Sci-Fi Saturday 9/12/26

The last edition of Sci-Fi Saturday reported on the science fiction books I’ve read recently (for a rather generous definition of “recently”). This edition reports on the recent science fiction movies (and some TV shows, mostly animated).

Early warning: among the ones new to me, there is only one I’ll particularly recommend. Most were “just okay” (though one is worth a small rant). Others were re-watches, and those generally have higher scores — of course they do; I re-watched them because I liked them.

By the way, the definition of science fiction is also a little generous here.

An aside to start off: I posted about Project Hail Mary, the 2021 book by Andy Weir back in February [see this post; synopsis: loved it]. In March I mentioned having seen and loved the movie [see this post]. In April, I wrote a post with a bunch of links to videos exploring the movie and its production.

After seeing it at my local theater in March, I went back and saw it again in April when I got my new hearing aids [see New and Old Stuff]. I saw it in the theater again a month or so later when I took my buddy and his wife to see it.

And then I watched it a fourth time when it became free to Prime subscribers.

Thoroughly enjoyed each viewing and wouldn’t mind reading the book again. I think it’s the best of Weir’s three novels so far.

I haven’t liked both the book and its adaptation so much in a long time. Usually, when I really like the text, the adaptation disappoints. (It makes sense to me that the more one likes a text, the more one demands of its adaptation.)

At least one exception springs to mind: I really like the 1987 Watchmen graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and I also really like the 2009 same-named adaptation by Zack Snyder. In fact, while I’m often askance at changes, I like his ending better. At the time, I ranked it as one of the best adaptations I’d seen.

Another exception might be the 1980 novel The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco, and its 1986 same-named adaptation with Sean Connery and a very young Christian Slater. I really enjoyed the book — it was one of my dad’s favorite murder mysteries; I understood why after finally reading it — and I found the movie an excellent adaptation.

[That said, back then movie adaptations were, if nothing else, typically faithful to the book, a genuine attempt to adapt the original to film. The extreme revisionism common today wasn’t common then.]

I meant this to be just a paragraph or two mentioning Project Hail Mary, but the text got away from me and ran around. You’d think after so many years it would learn to heel.

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Besides PHM, the other movie I liked and recommend is Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die (2025), starring Sam Rockwell and directed by Gore Verbinski.

I’ve liked (to one degree or another) all of the Verbinski films I’ve seen. That’s saying something because I’ve seen ten of the eleven feature films he’s done (I never saw the 2016 A Cure for Wellness).

Verbinski is perhaps most well-known for directing the first three of the Pirates of the Caribbean films. He also directed (and produced and wrote the story for) the animated feature Rango (2011), voiced by Johnny Depp, which I liked enough to buy and have seen several times. I even enjoyed his 2013 implementation of The Lone Ranger, though the casting of Depp as Tonto was problematic.

For that matter, his The Ring (2002), a remake of the Japanese horror film, is one of the few horror movies on my recommended (if you like that sort of thing) films list. I’m not typically a fan of horror, most of it comes off as silly to me, but there are a few that manage to get under my skin (Ju-On top among them). It’s generally ghost stories because I find them at least sort of semi-plausible whereas demons from other dimensions, radioactive monsters, and other such don’t at all. I can enjoy a (good) Gojira film but don’t take it seriously.

Anyway, Verbinski has a very high batting average in my ballpark, and his latest, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die didn’t disappoint. It gets a strong Ah! rating for heart and creativity (I might upgrade it to a Wow! rating after watching it again and studying it). It’s a time-travel story combined with a strong dash of we-need-to-prevent-a-future-Ai-from-taking-over (sort of but not really like Skynet in the Terminator films).

Sam Rockwell stars as the Man From the Future. Looking like a crazed homeless person, and claiming he has a bomb, he storms into a Norms diner in present-day Los Angeles and claims that only some subset of the people in this diner can save the world from the imminent Ai takeover. This is his 117th attempt to find the right group.

And that’s about as much as one should know before viewing. A gem of a film.

Rockwell endeared himself to me and my SF-loving friends when he played a “redshirt” in 1999 film Galaxy Quest (not just a favorite SF film but in my Top Five Favorite Films of any kind). He cemented the affection by starring in Moon (2009), a gem of a science fiction movie, especially given its low budget [mentioned in Underrated SF Movies]. He’s also in Cowboys & Aliens (2011), which, despite what people said, wasn’t that bad [mentioned in RSVP].

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I’m often disappointed by remakes of films recent enough that I saw them when they came out. So, I wasn’t expecting much from The Running Man (2025), the remake of the admittedly cheesy same-named 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film. Which was based on the same-named 1982 Stephen King novel.

I was pleasantly surprised; I found it enjoyable.

In some ways, it’s better than the 1987 film. The effects are certainly better, and there’s less of that 1970s/1980s cheese. And the watchable Glen Powell is a better actor than Arnold was (or is). I really liked him in Hit Man (2023), which was a lot of fun, and in Twisters (2024), another creditable remake.

The film was written, produced, and directed by Edgar Wright, who wrote and directed my favorite zombie movie, Shaun of the Dead (2004). That isn’t saying all that much because I’m not a fan of zombie movies. Same as with other monsters, I just don’t believe in them.

[That said, Cockneys vs Zombies (2012) is a lot of fun, and so is Juan of the Dead (2011), a Cuban zombie movie. I like the parodies and satires but find straight up zombie movies, such as 28 Days Later (2002) unmemorable. The exception is the Resident Evil movies with Milla Jovovich and written/directed by PWSA, but those are straight-up kickass-chicks-with-guns porn and not really zombie movies to me.]

Wright also did Hot Fuzz (2007) and The World’s End (2013), which are a lot of fun, and which comprise a kind of trilogy beginning with Shaun of the Dead. Wright also wrote and directed Baby Driver (2017), a worthy crime drama about a getaway driver.

All of which is to say that there is some substance behind the film. I give it a strong Eh! rating.

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I managed to watch the entirety of Mercy (2026) without recognizing that the lead character is played by the (now somewhat over-exposed) Chris Pratt. I didn’t realize it until the end credits — I suspect I still have the young Pratt’s image in my mind from all the years watching Parks and Recreation (2009-2015). But he’s 47 now and in this film looks it.

I did recognize the talented Rebecca Ferguson as the Ai judge trying Pratt’s character for the murder of his wife. One of the movie’s weird points is that the trial is 90 minutes, and unless the probability of guilt drops below a certain percentage, the presumed guilty killer is automatically (and unstoppably) electrocuted immediately after the 90-minute trial.

So, it’s a race-against-time story in which Detective Christopher Raven, locked in a steel execution chair for the trial, must find evidence that exonerates him (as the star, we presume he’s innocent despite all appearances).

It’s not a story that survives much examination, and it didn’t get many props, but I found it diverting and watchable. I give it a middling Eh! rating, mostly on the strength of the two performers.

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I was way too old — several years post-college — for the original Masters of the Universe (1982-1988) and never got into any of the resulting spin-offs. Not really my kind of thing, even as a kid. Even then my toys were more technical and geeky (such as magnets and various kinds of construction kits). I was never into action figures (I did have a The Man from U.N.C.L.E. cap gun).

But I heard the 2026 Masters of the Universe wasn’t embarrassing (as apparently the 2021-2024 animated TV series by Kevin Smith was — a pity because I really liked Smith’s early films, especially Dogma in 1999, but not so much his later work).

And, yeah, it was watchable given it wasn’t my cup of tea, and I had no history with the franchise. It didn’t earn a Meh! rating, so it gets a weak Eh! rating.

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I finally saw the most recent Superman (2025). It does get a Meh! rating along with a bit of a rant. I’d give it a worse Nah! rating, but I got a kick out of the dog (Krypto).

There is for me at this point a triple problem:

Firstly, I am beyond being over superhero movies, and it takes something very special — very inventive and different — to interest me at all.

Secondly, the genre of live-action superhero movies seems tapped out in general. They’ve just gotten tired, and there is a sense of pro forma to them now.

Thirdly, they were always preposterous, and live-action versions of comics or animated shows put that in stark relief. Adults running around in capes and long-johns (in Superman’s case, with his underwear on the outside). The premise is ridiculous, which makes it all but impossible to tell truly coherent stories. Superhero powers, strengths, and weaknesses often change to fit plot requirements.

And again, live-action implementations emphasize the silliness of it all.

But as these things go, it didn’t suck. David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan certainly have the look of Clark Kent and Lois Lane. (Unlike Amy Adams in Man of Steel, a very disappointing Superman movie; see Movies: Man of Steel).

But there was nothing original or creative, and much of it was childish. The final cookie between Superman and Whatshisname about the building, for instance.

That Clark Kent wears special hypnotic glasses so people won’t recognize him as Superman was a cute meta-gag. Fans for years have pointed out how glasses don’t disguise anyone, and how dumb is ace investigative reporter Lois Lane for not catching on immediately. Oh, so hypno glasses is why.

And the “anti-proton river” — bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha. As if.

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Finally saw an even older movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017). To the extent I’m tuned out on superhero movies, I’m especially tuned out on the long-running Marvel movies. I stopped keeping up with them some time ago.

Which makes it hard to fully appreciate this one because it has so many references to what has come before. That’s a downside of a franchise like this: it’s hard to jump in midstream. That’s an issue for any long-running series, movies, TV shows, or books.

I found this instance of the Marvel series completely mid and wasn’t inspired to take any notes, so ‘nuf sed. I give it an Eh! rating.

I will add that, of the Marvel movies, the Spider-Man movies are slightly less meh. Especially the recent animated Spider-verse ones; those I quite like. I stopped watching the other Marvel movies because I found them dull and repetitious.

[I’ve mentioned before how I first saw The Avengers (2012) many years after its release. I’d seen many other Marvel movies by then, and the thing that struck me was how little had really changed. Those movies are the same schtick over and over and over. No wonder I stopped watching them.]

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I’ll end with some brief mentions:

▶ Not exactly science fiction, but close, I finally saw Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning (2025), the final installment (I hope) in the Mission: Impossible film franchise. They’re kind of like the James Bond films: increasing big productions and increasingly silly. I long ago accepted these have nothing to do with a beloved TV show I watched back in the 1960s, so they’re … fine.

▶ I re-watched Lucy (2014) because I do like Luc Besson films. Between for knowledge and, I suspect, mellowing in retirement, I didn’t dislike it as much as I did the first time. I think the whole “10% of your brain” thing set me off the first time (and Morgan Freeman had to deliver that nonsense like it was science).

▶ Forbidden World (1982) is a Roger Corman film, so it’s a cheesy ultra-low-budget imitation of some other film. In this case, mostly Alien. Sort of. The writing, directing, acting, and production values all work together to make it laughably bad and not excruciating to watch (which, for instance, Plan 9 from Outer Space decidedly is).

▶ Trigun Stampede (2023, 2026) is a continuation of the Trigun TV series (1998) [mentioned in this post]. It’s an SF western set on an alien planet where a bunch of generation ships were forced to crash land (for reasons revealed in the shows). The anime, of course, is based on a manga.

▶ Lastly, I re-watched (third viewing!) the Assassination Classroom anime series (2015-2016). Very possibly my favorite Japanese anime [see Assassination Classroom] and, for all its weirdness, hard SF. And it’s a very faithful adaptation of the original manga by Yusei Matsui.

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Stay away from zombies, my friends! Go forth and spread beauty and light.

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