{"id":371100,"date":"2026-01-15T09:51:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/371100\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T09:51:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:51:09","slug":"bulk-review-can-you-really-make-a-sci-fi-film-in-a-suburban-semi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/371100\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulk review \u2014 can you really make a sci-fi film in a suburban semi?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The road to movie hell is paved with good intentions and few intentions are better than those that inform this high-concept sci-fi from Ben Wheatley, the director of Sightseers <\/a>and Meg 2: The Trench<\/a>. Shot mostly in a suburban house in Brighton over two weeks in 2024 on an undisclosed yet proverbial shoestring (cardboard sets and toy props), the film is designed, its star Sam Riley says, \u201cto show people that all you need is an idea.\u201d Well, yes, and \u2026 <\/p>\n

\u2022 Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews<\/a><\/p>\n

Riley, his off-screen wife, Alexandra Maria Lara (Control), and Noah Taylor star as three scientists working on an interdimensional energy experiment that, in the opening frames, goes awry. Their nondescript semi-detached house is transformed into a \u201cquantum liferaft\u201d that travels through the multiverse and sends Riley\u2019s scientist-cum-quantum journalist (don\u2019t ask!) Corey Harlan in hot pursuit of a former crypto-billionaire called Anton Chambers (Mark Monero) to discover the sub-atomic path back to non-quantum reality before the heavy metal poison in Harlan\u2019s blood becomes fatal. <\/p>\n

Nice on paper, perhaps, but with no budget and few locations more elaborate than a kitchen island we are inundated with convoluted exposition as part of the film\u2019s plan, Wheatley says, \u201cto tell a simple story in a complicated way\u201d. Meanwhile, how do our protagonists travel across dimensions? They walk into different rooms in the house. How do they jump between identities? They change their clothes. <\/p>\n

There is precedent here: Shane Carruth\u2019s quantum head-scratcher Primer (2004) and Steven Soderbergh\u2019s ghostly chiller Presence<\/a> (2024) demonstrated that satisfying dramatic tension could be wrung from a single set, a crazy idea and no budget. But this is just sloppy, repetitive and dull. <\/p>\n

\u2022 The 20 best sci-fi movies of all time \u2014 ranked by the experts<\/a><\/p>\n

Wheatley claims that while making Bulk he was inspired by the authors Kurt Vonnegut and Philip K Dick, and by the films of Jan Svankmajer. Great. I\u2019m inspired by James Joyce but that doesn\u2019t mean my reviews are modernist masterpieces. Not all of them anyway.
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15, 90min
Touring in cinemas now, rookfilms.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman<\/p>\n

Times+ members can enjoy two-for-one cinema tickets at Everyman each Wednesday. Visit thetimes.com\/timesplus<\/a> to find out more<\/p>\n

Which films have you enjoyed at the cinema recently? Let us know in the comments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The road to movie hell is paved with good intentions and few intentions are better than those that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[96,2839,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-371100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-movies","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}