Blade Runner 2049

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Robin Wright, Ana de Armas, and Jared Leto 

Director: Denis Villeneuve

163 minutes (15) 2017

Widescreen ratio 2.40:1

Sony 4K Ultra HD 

Rating: 9/10

Review by Steven Hampton  

How does a critic begin to review this movie, which is perhaps the most long awaited and eagerly anticipated sequel of all time? The Blade Runner prologues, three short films that bridge a narrative gap of 30 years between the original masterpiece Blade Runner (1982) and Blade Runner 2049, is probably the best place to start.

Animated short, 2022: Black Out (15 minutes), reveals an info-dump about intermediate Nexus 8 versions of replicants versus human supremacists, until terrorism by EMP wrecks the Tyrell corporation’s future prospects. This includes Edward James Olmos as the voice of Gaff. The next short of a pair directed by Ridley Scott’s son Luke is 2036: Nexus Dawn (six minutes) offering an introduction for the main event’s visionary villain Wallace (Jared Leto), while 2048: Nowhere To Run (six minutes) most accurately mimics the vivid visual styling of Blade Runner, and delivers a telling prelude for runaway rogue replicant Sapper (Dave Bautista, Guardians Of The Galaxy, Spectre, Bushwick).

As expected, in designs and tones, the ghosts of early 1980s SF, and the original movie’s 2019 setting, haunt this conspiracy crime drama with synth zings in echoes of sound, wet reflections in patterns of light on interior walls mirroring persistent rainfall, origami sheep - courtesy of symbolism wrangler Gaff, and the miracle of birth from “cells interlinked”. A new blade runner KD6-3.7 (Ryan Gosling) frees his digital girlfriend Joi from the shackles of a domestic overhead projector to appear on an urban roof-top, thanks to an emanator gadget. This new viewpoint about ‘being’ and seeing makes fuzzy reference to a romantic scene in Daredevil (2003), where the blind hero first precisely ‘visualises’ his girlfriend as a perceptual image in the rain. The invisibility of a media broadcast’s turned upside-down via holographic tech. It’s also a wry commentary on the motto that “information wants to be free”.

This re-branding of 21st century futurism emerges from systems overdrawn at the official PKD memory-bank. The sequel movie’s genre riffs of sci-fi novelty in this extreme case of  ecological dystopia extrapolate more from Blade Runner’s alternative Los Angeles of 2019 than from Californian social or political concerns or the actual environmental conditions in today’s reality. And so, this parallel world’s post-cyberpunk milieu permits indulgences as striking in their own imaginary cultural ways, as the neo-noir borrowings of Ridley Scott’s masterpiece.   

Clearly a Pinocchio cypher, K’s dreams of a relationship are just as hollow as his favourite hologram, but his fantasy eventually becomes an electric ghost far beyond the machinery of Joi. “Mere data makes a man. A and C and T and G. The alphabet of you. All from four symbols. I am only two: 1 and 0.” The Wallace corporation took over replicant production after Tyrell’s business model collapsed and company enforcer Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) pursues K into conquering his fears of death and humanity. Tech noir intrigue unfolds at a stately pace, wrapped around memory implants with authentic episodes of childhood, from bullying to birthday cake. At the orphanage, where kids labour for commercial gain, K finds evidence that his faked  boyhood might be real, shattering his baseline knowledge of a soul-free selfdom. “What’s it like to hold the hand of someone you love?” 

French-Canadian director Denis Villeneuve’s return to SF, after Arrival (2016), delivers its urban scenes of violence with some very loud music to crank up the tensions and chills of psychological disturbance. Often lost in the darkness, this picture’s most vividly colourful sequences are simulations - virtual or augmented realties. Actuality is dreadfully decayed like morality in dystopia, or physically dead, and L.A. pleasure model Mariette (Mackenzie Davis, looking like a sister of Daryl Hannah’s Pris) admits that she has “never seen a tree before.”      

The biggest problem with this sequel is that its SF elements are largely beholden to many of the late-1980s and 1990s movies that were, blatantly, or covertly, influenced by Blade Runner. In addition, a surrogate romance in a qualifying ‘threesome’ is copied from Spike Jonze’s oddly tragicomic Her (2013). The faster pace of Rupert Sanders’ live-action Ghost In The Shell (2017) almost stands still in marked contrast to the leisurely style chosen by Villeneuve for Blade Runner 2049. However, genre product satisfaction is almost guaranteed!

The bonus disc has four featurettes: To Be Human, on casting the BR sequel, provides “a special opportunity” for Ryan Gosling, a charismatic Robin Wright, the hulking but aged-by-make-up Dave Bautista, Jared Leto’s blind genius hipster villainy, Cuban actress Ana de Armas, “the best angel” Sylvia Hoeks, Swiss starlet Carla Juri, and others concerned. Fights Of The Future looks at this movie’s premier action sequences. Two Become One focuses upon the love scene. Dressing The Skin reveals the fashion and costume designs. The total running-time for all these extras is 34 minutes.

Wolf Warrior II

Cast: Jing Wu, Frank Grillo, Celina Jade

Director: Jing Wu

123 minutes (15) 2017

Widescreen ratio 2.35:1

Cine Asia Blu-ray region B

Rating: 6/10

Review by Ian Shutter  

Made in 2015, the first Wolf Warrior movie introduced a commando marksman, Leng Feng (Jing Wu, directing himself). Its story concerned various mercenaries, working for a drug baron, hired to kill the isolated hero, and a subplot involves the hero falling in love with a Chinese army leader Long (Nan Yu, The Expendables 2). In sequel Wolf Warrior II, a prologue establishes Long’s capture and disappearance, presumed killed by foreigners.

Meanwhile, piracy in the Indian Ocean kicks off when a trawler’s fishing nets are used to stop a cargo ship that’s under Chinese protection. There’s an underwater fight sequence that’s made to look like a single-take with kung fu choreography, and it outdoes many of the frogmen scenes in some of the James Bond movies. 

Three years after his ‘dishonourable’ discharge from the Chinese military, Leng (director and star Jing Wu), interrupts a raid on African civilians by mercenaries employed by rebel forces. He then volunteers for a rescue mission to save hostages from brutal Big Daddy (Frank Grillo, Captain America sequels, Beyond Skyline). With the key hostage turning out to be Dr Rachel Smith (Celina Jade, Legendary Assassin), this movie’s basic plotline owes much to Tears Of The Sun (2004). Made on locations in South Africa, this Chinese picture offers a hectic catalogue of breathlessly choreographed stunt work, martial arts mayhem, and a great batch of amusingly devised shoot ‘em ups.

With his stuntman’s daring, and directorial prowess, fast-rising star Jing Wu seems to be positioning himself as a natural 21st century successor to the aged Jackie Chan. Since his screen debut in Yuen Woo-ping’s Tai Chi Boxer (aka: Tai Chi 2, 1996), where his credit is Jacky Wu, he’s appeared alongside Donnie Yen, Sammo Hung, and Simon Yam, in Wilson Yip’s police thriller SPL: Kill Zone (2005), and then starred in Dennis Law’s Fatal Contact (2006), about underground boxing. Only about 20 years time, and a ton more new Asian action movies, will finally decide whether Jing Wu really is a suitable replacement for the near-legendary Jackie Chan, but his star qualities and his movie work so far, following or cutting across genre lines, is exemplary.

Although its broad strokes are weakened by some typically mushy Asian sentimentalism, there’s a dramatic UN helicopter crash, plenty of explosions and, perhaps, almost enough stunts with army-sized firepower displays to impress even Michael Bay. Inevitably, a final punch-up ensues between Leng and the mercenary villain. Before that, look out for Heidi Moneymaker (Scarlett Johansson’s stunt-double as the Black Widow) in a fine supporting role. A twist-ending reveals that Leng’s lost-love Long might still be alive and sets up the likely plot for another sequel. Let’s hope this is produced, as it would certainly boost Wu’s career prospects to add a proper trilogy to his CV. 

Batman: Gotham By Gaslight

Voice cast: Bruce Greenwood, Jennifer Carpenter, Grey DeLisle, Scott Paterson, and Anthony Head

Director: Sam Liu

75 minutes (15) 2018

Widescreen ratio 1.78:1

DC / Warner DVD Region 2

Rating: 7/10

Review by J.C. Hartley  

DC or Marvel? Back in the Silver Age, which was when this particular old-timer was introduced to the world of superheroes, there was no contest. Marvel just seemed more grown-up. Spider-Man challenged the comics code by considering drug abuse, correspondents to the various letters pages argued about Nixon, and Iron Man had an unfortunate tendency to beat up the Vietcong on his way back from tussling with the Mandarin, but you can’t have everything. Meanwhile, over at DC, Superman and The Flash were having a race to see who was the fastest man alive, ho hum. 

With the elevation to the screen, big and small, things seemed a little bit more evenly placed, and if anything, DC started with an advantage. To the public at large Superman and Batman were probably more familiar than any characters from the Marvel stable of heroes, although both Spider-Man and The Hulk had TV shows in the 1970s, and with Superman: The Movie (1978) DC got its universe up there where it counted. DC had another advantage, in its association with Warner Bros, who owned the rights to all the characters, there was an opportunity to present a consistent vision, a coherent DC universe across all media. However, DC seem to have been outpaced and outflanked.  While Marvel continues to negotiate to bring errant characters and teams back into the fold from Fox and Sony, the MCU has released a veritable blitzkrieg of movies, weaving a web of intertextuality between single-character films and team-ups, culminating in this year’s blockbuster Avengers: Infinity War and its inevitable aftermaths.

Despite the critical and commercial success of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, DC has released a sequence of frankly patchy versions of Superman, a Justice League film which disappointed the critics, a Suicide Squad movie which seems to have suffered in production, and Wonder Woman, which contained many good things promptly squandered by the aforesaid Justice League which followed it.

My teenage nephew feels that critics are biased against DC. Goaded by my brother-in-law, he even suggested as much in an email to the venerable team of Kermode and Mayo, the latter casually, and rather patronisingly, dismissing the accusation as a ‘conspiracy theory’. Despite my obvious affection for my nephew, and my own reservations about some of their output, I have to say that overall Marvel seem to be winning on the big screen. However, what about elsewhere? On TV, things seem more evenly balanced. Smallville, Arrow, The Flash, Constantine, Supergirl, and Legends Of Tomorrow, are or were successful shows for DC, while for their rivals Marvel, Agents Of SHIELD was patchy but watchable, Jessica Jones and Daredevil were outright hits, and with Luke Cage and Iron Fist went on to become The Defenders. Reaction to The Inhumans seems to have been predominantly negative. TV honours probably even then between the two franchises. If there is a medium in which DC seems to have overcome its rival it is in animated features.

I have to admit that prior to Batman: Gotham By Gaslight my only experience of superhero animation was Batman: The Animated Series, back in the 1990s when my kids were little. Consequently, I had no idea what to expect from this film. I have to say that MPAA ‘R’ rated (‘15’ in UK) bloody violence, and adult themes, in a cartoon feature rather wrong-footed me, as I found myself wondering who the film was aimed at. My daughter suggested it was aimed at people who buy the comics, that seems obvious but clearly there is a disconnect between the various audiences for all things super. There are people like me who read comics and know the characters and follow the films for that reason, and there are people who follow the films or TV shows who would never pick up a comic-book in their lives. I suspect that the animated features are unlikely to appeal to the same mass audience that the latest Avengers or Superman film would attract.

Based on a comic by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola, Gotham By Gaslight is set in a Victorian-era Gotham, and re-imagines many of the staple characters associated with the modern-day Batman. Given the Gothic ambience of much of the Batman mythos, transplanting a story to the age of sensation fiction isn’t such a wrench, and after all Spring-Heeled Jack, be he superhero or super-villain, made his first appearance in 1837.  This particular comic was a one-shot publication in 1989, retrospectively declared to be the first in DC’s Elseworlds imprint. Elseworlds uses the adverb to indicate stories outside of the official DC canon, although given the wibbly wobbly timey wimey nature of the comic-book multiverse who can honestly say what is canon and what isn’t. 

Millionaire Bruce Wayne has used his money to construct an ‘ideal city’ to host Gotham’s World’s Fair. At a preview of the site, Sister Leslie, who runs an orphanage and centre for the homeless, and Selina Kyle, a music-hall singer and self-proclaimed protector of the innocent and oppressed, clash with Mayor Tolliver, Inspector Gordon, Chief Bullock and public prosecutor Harvey Dent, over the Fair’s projection of Gotham’s image, while Jack the Ripper is stalking and killing women in the city. Later, Wayne as Batman rescues Kyle from the Ripper when she uses herself as bait in an attempt to trap him. Batman realises that the Ripper, whoever he is, is a trained fighter and easily a match for him. Visiting Gordon under the cover of darkness, Batman persuades him to share evidence relating to the case, and thus gets to read a letter from the Ripper pledging to clean up the city by his campaign of violence against women. Wayne goes out on the town with his friend Harvey Dent, and Kyle, with whom Dent is enamoured despite being married. When Dent drinks himself into oblivion, Wayne and Selina bond over their discovery that they were both orphans helped by Sister Leslie. Wayne realises that, as a protector of ‘fallen’ women Sister Leslie is a potential victim of the Ripper’s atrocities, he races to her but is too late to prevent her from becoming another casualty. 

At Sister Leslie’s funeral Wayne is approached by Dr Hugo Strange who is acting as the police department’s alienist in an attempt to profile the killer. Strange also seems to have worked out that Wayne is Batman as he asks to arrange a meeting at Arkham Asylum.  Wayne is also approached by Marlene, an homeless alcoholic, who saw him the night of Sister Leslie’s murder, and attempts to blackmail him for what she assumes was his involvement. Those attending the funeral overhear her accusations when Wayne rebuffs her demands. Batman keeps his appointment at Arkham but is too late to stop the Ripper silencing Strange. When Marlene is found murdered as well, Wayne is arrested as the Ripper. Selina visits Wayne in prison and urges him to reveal his secret identity to Gordon as it will provide him with an alibi, when he refuses Selina says she will go to Gordon and do it herself. Wayne then escapes from prison and assumes Batman’s cowl to try and solve the case first.

This Gotham By Gaslight is significantly different from the comic-book source, particularly in the revelation of the Ripper’s identity. If Elseworlds plots are non-canon, in order to tell stories which would be impossible in the authentic DC universe timeline, this feature goes all out to push that particular envelope till it splits. I genuinely didn’t see the denouement coming until just before it did. Familiar characters are used in ways which may amuse or intrigue fans familiar with the comics, and even those of us with only a tangential acquaintance to the world of Batman can pick up enough references to realise what is going on. I’m not entirely sure that the story of Jack the Ripper is a good choice for an animated superhero feature, but perhaps I’m just getting old.

There are three substantial featurettes on the DVD trailing future animated titles, and comprising footage and cast and crew interviews. These other films are Suicide Squad: Hell To Pay, done in the style of 1970s’ grindhouse, and promising all the gory violence we apparently expect from a Suicide Squad title, Justice League Dark featuring a team assembled to fight supernatural threats, and Batman: Bad Blood in which Batman goes missing and Batwoman, Dick Grayson, Luke Fox, and Batman’s biological son Damian have to fill-in fighting crime.

Mother!

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, Ed Harris, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Brian Gleeson

Writer & director: Darren Aronofsky

121 minutes (18) 2017

Widescreen ratio 2.35:1

Paramount 4K Ultra HD

Rating: 9/10

Review by Steven Hampton

A seemingly reclusive but not forgotten poet (Javier Bardem) lives in rural isolation with his devoted wife in a quiet house that’s inexplicably besieged when outsiders arrive. The old man (Ed Harris) is an unexpected guest, and head of a dysfunctional family who are socially intrusive and increasingly impolite visitors, seeing how far they can go and what they can get away with. 

Their disruptive actions now prompt the gifted but dormant poet to rediscover his muse, but nothing occurring here is only what it appears to be, and the broken, episodic story-line illustrates what happens when obvious bad omens are ignored. Intentionally transcending its home invasion themes of domestic terrorism, this bizarrely concocted mystery movie eventually becomes a shocker of sacrificial rituals.

No matter what they say, hell is other people. Especially when they break things of value.

Far more than simply a daring auteur’s psychological thriller, Darren Aronofsky’s picture is a sustained allegory of biblical fables, ranging from Edenic idyll to violent Apocalypse, stopping at all of the mid-stations of bleak comedy that undermine its so studied artistic pretensions. Both willfully savage, yet ultimately wise, Mother! (aka: mother!) delivers a broadside of surrealist horror about a full-blown cult of personality, the politics of sharing and the burden of social engagement and, arguably, the multiple meanings of human life and gross death, and true creativity.

Clearly inspired by the European surrealism of Fellini, Bunuel, and Godard, re-mixed with the impact of David Lynch, and hints of Jodorowsky, this movie examines the boundaries of acceptable artistry in a climactic narrative to such an extent it becomes an effortlessly astonishing, cumulatively outrageous, sometimes repulsive, and often baffling nightmare. However, Mother! is an undeniably fascinating opus, whether its jumbled up or frequently nonsensical metaphors always work as well for every individual viewer, or even for every re-viewing, or not.

An excellent 4K ultra HD transfer here reproduces vividly life-like colours via HDR video, to ensure a far more than satisfactory image quality throughout, and Mother! is a quite stunning triumph of archly theatrical acting and stupendously cinematic imagery. 

Starship Troopers: Traitor Of Mars

Voice cast: Casper Van Dien, Dina Meyer, DeRay Davis, Justin Doran, and Luci Christian

Director: Shinji Aramaki  

88 minutes (15) 2017

Widescreen ratio 1.78:1

Sony blu-ray region B

Rating: 7/10

Review by Ian Shutter

While independent Mars celebrates its 25th anniversary of the red planet’s terraforming, alien bugs invade and prompt corrupt Earth authority Amy Snapp to destroy the former colony to save humanity’s home world. With psychic Carl and captain Carmen sidelined for the duration, this franchise of interplanetary missions, here confined mostly to a saga of the inner Solar system, finds colonel Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien) demoted to lead a ‘lost patrol’ of Martian trainees in VR combat sims, but he learns they are, at first, unprepared for actual fighting on the Martian surface.

Starship Troopers: Traitor Of Mars offers military sci-fi horror (sci-fight?) where “the future is everyone’s duty” according to Sky Marshal and scheming despot Amy, who plots against space marines and mobile infantry alike. The arachnids are legion, just as before, and although the space hardware and technologies remains fairly standard for Star Trek/ Star Wars type scenarios, there are some distinctive designs that distinguish this generic factory of war machinery from entirely run-of-the-mill space opera. Traditional SF, in the form of planetary romance, makes a strong counterpoint against sundry conventions of modern-SF space wars.

When Rico is stranded on the bug-infested Martian surface, his memory conjures a spirit, in the form of Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer), who was a casualty in the original live-action movie, Starship Troopers (1997). She becomes a ghostly goad for him to continue, and a familiar but inconstant presence that leavens the lone hero’s isolation after tactical abandonment. The movie plays with military stereotypes and cross-genre iconography, fielding comedy-of-errors pratfalls alongside stirring quips and imagery borrowed or perhaps curated from Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, Aliens, and Halo.

It soon becomes a repackaging of clichés that eventually transcends the usually fatal flaw of any simplistic repetition of pithy one-liners and boots-on-the-ground machismo. There is courage and camaraderie that elevates the frequently grisly material (this movie earns its 15 certificate) from the schlock and terrorism routine of most animated sci-fi, and the style that leans towards photo-realism for the hardware and environments, but draws its artistic lines at defining the major characters without many obvious attempts to cross the uncanny valley. The players are rendered just realistically enough for a willing suspension of disbelief but lack sufficient veracity to blur the differences between artwork and photo. This approach to the animation effects is wise and, no doubt, saved the movie-makers a lot of money so this production could be easily affordable.     

In terms of sci-fi action or monster movie horrors, there are tons of gory fighting scenes, while the armoured soldiers make good use of their powered-suits, and jet-pack jumps to safety or into battle. Although it’s a foregone conclusion that downed Rico will be rescued from the red planet’s hell of bug swarms charging over the dusty horizon, and the human  villain’s plan to sacrifice a colony for its rebellion against Earth-based control is obviously going to be thwarted, the tensions and suspense are palpable throughout and the weirdly composed sense of vaguely Lovecraftian mystery that supports the movie’s story is worth a couple of extra points.  

  

“Would you like to know more?”

American Assassin

Cast: Dylan O’Brien, Michael Keaton, Sanaa Lathan, Taylor Kitsch, and David Suchet

Director: Michael Cuesta

111 minutes (18) 2017

Widescreen ratio 2.35:1

Lions Gate 4K Ultra HD  

[Released 15th January]

Rating: 7/10

Review by Steven Hampton  

Based upon a novel by Vince Flynn, this CBS production starts with a terrorist attack on a Spanish beach where civilians are slaughtered, including the hero’s girlfriend. A wounded survivor, Mitch Rapp (Dylan O’Brien, Maze Runner movies, Teen Wolf TV show), becomes obsessed with revenge and transforms himself into a vigilante against Muslim extremists. Going beardy in Libya, almost suicidal Rapp infiltrates a terrorist’s secret base but, in the movie’s first plot twist, he is rescued and recruited by CIA deputy director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan, Alien vs. Predator).

She introduces novice Rapp to military mentor Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Birdman, RoboCop remake), a former US navy SEAL who trains Rapp along with other agents for an elite ‘Orion’ team. This training sequence includes an augmented reality scenario with VR head-gear. Hurley leads a mission in Turkey to catch a nuke deal in progress, and Rapp is teamed up with local spy Annika (Shiva Negar), going off-script, and into rogue action, but still managing to uncover evidence of the bomb-maker’s plans. When the heroes track down a mercenary physicist in Rome, interrogations mean torture on both sides of the spy wars, where betrayals, and violent confrontations with a profiled target, known only as ‘Ghost’ (Taylor Kitsch), eventually result in an epic, disaster-movie styled, climax.  

A gritty and graphic exploration of espionage schemes, American Assassin delivers its downbeat, genre-wise adventures with plenty of sharply choreographed stunts in tightly edited action scenes. Rapp seems a very unlikely hero at first, and O’Brien’s portrayal of him as an embittered everyman, who’s turned just as fanatical as the enemy forces that he opposes, is only sketched into place at the centre of a murky international conspiracy which proves to be a marked contrast to James Bond’s glamorous heroics. The character of Hurley is actually more compelling than the younger Rapp, and Keaton brings a much needed gravitas to an otherwise clichéd role. The set-up for a possible sequel is intriguing enough that a follow-up would be a welcome addition to the 21st century’s spy actioners.    

The 4K Ultra HD edition has superb image quality, and this movie really benefits from the HDR format where no picture detail is lost, even in the various low-light scenes.

Beyond Skyline

Cast: Frank Grillo, Bojana Novakovic, Iko Uwais, Callan Mulvey, and Valentine Payen

Writer & director: Liam O’Donnell

105 minutes (15) 2017

Widescreen ratio 2.35:1

Signature Blu-ray region B

[Released 8th January]

Rating: 8/10

Review by Christopher Geary    

Aerial assault of a grandly gothic variety was the spectacular highlight of indie production Skyline (2010). Directed by brothers Colin and Greg Strause, it began like Cloverfield meets Independence Day, concentrating on the fates of citizens, and their reactions to alien conquest, so there was plenty of widescreen spectacle in disaster movie mode. The lack of Hollywood resources meant the movie ignored typical blockbuster upscale framing for a ‘big picture’ of global events, until a closing montage, but Skyline was exemplary as a modern weird sci-fi B-movie template, ejecting the warp core of SF epic structure, and sidestepping any bother with generic portrayals of political responses to a menace from outer space, or international defensive efforts to counter the invaders’ strategy.

Putting cult comic-book styled horrors back into a subgenre culture, Skyline offered city-stomping monsters hunting humans, while airborne mecha-squid scouts are launched from hovering alien base-ships, to roam around and probe inside buildings. Even when military help appears in the form of marine snipers and USAF drone bombers, the nuked mother-ship survives to rebuild itself, and its entourage of squid-bots salvage their own, with a leave-no-tentacle-behind policy.

Skyline delivered tremendous fun as briskly impressive sci-fi terror. It’s not a great movie like Starship Troopers (1997) that provided so many gruesome shocks, but it does match the savagely downbeat effectiveness of District 9 (2009) for imaginatively satirical verve, with an edgy protagonist and compelling exhilaration. Skyline fulfils the promise of its arresting poster artwork, offering far better pulp SF entertainment than Spielberg’s woefully inadequate War Of The Worlds (2005) remake, especially when the direction quite daringly refuses to permit mankind a knowingly easy salvation, with an engagingly witty genre-twist conclusion that cribs a switcheroo surprise from Scanners (1981). 

Although it’s a belated sequel, sci-fi action horror movie Beyond Skyline is also a terrific adventure that beguiles its victims into enslavement by strange lights. As before, this is not a Rapture event, it’s an apocalypse from above. Underground train passengers, stranded between stations, are prompted to escape but not to safety, led by L.A. cop Mark (Frank Grillo, Captain America sequels) and his wayward son Trent. 

The survivors move through the subway until dark tunnels are caved-in by a nuke blast. The weirdly squid-like aliens exert a nightmarish influence before again practising their head-ripping mayhem. Mass abductions by the body and brain snatchers result in plug ‘n’ play-along drone troopers. The grungy bio-tech of the mother-ship’s interior brings hell to Earth.

Like hitchhikers or stowaways aboard the alien ship, Mark’s group find themselves in the Golden Triangle of the Mekong delta. There’s plenty of gore fu and, when jungle fighter Kanya (Pamelyn Chee) finds an alien egg in the crashed ship, she seems like a contender for this movie’s heroine, but it’s actually the train-driver Audrey (Bojana Novakovic) who eventually takes on the role with admirable gusto.

In this entertaining sci-fi horror scenario, mere survival is not enough and Mark realises it’s necessary to fight back, and fight to the death. Thankfully, there are alien cyber-drones with human brains that retain some basic humanity, and the Lovecraftian punch-up finale results in a twist ending with a sudden escalation of hostilities into the realms of space opera. 

Building upon the Strauses’ successful reworking of classic sci-fi movies War Of The Worlds and Invaders From Mars, this welcome sequel boasts an undeniable strangeness, and its SF plot twists apparently intend to support an upscale mythology that promises further sequels, extending the franchise into at least a genre trilogy.