Robot Riot at least features some chunky tech for me to rate, and we’ll get to that in a minute.

The story, such as it is, concerns a bunch of grunts who are dropped into a deserted town, their memories wiped, and their backpacks stuffed with random gear. However, they’re not there to kill each other (although that doesn’t stop some of them), but rather to survive against a horde of battle mechs, ranging from 30 ft bipeds to scurrying ‘spider-mechs.’ It’s a bit like the premise of Predators, with 100% less Adrien Brody. Naturally, this operation is being run by the government to test their latest war machines, and the proceedings are being watched over by a cartoonish general who laughs manically at every soldier death.

The mechs themselves are nice designs although they don’t bring anything new to the giant biped concept, and I’m pretty sure I saw the spider-mechs during the Clone Wars. Still, a decent effort considering the budget can’t have been substantial.
6/10

A Living Dog (2019) – Tubi

This German slice of sci-fi takes place in Scandinavia in the not so distant future. Humanity has essentially lost the war against A.I. and its army of robots, and small pockets of resistance fighters scrape out a meagre life in between bouts of destruction.

Tomasz is one such freedom fighter, albeit on the run, and we first encounter him trying to find a safe haven. He fails when he gets walloped across the head by a Russian survivalist and wakes up in her basement. Unfortunately, they can’t talk it out, as the central premise of this film is that the robots can pick up and hone in on human speech, so no talking. This isn’t like A Quiet Place, where exposition is delivered in hushed whispers, there’s absolutely zero chit-chat in this film, except for a couple of words toward the end.

Your own experience may differ, but for me this idea went from intriguing to irritating in around 25 minutes.

As for the technology, there’s some cool weaponry on display, and the drones are spikily aggressive. Giant tripodal mechs saunter around, honking loudly like the second cousins of Spielberg’s Martian machines, and apparently they are evolving, but this wasn’t explored enough for my tastes.

Check it out — you might like it more than I did.
5/10

The Titan (2018) – Netflix

Poor old Sam Worthington. It always seemed like he should have been a bigger star than he is, but he tends to fade into obscurity between Avatars — and here, blow me down if they don’t turn him blue again.

Worthington plays Rick Janssen, a soldier who has displayed hardiness by surviving in the Syrian desert for three days, and is subsequently chosen to be part of a hairbrained scheme to save a dying Earth (pesky pollution) by being genetically enhanced to survive on Saturn’s moon, Titan. Rick and his family, including wife Abigail played by Taylor Orange is the New Black Schilling, are relocated along with with a bunch of other test subjects to a lovely facility where they can be ‘improved’ by mad scientist Tom Wilkinson (R.I.P.).

As you might expect, it all goes rather pear-shaped. What I found most extraordinary about it was that they managed to take an already daft idea and ramp it up to skull-crushing idiocy for the third act. But enough of my griping — can the tech save my rating?

Despite being set in the year 2048, nothing much has changed. The only special tech on show was a modern-looking house and a fancy nightlight. So no, the tech ain’t saving this one.

Dull.
3/10

Singularity (2013-2017) – Prime

You know me, I do like a filmmaker that tries to salvage a film. They can’t all be winners though — case in point.

In 2013, Robert Kouba shot a Swiss/American sci-fi flick called Aurora about a young pair trying to find the fabled, titular city after humanity has been wiped out by A.I. war machines. It then sat on a shelf for a few years, until he was able to convince John Cusack to stand in front of a greenscreen for a couple of days to play Elias VanDorne, the creator of the A.I. (called Kronos), which he has uploaded himself into.

He then proceeds to narrate the story filmed four years earlier as if he is watching the teens from drone surveillance and not carefully placed camera set-ups. It seems that Cusack was given two directions, either look bored or baffled.

The teens do some running and hiding and a doomed romance blossoms. The fella, Andrew, is a bit dull, but the young woman, Calia (played by Jeannine Wacke who deserved a better film) is interesting, albeit restricted by her Katniss cosplay.

Tech-wise, there are plenty of robots for me to get excited about, ranging from mini-fridge-sized drones to mountainous bipeds. Some nice designs, and a bonus spaceship, but the CG is a little clunky and the ‘bots are ultimately not used enough to keep me entertained. The only reason for me to recommend this is for you to enjoy John Cusack’s facial expressions. He’s definitely gone to his happy place.
4/10

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

The Weyland-Yutaniverse
Foreign Bodies
Mummy Issues
Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes
Monster Mayhem
It’s All Rather Hit-or-Mythos
You Can’t Handle the Tooth
Tubi Dive
What Possessed You?
Fan of the Cave Bear
There, Wolves
What a Croc
Prehistrionics
Jumping the Shark

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See all of Neil Baker’s Black Gate film reviews here. Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, teacher, and sculptor of turtle exhibits.