Demolition Man (1993)

I was barely aware of this flick when it was new. Only in adulthood did I encounter people talking about it, not so much for the demolition as for the nanny state sendup. I got curious whether it had more to offer than a particular line summarizing the scenario and a curious, semi-tasteful bathroom gag.

In 1996, LAPD Det. John Spartan (Sylvester Stallone) is effective at crimefighting but destructive enough to earn the titular moniker. When his arrest of master criminal Simon Phoenix (Wesley Snipes) leads to the explosion of a building full of hostages, both men are sentenced to decades in cryopreservation. At a 2032 parole hearing, Phoenix breaks loose, discovering that this peaceful era has pushover police and he's become mysteriously knowledgeable and badass. Lt. Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock), a big fan of the 20th century, persuades Chief George Earle (Bob Gunton) to thaw and reinstate Spartan to take on Phoenix, but authorities worry that Spartan's just as bad.

The Maze Runner (2014)

Yes, one more dystopia for the year. It stops streaming on Netflix January 8, and I didn't want to forget. Besides, there's some advantage to watching while my memory of a certain other is still pretty fresh.

Once a month, an initially unidentified organization sends a new amnesiac teen, along with a few supplies, to a walled-off Glade with other such teens. Part of the wall opens each dawn to reveal a mechanized labyrinth, and designated "Runners" will explore and map it, hoping to find an exit. They have to return before the wall closes at dusk, because no one has ever lasted a night in the maze without getting stung by a cyborg monster called a Griever. If it doesn't kill you outright, its venom makes you too aggressively insane to retain your welcome in the Glade.

Protagonist Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) is the latest arrival, about three years into the maze's existence, so the population is a couple dozen. Within a few days, his curiosity has him breaking the teen society's rules and succeeding where no one else has. Not everyone appreciates this, especially Gally (Will Poulter), one of the leaders, who fears how the maze will respond. Indeed, it does start doing things differently, upping the difficulty level....

The Hunger Games (2012)

After all the post-apocalyptic horror movies I watched in October, I thought it'd be a while before I tried another dystopia. But when YouTube suggested this one to me, I thought it was a pretty big hole in my cultural education. Besides, at least the dystopia is legalistic and orderly for a change.

In the future nation of Panem, an annual televised competition has two 12- to 18-year-olds from each of 12 districts live in a rigged woodland until only one survives, with an expectation that some deaths will be at each other's hands. They're usually drafted by lottery, having greater odds of being picked the more they accept government rations, but Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), 16, volunteers to replace her younger sister (Willow Shields). The other "tribute" from her district is her friend Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), who has wanted to be more than a friend to her, but the rules have erased his hope. Katniss, however, does not adopt a loner attitude....

28 Days Later (2002)

The series got a threequel this year, so I thought I'd finally give the original a go. Had I known that Danny Boyle was directing, I'd've braced for more grossness, but whew, there's no excrement scene herein.

Animal rights zealots release a chimp from a lab, ignoring a warning that it's "infected with rage." After the titular period, courier Jim (Cillian Murphy, younger than I'd ever seen before) awakens from a coma induced by a bicycle accident to find that the hospital and, indeed, London are almost completely abandoned. The first people he meets have the rage plague, but holdouts Selena (Naomie Harris) and Mark (Noah Huntley) rescue him. Later connections include Frank (Brendan Gleeson) and his teen daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns), who relay a report of a military outpost. It exists, but whether it's the salvation they need is another question.

I Am Legend (2007)

Warner Bros. packaged this DVD with The Book of Eli as a "double feature." I had never seen such a set before; the two movies are unrelated, not involving any of the same actors, the same director, or even the same production companies. They just came out a few years apart and center on a lone Black man in a post-apocalyptic America, each with someone claiming to have been guided by a mysterious, potentially divine voice toward a cause for hope. That's about where the similarity ends. IAL actually merits a horror classification.

A scientist (Emma Thompson) reengineers a virus to cure cancer. It appears to work beautifully at first but quickly mutates, killing 90% of the world's populations and turning 9% into "Darkseekers," who are like fast zombies with the appearance and light allergy of vampires. Colonel Robert Neville (Will Smith) volunteers to remain in a cut-off Manhattan as the only known uninfected human survivor, accompanied by his dog, Sam, as he hopes to find a way to give the Darkseekers his immunity before he succumbs to either them or insanity from isolation.

The Book of Eli (2010)

As I worried about not having enough creepy movies for the month, I happened to find this DVD on a giveaway shelf. Sure, the movie's not a horror or thriller, and even "sci-fi" would be a stretch despite the future setting, but it certainly depicts a world we would not prefer to the present.

Nobody says directly, but evidence suggests that the ruins across America are due to nuclear war. It must have been religious in nature, because people subsequently destroyed every Abrahamic tract they could find. After 31 years, some regret that decision, even if literacy has become as scarce as soap or fresh water. Loner Eli (Denzel Washington) has found the only copy of the KJV to his knowledge, and he believes that a voice has told him to take it westward, where it will be duly appreciated. Gang leader/de facto mayor Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman) will stop at nothing to get his hands on it, up to and including threatening his mistress's daughter, Solara (Mila Kunis), who wants to run away with Eli.

Train to Busan (2016)

This was one of the most popular recent horror movies I hadn't seen yet. I would have saved it for later in the month, but I was in something of a hurry to find a Halloween-appropriate movie, and this was the main one left on my Netflix list.

In Seoul, Seok-woo (Gong Yoo) has devoted more of himself as a fund manager than as a husband or father. He reluctantly agrees to take young daughter Su-an (Kim Su-an) to Busan so she can spend her birthday with his ex-wife. But news reports of random riots turn out to have been an understatement: Everyone who gets bitten turns just as berserk, and one such victim boards their train....

Snowpiercer (2013)

This stops streaming on Netflix at the end of the month, but I hadn't noticed that when I chose it. Mainly, it was about the highest-profile title left on my list. And with the current weather, it seemed appropriate.

The starting event happens only the year after the film's release, so you might think of it as alternate history now: An anti-global-warming measure goes horribly right, rendering the earth nigh uninhabitably frozen. Fortunately, businessman Wilford (Ed Harris) had the foresight to create a somehow self-sustaining train that harvests water by plowing through snow, and it houses more life than you might expect. Unfortunately, those in the rear cars are impoverished and tyrannized, with small children taken away for secret purposes. Hard to retain gratitude for lifesaving at that point. After 17 years of this, Curtis (Chris Evans) leads the biggest lower-class revolt yet, heading for the engine room to seize control. Given the length of the train, the locked doors, and the brutal guards, this will take a while, but they enlist the help of a stoned lock specialist (Song Kang-ho) and his seemingly clairvoyant daughter (Go Ah-sung).

Zombieland (2009)

Squeezing in one last Halloween review for the year! I opted for something under 90 minutes, clearly appropriate in theme but not seriously scary. Seemed like a partial palate cleanser.

We never learn the real name of the narrator-protagonist (Jesse Eisenberg), because the few survivors of the zombie apocalypse don't want to feel too emotionally attached to each other. He goes by "Columbus," because he grew up in the Ohio capital. His long-time habits as a timid loner have prepared him for this new world, and he shares many tips with the viewers. While looking for a safe haven, he teams up with "Tallahassee" (Woody Harrelson), an older badass who loves hurting or killing zombies almost as much as eating the now-scarce Twinkies. Then they meet "Wichita" (Emma Stone) and her kid sister, "Little Rock" (Abigail Breslin). Columbus soon crushes on Wichita, but she's neither trusting nor trustworthy. Perhaps a shared crisis will change that....

World War Z (2013)

I chose this partly for being relatively popular and partly because Netflix will drop it at the end of the month. Aside from that, all I knew going in was what the Z stood for. The first question in my mind was how the story would differ from that of the quintessential Dawn of the Dead.

Well, for starters, there is an unambiguous protagonist, Gerry (Brad Pitt), whose background as a UN investigator makes him especially important to combatting the viral zombie outbreak. Only about half an hour in, he gets his wife (Mireille Enos) and daughters (Sterling Jerins and Abigail Hargrove) from overrun Philly to a reasonably safe outpost. But even favor from the UN deputy secretary-general (Fana Mokoena) won't let them all live there indefinitely; Gerry has to pull his weight by going back into danger for clues on how to vaccinate against zombification. And yes, the characters do say "zombie" eventually.

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Boy, six years already? Well, as Deadpool himself points out, delays can happen when IP changes hands. A friend and I had tentatively planned to see this together when we heard the news, but he saw it ahead of me; now I got the initiative to catch up.

Wade "Deadpool" Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), divorced and unable to join an esteemed team of heroes, retires from merc work. He actually seems to be in a tolerable situation, until the secret yet powerful bureaucracy/cult called the Time Variance Authority captures him -- not for his past forbidden uses of time travel, oddly enough. TVA Agent Paradox (Matthew Macfayden) offers him an important role in "the Sacred Timeline," which sounds good to DP until he understands that he'd have to leave all his friends behind in a timeline doomed by the loss of its "anchor being," Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). Indeed, Paradox, without his superiors' knowledge or consent, plans to euthanize that timeline with a special bomb instead of letting it dwindle for millennia. DP would rather save it. He travels to multiple timelines before he finds a version of Wolverine he can strong-arm into coming with him. Paradox deems him the worst of all Wolverines, a drunk who failed everyone he cared about, and says that even a good replacement wouldn't suffice. But DP's not giving up, even when the TVA sends both antiheroes to the Void, a Mad Max-type realm of rejects from various timelines.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

I had found Rise of the Planet of the Apes "very Hollywood," by which I mean entertaining but geared toward the lowest common denominator. Of course, you have to expect a lot of simplicity in a story about apes with slightly enhanced brains who want to escape captivity. The sequel promised a rather different plot but had the same IMDb rating, so I decided to give it a try.

A detail I had missed at the end of Rise was the start of "simian flu." The opening herein might remind you uncomfortably of the COVID-19 pandemic, but this one is much worse, reducing the world's human population to the 0.2% who can resist it. The maybe hundreds of survivors in the San Francisco area hope to reach and restore a hydroelectric dam, which requires a handful of them to pass through the uplifted apes' claimed forest. Head chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) is pretty patient, having been raised by kind humans and sensing a similar type in Malcolm (Jason Clarke), but paranoid tensions mount on both sides....

The Adam Project (2022)

Having nothing to do with Adam, this brand-new release didn't tempt me until a friend and I were perusing our Netflix options. He's big on time travel stories (so I've recommended Time Bandits to him), and I hadn't seen one in more than a year. Plus, this one has several Marvel movie alumni.

Adam Reed (Ryan Reynolds), son of accidental time travel inventor Louis (Mark Ruffalo), attempts to fly a time jet from 2050 to 2018, the last known time point for his wife, Laura (Zoe Saldana). The tyrannical Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) forbids him, and a gunshot from her right-hand man (Alex Mallari, Jr.) forces Adam to stop in 2022, too injured to fly unassisted for a while. There he meets his 12-year-old self (Walker Scobell), whom he reluctantly needs to reactivate his jet. Their mission becomes bigger than rescuing one woman: As the trailer reveals, they may see fit to use time travel to prevent its own invention.

The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021)

For some reason, on my return flight, I felt like watching only animated features. Eh, different airline, different options. This animation hadn't especially tempted me before the Academy Award nomination announcement, tho I did have it tentatively on my Netflix list. Regardless, it was the first one I found available that I hadn't seen or rejected.

The Mitchells are all a little quirky, but that doesn't mean they get along swimmingly like the Addams Family. In particular, narrator Katie (Abbi Jacobson), who's about to start film school, has trouble finding common ground with her Luddite dad, Rick (Danny McBride). He decides to take the family on a long road trip to the school for bonding's sake. It's during this ride that an AI called PAL (Olivia Colman), shown as a crude face on a smartphone, goes Skynet and everything with an intact related chip -- which is nearly omnipresent, especially in the latest robots -- does her bidding. Thanks to sheer luck and an old car, the Mitchells are soon the last known uncaptured humans. Will they have the teamwork and other skills to save everyone else?

1984 (1984)

In these polarized days especially, I've heard many references to the George Orwell book. I came to realize that I shouldn't just rely on what people say about its content. At the same time, I doubted that I would enjoy reading the whole thing. After all, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World succeeded at shocking me, but I gave up when it took too long to show any signs of plot progression. So I chose what appears to be the most popular screen adaptation. Subsequent perusal confirms that it does not deviate far from the source material; there are just a few shifts in Newspeak labels for some reason.

In what had been the future at the time of writing, there are three world superpowers, and the one awkwardly called Oceania extends as far as England. Winston Smith (John Hurt) serves in London's Ministry of Truth but seems less satisfied than the average totalitarian party member. He meets Julia (Suzanna Hamilton), who outwardly presents as an ardent member of the Junior Anti-Sex League but swiftly seduces him into a forbidden relationship. Of course, it's no secret that "Big Brother" (Bob Flag) has eyes everywhere, and Winston is not prepared to pay the price....

Warm Bodies (2013)

See the pattern in my reviews of late? I've gone from a straightforward zombie movie to a semi-comedic one to an even less serious, if not more comedic, one. I'd been putting this off not simply because of the subgenre and some, eheh, lukewarm reviews but because the trailer seemed to give away everything. But maybe seven years after watching that trailer once, I could find it fresh enough.

The premises herein deviate from the norm to the point that "zombie" is almost misleading. Well into an outbreak, the protagonist (Nicholas Hoult) is a young adult shambler who can remember no more about his past life than his first initial, R, but still retains some semblance of personality for the nonce, as by collecting and playing vinyl records in a plane he inhabits alone. He feels bad about eating people, tho not so bad that he'd rather starve to a more complete death, and he dreads the day he'll embrace this identity in full. Also, eating brains both prevents the rise of a new zombie and allows him access to the memories contained therein. But apparently even before doing that to a certain Perry (Dave Franco), he takes a special interest in Perry's girlfriend, Julie (Teresa Palmer), and impulsively decides to help her survive. By and by, Julie can't help, y'know, warming up to him too.

Alita: Battle Angel (2019)

My plane headset had a bad case of feedback, so I missed at least a third of the dialog herein. I almost opted on that basis not to review the movie. But I had chosen it partly because I suspected that it was the kind of spectacle that didn't count on viewers paying close attention to dialog. Besides, for anything important I missed, I could (and did) check a synopsis later. Which confirmed my suspicions.

By the mid-26th century, technology has greatly advanced, not least for cyborgs, but if you're living in Iron City rather than the floating metropolis of Zalem, things look rather gritty. It is in the former location that a nearly dead cyborg who doesn't remember her name (Rosa Salazar) finds her human brain in a mostly new body thanks to scrap-hunting engineer Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz), who calls her Alita in honor of his departed daughter. As Alita seeks an identity—not necessarily her old one—she discovers her knack for fighting as well as a few good contexts for her to do so, from joining the aggressive motorball races to hunting criminal cyborgs. But she still has some key things to learn, including what her incipient boyfriend, Hugo (Keean Johnson), has gotten himself mixed up in....

A Quiet Place (2018)

This was one of those times that I felt like I knew enough just from the trailer, with a couple extra details from a review or two. It's certainly simple in concept. I also postponed my viewing in the off chance that I found it too scary for comfort. But one of the few genuinely promising horrors on my queue could not be ignored all month.

The cast is quite small, because few people or animals are left alive by late 2020. For months, a blind but excellently hearing species has been annihilating and, I assume, devouring them. Our focus is on a single family living in a rural area, making trips to an abandoned town as needed. So great is their dread of attracting monsters that they rarely even whisper, opting for sign language and going barefoot everywhere. And lest you think that the plot amounts to a now-typical couple of days in their lives, the mother (Emily Blunt, actual wife of costar and director John Krasinski) is heavily pregnant....

Logan (2017)

In honor of the late Stan Lee, I decided to watch the most popular Marvel movie I hadn't yet. Unfortunately, it's probably the bleakest, which makes it less than ideal for the occasion, not least because Lee doesn't get a cameo. Still, it's important to recognize multiple sides to his legacy.

In not-so-distant 2029, most people think superpowered mutants extinct, presumably thanks to a government effort. James "Logan" Howlett, a.k.a. Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, finally looking his real age again), has been laying low as a limo driver, his rapid healing in decline thanks to adamantium poisoning. The only other mutants he knows to be alive aren't faring much better: Professor X (Patrick Stewart), in his 90s, is prone to telepathic seizures; and Caliban (Stephen Merchant), who has even sharper senses than Wolverine, needs to cover his skin completely before entering sunlight. Then comes Laura (Dafne Keen), the first preteen mutant they've met in a long time. The Professor insists that they help her reach a safe haven before the Reavers under Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) get her.

April and the Extraordinary World (2015)

You might call me a casual fan of steampunk, in that I tend to like what I see of it but don't know a whole lot of works within it. Seems to me they're usually set in an alternate 19th century. This movie starts then to establish where the timeline diverges from reality, but then it skips ahead to 1931 and, for the bulk of the story, 1941, with an epilogue chronicling up to 2000. The important premises are that the line of Napoleon Bonaparte has continued and prevented many scientific advances by pressing gifted scientists into service in other areas. Among other things, this means a budding war with North America for its supply of wood and coal for steam power.

The science-minded Franklin family has no intention of slaving away on weapons. Their rebellion leads to young April (voiced in English by Angela Galuppo) being left to fend for herself as a street thief, refusing to go to a state-run orphanage. Disgraced former inspector Pizoni (Paul Giamatti) thinks she's the key to finding her missing, talented grandfather, "Pops" (Tony Robinow). By her teen years, Pizoni has sent a young thief, Julius (Tod Fennell), to spy on her. It becomes apparent that there is yet another party interested in April and the rest of the Franklins, particularly for their progress on a serum for Deadpool-level rapid healing.