TheRetroCritic

Back when Marvel was still getting ready to resurface properly with big movies, big franchises and big plans, two years before X-Men , Blade showed up in his first movie and gave us hope that modern comic-book movies didn't have to suck! Pun intended. Wesley Snipes, of course, is Blade and comfortably leads an action flick with a very simple premise: badass day-walking vampire kills other vampires because other vampires are kinda douchebags. The film opens with a truly awesome sequence in which a human is being led into a dance club which turns out to be a veritable snake-pit of vampires as blood sprinklers are turned on and we're introduced to our leather trenchcoat, dark sunglasses-wearing, katana-wielding hero and we're off to a kickass start. The film continues on that path and remains a solid, entertaining blockbuster from start to finish. The good thing about Blade, as a movie, is that it knows it needs to be action-packed and relentless but also never forgets

Now Prometheus is finally out, I thought I'd take a quick look back at visionary director Ridley Scott's career and outline which of his films I've personally enjoyed the most so far. Here goes... 10 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE Well aware that this isn't THE most popular choice out there but I'm putting it in the list because of how... weird of a project this actually is. It's Ridley Scott basically making a Werner Herzog film with Gerard Depardieu playing Christopher Columbus and Sigourney Weaver as Queen Isabella I. The film itself is a dark, atmospheric, brutal mess with a lot going for it despite being a million hours long (I'm exaggerating). Underrated. 9  AMERICAN GANGSTER Did not expect to like this one. By the time the film was released I'd pretty much given up on seeing another good Ridley Scott movie ever again (walked out of the unforgivably irritating A Good Year ) but I gave it a shot and found myself weirdly getti

Philip K. Dick film adaptations are hit and miss. For every Minority Report or Blade Runner you get Paycheck or Next . Based on one of the legendary sci-fi writer's short stories, Impostor is sadly not one of the good ones. It's not terrible but about as bland as a sci-fi film can get. Dick's stories never really rely too much on their final twists, usually the stories themselves are told on a twist after twist basis. Here however, the film has little else to offer so it really builds up to the final revelation...which fails phenomenally. The entire film is based around Gary Sinise's identity: is he actually an an alien spy or is he being set up? Unfortunately early on he freaks out and basically yells out "I am a Centauri!" before escaping. This is never mentioned again during the film so when it is finally revealed that he is, in fact, a Centauri...imagine my lack of surprise. Aside from the ending, Impostor doesn't go to great lengths to look gr