Quelling a deadly space-bug riot or facing down an army of droid mechas is not a job for your average thespian. Actors for the most part are a cowardly, squishy lot. But there are a few, proud exceptions -- men that go above and beyond the call of duty on the movie screen, time and again returning to serve our country, the world, and sometimes even the whole galaxy. These are the Soldiers of SciFi, and let's show them a little respect, maggot!

Jean-Claude Van Damme
Rank: Seargent
The debate over genetically engineered soldiers has divided our troops, and the public. But one man has shown that those half-lives cause more trouble than they're worth, and that man is Van Damme. Through three Universal Soldier movies, Van Damme's resurrected Vietnam soldier Luc Devereaux has been a thorn in the side of the U.S. Army. Create a program to resurrect troops? Devereaux will take it down. Evil computer tries to destroy the U.S. government? Devereaux can't help but get involved. At least in this year's Universal Soldier 3: A New Beginning, he teams up with our boys to stop an evil nuclear cloud. Oh, and the less said about Van Damme's army leader in Street Fighter (1994), the better.

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Rank: Lieutenant
The T-800 is the most ruthless killing machine we've ever seen. And though we don't have to like them, we do have to respect their prowess. Schwarzenegger has portrayed the T-800 in four Terminator movies (well, three plus a computer generated head). But it's not for his misdeeds that we honor the Governator today. In Commando (1985), John Matrix alone stood against an army of evil. In Predator (1987), he was the only man to survive an alien hunter. Time and again, Schwarzenegger has served this country, with only a moderate amount of collateral damage. OK, a significant amount of collateral damage. So what, punk?

Continue reading "Putting Together a SciFi Military Squad? You Can Count on Kurt Russell and Dennis Quaid" »

Mixing scifi and comedy is a difficult proposition: Often, the effects will overwhelm the comedy, or vice versa. (There's a reason every special effects driven comedy since Ghostbusters has been sold as "the next Ghostbusters.") There is, however, a group of directors who've managed to find the middle of the Venn Diagram. Let's count down the best:

10. Tom Shadyac
Shadyac's first professional directing work was the 1991 TV movie Frankenstein: The College Years, which set the stage for his interest in mixing scifi's peanut butter with comedy's chocolate. Shadyac's cinematic ambitions then continued with The Nutty Professor (1996), where he reimagined Jekyll and Hyde. Shadyac went on to mix fantasy with comedy in Liar Liar (1997), a movie about a wish gone wrong; and the god-coms Bruce Almighty (2003) and Evan Almighty (2007). If the last two were funny, Shadyac might have done better than 10.

9. Chris Columbus
Chris Columbus didn't approach scifi/comedy mash-ups until over a decade into his career, when he released his first light-hearted scifi, Bicentennial Man (1999). Since then he's embraced the genre, directing the first two Harry Potter movies (which certainly contain their comedic elements), and the potentially hilarious (or at least hilariously titled) Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010). As a producer Columbus also spearheaded Night at The Museum (2006), which blends just about every genre there is.

8. Tim Burton
One of Burton's first movies, Frankenweenie (1984) twisted the Frankenstein myth to fit in a reanimated puppy (I think we saw something similar to this above?) Four years later, his Beetlejuice (1988) comfortably aped Ghostbusters with a deft mixture of comedy and ghost stories. Edward Scissorhands (1990) might be more dark fairy tale, but the director firmly returned to the mix with the under-appreciated Mars Attacks! (1996), his perfect parody of alien attack movies from the '50s.

Continue reading "Ghostbusters's Reitman Is a Master of the SciFi-Comedy Merge. Who Else Is?" »

Movies are about collaboration -- hundreds of people laboring intense, long hours to entertain audiences. Is it any wonder a lead actor and director often bond over the work and decide to work together again and again? Let's look at the most artistically profitable pairings in scifi.

10. James Marsden and Bryan Singer
The clean-cut Marsden is more likely to be playing the jerk boyfriend in a romantic comedy than inspiring a talented filmmaker. But that's just what he's done with Bryan Singer, having starred as Cyclops in X-Men (2000), and X2 (2003) -- granted, playing the jerk boyfriend. Then there's Superman Returns (2006), which finds Marsden playing the non-jerk (but still kind of a jerk) boyfriend to Lois Lane. One wonders how Singer will use Marsden in the future...

9. Harrison Ford & George Lucas
Ford was working as a stagehand when Lucas cast him in a small, but pivotal role in American Graffiti (1973). Then in '77 Lucas made him Han Solo in Star Wars (maybe you've heard of it?), solidifying their working relationship. When Lucas was looking for a leading man in his serial throwback Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), there was only one place he looked. Though Steven Spielberg directed the next three Indy follow-ups, Lucas and Ford maintained their close working relationship throughout.

8. Carla Gugino & Robert Rodriguez
Robert Rodriguez is fiercely loyal to his crew of devoted Austinites, so it's no surprise he'd work with the same cast again and again. One of those is Carla Gugino, who despite not being a Texan, appeared in all three Spy Kids movies as spy mom Ingrid Cortez, and as the doomed Lucille in Sin City. Her untimely demise in that picture is probably the only thing preventing Rodriguez from bringing her back for Sin City 2 and 3.

Continue reading "Sigourney and Cameron. Depp and Burton. Who's SciFi's Actor-Director Dream Team? " »

Swine Flu! H1N1! Call it what you like, the W.H.O. and news outlets around the world would have you believe sky has started raining blood. Indeed, the panic that ensued the announcement of this strain was more deadly than the virus itself (which, incidentally, has a lower mortality rate than the common flu). One word is on everyone's lips: Pandemic. And science fiction loves a pandemic. So what can it teach us about the dos and don'ts of surviving this new crisis?

Don't Trust the Military -- They Might Be Responsible
In 1995's Outbreak, Motaba -- a deadly virus very much like Ebola -- makes the jump between animals and humans and decimates the town of Cedar Creek, California. Needless to say, the virus ends up being a mutation of another strain that the military tested in Africa back in the 1960s, and which they were keeping in reserve as a biological weapon. Going to them for help (especially when their last quarantine consisted of firebombing everything in sight), is a bad idea. Still there's good news: If they created the pandemic, they might have a vaccine for it.

Continue reading "The Dos and Don'ts of Surviving a SciFi-Style Outbreak" »

According to Hollywood, only three things will survive Judgment Day: Cockroaches, Wolverine's adamantium skeleton, and hot thespians with washboard abs. Don't believe us? Check out these ten actors who manage to make doomsday look downright fun.

1. Kevin Costner
Costner almost destroyed an entire movie studio (along with, ya know, the world) with his turn in what was the most expensive movie ever made, Waterworld. In it the actor plays a fish-man who drinks his own urine on a quest to find dry land after a global flood. Then, Costner returned to the scene of the crime with The Postman (1997), which casts him as a Jesus-like pony express rider (the last one in the world). Still, at least he was no pee-drinking gill freak.

2. Emilio Estevez
Estevez kept a busy career running from global annihilations in the '80s and '90s. In Maximum Overdrive (1986), the only movie Stephen King has ever directed, Estevez is one of the few survivors of a Terminator-like machine uprising-slash-genocide. Then, as Alex Furlong in Freejack (1992), he plays a racecar driver taken to a dystopic future by bounty hunters (including Mick Jagger!), who want to replace his mind with that of an ailing billionaire.

3. Christian Bale
The Dark Knight himself surely has the chops to survive a biblical rain of fire, as he proved in 2002's Reign of Fire where he fights off evil, man-eating dragons. Bale followed that performance with Equilibrium, set in an Orwellian future where feelings have been outlawed. And then of course, there's this weekend's Terminator Salvation, which finds Bale starring as the fourth actor to play John Connor -- our only hope against the robo-pocalypse.

Continue reading "Christian Bale Knows How to Survive the Apocalypse... Who Else Does?" »

If there's one thing that Hollywood and science fiction have in common, it's that they're both improbably filled with beautiful people. Of course, Hollywood actors and actresses would never be so vain as to refer to themselves as perfect specimens of humanity... but in scifi that's just what they're called. And no one is better at stepping up to the pedestal of future perfection than these five actors. Whether or not you think they're flawless in real life, on the silver screen they can't be topped.

5. Jude Law
With his receding hairline and wiry frame, you'd hardly think of Law as lacking in flaws. But time and again he's shown that charm, an English accent and piercing blue eyes will get you anywhere. In Gattaca (1997), Law plays a genetically perfected human dealing with a crippling swimming injury -- and yet he's still able to pass along his DNA samples to the imperfect Ethan Hawke. In 1999, Law infuriates Matt Damon's title character in The Talented Mr. Ripley by having the perfect girlfriend and the perfect life. Then there's Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001), which finds Law trying his hand as the perfect sex-bot. Though all his characters have an internal flaw, the actor excels at pushing past that and showing that perfection is merely skin-deep.

4. Milla Jovovich
As a fashion model, Jovovich is no stranger to having her body treated as the epitome of physical perfection. But in The Fifth Element (1997), Jovovich literally embodies it as the physical representation of human love. Then there's the Resident Evil series (2002, 2004, 2007), which slowly reveals that Jovovich is... you guessed it, the perfect specimen of humanity, created by the evil Umbrella Corporation using the usually zombifying T-Virus. Clearly, no one in either of these movies has ever heard her sing, but no matter: I'd gladly suffer zombie-dom to create my own personal Milla.

Continue reading "Move Over, Vitruvian Man - Perfection Is Spelled A-H-N-O-L-D " »

What is acting if not a bid to capture a small piece of immortality, to live forever on the silver screen? Sure it's a little bit more involved than that, but who doesn't want to avoid death for as long as possible? These six actors have taken it one step further, and made a career of playing characters who can never die. Meet the Immortals:

6. Sean Connery
In Highlander (1986) and Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), Sean Connery plays the immortal mentor of Christopher Lambert's younger, brasher Highlander. You could technically argue that the Highlanders aren't immortal, as they have a weakness for getting their heads chopped off. But that's splitting hairs (no pun intended). Then in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), Connery plays the near-immortal Allan Quartermain. Quartermain is getting on in years, but the adventurer -- at least in Alan Moore's original comic -- will live forever.

Continue reading "Sean Connery and Christopher Lambert Will Live Forever... At Least On Screen" »

We scifi geeks all know that science fiction connotes spaceships and time travel, giant robots and alien planets. But we often forget the "science" part of the equation when we're conjuring images of future worlds. Well, not all of us forget: These directors have shown a rare ability to twist real-world concepts just beyond reality. They are the Masters of Science Fact.

5. Darren Aronofsky
Up until he embraced the sports movie genre with 2008's The Wrestler, Aronofsky stayed firmly within the realm of science fact. His first hit, 1998's Pi, stars a mathematician searching for the universal connection between numbers. Though it eventually enters the realm of fantasy (we assume), the math in the flick is sound, and the story is riddled with strange numerical connections throughout science and religion. 2006's The Fountain also seems like it should be in the realm of fantasy, with issues of eternal life, the fountain of youth and fantastic spaceships. But at its core is a man searching for a cancer cure using science from three different eras. Though it's up in the air what Aronofsky's upcoming reinvention of Robocop will be like, chances are it will be grounded in actual robotics -- much less reflective of Paul Verhoeven's 1987 version.

Continue reading "The New Batman Movies Dabble in Real Science Just Like Pi and Jurassic Park" »

The Internet can be a scary place, what with spammers, computer viruses and evildoers wielding global interconnectivity to do you harm. It's a topic well-trodden in movies, and at the center of it are hackers -- the heroes and villains of Web 2.0 who sit at their keyboards, ready to do e-battle. But not just anyone can play one of these whizzes. Hackers have to be witty, lightning quick with a keyboard, and of course geeky while still maintaining that handsome charm. These six actors have the role down to a science.

6. Pierce Brosnan
You'd certainly tend to think of Brosnan more as a ladykiller than a guy who spends his days in front of a computer terminal. But the truth is, he's both. In Lawnmower Man (1992), he hacks the human brain to create a virtual reality. Add in high-tech espionage in his James Bond movies, a turn as a computer scientist in Mars Attacks! (1996), and various lower-tech hack jobs in The Thomas Crown Affair (1999) and After the Sunset (2004), and you have a guy you shouldn't trust around your PC.

Continue reading "Matthew Broderick and Keanu Reeves Save the World, One Keyboard at a Time" »

While The Dark Knight and Iron Man receive kudos from fans and critics alike, it's easy to forget that not all superheroes are created equal. For whatever reason, the superhero genre has the unique ability to stymie the talent of most good actors, and draw out the hackery of bad ones. Herewith, the ten worst superhero actors of all time.

10. Shaquille O'Neal
Rather than a smart, urban superhero spun off from Superman, Shaquille O'Neal's Steel is more a radioactive club bouncer -- only slightly more interesting than the "actor's" turn as a genie in Kazaam. Our only wish after that movie was to never see Shaq attack another comic book character; his turn in Steel ensures that wish will come true.

9. Jennifer Garner
First Garner turned the deadly Elektra into a doe-eyed romantic lead in Daredevil. Then she resurrected the character in Elektra, ignoring the source material to create a compassionate hit-woman. She didn't do the ninja assassin -- nor herself -- any favors with this mess of contradictions. Perhaps she should stick to romantic comedies and J.J Abrams television spy dramas.

8. Nicolas Cage
For years Cage pushed to be in a superhero movie, finally getting his chance as the flame-headed Ghost Rider. Aside from bestowing on the character his usual Elvis impersonation, Cage gave Blaze bizarre, non-canonical tics like a Jelly Bean fixation. Then he took a pass at Philip K. Dick, playing a pre-cog in the sublimely underwhelming Next. Coming up, Cage will star in an adaptation of Mark Millar's Kick-Ass. He's one superhero Hollywood can't quit.

Continue reading "Batman and Catwoman Might Be Super, But Clooney and Berry Are Not" »