Television series
Rod Lott
Four years ago, cable remade the perfectly fine ’70s sci-fi thriller The Andromeda Strain, based upon Michael Crichton’s thriller, but needlessly doubled the running time, thereby cutting its effectiveness in half. 

Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
Not based on Connie Willis' seminal sci-fi novel of the same name, Doomsday Book is preoccupied not with time travel, but the world's end. Telling three separate stories, the Korean film comes from acclaimed directors Kim Jee-woon (I Saw the Devil) and Yim Pil-sung (Hansel & Gretel). As with all anthologies, results vary; ultimately, this one ends up as two-thirds great.

Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
I'm not of the opinion that remakes are automatically a bad thing. Without them, we wouldn't have David Cronenberg's The Fly or John Carpenter's The Thing. The difference is that examples like those had a different way of telling the established story.

Action
Rod Lott
Fifth in the increasingly slick but decreasingly lucid franchise, Resident Evil: Retribution had potential to be the best entry since the 2002 original. After all, returning director Paul W.S. Anderson (The Three Musketeers) has positioned so many elements from the previous films that it seemed set up to play like a greatest-hits package. Instead, the result is baffling.

Sci-Fi
Phil Bacharach
Hooray for movies with ideas!

Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
Like The Punisher, Judge Dredd serves as judge, jury and executioner, all rolled into one. Like The Punisher, Judge Dredd also received a cinematic reboot in an attempt to right precious filmmakers’ wrongs.

Television series
Rod Lott
Femme Fatales is unlike any previous Skinemax Cinemax adult series in that the nudity, while plentiful, isn’t the reason for its being and, therefore, isn’t dreadfully boring like those others — yes, you, Emmanuelle in Space. If you harbor an equal love for pulp fiction and dangerous curves, the 13 episodes that make up the premiere season’s three-disc set should provide plenty of no-brain, all-bod entertainment.

Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
When I first saw Holy Motors, it was in a way that would make director Leos Carax cry, “Mon dieu!”: on a small window on my computer screen. That’s hardly the proper showcase for a film that set Cannes all abuzz, especially for courting year-end votes from critics’ groups.

Horror
Rod Lott
Hey, kids! Remember the hysteria surrounding Y2K? Ahhh, so quaint ...

Sci-Fi
Rod Lott
No matter in what capacity, if Luc Besson's name is on a movie, I will not hesitate to watch. Why? The Transporter, District 13, Kiss of the Dragon, Taken, Unleashed, Ong-Bak, The Professional, La Femme Nikita and most sequels that spawned from those, that's why. (I'll forgive and forget From Paris with Love.)