Science Fiction

Tomorrowland

  • Title: Tomorrowland
  • IMDb: link

TomorrowlandIn tone, message, and design Tomorrowland feels very much like an old school Disney live-action film albeit with far better special effects. With a hopeful message, and heart penned to its sleeve, the screenplay by Damon Lindelof and director Brad Bird offers a look at the wonders and dangerous of technology which will bring two strangers together to a place where imagination is the only limitation of what is possible.

Presented with dueling narration by Frank Walker (George Clooney, played as a child by Thomas Robinson) and Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), Tomorrowland informs the audience of how each first learned of a scientific wonderland just outside our dimension before throwing the pair together to save the city and all of Earth from a mistake that continues to haunt the older scientist.

Clooney’s charm helps soften Frank’ rougher edges and Robertson plays well off of him. The real star, however, is Raffey Cassidy as the android who brings the pair together in an effort to put right what went wrong more than two decades before which got Frank expelled from Tomorrowland forever.

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Samurai Jack #19

Samurai Jack #19In another single-issue adventure, and one of the goofier adventures of Jack in his current IDW comic series, Samurai Jack is hired by the Canine Archaeologists who need the samurai’s help with the haunted tomb of the world’s first talking dog.

It’s fun to see the comic bring back Sir Drifus Alexander, Sir Angus Mcduffy, and Sir Colin Bartholomew Montgomery Rothchild III and pair the intrepid archaeologists with our hero for a adventure involving an unearthed tomb and a ghost who, like all dogs, just needed a bit of love and attention to stop acting out and driving all of his descendants crazy.

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Mad Max: Fury Road

  • Title: Mad Max: Fury Road
  • IMDb: link

Mad Max: Fury RoadReturning to his creation for the first time since 1985, director George Miller‘s Mad Max: Fury Road is highly-stylized insanity that is easily one of the most visually-stunning movies of 2015 so far. More engaging than fun, Miller delivers something akin to an action art film rather than summer popcorn movie. And, despite Tom Hardy getting top billing, it’s one hell of a star vehicle for Charlize Theron who proves to any doubters out there that a woman can indeed be the lead character in a big-budget action adventure.

Taking place an indeterminate amount of time following the events of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Max (Hardy) is captured by a cult known as the War Boys, led by the bizarre Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), who decide to put the wanderer to use as a universal blood donor. A series of events involving Imperator Furiosa (Theron) stealing Joe’s most precious cargo loaded up in one of the warlord’s war rigs provide the opportunity for Max’s escape and an uneasy partnership with Furiosa and Joes concubines (Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, Zoë Kravitz, Riley Keough, Abbey Lee, Courtney Eaton) as the small group attempts to stay alive in harsh desert with enemies in every direction and a mad man’s army chomping at their heels.

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Princess Leia #3

Princess Leia #3Princess Leia‘s mission to unite the survivors of Alderaan leads Leia and Evaan (who spends the issue wearing Luke’s jacket from the celebration at the end of Star Wars) to Sullust where the pair are met with a good deal of distrust and animosity by the group’s leader Lord Junn.

Despite the arrival of Imperials, which Juun first blames Leia for, the princess does manage to make inroads with the survivors. With only two issues to go from here the storyline doesn’t appear to have much room to develop much past this point, especially with the Empire now tracking Leia down.

Although I still have mixed feelings about the inking of several panels, Terry Dodson’s art continues to be one of the highlights of the five-issue mini-series which, at least to this point, seems to have bitten off more than it can chew in such a short run. The only real question now is will Evaan survive the final two issues and pop-up somewhere else in Marvel’s current Star Wars run? For fans.

[Marvel, $3.99]

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