Category Archives: Government human experiment

The Terminal List (2022)

From IMDB:

A former Navy SEAL officer investigates why his entire platoon was ambushed during a high-stakes covert mission.

From Amazon Prime you can stream the 8 episodes of this action thriller. Each episode lasts about one hour.

Essentially, this is a revenge film based on the complications of a quasi-government human experiment gone wrong.  As more details of the government cover-up come to light, the revenge list maintained by James Reece, played by Chris Pratt, of the guilty parties grows as he doggedly eliminates each person on that list.

Violent but engaging revenge series right up to the relentless ending.

The Titan (2018)

From Netflix:

On a bleak future Earth, a soldier endures a radical genetic transformation to save humanity. But his wife fears he’s  becoming more creature than man.

From Netflix you can stream this 1 hour 37 minute sci-fi drama.

Because Earth is doomed,  the U.S. government has decided to try to populate Titan, one of Jupiter’s moons.  Titan’s environment (air, temperature, water) is harsher than that of Earth. Consequently a (mad?) scientist (played by Tom Wilkinson) has devised a radical restructuring of a body’s genome so that the resulting person can thrive on Titan.  Among the group of volunteers is Rick Janssen (played by Sam Worthington) whose wife Abi (played by Taylor Schilling) loves him dearly and is terrified by the treatments, suffering, and changes taking place in her husband.

Rather than full-fledged sci-fi, this is more a minor drama about how impending planet disaster affects a marriage.

Ignore the improbable details (how many people does populating a new planet require?), enjoy the yarn and the personalities.

Manifest (2020)

From Netflix:

When a plane mysteriously lands years after takeoff, the people onboard return to a world that has moved on without them and face strange, new realities.

From Netflix you can stream two seasons of this fairly awful series. Season 1 has 16 episodes and season 2 has 13 episodes.  Every single episode lasts exactly 42 minutes, which may have been the only technical achievement of the series.

Holy Maudlin!  There were enough tears shed during this slop opera to irrigate California.

Holy Unbelievable! Find yourself in a tight spot?  Just invent some miraculous paranormal intervention.

Holy Gullible! How on earth could I watch all 29 episodes expecting to be satisfied with the ending.  Perhaps it is because I LOVE TRASH.

MISS!

High Life (2019)

From Amazon Prime:

Monte (Robert Pattinson) and his baby daughter, last survivors on a spaceship, hurtle to the oblivion of a black hole.

From Amazon Prime you can stream this 1 hour 53 minutes sci-fi film.

There is grim, and then there is REALLY grim.  Such a well-done film and such a downer! Certainly this film will not be everyone’s cup of tea. Because it was so well made that even as I was tempted to stop watching, I stayed till the end. Their country has sent a crew of death row inmates on a space journey to a black hole as a scientific experiment. One goal is to see if under controlled circumstances a fanatically determined woman doctor (the renowned Juliette Binoche) can use these male and female resources to produce another human being.  Again I repeat – this is one grim film. Even the sex scenes are grim.

Flashbacks are an integral feature of the plot. At the beginning we learn that indeed a beautiful healthy female child Willow was produced. Then we flash back to see how that all developed.

Throughout the story Willow’s father, Monte played admirably by Robert Pattinson, is a constant sane presence. Suspend disbelief because somehow Willow grows to an intelligent, emotionally mature teenager at the end of the film.

Expect an unusual ending. And if, for the third and final warning, you do not like grim, then stop, go no further, and proceed directly to another film.

Homecoming (2018)

From Amazon Prime:

Nominated for 3 Golden Globes, including Best Drama Series. Good intentions. Erratic bosses. Mounting paranoia. Unforeseen consequences spiraling out of control. Heidi (Julia Roberts) works at Homecoming, a facility helping soldiers transition to civilian life. Years later she has started a new life, when the Department of Defense questions why she left Homecoming. Heidi realizes there’s a whole other story behind the one she’s been telling herself.

From Amazon Prime you can stream the 1 season, 10 episodes of this complete story.  Each episode lasts approximately  a half hour.

Julia Roberts  ( age 57) is no longer a young romantic figure. Instead she does a credible and serious job as a woman unwittingly caught up in a sinister plot that takes awhile to reveal itself.

Bobby Cannavale  (age 48) does a superb job at portraying an amoral and smooth operator in the destructive enterprise.  Here is a man who can put a verbal deceptive spin on whatever scheme his corporation is concocting.  We see a lot of this  behavior nowadays (in plots and political life and military life): characters that convince you that everything is just fine and legitimate using standard business world speech patterns. Meanwhile, in reality, nasty things are happening.  Vietnam?

Stephan James (age 25) is somewhat of a newcomer.  His role here as one of the many victims is well done and convincing.

However, of all the characters I most admired  how Shea Whigham presented Thomas Carrasco, a determined and humble Department of Defense cog-in-the-wheel who stubbornly refused to stop investigating.

Because the episodes are so short, it is easy and compelling to binge straight through to the end.  When you have finished, ask yourself if such a thing could really happen.