Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

This is a rivetting and just in one particular area of the plot a slightly cryptic neo-noir sci-fi mystery about a replicant hunter, full of awesome future fashions, worryingly likely depictions of future city landscapes, glimpses of wondrous tech, and myriad things to think about like, "If replicants could birth children, then what would the ramifications be for humankind?" and, "If this represents a sexist, white boy's fantasy of the future, then what might the opposite look like?" and, "What freedom did director Denis Villeneuve have in creating his vision of the future and how much was dictated by Ridley Scott's classic 1982 original, and in what ways should the two, made 35 years apart, be different?"

★★★★☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

The 6th Day (2000)

Arnold Schwarzenegger's Adam Gibson finds his life has been taken over by a clone and finds that Robert Duvall's team of clone scientists wants him dead in this overlong and woefully written 80s scifi that awkwardly blends action and cornball humour and presents a hi-tech vision of the future featuring hologram and clone technology but also featuring venetian blinds, door hinges, duct-taped eskies, glitchy Betsy Wetsies, and Cadillac car chases through leafy suburban streets.

★☆☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Alien Resurrection (1997)

This time, in an Alien instalment too clever by half, Ripley is resurrected in director Jean-Paul Jeunet's "Delicatessen", a futuristic green-yellow world of zany characters and irreverent detail, but in fact, Ripley isn't Ripley at all but a Ripley-alien clone and empath who once again takes charge of a group of mercenaries when aliens - distinctly Jurassic Park raptor-like ones - break free from their Umbrella Corporation science experiment chambers and start - you guessed it - picking off everyone on board the Earth-bound spaceship Auriga (including elfin robot, Winona Ryder) one-by-especially-bloody-one.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEW