Cyberpunk Films

The prototypical cyberpunk film and one of the best works of art Hollywood has ever produced. It set the stylistic standards for the entire genre in cinema and other forms of popular culture. The neon-happy, multi-layered cityscapes with dark and foggy street level became the goto look and feel for all cyberpunk visualisations.

Scott is a master of characterisation. He uses subtle interplay between pairs of characters to tell the audience who they are. We learn, watching interactions between Sebastian and Pris, Pris and Roy, Roy and Dr Tyrell, Roy and Deckard and finally Deckard and Rachel. The latter two are especially memorable and important as their relationship sets the tone for the whole film.

Both Ford and Young do a great job but are outshone by the excellent Rutger Hauer as Roy Batty. His "Tears in Rain" monologue has gained iconic status in popular culture. Acting is very good across the board.

The film would not be what it is without the soundtrack. Vangelis wrote and performed some fantastic pieces that are so in tune with the events on the screen, that it is genuinely impossible to think about Blade Runner without them.

The Matrix is a revolutionary film from the time when its visionary creators, The Wachowskis were still brothers. From the cutting edge special effects to the exquisitely planned plot, nearly everything about this film is crafted to the highest standards.

About the only area that deserves criticism is the casting, specifically for the main character, Neo. Keanu Reeves' looks and voice are a perfect match but his robotic acting should affect the final score. The other actors do a solid job and there are at least a few excellent performances, among which the iconic Morpheus played by Laurence Fishburne deserves special praise. However, neither Neo nor all the other characters are central to this films success. It is the story, the dialogues and the visuals supporting some spectacular action sequences that are this film's main strengths.

The very first hand to hand combat scene heralds what proves to be a quantum leap in the field of visual effects. Everything you see on screen is dynamic, snappy and believable. There are moments, when Neo, Trinity and Morpheus do impossible things, yet they look as natural as when they are walking a crowded city street.

By now everyone knows the iconic blue/red pill sequence with it's heavy references to Alice in Wonderland. It is not the only time The Wachowski Brothers looked for inspiration in other works of art. In fact, almost every scene in The Matrix borrows from, alludes to or in some other way relates to various works of Carroll, Orwell, Huxley, Verne, Clark or films like The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Alien, Total Recall and dozens of anime and feature martial arts productions.

The story of The Matrix is very well constructed. As expected from a science fiction film, there are some inconsistencies, but it is generally very logical and coherent. It also offers one of the best twists or reveals in the history of the cinema. But this is were I will stop. I would not dare spoiling The Matrix, one of the best representatives of entertainment cinema, for anyone.

REQUIRES A REWRITE. Not as significant as the original, but a worthy sequel nonetheless. Solid plot and acting. Great atmosphere and special effects. Fantastic music. The main character can be irritating to some.

REQUIRES A REWRITE

Great acting, striking visuals, solid plot and lazy pace are not enough to put this sequel on par with the original.

Ryan Gosling is excellent as Officer KD6-3.7. His understandably understated performance is well complemented by the emotional Ana de Armas. Los Angeles of 2049, where most of the story takes place, is a variation of the classical cyberpunk look. It's much foggier and colder, than what Scott and Cronenweth proposed in the 1982 Balde Runner and perhaps, as a result - more haunting. As in the original, the pace in Villeneuve's film is pleasantly slow, although some may consider it a flaw in an almost 3-hour production. Unfortunately, it would not be the only flaw.

In the last 20 minutes the filmmakers stumbled more than once. The big reveal at the end seemed rather anticlimactic and left me uninterested with the rest of the story. The weak main villain's monologue was too long, too vain and unnecessary. It was followed by a sequence that had a very strong uncanny valley effect on me. Finally, the already minor role of Rick Deckard was further reduced to a liability in Officer K's mission.

The music is serviceable, but pales in comparison with the memorable soundtrack by Vangelis. The same can be said about the whole film. It's good, but not near the level of the original Blade Runner. The 1982 classic is a universal masterpiece. Blade Runner 2049 is just a good clone.

A very entertaining, over the top sci-fi film with a bit of cyberpunk. Excellent special effects. Great Willis, who parodies himself, sexy Jovovich and brilliant Oldman. Lots of humour and unique style.

Great atmosphere and special effects that must have been revolutionary at the time. The plot is rather simplistic. Mostly good acting. Not the greatest musical score.

When I started watching this film, I was ready for some good old action with lots of one liners and a ton of silly explosions. It had lots of that. What I didn't expect was that there would be much more — a deeper meaning and a critique of society that is strikingly similar to the one we live in today.

It turned out Marco Brambilla and his writers were true visionaries, who managed to predict what would happen to the society, if it followed the trends already visible in 1993. The clearly "Brave New World" inspired film, depicts a utopian society, in which all the "undesired" attitudes were eliminated through control of behaviour, speech and emotions. Sounds familiar?

Acting is average, music bad. The design of the cars is excellent. Many of them I could easily see on the roads today. It's probably because they were all real concept cars.

A dystopian vision in which the world has been fried as a result of abnormal activity of the Sun and people are trying to survive using advanced technology. Typically for the genre, a big corporation takes the role of the main evildoer. Unfortunately, the aggressive, trigger-happy behaviour of its representatives is not properly justified and appears illogical to the viewers following the story.

However, despite some plot inconsistencies and visible budget limitations Automata is a solid take on the subject of the nature of humanity and the direction it is headed towards in a post-apocalyptic environment on the verge of technological singularity.

Banderas does a very good job, as a tired and disillusioned insurance agent, but his performance stands out too much compared to some of the other cast members.

Solid 80's style action film.

A light-hearted take on a serious subject. Blomkamp goes back to his favourite technique of grotesque he so successfully used in District 13. He constantly mixes serious and light tone, tragedy and comedy, as we follow the accelerated development of a newborn conscious AI in a human environment.

The scientific aspect is silly at best, but the main subject of the position of AI in human society is presented in an effective if stereotypical manner. The strength of the message may slightly degrade due to the often nonchalant tone, but it is a price worth paying for the entertainment value.

Characters are the film's biggest disappointment. Both the main human protagonist and antagonist are very one-dimensional. This flaw is not shared by Ninja and Yo-Landi, the misbegotten duo of thieves, who instead are portrayed in a very inconsistent way.

Sharlto Copley is once again brilliant as the voice of Chappie.

Cheesy sci-fi action flick that often disregards logic but offers humour, entertainment and even a bit of reflection. Excellent visual effects. Rather wooden acting.

It is obvious where the creators were going with Repo Men. A near future urban setting with some impressive futuristic night cityscapes, a conflicted corporate agent as the main character, voice-over narrations and even a blimp displaying advertisements all point to a neo-noir, cyberpunk origin and a Blade Runner inspiration. Unfortunately, one crucial ingredient is missing.

Miguel Sapochnik failed to build any atmosphere and tension in the film. Visually, everything is very sterile. The night city, the interiors or even the brutality all lack grit and the smoky, dark, wet intensity we see on every corner of Scott's masterpiece. Similar problems mar the script. For a film about an evil corporation ripping organs out of living people, it feels surprisingly light. Almost like a sitcom without the comedy.

Those shortcoming are disappointing, because both as a cyberpunk feature and an action film with a message, it got a lot of the ingredients right. The cast is good, their performance at least satisfactory, special effects more than sufficient and the premise intriguing. I desperately wanted Repo Men to be a very good film, because there is so little quality cyberpunk cinema out there. Regretfuly, the most I can say about it, is that it is above average. And that is a real shame.

Competent sci-fi action flick but so far the weakest of the three Blomkamp's films. Character's motivations are not always clear and logical. Very good visuals and solid acting.

An interesting story that required a more serious treatment. Osmant's acting is too novelettish and his character's struggle too superficial for me to believe in the apparent drama. The film is a fairy tale and as such is not an ideal platform to discuss complex, existential dilemmas. Playing God and creating substitutes for people that can love but will never be loved back most definitely is one such dilemma.

If watched as simple entertainment, Artificial Intelligence: AI can be enjoyable. Sci-fi fans may be disappointed with the visuals, though. At times the film looks and sounds like a production with much lower budget, than it actually had. I also did not like Spielberg's version of cyberpunk cities. The neons were there, but the result looked more like a Disney castle than Neo Tokyo.

The film should be an hour shorter.

Wrong atmosphere, wrong music, wrong plot. A simplified version of the anime classic for the modern progressive audience.

Nonetheless, as is recently the norm, the modern progressive audience managed to find something to be outraged about and accused the filmmakers of whitewashing the characters. One would think the Hollywood top dogs would learn the lesson after a while. Nah.

There are some good visuals and fairly faithful copies of sequences form the 1995 original.

Michael Bay tries to tackle a serious subject, but ends up making an over the top action flick everyone expects him to make. Acting is solid, chase scenes impressive, the plot predictably shallow.

Padilha couldn't decide what film he wanted to make. So he put some simplistic action, family drama and revenge story into one pot and as expected, ended up with a bland mash-up. Watchable, if you treat it as a mindless action filck and turn your brain off, when it's trying to be sophisticated.

This time around the plot is so ludicrous, it is hard to follow. And some action sequences are even worse. Still, a white male main hero and a character that crosses himself on screen are rare this days, so the score goes one up.

Performance is not great but the material the actors have to work with is very bad. A few nice post-apocalyptic & cyberpunk vistas. As a matter of fact, the second half of the film can be considered cyberpunk.

All those references to popular culture phenomenons and absolutely no soul. Why? Because the authors did not understand the sources of these references.

There is so much wrong with this film. The characters are either shallow, one-dimensional or plain irritating. The plot is riddled with holes. There is a lot of bad exposition and the mood changes often and abruptly, making the film feel jerky. But above all, it is just bland. I like the 80s, I love old computers and consoles, I believe The Shining is the best horror ever made. And yet I felt nothing, watching Ready Player One.

I cannot say I am very disappointed, however. I expected an algorithm generated, soulless flick and that is exactly what I watched. The old masters have lost the gift, the new filmmakers are mostly ideologists. And the future of cinema looks rather gloomy to me.

Cheesy 80s action film that doesn't hit the post-apo/cyberpunk feel and aesthetic I was hoping for. Bad, acting, dialogues and direction. Disappointing music. It is best viewed as an adventure, even if it is a bland one.

Why? Why do all cyberpunk films have to be so fucking bad? Why did Keanu take that role right after Speed? Why did they not hire a writer? Why did they not hire a director? And why did we not see Dina Meyer's boobs?

Johnny Mnemonic is a terrible mess. The general idea for the story is good, but Gibson did not know, what he was doing in the field of script writing. As a result the plot is incredibly chaotic and throughout most of the film, the characters talk nonsense. To make things even worse, the rookie director, Robert Longo had absolutely no control over the cinematography and his actors, which led to some of the worst performances recorded on screen and a lot of unintentional hilarity.

The only redeeming quality are the computer generated special effects, which look quite good for a 1995 film. Other effects were not so good and the cyberpunk cityscape at the beginning is so bad, it look as if taken from an amateur fan film shot with a VHS camera and some cardboard models.

There are perhaps two or three moments, when the adventure feels good, but overall Johnny Mnemonic is a gargantuan failure.

Bad cyberpunk film produced for 52 dollars. Even Thomas Jane doesn't look like himself.