Ever notice how when one movie comes out there seem to be two or three that come out at the same time that have roughly the same idea? The twin movie phenomenon is very real and in fact happens a lot in Hollywood. Directors and producers see what works and then try to emulate it in their own way so as to grab a bit of the success that a blockbuster movie might enjoy. Sometimes it works, a lot of times it doesn’t. The blockbusters tend to take most of the attention and leave the other movies grasping for those that are still interested enough to watch what is seen as either a copycat film or something far too similar to be taken seriously.
Here are a few groups that came out around the same time and have a lot of similar themes to them.
All of these are the type of film in which one or more leads tries to escape their normal, boring life and become someone worthy of note. There are a lot of differences between these movies but the one unifying theme is the fact that each character is out to make something of themselves in a unique and unforeseen way.
The existentialism of AI is something that people are still pondering at this moment and it is a very common theme min many movies. Ex Machina takes the cake for this group though, largely because it was the biggest of the three.
Apocalyptic comedies are generally all about the end of the world in some weird, messed up fashion that people don’t see coming but can at least guess at. Saying which is the best is highly dependent on a person’s sense of humor.
The common theme here is that people are being controlled by another person from a remote location. Avatar definitely takes the lead in this group since it was such a massive hit, but Game was flat out disturbing in how they thought up a way to control people using other people.
The virtual world is the real world is the virtual world and, so on and so forth. It’s hard to know where one ends and the other begins in these movies since the plots are usually so folded over and convoluted that you find yourself wondering just kind of a cinematic maze you wandered into.
Global disaster movies were all the rage when these came out and the ones that got the most attention were those that had the most star power and catchy one-liners. At one point it became less about the acting than it was about the very serious part that the earth was about to be destroyed by an asteroid the size of Texas.
Vampires and teenagers seem to go together in a way that a lot of people didn’t think possible until this point. To be fair teenagers seem like easy prey, and the sense of immortality that so many teens possess fits well into the mythos of the movies.
Geeks, braniacs, and nerds that don’t know any better than to make inventions and mess with things beyond their comprehension is the name of the game here. Something always goes awry and then the teens that are for some reason running the show have to fix it in a hilarious and even grandiose manner.
Follow Us
