Science fiction cinema took a hit throughout the 2000s, as generic plots flooded Hollywood and the advancement of CGI technologies made it easy to fill the screen with bland, weightless effects. The rising popularity of franchises meant that the biggest sci-fi movies were being made with the intention to follow them up with countless sequels.
Still, there were plenty of filmmakers turning out sci-fi masterpieces throughout the 2000s. No matter what shameful Hollywood trends permeate throughout a decade, there are always great directors making great films. So, here are the five best and five worst sci-fi movies from the 2000s.
10 Best: Minority Report (2002)
The works of Philip K. Dick have been adapted into some of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time, from Blade Runner to Total Recall, and Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report is no different.
Tom Cruise stars as John Anderton, a cop in a future where law enforcement agencies can predict crimes before they even take place. John is accused of a murder set to take place in three days — he doesn’t recognize his supposed victim — and has to go on the run.
9 Worst: Jumper (2008)
Any hopes of Hayden Christensen having a career as a leading man after his portrayal of Anakin Skywalker in the Star Wars prequels were dashed by Jumper. The story of a teleporting man being hunted by a secret society sounds fun on paper, but this movie managed to make it boring.
The brainless, nonsensical plot builds to an anticlimax — and not in a cool, subversive No Country way; in an eye-rolling, disappointing Blair Witch way.
8 Best: Children Of Men (2006)
Competing with Roma and Y Tu Mamá También for the title of Alfonso Cuarón’s finest film, Children of Men is one of the few dystopian sci-fi thrillers whose dystopia is genuinely bleak and harrowing.
In a world where all women are infertile, Clive Owen's Theo Faron is recruited to protect the last pregnant woman on Earth from the ravenous swarms that want to get their hands on her baby.
7 Worst: Timeline (2003)
A movie about a bunch of archaeology and history students being sent back in time to medieval France to rescue their professor from a battle hardly sounds like a masterpiece.
And it’s not. Despite being drawn from a novel by Michael Crichton, one of science fiction’s most thought-provoking writers, Timeline is an incoherent mess.
6 Best: WALL-E (2008)
Andrew Stanton took influence from all the masterpieces in sci-fi history when he directed an innovative take on the genre for Pixar. Nods to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, Star Wars, and countless other sci-fi classics can be found in WALL-E.
It’s also a beautiful example of a sci-fi movie in its own right, presenting an ominously plausible vision of an uninhabitable future Earth filled with trash and telling a touching love story between two star-crossed robots.
5 Worst: Hollow Man (2000)
A horror-tinged take on H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man directed by Paul Verhoeven sounds promising. Unfortunately, the movie wastes its intriguing premise. Kevin Bacon plays the scientist who turns himself invisible.
Rather than exploring the potential for suspense and contemplation in the concept of invisibility (which Leigh Whannell’s new version did masterfully), Verhoeven’s story has the scientist going insane, apropos of nothing, and randomly killing a bunch of people.
4 Best: District 9 (2009)
Inspired by his childhood experiences of Apartheid growing up in South Africa, Neill Blomkamp established himself as one of the most unique voices in modern sci-fi cinema with District 9, about society’s prejudice against alien visitors.
From the ashes of their canceled Halo movie, Peter Jackson gave Blomkamp a $30 million budget and told him to make whatever movie he wanted. With that freedom, Blomkamp helmed a film that shockingly captures humanity’s fear of “the other.”
3 Worst: The Adventures Of Pluto Nash (2002)
Notable only for the fact that it tanked harder at the box office than almost any other movie ever has, The Adventures of Pluto Nash stars Eddie Murphy in his mid-2000s family-friendly slump as a heroic smuggler and the evil villain who was cloned from him.
Despite having such greats as John Cleese and Pam Grier in the cast, Pluto Nash is a sci-fi action comedy that fails to be thought-provoking, exciting, or funny.
2 Best: Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind (2004)
The best science fiction stories are the ones that use speculative concepts to explore human realities. In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a heartbroken man pays an experimental company to remove the memory of his ex-girlfriend from his brain.
As the experiment goes horribly wrong, the man is trapped in his mind as the memories of his love quickly disappear around him. Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet make for a pair of compelling leads, while Michel Gondry’s direction is impeccable.
1 Worst: Battlefield Earth (2000)
Often cited as one of the worst movies ever made, Battlefield Earth is a cinematic representation of prominent Scientologist John Travolta’s desperate efforts to push the writings of L. Ron Hubbard on the general public. Travolta put up millions of dollars of his own money to pay for the budget.
The movie was planned as the first part in a franchise, but the overwhelmingly negative response from critics and the crippling failure at the box office made sure that didn’t happen.
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June 21, 2020 at 05:30AM
