It’s been a comeback year for sci-fi, ending with the return of Star Wars in the highly anticipated Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as well as other films from our childhood attempting to rekindle the drama they once created on a global scale. Notably: Terminator: Genisys; Jurassic World; Mad Max: Fury.

Out of the above films perhaps only The Force Awakens could be said to have landed on the screen with some amount of aplomb, appeasing die-hard Star Wars fans following a string of prequels that left most viewers unmoved. The new installment of Mad Max was impressive visually, but the protracted chase scenes offer little more than tepid stimulation while you fill your mouth with popcorn.

Real space

If any sci-fi movie from last will ever be called a classic in years to come then it has to be Ridley Scott’s The Martian.  While we may have been a tad ruthless in exposing some flaws concerning the consumer tech used in the film – it’s not very futuristic – and it’s also highly predictable given what we know of Hollywood endings, when for instance Matt Damon, (Mark Watney) is hurtling through space to the sound of David Bowie’s Starman you can’t help but feel total elation. Not since Interstellar has a space film been so mesmerizing, yet at the same time creating enough pathos to fill your eyes with burgeoning tears.

An unlikely super-hero

Ant-Man is hardly the best super-hero name out there, in fact, if you knew nothing about the comic books you might wonder just how heroic an ant-man can be. Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) plays the man in question, a lithe thief with a knack for finding his way into just about anywhere when uninvited. When he attempts to get inside the safe of Dr Hank Pym, played by Michael Douglas, he finds himself part of an elaborate set-up. Unlike other super-hero flicks, such as 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron, it takes itself less seriously and adds laughs to what is mostly an otherwise not-so-funny genre. Does it make any sense when Ant-Man goes sub-atomic? No, but watching a tiny hero run around in his giant world for two hours was much more fun than watching the Hulk get too angry, again.

A girlfriend to die for

Films about artificial intelligence, if we ignore the rather monotonous but strangely effective Her, don’t seem to stray much further than the realm of machines getting too clever and in doing so becoming a problem. Ex Machina is no different, but it is at least very creepy, and arguably the best AI film since Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner. Directed by British novelist (The Beach) Alex Garland, the film consists of an intern being hired to spend some time with a very believable, and beautiful, piece of machinery that goes by the name of Ava. Ava is good, in face she’s too good, and our intern quickly finds himself in the position of feeling sorry for her, and also falling in love with her. You can’t really blame him, Alicia Vikander, who plays Ava, is probably the most attractive and alluring non-human ever made for the screen. But that doesn’t bode well for her young admirer.

The problem of ageing

In Self/Less a dying, and retiring billionaire played by Sir Ben Kingsley has the opportunity to have his mind implanted in a younger man’s (Ryan Reynolds) body. The effects of ageing are presently being looked into by scientists – the ageing process has been reduced in mice for instance – but it’s highly unlikely anytime soon old men will become strapping young guys blessed again with virility. It makes for an interesting premise nonetheless when we see just how well the Kingsley takes to his new body, and its attendant love interests. The only thing that let’s this film down is that once the mind has been transferred into its new body there’s hardly a sign of Kingsley’s character.

Image source: Ex Machina