Good year ! And welcome to 2024… How did cinema envisage the year to come? The answer in 7 films, between COVID-23, telepathic dog, hole in the ozone layer and sterile world.
For 2023, fiction had announced a postapocalyptic world dominated by disturbing mushrooms (The Last of Us), Clones piloted remotely to live in our place, a war against extraterrestrials waged between past and future (The Tomorrow War), a second round of limitless violence (American Nightmare 2: Anarchy) or a future where humans and mutants are hunted down by the formidable sentinels (X-Men Days of Future Past).
Here we are now in 2024, faced with a world more than ever under ecological, climatic, economic, social, political and geopolitical tensions. But how had the 7th Art anticipated this present over the years? Between COVID-23, telepathic dog, hole in the ozone layer, sterile world, virtual universe, cryogenics and erased crime, here are seven visions of 2024 through cinema.
The AlloCiné Editorial Team and the entire yellow and black team wish you a five-star year and all the best for 2024.
American International Pictures
The Space Traveler (1960)
Shot in less than two weeks (!) in Texas, this 1h15 “short feature film”, released at the time in American theaters as part of a double exhibition programme, is a pure product of Cold War and the fear of atomic conflict. In The Space Traveler, a military test pilot (Robert Clarke, regular face of 1950s SF) is caught in a space-time rift that propels him to 2024, in a world rendered sterile after nuclear tests and where the population, divided between the surface and the underground, is either deaf and mute or mutated (thanks to makeup by the illustrious Jack Pierce, who transformed Boris Karloff into Frankenstein’s monster in 1931). For the record, the film opens with rolling credits “Star Wars-style”, seventeen years before George Lucas’ space opera.
LQ/Jaf Productions
Apocalypse 2024 (1975)
Based on a screenplay by novelist Harlan Ellison, acclaimed for his anthology Dangerous Visions and at work on the series Beyond Reality and The Fifth Dimension, Apocalypse 2024 (A Boy and His Dog in the original version) plunges the viewer into a ravaged Earth, seven years after a world war which left the rare survivors fight for the remains of the old world. Among them, Vic, played by a young Don Johnson, a lawless teenager accompanied by his dog Blood, gifted with telepathy. This improbable tandem crosses this postapocalyptic world by relying on a partnership that is cynical to say the least: the man finds food for the dog, while the dog helps the man find women to attack. Having become cult over the years, the feature film notably influenced George Miller in the creation of Mad Max but also the world of the Fallout video game.
Davis-Panzer Productions
Highlander Returns (1991)
Five years after the masterpiece Highlander, director Russell Mulcahy reunites with Christophe Lambert and Sean Connery for a sequel which multiplies inconsistencies and failures. Huge public, critical and financial failure (a little overtaken by the Renegade Version released in 1995 and the Special Edition released in 2004), to the point that Highlander III is considered the true sequel to the original film, Highlander the Return nevertheless offered the vision of a dark and desperate 2024, a nocturnal and humid universe “à la Blade Runner” where the population survives to cosmic radiation under the protection of a laser shield. Initially developed by Connor MacLeod (who became mortal and scientific) in 1999, the device is managed twenty-five years later by a greedy corporation which subjects Humanity to a tax to benefit from its protection… while the layer of ozone has reformed.
Centropolis Entertainment
Virtual Past (1999)
Totally eclipsed by the Matrix wave during the summer of 1999, Passé Virtuel (The Thirteenth Floor in the original version) is a little little-known SF nugget, which deserves to be (re)discovered (barely 25,000 admissions in theaters and a Blu edition -ray dating back to 2009). Like David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ a few months earlier, Josef Rusnak’s feature film, which crosses dark thriller and science fiction, questions virtual worlds, the border between reality and fiction and the ability of AI to come to life. While the inventor of a digital simulation from 1937 is assassinated after making a discovery as fascinating as it is frightening in this universe, his associate, the main suspect of the crime, will dive into this virtual past to lead the investigation. To say more… would be a spoiler!
Filmax
Realive (2016)
Released very discreetly in June 2018 in French cinemas (barely… 663 cinema admissions!), Realive allows Spanish jack-of-all-trades Mateo Gil to try his hand at science fiction. Or at least in anticipation since the feature film, which begins in 2024 where human cryogenics technologies are now accessible, quickly transports us sixty years later, in 2084, alongside a man condemned by illness who decides to opt for this “frozen sleep” in the hope of one day being able to be awakened and cared for. Without reference points and separated from his loved ones, he will then discover a world in which he has become a stranger… Known for his work as a screenwriter on the films of Alejandro Amenabar including Open Your Eyes, Mateo Gil had already tackled the subject of cryogenics on this film (which gave rise to the Vanilla Sky remake with Tom Cruise): Realive was thus born while he wondered how men from the past could integrate into an era different from theirs.
Netflix
The Last Days of American Crime (2020)
In 2024, the American government is preparing to launch the American Peace Initiative (API), a process based on a synaptic signal making it impossible for everyone to commit the slightest illegal act. It is this universe, the “last days of American crime” as the title of the film indicates, which is told in The Last Days of American Crime, a Netflix original production released in 2020. Written by Karl Gajdusek (Taken, Oblivion, the series The Last Resort) and directed by Frenchie Olivier Megaton (Le Transporteur III, Colombiana, Taken 2 and 3), the feature film is led by Edgar Ramirez in the shoes of a robber who tries to stage one last coup before the API comes to prevent him from carrying out his project. A failed heist since the feature film was very negatively received by critics and the public, with catastrophic ratings (1.7 and 1.6 respectively on AlloCiné).
Metropolitan FilmExport
Songbird (2020)
Five years after COVID-19, time for… COVID-23. It is a world in full confinement which is presented in Songbird, a Michael Bay production shot in commando mode in Los Angeles in two and a half weeks, while the city was hard hit by the pandemic. Immune to the virus, a courier will cross paths, during his deliveries, with a confined young woman suspected of being contaminated: to prevent her from being sent to a quarantine camp, he will then try the impossible to save her… Famous faces (Peter Stormare, Demi Moore, Paul Walter Hauser, Alexandra Daddario) surround KJ Apa (Riverdale) and Sofia Carson (The Descendants) on what remains the very first film shot in Los Angeles during the confinement.
And also…
In the pop-culture department, let’s not forget that the post-Avengers Endgame Marvel universe generally takes place in 2024 (even if the year ultimately has no impact on the stories). Thus, Spider-Man: Far From Home / Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange 2, The Eternals, Shang-Chi, Black Panther 2 but also the series Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye and She-Hulk take place in 2024. The same goes for the summit clash Godzilla vs. Kong, the war between vampires and lycans from Underworld: New Era or the muscular operation led by Bruce Willis, Channing Tatum and Dwayne Johnson in GI Joe Conspiracy. Flash fans will also not have forgotten that their heroes disappeared on the night of April 25, 2024 during his fight against Reverse-Flash.
The Songbird trailer