March 31 2025
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Five science fiction movies to stream now
New York Times
last updated:
Jan 23,2023
(Photos: IMDB and IGN)
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Are you
confused about what to watch, here are our recommendations for five science
fiction movies to stream now.
اضافة اعلان ‘Jung_E’Stream it on Netflix.
If ethical and emotional issues pertaining to artificial
intelligence are your jam, this Netflix original is a must-see. And if you just
want badass action with robots, brawls, devious scientists, and grand
futuristic landscapes, it will do the job, too.
South Korean director Yeon Sang-ho burst on the
international scene in 2016 with the insta-classic zombie actioner “Train to
Busan”, then delivered more undead with the sprawling “Peninsula” (2020). Now
Yeon is back with “Jung_E”, which considers AI with a degree of emotional
sensitivity rare in a film that also deploys virtuosic whiz-bang fights.
The starting point is a post-climate-apocalypse Earth in
which millions of people have relocated to orbiting shelters. Three of those
stations have attacked the others, leading to a decades long war, and Earth is
now dominated by the military-industrial complex.
The goal of one such company is to transfer the brain of
comatose war hero Capt. Yun Jung-yi (Kim Hyun-joo) into an exact replica to
create a mighty combat android. In a key wrinkle, the project is led by Yun’s
own daughter, Seo-hyun (Kang Soo-youn).
While “Jung_E” starts off like a riff on “Edge of Tomorrow”,
it quickly becomes obvious that Yeon is interested in more complicated matters,
including the moral standards of cybernetics and the perils of the grieving
process. This beautiful movie rewards patience — and heck, that final battle on
a monorail is awesome, too.
‘Kids vs. Aliens’Rent or buy on most major platforms.
Some movies proudly claim their B heritage, and so does this
goofball tribute to the heady days of 1980s exploitation, which nails that
period’s style. Were it not for a drone steered by young Gary (Dominic
Mariche), you might find yourself wondering what year Jason Eisener made his
film. Much to Gary’s chagrin, his older sister, Sam (Phoebe Rex), falls in with
a group of bad kids led by the handsome-but-psycho Billy (Calem MacDonald,
giving off strong Christian Slater in “Heathers” vibes).
Just as the teens host a bacchanalian Halloween party at
Gary and Sam’s house while their parents are away, aliens decide that this is a
perfect time to attack. Looking like actors in rubber suits, they have an
underwater lair, vomit acid like green goo and kill everybody in sight; in other
words, they are perfect.
Add wrestling references and a vintage-sounding score by
Andrew Gordon Macpherson awash in synthesizers, and you have a nearly perfect
study in retro silliness. The ending suggests there might be more to come.
‘Incredible but True’Stream it on Arrow.
Trust prolific absurdist auteur Quentin Dupieux (“Deerskin”,
“Mandibles”) to come up with a comically metaphysical take on time travel. Over
the past decade, Dupieux has emerged as France’s king of high-concept,
low-budget comedy, and this is among his finest efforts. Alain and Marie (Alain
Chabat and Léa Drucker) buy a house whose amenities include a time portal in
the basement: If you climb down a maintenance hole, you emerge, in an
Escher-like feat, on the top floor — but also 12 hours later and three days
younger.
Marie becomes obsessed with traveling through the duct,
while Alain cannot be bothered. “Incredible But True” never deviates from a
droll, matter-of-fact tone (beautifully handled by the cast) that constantly
rubs against the preposterousness of the situation, not to mention its
impossibility. The flourish on this delightful cake: a score entirely based on
tracks from the synthesizer-heavy, Wendy Carlos-like album “Jon Santo Plays
Bach,” from 1976.
‘Mousa’Stream it on Netflix.
Peter Mimi’s “Mousa,” from Egypt, is not unlike Joko Anwar’s
“Gundala”, from Indonesia: Both films adapt superhero tropes familiar to North
American viewers to a new setting and with a social justice conscience. Both movies
are rough-edged compared with similar Hollywood products, but it is fascinating
to watch how familiar plot points emerge in a different context.
Yehia (Kareem Mahmoud Abdel Aziz) is a brilliant engineering
student crippled by terminal shyness. After watching, powerless, thugs burn his
father alive in their home, the young man builds Mousa, a human-size robot
controlled via a virtual reality headset, and unleashes it on the criminal set.
Mousa, for example, goes after traffickers who kidnap children to sell their
organs to the rich.
The film is overall less interested in robot-led action —
there are minimal set pieces, considering the subject — than in people’s
reaction to it as Egyptians welcome a new folk hero.
Unfortunately, some take exception to Mousa’s actions, and
Yehia must face corrupt authorities embodied by his professor, Dr Nassar (Eyad
Nassar). Clearly, the tradition of sneaking in messages about social ills under
a sci-fi cover is alive and well.
‘Head Rush’Rent or buy it on Amazon.
An older man living in the middle of the Vietnamese
countryside successfully performs a body transplant on his nephew. Far-fetched?
Just a little, but then this is a column about science-fiction movies, not a
guide to the Science Channel.
When mild-mannered cartoonist Tam (Cuong Seven) is diagnosed
with terminal cancer, Uncle Ma (Hoang Son) grafts Tam’s head onto a healthy
stranger’s body. In a nice touch, Tam must wear turtlenecks to hide his huge
scar, making him a stylish medical miracle. But beware of transplanted parts
that come with baggage: Because his unwitting donor, Nghia (Vu Tuan Viet), was
a hit man, his past takes over Tam’s life. Fortunately, Nghia’s body appears to
have retained a certain amount of muscle memory, and while Tam finds himself
embroiled in shady business, he also has inherited extraordinary abilities of
the butt-kicking variety.
Victor Vu’s film (released in Vietnam in 2017 but just
streaming in the US) features some primo chases and hand-to-hand combat, but
its most arresting asset is the way it amusingly keeps coming up with
melodramatic revelations. Forget about mixing and matching heads and bodies —
the plot twists rely on family connections.