Dir. Scott Derrickson| USA | 1h43m

There are plenty of things you probably already know going into this picture. Yes, it’s a remake of the 1951 anti-nuke sci-fi classic by Robert Wise. Yes, it concerns the arrival of Klaatu, an alien herald with some advice for the human race. And yes, he’s got a killbot. A really big killbot.  

Apparently, the various civilizations that employ Klaatu have been watching us for a while, they have some concerns about the direction we’re driving our big blue marble, and so dispatch him to greet us with a message of world peace. Sounds pretty swell, until one determines that when he uses the term “world,” he specifically means the planet Earth, and the “peace” part is not so much about burying political hatchets or buying local products or helping the landlady with her garbage, but a lot more about purging the human infection from the planet’s surface so it can get back to the business of growing trees and squids and ocelots unhindered. You know, in peace. Oh, and by the way, meet my colossal killbot.

Dir. Sly Stallone | USA | 1h31m

For an apt illustration of John Rambo’s epic journey, and possibly his place in American pop-culture, you need look no further than his right hand and the knife it’s preparing to jam into your guts. The blade he carried in 1982’s “First Blood” made for a decent representation of his character—beaten and used, but fairly utilitarian and still razor sharp. It had a saw on its spine, a matchbox stowed in its pommel and a compass on its butt. The knife, like Rambo, seemed to be an oversized government-issue instrument for surviving rough situations, and was shockingly out of place in the quiet, domesticated Jerkwater, U.S.A., in which the film took place. The simple threat of its presence was enough to scare the bejesus out of the yokel cops, and subsequently re-trigger poor John’s military conditioning as a cold-as-steel killing machine capable of eating things that would make a billy goat puke.