Bravestorm (2017) – Tubi

It’s always fun when a visual effects artist gets to make their own movie (see: Godzilla Minus One) and Junya Okabe obviously managed to get his jollies off by shoving everything including the kitchen sink into this giant Rock ’em Sock ’em showdown in Tokyo. The story flies by at ludicrous speed, and along the way claims back everything Hollywood has stolen from Japan, including The Terminator, Pacific Rim, etc.

All you need to know is a bunch of young people go back in time to stop an alien invasion from wiping out the world in 2050, by getting a scientist to build a giant robot to battle the aliens’ giant robot, and then they go back again to recruit the scientist’s boxer brother to pilot the mech. If that sounds as silly as a sausage in a silk stocking then buckle up, baby, because that’s the most sensible part of this whole thing.

Hey now — let’s talk tech. We have a bionic super suit that enhances the wearer’s abilities by 500%, so far, so Power Ranger, but we also have a pair of giant freaking robots hitting each other in the street, and I loved their adorably clunky designs. Special mention to the aliens too — the grunts are ugly as sin, and the head honcho is a mantis shrimp-looking bad boy.

Super fun.

7/10

Light (2024) – Prime

You have to admire the balls of an indie director like fellow Brit Matt Woollard, who decided he wanted to make a sci-fi movie and so gathered up chums and made one for about fourteen quid. This sort of gung-ho spirit is endearing, yet usually doomed to Velocipastor, however, blow me down if he didn’t pull it off.

The trick to ultra-low filmmaking is to keep your cast small (or unseen), and forget about sets when you have a fog machine. In Light, we are witness to a bunch of escape shuttles crashlanding on a barren, murky moon. Most of the time is taken up with ever increasingly desperate dialogue between Tallie (who may be more than meets the eye, and is also named after the best A-wing pilot in the New Republic), and Niu, who has become separated from her son and is getting more frantic by the minute. To compound matters, visibility is awful, and there’s something growling in the mist.

As the tale unfolds, and we, alongside Niu, slowly unravel what is going on on this moon, it all gets slightly bonkers, with a really interesting payoff. Commentary on illegal aliens, greed, and grey morality is woven throughout, and the two leads, Gia Lily and Christine Roche, are excellent. I was occasionally distracted by the fact that Roche looks a perfect blend between Sigourney Weaver and Sean Young, and this did not hurt the film.

There was limited tech on display other than some funky spacesuits that I really enjoyed, some lovely, biotech-ish, monsters, and a brief shot of a ship, but they were all well used and added to the overall oppressive atmosphere. I wholly understand if it’s not for everyone, but I liked it, so make of that what you will.

7/10

Nemesis (1992) – Tubi

A slice of fried gold from the early 90s that looks like it was made in 1985 and is cheesier than a fondue hot tub.

It’s the far away year of 2027, and cyborgs have been partially integrated into society. Unfortunately, some nefarious bots are being used to duplicate high-ranking officials, and its up to uber-cop Alex (Olivier Gruner — torture) and a bunch of nice terrorists to stop them. It’s no accident that Alex has that name, as he shares it with Alex Murphy, another cop who gets rebuilt after being shot to bits. However, the pilfering doesn’t end with Robocop. Hefty dollops of The Terminator, and a sprinkling of Commando are also in this ham pie.

A fantastic supporting cast — Thomas (The Expanse) Jane, Cary-Hiroyuki (Planet of the Apes) Tagawa, Tim (Trancers) Thomerson, and Brion (Blade Runner) James, among others, makes this an exercise in ‘spot the character actor’, and the film is a non-stop barrage of crazy stunts and ‘splosions. Oh, and there’s SO much unintentionally hilarious dialogue. I laughed like a drain throughout.

Tech-wise, its slim pickings. Some nice T800-esque skeletons (including some funky stop-mo), and lots of gears glistening in the gore. A terrible film that spawned four sequels.

Highly recommended.

6/10

Fantastic Planet (1973) – MAX

I’d been waiting a while to see this one and now that it’s been restored, and I was staying at a house that had MAX, I finally watched it. Fantastic Planet is as surreal and inventive as I had hoped, with stunning artwork and a compelling story.

We watch as a human woman with a baby runs through an alien landscape, only to be toyed with, and ultimately killed, by a god-like blue hand. It is then revealed that she was being tormented by giant alien children, the same way human children might torment ants. The baby is scooped up and kept as a pet by one of the children, and when he (Tera) is a teen, he finally escapes the confines of the city and runs to the wilds, where he meets fellow ‘Oms’ and instigates a revolution. Plenty of social commentary to enjoy if you don’t like weird sound effects and soaring imagination. The only distractions were the strange run cycle animations, and the ‘single knocker out’ fashion choice of the Oms. Other than that, smashing stuff.

Tech-wise, this was full of extraterrestrial machines and devices that served their purposes but made no logical sense, and were therefore fabulous. A great film that I was delighted to have finally watched.

7/10

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023) – Prime (lol)

Full disclosure, I don’t have a robo-dog in this fight. Transformers is one of those things that I missed either because I was too old to concern myself with childish things, or I was too busy playing with my Star Wars figures. Either way, I know nothing of the lore, couldn’t give two jots about any of the characters, and generally watch these things long after they’ve run their course. That said, I did enjoy Bumblebee (2018), so what do I know?

Anyhoo, this is another one of those films that has a lot of very large robots doing something very important, extremely loudly. It’s all a bit frantically clunky and spiky and grey, but people love these films the same way I love At the Earth’s Core, so we’ll just agree to not understand each other, and leave it at that.

On the plus side, Anthony Ramos is excellent as the new human lead, and he is ably supported by Dominique Fishback, so I feel that the franchise has that going for it in the future. Also, it looks like Transformers is being smooshed together with G.I. Joe for the next film (another American thing that passed me by), and I assume this will leave fans doubly rabid. Huzzah for fans of stuff!

Plenty of tech on show for me to fawn over, but while it is impressively put together, I do find the designs overly fussy. I did like Stratosphere though (voiced by John DiMaggio), because I’m a sucker for beaten up robots.

6/10

Cyborg X (2016) – Tubi

If, like me, you’ve been yearning for a good old-fashioned, low budget cheese-fest with ideas above its station, then have I got news for you. Featuring a cast of gloriously one-dimensional characters, dialogue so wooden it could be carved into a Victorian child’s toy, and inexplicable direction, Cyborg X tells the cautionary tale of A.I. gone wrong.

After a revolutionary new cyborg military experiment goes awry, and slaughters 99% of the planet with its cyborgs (let’s call them Terminators), it’s up to a plucky band of hardened grunts (let’s call them Colonial Marines) to take down the whole enchilada. Luckily, the entire operating system control is hidden in a shack in the desert close to their camp, so there’s not much traveling.

Of course it’s rubbish, despite some excessive practical gore, but I was most delighted to see the triumphant return of Lieutenant Pouty McChesticles, along with Corporal Blackguy Firsttodie, Private Sleazebag Comeuppance, Major Cleavage, and walnut-faced Danny Trejo as Sgt. Silent Butdeadly.

On the tech front, we are given some great Tom Hardy Bane/T-800 cross-overs, and some not so great CG drones, but I can’t stay mad at it, bless it.

3/10

Sunshine (2007) – AMC+

Alex Garland never misses, and when he’s working with Danny Boyle magic is usually the outcome. This is no different. A stunning story set on the solar spaceship Icarus II, last hope of a freezing Earth to kickstart the sun with a big-ass bomb (scientific term). When the crew discovers the location of their predecessor ship that went missing years before, they have to make a decision whether or not to change course to intercept it, and it isn’t long before it all goes a bit Event Horizon on them.

An utterly absorbing film, in no small part to an absolutely stacked cast. I mean, come on, Cillian Murphy, Chris Evans, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Cliff Curtis, Hiroyuki Sanada, Benedict Wong, Mark Strong, and, um, Troy Garity. Oh, so Tony is Jane Fonda’s son? And he was in the Hairdresser franchise? Good for you, Tony.

The tech on display was gorgeous — I absolutely loved the ship design and everything on deck seemed functionally familiar and simultaneously complex all at once. Loved the slit-visored spacesuits, and the eerily alien, liminal feel of the bomb chamber.

Wasn’t a huge fan of the lens choices for the timey wimey wibbly wobbly parts, so I’m knocking off a point, mostly because I have a headache.

9/10

Previous Murky Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

Tech Tok, Part 1
Tech Tok, Part 2
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.