300: Rise of an Empire

With a single arrow the Greek Themistocles kills the Persian king Darius. This leaves Xerxes, Darius’s son, deeply troubled and determined to take revenge. Rise of an Empire is the follow up to the original 300 which appeared in early 2007. That film was based on a comic book written by Frank Miller. Both this new movie and its predecessor are heavily fictionalized versions of the Battle of Salamis. Where the first movie focused on the battle of Thermopylae, Rise of an Empire focuses on events taking place in parallel at the Straits of Artemisium.

RoboCop

Nearly everyone is familiar with the original 1987 RoboCop. Exploring the boundary between man and machine, that film became a critically acclaimed sci-fi classic. Hopefully many have forgotten the disappointing successor RoboCop 2 and the even worse RoboCop 3. Not long ago a new RoboCop film was announced: not a sequel, but a remake of the original. Would this be any good? I was skeptical.

Ender’s Game

It is 2086. Fifty years ago the earth was attacked by the Formics, an ant-like alien species. They wiped out a significant part of the Earth’s population before being stopped kamikaze-style by the legendary human pilot Mazer Rackham. Though the Formics have not returned, an attack is still feared. Hence, the people of Earth need to be battle ready: they need a new Mazer Rackham.