Five science fiction movies to stream now

“Troll 2”

By ELISABETH VINCENTELLI

This month’s picks feature torrents, trolls and time travel.

‘Troll 2’

Since “Troll” (2022) is the most watched non-English language movie on Netflix (according to the streamer), odds were good that a sequel would materialize. Lo and behold, Norwegian director Roar Uthaug is back with more Kaiju mayhem featuring humans in wool sweaters and practical fleece confronting XXL creatures from Nordic folklore. The first movie’s three leads return as government official Andreas (Kim Falck) whisks headstrong paleontologist Nora (Ine Marie Wilmann) to a secret location where a troll is kept in hibernation. Naturally that troll will wake, and military hunk Kris (Mads Sjogard Pettersen) is reactivated, too.

Admittedly a troll can stomp over swaths of the country and snack on people, but the sympathetic Nora sees these giants of earth and stone as living creatures provoked by men’s actions. Uthaug’s two films have their share of fun action set pieces, with a troll-on-troll battle in the new one. But what’s more interesting is how they posit the Christianization of Norway as having cut off the country from its homegrown mythology, especially under the lead of St. Olaf in the 12th century. That figure plays a key role in the new movie (it all feels a little Dan Brown).

To no one’s shock, “Troll 2” ends by teeing up another installment. Uthaug has referred to a potential “troll-ogy,” and frankly, that name is too good to pass up so let’s go, “Troll 3.” (Stream it on Netflix.)

‘Time Travel Is Dangerous!’

Chris Reading’s deadpan comedy has my vote for best premise of the month: The owners of a vintage shop travel back in time to find inventory. Shot mockumentary-style, this British movie follows Ruth (Ruth Syratt) and Megan (Megan Stevenson) as they stumble on a time machine that looks like a repurposed bumper car, and start using it to source trinkets for their London emporium, Cha Cha Cha (the two stars’ actual shop). In the Middle Ages, for instance, it’s easy to find pewter artifacts in mint condition because they actually are brand-new.

Our dingbats draw the attention of a local science club led by the autocratic Martin (Guy Henry), but the real problems start when all those back-and-forth trips through centuries wreck the time-space continuum and Megan ends up stuck in a “temporal sinkhole” from which the gang must rescue her. “Time Travel Is Dangerous!” often made me think of a DIY version of Terry Gilliam at his surreal peak, and it is a sterling example of a certain kind of British humor about the foibles of eccentric characters. Fans of that particular style will especially delight in fun bit turns by Stephen Fry as a voice-over narrator and Jane Horrocks as a scary aviator. (Rent or buy it on most major platforms.)

“The Great Flood”

‘The Great Flood’

It takes only a few minutes for director Kim Byung-woo to create an anxiety-making atmosphere. Single mom An-na (Kim Da-mi, so memorable in “The Witch: Part 1 — The Subversion”) wakes up to see waters outside her windows rise at a freakishly fast pace from the pounding rain, so she and her young son, Ja-in (Kwon Eun-sung), must retreat to a higher floor in their apartment building. But the rain itself isn’t the issue, as Hee-jo (Park Hae-soo, from “Squid Game”), an agent sent to help An-na, informs her: An asteroid hit Antarctica, melting enough water to drown Earth. This is not just a flood but an extinction event, and as an engineer working on an artificial intelligence project that’s key for the survival of the human race, An-na must be saved. As if this weren’t enough, “The Great Flood” adds a time-loop structure to the disaster and AI ones, so the movie covers three subgenres.

The storytelling is a little chaotic (pay attention to the numbers on An-na’s T-shirt), so it’s best to just surrender to the fantastic visuals and the general mood of inevitable doom: “The Great Flood” has an eerie lyrical tone, and the way it suggests an almost metaphysical despair is rare in such a pop-culture project. (Stream it on Netflix.)

‘Lesbian Space Princess’

Don’t be fooled by the bright colors, retro-basic animation and general childlike effervescence: This Australian animated comedy may be sweet, but it’s not for young kids. Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese’s film is an interstellar caper that doubles as an anthology of lesbian jokes. Like, for example, when Princess Saira (voiced by Shabana Azeez, who plays Victoria Javadi on “The Pitt”) falls so hard for bounty hunter Kiki (Bernie Van Tiel) that she’s basically ready to rent a space U-Haul after just a couple of weeks of dating.

This is too much too soon for Kiki, who dumps Saira, then promptly gets kidnapped by “straight white maliens” (the comedy group Aunty Donna’s Mark Samual Bonanno, Broden Kelly and Zachary Ruane). Naturally, our princess goes on a quest to find Kiki, accompanied by guitar-wielding Willow (Gemma Chua-Tran) — yes, there are songs. Zaniness ensues, with wall-to-wall nods to lesbian culture, as when Saira’s ship computer (Richard Roxburgh) asks about a sex scene in “Blue Is the Warmest Color.” (Stream it on Fandor. Rent or buy it on most major platforms.)

‘She Loved Blossoms More’

Holed up in their house, three brothers (Aris Balis, Julio Katsis and Panos Papadopoulos) try to build a portal to bring back their dead mother from wherever she ended up. The logistics are hazy, but that doesn’t stop the siblings from doing test runs on a pig and a chicken (animal lovers may want to avert their eyes when those are brought into the machine). Hanging around the compound is Samantha (Sandra Abuelghanam), a friend, lover and fellow partaker of drugs. She, too, goes into the machine, and again, things don’t turn out so great. The movie’s poster gives a clue to her trip’s outcome, which is beautiful and deeply unsettling, like an elaborately misshapen jewel or flower. Body horror hardly ever looks so poetic.

Yannis Veslemes’ movie has been lumped in the Greek Weird Wave genre because of its director’s nationality and being undeniably, well, weird. But this visually driven fantasia also shares shelf space with the cryptic dreamscapes of French filmmakers Lucile Hadzihalilovic and Bertrand Mandico, as well as some of the more offbeat work by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (whose regular Dominique Pinon turns up here as the siblings’ father). There is no logic for what happens in this decadent hothouse, but it does exert a kind of languid pull. (Rent or buy it on most major platforms.)