As any science fiction fan knows, all moments are ultimately lost in time, like tears in the rain. And sooner or later, sci-fi films on the best streaming services will also be lost when contracts expire or deals are renegotiated.
That means you won’t have to wait long to watch three ice-cold science fiction classics on Netflix, because they will all leave at the end of February 2024. It’s about movies Dune, Dredd And Snowpiercer, and they’re all firm favorites here. This is why.
Dune
As we said in our Dune film review, it is a captivating and visually striking science fiction epic. If you’re not familiar with the film or book it’s based on, it’s “an atmospheric, somber and sprawling cinematic wonder (with) shades of 2001: A space odyssey, Crazy Max even Gladiator in its implementation. It is also a thematically compact film that explores family legacy, politics, the longevity of the wealthy and environmentalism.”
While the ending is perhaps a little too focused on the build-up Dune 2 Rather than delivering a truly satisfying conclusion, it really does justice to Frank Herbert’s novel – no easy task considering its complexity and convoluted story, something that defeated David Lynch’s previous attempt to adapt the book. Though it’s fair to say that version had pop star Sting in his slightly terrifying plastic underpants, a costume choice that this 2021 adaptation wisely doesn’t want to replicate.
Dredd
I could go on for hours about this wonderful and exceptionally violent comic book adaptation and that’s why I don’t get invited to parties anymore. It’s basically a sci-fi equivalent of the equally violent The robbery, starring Carl Urban as the proto-fascist law enforcement officer who is judge, jury, and, often and increasingly gory, executioner. Together with his rookie partner, played by Olivia Thirlby, Dredd must bring justice to a 200-story apartment building run by Lena Headley’s evil drug lord Ma-Ma.
Is it as good as it is? The robbery? Maybe not, but it’s from a completely different universe than the terrible 1995 Judge Dredd, the Sylvester Stallone vehicle that was so out of step with the 2000 AD comic book ethos that you have to wonder if anyone involved with the film had even heard of the comic. This Dredd is the same Dredd we’ve loved and hated for decades, and once the film gets into its groove, it’s a thrilling, balletic epic that never lets up. And it’s a real tragedy that’s different The raid, Dredd never got a follow-up green light.
Snowpiercer
Snowpiercer – not to be confused with the 2020 remake of the series – is based on a French graphic novel called Le Transperceneige by Jacques Lob, Benjamin Legrand and Jean-Marc Rochette. As we said in a previous roundup of Netflix’s best sci-fi movies, it’s “a brilliant allegorical sci-fi film about a train powered by perpetual motion that perpetually orbits the Earth after a climate change experiment takes all the has killed life on earth… (when) a new class system arises, all the poor and impoverished struggle to survive at the back of the train, while the rich live it up at the front.
Directed by the incredible talent Bong Joon-ho (Parasite, Okja, the host), it was his first English-language debut and received critical acclaim – it has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 94% from critics and a 72% rating from audiences. As The Wall Street Journal puts it, “Once Mr. Bong sets his monorail in motion, the film gains irresistible momentum, accelerated by nonstop chaos, gallows humor and an immersive visual style that possesses an intoxicating sense of the steampunk apocalypse .”