Beyond the Black Rainbow

3/26/2025

_Beyond the Black Rainbow_ postures as a reverent tribute to 1970s cult sci-fi, but quickly reveals itself as an exercise in imitation rather than inspiration. Instead of channelling the essence of _THX 1138_, _Dark Star_, _Silent Running_, or _Solaris_, it appears to lift entire stylistic elements wholesale, without understanding what made those films resonate. Though drenched in an icy 1980s aesthetic—with CRT fuzz, sterile corridors, and a heavy synth score—the film offers little more than visual mimicry. An early sequence cuts from Ronald Reagan archival footage to a suit carrier marked “Noriega,” a clumsy nod to the CIA-backed Panamanian dictator famously driven out by the sonic assault of Van Halen. Had this film’s soundtrack been used instead, he’d have surrendered within a day—not

11/25/2025

63/100 I'd give you an idea of what this movie is about but I wouldn't know what to say as I have no idea. Ponderously slow with hardly any exposition, you'd think I would have really disliked it ...but I didn't. Surrealistically stark and sterile, yet strangely beautiful and colorful, it was like walking through a dream straight out of THX 1138. Even though I was finding it very difficult to make sense of any of it, I was thoroughly hypnotized right up to the very end. What a long, strange trip this was. -- DrNostromo.com