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!

Outside the Wire (2021) – Netflix

One of those Netflix flicks that does what every other Netflix flick does for its algorithmically chosen audience. Find a vaguely competent director, pay for a ‘name,’ and have the characters repeat the objective of whatever goal they’re chasing every 20 minutes.

In this one, a drone pilot is taught what warfare really is by being yanked from his cushy operations room and onto the front lines of a messy ground war in Ukraine. He is under the command of Captain Leo, an advanced android prototype, played by Anthony Mackie, and yes, they do get a Captain America reference in.

Tensions are frayed, folks are shot, and turns are twisted. It’s okay.

What I did enjoy though, were the mechs that are used by both the US and Russian military. Satisfyingly clunky with itchy trigger digits, these metal soldiers (nicknamed ‘Gumps’) pour out of the back of assault wagons and jump right in. Fun stuff.

6/10

Robot Planet (2018) – Tubi

A gruff specialist who is not dissimilar to Jason Statham if you ordered your Jason Statham from Temu is hurled to a distant planet via a bit of space tech that behaves like a portal. He’s hot on the heels of a bunch of robot pioneers who were sent earlier to check out this ‘Earth 2’ but didn’t return (probably because Earth 1 is a bit shit).

His ship is damaged, so he’s now stuck, and to compound matters, some robots are shooting at him from across the moors (this was shot around Dartmoor). Will he survive to figure out the twist that we have already figured out an hour ago?

Rather slow, and slightly nonsensical, but what about the tech?

Nice bipedal robot design, and cute robo-dogs, but not cute enough to save it.

5/10

Subservience (2024) – Netflix

It is the near future, and realistic androids have replaced a great many humans in menial roles, and other roles that require skill and precision. These androids are called ‘sims’ or, derogatorily, ‘sparks’.

When Nick’s wife, Maggie, has a heart attack, he must juggle his foreman position on a construction site with taking care of their two small children, while Maggie waits in hospital for a new heart. It’s all too much for him (poor dear), so he invests in a ‘nannybot’, who is named Alice by his young daughter (she is reading Alice in Wonderland). Following a bit of fiddling with her code, Alice manages to bypass many of her (its?) failsafe programs and, after developing an unhealthy obsession with Nick, sets about getting rid of her obstacles (Maggie et al). Cue Terminator-type relentlessness.

If I were a lesser reviewer I would be making jokes about how easy it must have been for Megan Fox to play the blank-faced Alice, but I won’t, because I thought she was pretty good in the role, all twitches and sinister glances. As for the tech, all we have to go on are the androids, and their workings are pretty well realized. One fabulously spooky scene showed Maggie being operated on by a team of doctor sims, all of which were missing mouths (they communicate wirelessly). Some interesting and timely analogies are being made about people losing their jobs to outsiders, and what it means to be human, but at the end of the day it’s easy to dismiss this one as a bit of fluff.

That said, I enjoyed it more than is probably legal, and that’s because I have just finished a play-though of Detroit: Become Human, which touches on similar themes, and really enhanced my watching of this film.

7/10

Bigbug (2022) – Netflix

Oh, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, nothing you can make will ever stop me loving your work. From Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, to Amelie and The Very Long Engagement, and, yes, even Alien Resurrection, nothing can make me waiver.

Even this one.

Born from COVID lockdowns and the rise of A.I., Bigbug takes place in 2045 when your average suburbanite lives in a retro-futuristic home and has a slew of robots on hand to perform every menial task, even finding your glasses. In one such home we are introduced to Alice, recently separated, and Max, a creep trying to seduce her while his son loiters downstairs. Breaking up this triste is Alice’s ex-husband and his new squeeze, their errant daughter, a neighbour, and her dog, Toby. Once all the players are in position, the story kicks off with the A.I. house controls locking them all in, and turning off the AC, all while a cyborg uprising is happening in the world outside.

There’s plenty of commentary to be picked at, including the nature of being human, over-reliance on technology, censorship, and screen time. Definitely not my favourite Jeunot film, and although it bears all the hallmarks of his vision; shades of teal and brown, extreme lens choices, French horniness, it really lacked a decent story, and texture. This is the first of his films where it felt like there were no shadows — everything was deliberately bright and garish, and I wasn’t a fan. Ah well.

However, the tech on display was a delight. Never mind the house itself and the flying cars, the gaggle of robots that populate the home are unique and fun. We have Monique, a human-style robot with detachable scalp and a finger whisk, multiple flying drones, one of which gets swallowed by the dog (which allows us a view down a canine gullet before being vomited back up to continue flying), a toy robot, Tom, who is cute and already on store shelves, an elaborately mechanical head on six legs called Einstein, and my favorite, a vacuum cleaner cum handy-bot called Howard who appears to be from the same family as MST3K‘s Gypsy.

Gorgeous to look at, but ultimately a bit flimsy. Much like me.

7/10

Rebel Moon Part 2 — The Scargiver (2024) – Netflix

I’ll keep it short, unlike Snyder.

Tedious, derivative, as anger-inducing as Part 1.

As for the tech — I have a soft spot for all the non-person stuff in this flick. I love the designs of the ships, all cuddly, Flash Gordon aesthetics, Jimmy the robot, and the heavily armored tardigrade tanks.

For the record, I watched the two-hour, PG13 version, because there’s no way I’m sitting through three and half hours of this shite just for Snyder to add another thirty minutes of slow-motion wheat threshing.

5/10

Beyond Skyline (2017) – Netflix

I’m one of the few people who actually enjoyed the first Skyline movie from 2010. Yes, it was a glorified B-movie with a lot of CGI, but sometimes that’s all you want. This follow-up was released seven years later, written and directed by Liam O’Donnell who co-wrote the first one. The story takes place concurrently with the events of the first (big ol’ alien invasion), but goes off in a wildly different direction.

There are a couple of holdovers from the first (a pair of recast characters), but other than that, it changes location halfway through and becomes a martial-arts free-for-all featuring freedom fighters against giant, bio-mechanical monsters. Showcasing dialogue as daft as a fork at a soup festival, this one pits the eternally watchable Frank Grillo and The Raid‘s Iko Uwais against the alien invaders, with a bit of Huggy Bear thrown into the mix, and God help me I enjoyed it. The set pieces get bigger and bigger until we end up with a huge alien mech fighting a huger Cthulhu-esque mech amid the ruins of a Cambodian temple (standing in for Laos). What’s not to love?

Tech-wise, this is full of alien machinations and I love the designs of the aliens; their bio-suits, the ships and all the paraphernalia that go with it. Everything is so swirly and spiky and totally unnecessary and it’s a joy to behold. The effects aren’t at all bad, and I’m ultimately recommending this for anyone who needs something to watch without having to think about it.

7/10

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

Tech Tok, Part 1
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?

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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.