SciFiNow-August2018

Details 15 // 94 mins // 2018 // • VOD // Released 13 A u g u s t

Director Hasraf Dulull Cast Katee Sackhoff, Julie Cox, Steven Cree, Ray

Fearon Distributor Kew Media

Details 15 // 97 mins // 2018 // // Released Out now

Director Federico D’Alessandro Cast Maika Monroe, Ed Skrein,

Gary Oldman Distributor N e t fl i x

Early on in 2036:

Origin Unknown,

Mack Wilson is

engaged in an

argument with her

sister (and boss) Lena about the

vital human components that

AIs lack. It’s a little on the nose

but it’s the driving force behind

this single location SF which

feels like it could have been an

episode of The Twilight Zone.

Katee Sackhoff puts in an

excellent lead performance as

Mack, who is one of the last

actual people working on an

investigation of a failed Mars

mission which crashed on the red

planet years earlier, alongside

an advanced AI system named

ARTI. After fi nding a mysterious

cube on Mars’ surface, Mack

makes startling discoveries about

its provenance and what ARTI is

capable of.

While the story feels familiar

and doesn’t make any bold or

shocking choices until right at

the end, director Hasraf Dulull

and writer Gary Hall have

delivered a solid cautionary tale

and provided their star with a

vehicle to show off how good

she is. It doesn’t quite deserve

Sackhoff’s performance, but it’s

a decent enough vessel for it.

Jonathan Hatfull

Tau certainly

opens like a

horror fi lm, as Maika

Monroe’s lonely

pickpocket Julia is

kidnapped and wakes up bound

and gagged and subjected to a

series of painful procedures.

However, this mostly single

location thriller shifts gears at

around the 20 minute mark,

as her host and his house

makes themselves known. Alex

(Deadpool’s Ed Skrein) intends

to use her mind to help his new

AI project, but can Julia win

over the system (Tau) that is

running the house (voiced by

Gary Oldman)?

In a way, it’s refreshing to

see the main plot of Tau swerve

away into SF than horror, and

the relationship between the

canny Julia and increasingly

curious and empathetic Tau is

rather promising.

However, writer Noga

Landau and director Federico

D’Alessandro wheel out plenty

of other well-worn plot tropes,

including a dull short-fused

villain with muddy motivation

and a self-destruct button.

Monroe has done sterling

work in The Guest and It Follows

and she is fi ne here, but it really

does feel like a short that has

been stretched out to feature

length. This is well-intentioned

but a real slog to sit through.

Jonathan Hatfull

2036: ORIGIN

UNKNOWN

TAU

Mission

to Mars

House of

learning

★★★★★ ★★★★★

Must

see

now!

(Suzanne Hamilton), we watch

this man come to life. It’s so

fantastically underplayed, all in

the increasingly wide-eyed looks.

It’s worth noting that Hamilton is

fantastic, too, as they play out their

short-lived but doomed romance.

It’s never really a love story,

though. The combination of

bombast and insidious evil makes

for a slightly uneven fi rst half,

but once Winston ends up on

his back while Richard Burton’s

The continued

relevance of

George Orwell’s

masterpiece seems

so obvious to

make pointing it out in a review

redundant, but one of the most

interesting things about Michael

Radford’s fi lm adaptation is that it’s

held up remarkably well.

Shot in 1984 on locations that

were as close to what the author

envisioned as possible, its grim,

grey and almost entirely colourless

vision has become more powerful

over the years. Even the dream

1984 Still watching you

sequences are oddly restrained,

demonstrating just how far

Winston’s imagination, that’s never

known escape further than the

British countryside, can take him.

It’s also interesting to note the

similarities with Terry Gilliam’s

Brazil, which would be released

shortly afterwards and present a

much more visually spectacular

take on Orwell’s themes.

Much of the fi lm’s impact

comes from John Hurt’s superb

performance as Winston Smith.

When we fi rst meet Winston he’s

somewhat unreadable. We watch

him go through the same daily

routine as everybody else, attending

the propaganda newsreels, eating

the ‘meat’ stews and struggling to

get through the exercise routines

without coughing. All we know

about him is that he understands

that there is something missing.

Once he encounters Julia

softly-spoken O’Brien explains

how he never really had a chance,

the raw power of the story shines

through. It’s a tough watch but,

given our current circumstances, an

unnerving and vital one.

Jonathan Hatfull

Details 15 // 113 mins // 1984 // // Released 13 A u g u s t

Director Michael Radford Cast Andy John Hurt, Richard Burton,

Suzanna Hamilton, Cyril Cusack, Gregor Fisher Distributor Twentieth Century

Fox Home Entertainment

Brazil

An offi ce drone dreams

of a brighter world

beyond his reality in

Gilliam’s masterpiece.

IF YOU LIKE THIS TRY...

★★★★★

T 1984 WAS RICHARD BURTON’S FINAL FILM AND HE WAS STRUGGLING WITH ILL HEALTH DURING PRODUCTION.

REVIEWS HOME FILM

W W W.SCI FI N OW.CO.U K |^079