Visual Effects - 3 Nominees

 

Alien: Romulus

Eric Barba, Nelson Sepulveda-Fauser, Daniel Macarin and Shane Mahan

The film starts with a young worker and her adopted robot brother working in servitude. Her sentence is getting ready to end when the evil powers that be inform her that she won't be leaving anytime soon and that her sentence has been extended. She finds her way onto a ship with a bunch of looters and lo and behold they discover the alien species that haunted Ellen Ripley so many years ago. While the visual effects in this film are extremely cool, I've had enough Alien movies for the rest of my life.

Better Man

Luke Millar, David Clayton, Keith Herft and Peter Stubbs

This was an incredibly interesting approach to a biopic. Robbie Williams tells his life story from child to superstar, but does so in the form of an ape. His lifelong insecurities manifesting themselves in many ways, but primarily as someone who is a misfit, never quite believing himself to be fully human. I enjoyed the movie and I didn't know anything really about Robbie Williams except that he was part of Take That.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes

Erik Winquist, Stephen Unterfranz, Paul Story and Rodney Burke

Here's another franchise that every time I see another one come out, I say do we really need another Planet of the Apes story? Yes, the visual effects are very cool, but what is this adding to the cannon? The problem is, each time they make one, they get nominated and I end up watching it. And guess what? Each one comes up with another engaging story - they are not the same film repurposed each time (I'm looking at your Alien Romulus), they add something to narrative and always have the central message warning against tribalism. I like this one, as well. Looking forward to the next one - Kingdom of the Phylum of the Class of the Order of the Family of the Genus of the Species of the Universe of the Planet of the Apes.