I love the sci-fi genre, especially in movies. But a sci-fi movie combined with action (and probably some monsters too) just earns itself a place in my interest.
My guilty pleasure lately is watching fun and simple, sci-fi, action movies. When I said fun and simple, I mean that most of these movies don’t take themselves too seriously. There are some parts of the movies that will probably make you go, “Yeah, that’s not how it works,” or “Well, that doesn’t make sense,” as you shake your head a little bit. These movies aren’t exactly mind-blowing. They neither were made to make you think about the story for days, nor forced you to read countless internet discussion just to understand the plot. They’re just fun and entertaining, a perfect gateway after a stressful day. That’s it. But that’s more than enough for me.
So, if you need to watch something fun with a lot of action as you chill, here’s my list of fun sci-fi, action movies that I recently watched on Netflix and really enjoyed. I am not a fan of gore or anything too bloody and violent, so these movies are nothing like that. Sure there are some blood, but I still find them tolerable. Anyway this article isn’t an advertisement of any kind, I just love watching movies and I want to talk about the ones I found interesting.
Note: As of 7 March 2021, they are all available on Netflix Indonesia (and hopefully other regions too). I can’t guarantee that you can still find them in the future, but you can always check movies availability on Netflix of any region on sites like unogs.com for that.
1. Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019)
Director : Jake Kasdan
Cast : Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Karen Gilan, Nick Jonas (+ Awkwafina, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover for Jumanji: The Next Level)
IMDb Rating: 6.9 (Welcome to the Jungle), 6.6 (The Next Level)
I remember watching the original movie from 1995 with Robin Williams and Kirsten Dunst as a kid with my cousins. We had a lot of laughter watching it. The two new Jumanji movies also bring a lot of laugh. Jack Black’s performance as a game character being played by a teenage girl is probably my favorite, though the other actors were great too.
Similar to the premise of the original movie, the two new movies are also about a game that sucked a bunch of kids into the game world where they’re forced to complete the game if they want to get out at all. Both are fun adventure movies with a straightforward plots, plenty of actions and humor.
2. The Meg (2018)
Director : Jon Turteltaub
Cast : Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose
IMDb Rating: 5.6
I discovered this movie during a really boring evening, and I wanted to watch something fun and simple with a big monster in it. And I got exactly what I was looking for. The movie starts with a group of scientists exploring the Mariana Trench where they discover something that science had declared already extinct for millions of years, the megalodon. Yes, the monster shark with huge teeth that no one had ever seen apparently still lurks somewhere deep down in the sea.
After being discovered, now the megalodon appears ready to come out of its nest and attack on everything (yes everything, even people). I mean, what is a human meat to a megalodon, it’s probably like a snack to them anyway. But it doesn’t stop a megalodon from hunting humans, so now Jason Statham has to get ready as he reluctantly saves everyone. After all, he is the only person who can save the whole world from the megalodon, right? So if you want to watch a fun monster movie with a lot of action where the hero always saves the day, The Meg is a great choice!
3. Deep Blue Sea (1999)
Director : Renny Harlin
Cast : Thomas Jane, Saffron Burrows, Samuel L. Jackson, Stellan Skarsgård, LL Cool J
IMDb Rating : 5.9
I have heard this movie mentioned a lot online, but I never bothered with it because the 5.9 rating on IMDb almost turned me away. My assumption was if a movie had such a low rating, it’s usually flat or not really fun. Turned out I was wrong. There’s a reason why this movie earned a cult status. I started watching this movie with such a low expectation, expecting myself not to like it, but I ended up enjoying it so much!
The premise of the movie is a bunch of people working in an underwater facility are trapped inside by a trio of intelligent sharks (as a result of a series of questionable scientific experiments). Here’s the kicker, the sharks are almost too smart to be believable. It’s like they’re not only really smart but they also seem to have some kind of sixth sense ability to help them know everything.
If you like the premise of people being stuck in a place during an urgent situation with some jump scares, then Deep Blue Sea is the right movie to watch. I legitimately got really frightened during some scenes, especially nearing the end. It’s so scary but also really fun too.
4. Waterworld (1995)
Director : Kevin Reynolds
Cast : Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Dennis Hopper
IMDb Rating : 6.3
I actually think this movie deserves a higher rating. I don’t know why, maybe because I like how original the concept is, or how much I enjoyed it. It should at least get a 7.0 in my opinion.
The story is set in the future where the whole world is submerged with water. There is no more land, only water. People live on boats, or atolls, or basically everything except land. As a result, the existence of land becomes a myth. Our hero (Kevin Costner) here doesn’t believe in the existence of land, but when he meets a woman and a little girl who want to find a dry land, he reluctantly helps them.
Oh, and there are sea thugs too (or sea mafia?) who try to take everything away from our hero and his gang. As you expect, these villains are a little bit cartoonish at times, and so is our hero who often acts so cartoonishly heroic as he saves everybody he cares about (and reluctantly too of course), but that only made it even more fun to watch for me. If you want to watch something fun with a compelling premise and over the top heroic action, Waterworld is a great movie to watch.
5. Space Sweepers (2021)
Director : Sung-hee Jo
Cast : Song Joong-Ki, Kim Tae-ri, Seon-kyu Jin, Richard Armitage, Ye-Rin Park
IMDb Rating : 6.6
It’s a relatively new movie that only came out this year, produced by Netflix. The story takes place in space with a dystopian setting. The world has become inhabitable, so the rich build a new settlement in space, meanwhile the rest of the humanity either has to suffer on Earth or forced to live scrambling in space collecting garbage. Our hero (Song Joong-Ki) is a man who is working in a junk collector ship so that he can earn enough money to find his lost daughter. The tension begins when the crews of the ship find a humanoid robot declared to be a weapon of mass destruction, and now they have to decide what they are going to do with her.
Space Sweepers is a Korean movie with a lot of international characters. I love that there are so many languages used in this movie, making it feel inclusive and true to the setting. There are also some quite tearjerker scenes that I didn’t expect.
I like this movie because it has an interesting concept and gives me some Star Wars vibe with cool robots, cool spaceships, and exciting space battles. I was also really impressed with the CGI used in the movie. Although I wasn’t exactly a fan of the ending, I think it’s still a really fun movie to watch, especially if you love space movies like me.
6. The Host (2006)
Director : Bong Joon Ho
Cast : Kang-ho Song, Byun Hee-Bong, Park Hae-il, Bae Doona
IMDb Rating : 7.1
Another monster movie that I really enjoyed. It was made in 2006 so don’t expect too much from the computer generated monster. The story starts with a mutant fish that emerges from Han River in Seoul caused by careless chemical disposal in the water. The monster fish starts attacking and hunting people brutally, terrorizing the city. When a bumbling and somewhat absent-minded father loses his daughter to the monster, he and his family must work together, whatever it takes to save her.
Unlike some other movies here, The Host is not a straight up monster movie, because it also has some elements of family drama and social commentary. What I like most from this movie is it has a great balance of thriller/horror and comedy. However, despite all this, you can still watch it as a fun monster flick, and it’s still really entertaining.
7. Rampage (2018)
Director : Brad Peyton
Cast : Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jeffrey Dean Morgan
IMDb Rating : 6.1
Dwayne Johnson played a primatologist who raises an albino gorilla in an animal enclosure where they form an unlikely friendship. Unluckily one day, this gorilla and two other wild animals are suddenly infected with pathogens that make them bigger, angrier, and deadlier. So you’ve got a giant gorilla, a giant wolf, and a giant crocodile running rampant destroying the city. The giant crocodile is probably the coolest monster of them all to me. I mean the giant wolf also looks really cool, but the giant crocodile is something else. I applaud the special effects for their cool CGI monsters.
Rampage is such a loud, fast-paced, thrilling action movie with a lot of action movie cliches but also almost non stop action from beginning to end, exactly what I was looking for in a monster movie. You’ll find a lot of great monster to monster fights that are so cool to watch here. If you are a fan of Godzilla or King Kong types of movies like me, you are definitely in for a ride.
So that’s it. That’s the list of movies that I watched recently on Netflix. I admit that watching loud – and sometimes somewhat mindless – sci-fi action flicks is totally my guilty pleasure. I will definitely watch more of them in the future, and I may update you with more of those too. Hope you enjoy my article, and thanks for reading!