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[Bud Brewster]

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The films reviewed by All Sci-Fi member The Spike in today’s Featured Threads range in release dates from 1933 to 2012.

And what are the stories told by this trio of cinematic creations?

A giant albino ape inherited the thrown from his late father on a dinosaur filled island after King went to New York and hit Broadway — really hard.

A hi-tech future is presented in a movie which offers fantasy vacations for sale.

And the third story is about a hi-tech future in which a form of immortality involves cloning.
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Son of Kong (1933)



Albino Baby Kong.

The Son of Kong is directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack and written by Ruth Rose. It stars Robert Armstrong, Helen Mack, Frank Reicher, John Marston, Victor Wong and Edward Brady. Music is by Max Steiner and cinematography by Edward Linden.

The makers wisely realised that to try and emulate King Kong would be folly, especially as this sequel was hurried out within the same year. Instead a more fun approach was taken, and as a result it's not half bad entertainment as it happens.

After the devastation caused to New York by King Kong, lawsuits are abound for Carl Denham (Armstrong). So when he gets the chance to go out on the ocean again with Captain Englehorn (Reicher), he grabs the chance. There's no plans to go near Skull Island again, but a sequence of events will see them pitch up there, to be met by a myriad of creatures and The Son of Kong.

Little Kong is actually friendly, well to the humans he is because he is grateful to their help when he was stuck in quicksand. However, to other beasts of the island he is not so forgiving. For the first 33 minutes it's all about setting up the action carnage later in the play, characters are introduced, their reasons for being out at sea and etc. Then we get to the island and off we go. Kong scraps with dinosaurs, a bear, lizards and mother nature! The castaways are in the mix as well of course, and naturally they are thrust into a perilous life and death situation.

And that's it, barely 70 minutes have passed by and it's nigh on impossible not to be smiling come the close. 7/10
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Total Recall (2012)



Reimaging suffers a Schizoid Embolism.

This reboot of the Paul Verhoeven/Arnold Schwarzenegger 1990 monster hit finds Colin Farrell as factory worker Douglas Quaid who, in search of meaning in his life and maybe an answer to his weird dreams, visits Rekall, a company who implant fantastical memories to order. When something strange shows up during the initial procedure, Quaid finds that nothing in his life is at all what he thought.

There's a lot of very good craft here, there really is, that is on proviso you are happy to indulge in stylised effects over character substance. It's also a cold hard fact that fans of the original Philip K. Dick story, and fans of the Verhoeven bonkers adaptation, are very unlikely to embrace such a candy shop approach to what was once an inventive premise.

Jessica Biel and Kate Beckinsale file in for the two lead female roles, which on facial likeness is a smart bit of casting, while on a butt point of view they have two of the best in the business. Farrell is competently gruff rough and tough, but again can you avert the thought process away from Schwarzenegger cutting a swathe through a futuristic world? A big problem is that as much as Beckinsale is lovely and feisty, the decision by her husband, director Len Wiseman, to make her part a complete film filler, grates on the nerves with its obvious stench of nepotiz.

Still, if you are looking for a sci-fi picture awash with outrageous excitement, bangs and crashes galore and a sexy cast? Then this will certainly give you cause to chomp down with glee on your popcorn. There's homage nods to the Arnie movie, which are gratefully received, the pace never sags and the art design for this futuristic world is grade "A" in quality. As remakes go it's OK and far from being a stinker, you can have fun here, but it can't deliver enough quality to those fans mentioned earlier, and they are right to have such high standards. 6/10
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The 6th Day (2000)



If you really believe that then you should clone yourself while you're still alive.

Vilified when it was released, one of the small handful of films that came at the end of Arnold Schwarzenegger's film career before he went into politics, The 6th Day, it was argued, was a good cause for Arnold to retire from film. Yet viewing it now on its own chaotic sci-fi terms, it's a surprisingly brisk and enjoyable picture.

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode, it's a futuristic collage of outrageous set-pieces and thought provoking thematics. Plot has Arnie as an ex-fighter pilot who discovers he has been illegally cloned, and thus he embarks on a mission of carnage and high paced machismo in a bid to get his identity back whilst exposing the evil corporation at the core of such nastiness. So, two Arnie's for the price of one then!

It's not a plot that would hold up under close scrutiny, but then is that what we go into a Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie for? Quite. With some nifty surprises, kinetic action and an ending of some considerable chilling substance, The 6th Day is classic popcorn munching fodder. No it's not in the top tier of Arnie movies, and no it's hardly shaking the foundations of sci-fi cinema, but sometimes comfort food sci-fi has its own rewards for an undemanding occasion. 6.5/10
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)