12 Most Underrated 2000s Sci-Fi Movies

Executive produced by The Fifth Element/ Lucy mastermind Luc Besson, this Parisian thriller is set in the near future and follows a convict and undercover cop who form an unlikely alliance in order to save the former’s sister from a condemned district whilst also collecting a nuclear bomb from its denizens—and if that plot sounds familiar, it might be because it’s lifted wholesale from John Carpenter’s 1981 classic Escape from New York, along with a handful of other genre classics.

So why recommend such a blatant rip-off? Well, mainly because this kinetic thriller features the most impressive cinematic showcase of parkour, the urban exploration sport pioneered by its star David Belle, to date, and its simplistic story is more than made up for by its jaw-dropping chase sequences and stuntwork.