TheRetroCritic

After the way Season 1 left things (messy), you could forgive this follow-up season to struggle for a bit before fixing things and getting started. Unfortunately, Season 2's brand new ideas fail to rise above what the whole season is essentially about: filling up those plotholes. Ironically, in the process, new plotholes are introduced and the new stuff mostly fails to gel convincingly with the old stuff to the point where a lot of episodes bring something up that's quite interesting only to cover it all up by the end of it. Take the whole Harvey Two-Face Nathan Petrelli thing, or the potential death of Noah Bennet as foreseen in one of Isaac Mendez's lost paintings, or even Mohinder possibly turning to the dark side: all subplots with potential but none of them really know where they're going and none of them really delivers. Like Season 1, this is very much a season of two halves. Except here it's much shorter. For one half we're mostly concerned with

Going through this first season of Heroes sure brought back memories... I remember thinking that was one hell of a show, unlike anything else I'd seen and admiring how fresh, bold and new it all was. To a certain extent, this still sticks. Heroes did jump on the bandwagon of growing superhero movies early making it very much of its time. Since then, we've had grittier, smarter comic book movies and edgier sci-fi series ( Fringe anyone?) so looking back, Heroes almost feels like a kids' show... with the occasional bit of gore, of course. I mean, it's still kinda edgy but in a cute oh-let's-not-go-too-far-with-it type of way, it's restrained but still goes a long way to make this at least a bit more adult-friendly once in a while. Without Sylar, Zachary Quinto's cartoon villain, going around slicing people's heads off, Heroes would be the show Marvel would produce if Marvel was run by your grandfather's dad. The plot sees a group of 'spe

Well, here's one for the ladies: Oh, who am I kidding? This is something we can all enjoy! Bring on The Wolverine !

The film that started it all... kind of. Jon Favreau's Iron Man was really the moment where Marvel revealed to the world their mad intentions of putting together crossover mega-movie  The Avengers . As we all know, they pulled it off remarkably but it could have all gone pear-shaped super early. I mean, with the likes of Captain America and Thor it wasn't going to be a walk in the park to make each character and their far-fetched stories plausible, let alone cram everybody into one movie. But Iron Man showed early on that you can make a silly superhero flick without screwing it up, creating a movie that, even to this day, is simply a lot of fun. Robert Downey Jr is genius billionaire douchebag Tony Stark, who is made to face the reality of his misguided work directly and henceforth grow a conscience. The entire movie is one big build-up to the creation of that badass armored suit with some cool action scenes and a last-minute villain thrown in for good measure. Because

Master piss-taker Axis Of Ornament contributes his geniusely tacky take on The Dark Knight Rises with a poster you'll never forget. Click on the image below to see it! Also check out his loltastic mini Bat-comic . Thanks for the contribution!

Movies. Video games. Pajamas. With the wide variety of media that has been infiltrated by Batman, chances get higher all the time that the next Batman fan you meet won't have ever read a Batman comic. If you or someone you know is looking to meet Batman between the pages of a graphic novel, read on to see my top choices & why I recommend them for getting to know Batman in his original medium. 1   BATMAN: YEAR ONE   (Frank Miller) As you may guess from the title, this is a telling of how Bruce Wayne is inspired to become Batman, what he goes through to achieve that goal & what life is like after he first puts on that cowl. Almost everyone knows the basics of that plot already, but it is truly well done here & I think that it is Frank Miller at his best. Aside from the Batman aspect, I urge everyone to read this comic for the reason that it's not only a portrait of Batman, but also of Jim Gordon (Holy first impression, Batman!). The man is awesome. Non

Just noticed this. My copy of X-Men 2 is just ridiculously proud of something it really shouldn't be THAT happy about: ONE disc?! No... Could it be true? I didn't know it came in ONE disc form! This is radical! Seriously though, you're proud of selling a single DVD with no bonus extras and stuff? That's like saying: "The X-Men 2 DVD, now with a film inside!" Jeez... (review of the movie itself coming soon, NOT the one-word edition)

Sam Raimi may not have seemed like the most obvious choice as director for this first proper Spider-Man movie at the time but he proved everyone wrong creating a popcorn movie with enough entertainment, humour and faithfulness to the comic books to feel like a worthy attempt. The film begins with tedious narration more suited to a Dr Seuss animation and closes with it as well so not the most promising of starts but from the moment we actually meet Tobey Maguire's Peter Parker things start making sense. Raimi goes for a lighthearted tone actually well suited to the character and the whole film feels very much like a comic book. The build-up to Parker becoming Spider-Man is perfectly handled with the film ticking all the right boxes in terms of superhero origin stories: teen romance, tragic family crisis, growing powers/puberty, bullies, clear villain... It's cliched but in a good way. There's a sense that it's all very self-aware and knows what it's doing. I sh

Marvel Avengers Assemble ? What's with the new title?! Did they just realise this existed? Beat THAT Joss Whedon.

Zack Snyder is a weird one. Directing career so far: 300 , Watchmen , OWLS, Sucker Punch, Superman. I can't say it's been a smooth, flawless ride so far but it's been...interesting. Even the best of the bunch, Watchmen, was far from perfect and failed to to live up to the source material's deeper aspects. What it seems to come down to is a disconnect between style and content. Snyder's films, Sucker Punch included, look fab from start to finish and the over-ambition is always welcome as it gives us the sense that there's nothing Mr Snyder will shy away from. Alas this can also prove to be something of a curse. Titanic scales, tedious slo-mos, gratuitous sex/violence, CGI up the ass, grungy pop music...these seem to be regulars now when it comes to Snyder's films. He's like a Michael Bay wrapped inside a Robert Rodriguez. And although I can't stand 300 and care not for owls I enjoyed Watchmen in parts and was looking forward to this new comic b

  "Hey you guys, we need someone to play a tiny obese evil clown, is John Leguizamo free?". This is the kind of question the producers of 1997 supernatural comic book film Spawn were asking themselves. Who did they originally cast as Spawn then? Danny DeVito? Against all odds, Leguizamo's trippy turn as a Joker-style maniacal clown turns out to be the film's driving force and best asset. Which is not to say there's nothing else appealing about the film: a lot of effects are pretty creative and the whole thing is admittedly entertaining. Unfortunately once you see what Hell looks like you soon forget the good stuff and find yourself wishing you were playing a 90's PC video game instead of watching a film in which entire sequences could have been directly lifted from one of those very games. Like I said, some effects are creative and some do work but that Devil thing and its army of minions all standing around moving like tiny CGI puppets in a sea of fire i

After watching Ghost Rider for the first time since I saw it at the movies back in 2007, I re-read the review I'd written at the time: in a nutshell "1 star, avoid". What's with the anger? What drove me to banish Ghost Rider to 1 star Hell? I seriously don't know. I mean, I remember hating the first bit where you see a young Johnny Blaze making a deal with the Devil, I remember hating Eva Mendes, I remember hating the direction... Now don't get me wrong, the first bit is pretty bland, Eva Mendes is annoying and the direction feels more suited to a music video than anything else. But then there's the Ghost Rider! Sure the CGI isn't exactly top of the line but the Rider scenes are all pretty gosh darn awesome: riding in town melting parking meters, riding up and down buildings, pulling down helicopters with chains, riding with a fiery Sam Elliott cowboy, melting a jail cell... pretty kick ass. It's just a shame Nic Cage feels misca

You'd think that 20 years after the godawful Captain America TV movies we'd get something half-decent...not so. Made in 1990, this Captain America suffers such bland cinematography it feels like a 70's film. 90% of the film is spent with Captain America not in costume going to boring places and talking. The rest of the time Steve Rogers is wearing his silly plastic costume and being as bland as a cool character like Captain America could possibly get (very very bland as it turns out). As for the Red Skull, he's at the rendez-vous for about 5 minutes and the rest of the time he's also out of costume so in essence we get about 3 minutes of watchable Captain America vs Red Skull action: yay. In the hope that the new Chris Evans film will at the very least be entertaining, lets try and forget about this dull and lazy attempt. It's not as bad as 1994's Fantastic Four but pretty lame nonetheless.