The Final Version sci-fi information page

This pretty neat The Final Version novel page has been brought my attention. It has been going a few years and contains some good observations and facts about the book by readers. I’ve copied and excerpt below.

• It is difficult to pin point when WWIII occurs, however, whatever destructive device was used left buildings standing. This leaves the remaining survivors (who have converged on a few remaining city’s world wide) have whole buildings to live in to themselves. To benefit for this arrangement occupants seemingly have to adhere to the consistent surveillance/monitoring. It echoes Blade Runner and Aeon Flux in chapters, with hints of The Thing and Mad Max in others.
• Denton visits every continent.
• Given it is set post WIII the future appears quite habitable (excluding the wastelands and industrial areas). State Side while the rain beats down there are while plastic pavements/side walks and Neon lights have made a come back.
• It’s a ‘kitchen sink’ book as it has so much in it. However, it’s pulls off bringing the sci-fi elements, (not limited to) A.I, cloning, cryogenics and Robotics together with the historic chapters and the events that are touched on subtly which include the discovery of DNA, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, Anastasia’s disappearance, Spanish Conquistadors encounters, painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s fate to name a few.
• Religion is outlawed and practised by underground sects. Notbaly the MJ and King sect.

Source: FanDom http://the-final-version.wikia.com/wiki/The_Final_Version_Wiki

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Deep Blue Sea (1999) Revisited

Set in an isolated underwater facility, a team of scientists carry our research on genetically engineered Mako sharks to help fight Alzheimer’s disease but this go awry when sharks go on rampage and flood the facility.

Director Renny Harlin’s delivers a B-movie premise that’s good fun. Although the CGI shark effects are a bad as they were back on its 1999 release, the practical shark effects still hold up and are impressive even today.

There’s plenty of shark action and the cast boasts both Stellan Skarsgård and Samuel L. Jackson in small pivotal roles. Leads Saffron Burrows and Thomas Jane play it perfectly straight and are solid enough. However, Donna & Wayne Powers and Duncan Kennedy’s screenplay add comedy moments mostly in the guise of LL Cool J who is memorable as Sherman the cook ‘Preacher’, instead of it being totally serious throughout.

There’s some good set-ups and surprise deaths, an ominous attack on partying teens, a shark smashing stretchers against windows, sharks casing through flooded shafts, a helicopter crash, think The Poseidon Adventure meets Jaws 3.

Although Deep Blue 2 followed – it’s less squeal and more of remake, recycling some of the story setups and script only without the budget and tension. Stick with Harlin’s original.

Deep Blue Sea (2018) Review

Warning – SPOILERS AHEAD.

A billionaire experimenting on bull sharks, soon cause havoc for a visiting group of scientists.

One of the oddest deja vú experiences for all the wrong reasons. Deep Blue Sea 2 is less of a sequel and more of a straight to video remake of the 1999 original. Complete with a smaller shed on the water with a state-of-the-art facility below the surface.

Director Darin Scott offers a darker look, more buckets of CGI blood but it’s not cinematic, it’s hampered by the lack of budget, bottom of the barrel TV look with filtered lighting. The actors do their best with the recycled script and storyline from the original. Bull sharks replace the Makos.

There’s a few tweaks – the sharks tunnel rather than jump fences, they attack an illegal shark finning duo instead of partying teens in the opening, the sleeping shark doesn’t eat the entrepreneur Durant, it eats another cast member instead, there’s no parrot just lots more CGI. It mocks some of the original urinating in the wind dialogue. The story beats are pretty much the same only they destroy the compound themselves. And there’s a tagged on ending where the sharks head to attack some beach goers.

Why Warner Bros. went all 90’s Disney straight to video with this sequel/remake only Samuel L. Jackson character knows. Maybe to cash in on the release up and coming The Meg or off the back of the better 47 Meters Down and The Shallows.

It’s notable redeeming features are American Emily Blunt-a-like Danielle Savre and some real great white footage.

If you’re interested in seeing what the flawed but entertaining original would have looked like with a first draft script and Syfy channel budget, this is a must see, for the less curious swim as far away from this as possible.

Tomb Raider (2018) Review

The daughter of an eccentric adventurer embarks on a perilous journey starting at her fathers last-known location in Japan.

So in 2001 we didn’t get actress Rohan Mitra, we got Angelina Jolie instead. After casting directors passed on Marvel’s Hayley Atwell and Star War’s Daisy Ridley for this reboot Alicia Vikander won the role. Director Roar Uthaug offers Tomb Raider a Lara Croft origin story, she’s younger with distracting, gasps, grunts, pants and yelps at every stunt. Here Uthaug presents Lara honing her skills, missing jumps here, getting beaten there. It’s Lara the student not the gun-toting archaeologist yet.

Uthaug offers sweeping camera work throughout, London, oceans, waterfalls and jungles, it’s an extravagant production, the locations ooze atmosphere and the effects are not too distracting. Writers Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Alastair Siddons’ dialogue at times is derivative, but thankfully the solid acting glosses over it. Satisfyingly the tone is less comic-like, that said, it lacks any setups to write home about, there’s a circumstantial shipwreck and an exciting escape from a dilapidated plane that has long since crashed, both of which are visually impressive but could be in any other film. There’s nothing in terms of setups which equal or surpass anything in the previous two Tomb Raider films or the original Eidos Interactive game.

To Vikander’s credit she does a credible job and equals actor Dominic West and his deep tones as her dad, Richard Croft. Actor Daniel Wu, Lara’s side kick is notable and Predators actor Walton Goggins offers some seriousness and weight, delivering a the perfect 80s thriller intense bad guy in a good way.

There’s machine-gun shoot outs, bow and arrow pulling, chases, Indiana Jones-like shenanigans and every tragic father daughter cliche you can think of complete with a post title scene setting up a sequel with more Lara-like trademark weapons.

Overall, it’s not bad but not great either, pretty forgettable but at least there’s not a nanotechnology McGuffin in sight.

Double Trouble (1992) Review

A brawny suited burglar and his equally muscular twin, an upstanding police officer, are forced to team up to bring down some diamond criminals.

With the fashion, music, hairdos and a Rambo III poster on display you’d swear director John Paragon’s Double Trouble was made in the eighties (even though it was 1992). The cast feature plenty of familiar acting faces, surprisingly this B film has some good talent on display. This forgotten film features David Carrdine, James Doohan, Roddy McDowell and those two muscle bound twins from the Conan wannabe film Barbarians (1987), I kid you not. McDowell has lot of fun shooting people and Doohan gets to Scotty rant while the twins get to wink at fine women, fight and shoot a lot. It’s all as outlandish and retro un-PC as it sounds.

The plot is too thin to mention, my first paragraph sums it up. To the twins David and Peter Paul’s credit they are great fun throughout and thanks to some writing flukes including Jessie Venture impressions, sibling rivalry along with Paragon’s clumsy setups and reverse fridge logic it’s more enjoyable than it should be.

If you love the 1980s cheese, this 90s film is a great example, think a second rate Twins mixed with Stop or My Mum will Shoot and Skyscraper. Let your mullet and crop top do the thinking, you should enjoy.