I remember when the sequel to Prometheus was going to be named Paradise, Shaw's voiceover fresh in my mind: "...I am still searching." It was one of those sort of lines Damon Lindelof seems to really like writing. "Big things have small beginnings," etc. Nice and tidy, with implications of scope, even optimism, something one might expect more from Star Trek. Still, I found the idea of leaving this outpost where "only death" remained to seek out the Engineer homeworld…

delightful midnight movie trash. tom hardy isn't nicolas cage but right here he sure is at his most erratic and bonkers, unhinged and animated in his own exaggerated way (...at times, while at other times he's completely limp, slumping over (and i mean, like, to me tom hardy often comes off as though he is simultaneously hyper-committing to a role and... i don't know, just wingin it out there)). this might've still been some fun without him, but i'm gonna…

Demonlover 2, indeed. There was certainly a sense that Assayas owed to Verhoeven in terms of aesthetics and provocation — hentai and CGI porn essentially mimicking RoboCop's cuts to absurd commercials, or its frankness toward sexual taboo, among other things. This returns here via video game cutscenes, perhaps as a discreet reminder of the director we're dealing with — one who has been largely absent for more than 15 years, save for 2006's Black Book — cutting into a film…