Sci-Five in 25

Looking back at my 2025 Sci-Fi films that I’ve seen. Here are five for ‘25 that I’ve seen. Of course, I haven’t seen everything Sci-Fi, like the recent chart-topping Avatar: Fire and Ash (have no interests), but what I saw, I generally really like.

Since mentioning the film in June, talking about Predator: Killer of Killers, this Predator: Badlands film was a highly anticipated title for me.

This is the third Predator film from writer/director Dan Trachtenberg, and it’s great. It’s hard to believe that this guy started his career as a video podcaster/YouTuber on “The Totally Rad Show” (which I watched back in the day).

The movie is about “the runt” in a Predator family. The father wanted to purge out all the weaklings in his family, so our hero Predator is marked for death. Our hero is determined to hunt the universe’s dangerous animal and bring it back to his home planet and claim the mantle of an Alpha Predator.

He crashed landed on this dangerous planet. Everything on this planet wants to kill him and he finds an ally in a broken Synth (from the Alien universe). We’ve already established that Weyland Corporation exists in the Predator universe (with that terrible crossover)… so it made sense that these synths exist in this movie. The robot is played by Elle Fanning, and she’s fabulous in this film. Talkative and very funny.

Elle makes a deal with the Predator, she will help him hunt the dangerous animal and he agrees to take her back to her ship. The movie is full of action, and it has a very satisfying ending when our hero returns back to his Predator planet.

As far as I know, there’s more Trachtenberg’s Predator in the works, and I’m very excited to see more of this Predator universe. Perhaps we can see some xenomorphs or more Aliens tie-in.

 

 

I have no idea why no one liked the new 2025 The Running Man – because I had a blast watching this Sci-Fi film, based on the Stephen King story.

It’s been a few months since I saw new The Running Man, but from my memory, it was very different from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. In the new film, our hero has anger-issues and have been black-listed to work. He’s desperate for money, and when his daughter fell ill and may die without medicine. So, he does the only thing he can do to make a quick buck – get a signing bonus for appearing on the television show “The Running Man”. In this new version, all you have to do is hide for 30 days or something and you can win the grand prize. He’ll have so much money, he probably won’t have to work ever again.

Of course, the game’s rigged. You find out that they’re able to track him and they have this A.I. technology to fake anything, so the truth won’t come out. Like I said, it was a fun ride, I certainly had a great time watching the movie.

Near the end of the film, I think that’s when it starts to fall apart. They introduce this Kardashian-type character, played by the beautiful Emilia Jones. It seems weird to introduce her character so late in the film, so I wonder if she originally had a bigger part but they had trim down the movie.

The Running Man might be the first Edgar Wright film that I’ve seen in a while. The last time I can recall Wright’s name was attached to Ant-Man (which he was kicked off from directing) and Baby Driver. He did make a documentary for the Sparks Brother, and I’m not sure if I fully saw the entire Last Night in Soho horror-ish film.

I’ve been a Wright fan since his first movie, Shaun of the Dead. I saw that film well before many others, thanks to a screening with the actors/director (Nick Frost, Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright) in Minneapolis at AMC Block E in 2004. I’ll never forget that they had the reels out of order, so it took a long time for them to rewind the reel and put in the correct reel in the correct order. By the time it ended, it was very late in the evening. You have to remember that in 2004, there was really no such things as “camera phones” (the iPhone didn’t come out until 2007). The photo that you see is a very low-resolution camera from my Sony Clie (Palm Pilot knock off). I actually had no idea the director was going to do a Q&A!

 

 

This German film Brick was completed in 2024 and made the festival circuits, before being picked up by Netflix for distribution in July 2025. I think it’s a bad title for the film, as I don’t really believe it has much to do with bricks… maybe a better name for it is “The Wall” or something. Also, it’s confusing with another film called Brick from 2005.

This low-budget film’s plot and situation reminded me of a UK film called Await Further Instructions from 2018. Like Await Further Instructions, a house is suddenly surrounded by a mysterious barrier … trapping everyone inside.

In Brick, the lead characters, at first punch through a wall to find another couple staying in the adjacent room. After a theory that they could go download to the basement, it might lead them out. As they go down floor to floor, they meet other occupants in the house.

I felt like there was a lot of wheel spinning, and wasting time as they build each character. For example, the “violent” couple are drug/alcohol abusers. Then we have the grandfather and his granddaughter (not sure, I don’t think they’re related). Our main couple is on the verge of breaking up. It might really be an interesting character study – but I’ve seen all this before and this film wasn’t adding anything new (and to be honest, I wasn’t really interested in any of the characters). If I didn’t care for the characters, that just means I don’t really care if they live or die or if they ever find their way out.

Instead, I wish the film focused more on what this barrier was and how it was deployed or what its purpose is. One theory that I think was most likely was that it was a defensive mechanism … activated to protect the occupants should a bomb fall on Germany.

The deaths in the film are somewhat predictable. The characters are so dumb that when they die, you don’t really feel that bad. I mean, why would you stick your hands in the wall?

Anyway, I did like the ending. Seems kind of silly, when you question it. I can’t really dissect it too much as it would be spoilers. But it doesn’t make sense at all if you think about it.

If you like films like The Cube (where strangers are trapped in a cube and have to find their way out), I think you’ll like Brick.

 

This is one of the weirdest Sci-Fi/Dark Comedy film that I’ve seen in a while. The film is called Bugonia and it’s a remake of a Korean film called Save the Green Planet! (2003).

I can’t say I love the film, but it’s interesting. If you like A24 for Focus Features film, you’ll like this. Lots of dialogue and very little action.

The story is about a bee-keeper and his cousin. They kidnapped a CEO and demand that she takes them to her spaceship. It’s batsh** crazy, and as the movie goes on… as you see some flashbacks, maybe there’s some truth that the CEO is really an alien.

The film eventually turns deadly, and it ended how I predicted. Somewhat disappointing, I was just expecting more. I probably won’t buy the DVD/Bluray, but I am glad I saw it.

Since it’s a low budget film, there are only a few actors in the film. The CEO is played by Emma Stone, who shaved her hair for the part. Originally, the character was supposed to be male.

The bee-keeper who kidnapped the CEO is played by Jesse Plemons (he’s famous for playing the mental Todd in Breaking Bad). If you’re not familiar, he looks like Matt Damon. Plemon’s cousin, who aided in the kidnapping is played by Aidan Delbis.

Other characters included a policeman (formerly Plemons’ babysitter), and Plemon’s mother (in flashbacks).

 

 

 

 

The worst Sci-Fi I’ve seen in 2025 has got to be Star Trek: Section 31. This was complete garbage. Bad Science Fiction, bad writing, bad characters, bad plot… I can’t believe I tried to give this Star Trek a chance. Especially, because I absolutely found Star Trek: Picard was absolutely “stupid.”

As a big Star Trek fan from The Next Generation-era, I love all the Treks of that time-period, and even a little of Enterprise. I have all the television shows on DVD (except for Deep Space Nine because I thought that show was too boring). I am a Trekker, okay? The problem is that I’ve largely given up on Star Trek when the franchise fell under the Alex Kurtzman’s vision (he’s largely responsible for Star Trek television after Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry died).

For those not familiar with what is going on with Star Trek, I can sum it up in a few sentences: Alex Kurtzman has ruined Star Trek under his direction. Fans dubbed modern Trek as “NuTrek”. Someone else described this new Star Trek as “Ain’t Your Parents’ Star Trek”… meaning that the original fanbase that built and support Star Trek will absolutely not enjoy this new Star Trek.

See also Sci-Fi (notable titles: Pluribus, Alien: Earth, Murderbot, The Long Walk, and The Eternaut) and  Movies.

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