TheRetroCritic

I talk briefly about X-Men: Apocalypse . 80's style!

As the X-Men franchises continues its journey through time, Bryan Singer is back to direct X-Men: Apocalypse with Oscar Isaac taking on the role of the iconic titular villain. Set in the 1980's, the film follows the timeline of the last two movies and throws in some nods to the original trilogy. If there's one thing the pre-titles sequence promises it's a much bigger scale but also one of the most out-there X-Men movies to date. If you thought a time-travelling consciousness and big evolving robots were too much then wait till you get a load of this adventure which opens in Ancient Egypt and leads us to the world's near-destruction. With the exception of a cool poster (above), the marketing for this new X-flick was clumsy and, as a result, I had little hope it would be any good. The first pictures released of Apocalypse looked awful and the Internet soon compared him to Power Rangers villain Ivan Ooze, then the trailers made it seem like it was essentially The Je

I try to find 10 cool things about Bryan Singer's Superman Returns because someone had to do it at some point, right? WROOOONG!

Aaaand just like that: we're back on track. And all it took was the making of two sub-par Wolverine spin-offs, two misguided X-Men films and the return of the franchise's original director as well as several familiar faces. X-Men: Days Of Future Past had two very clear missions: 1- Fix the franchise somehow, ridding it of all its plot-holes and inconsistencies. 2- Be fun and actually pretty good. Luckily, both missions are accomplished admirably despite all the time-travelling and plot tweaks getting in the way of pure Sentinels-on-mutants action. Besides, time-travel plots have rarely proven to be the best way to sort out plot holes, quite the opposite in fact as going back in time only raises more questions and brand new plot holes. That said, by the first 5 minutes, none of that will matter as you should be well and truly hooked after sitting through a thrilling look at the sinister neon-lit future awaiting us and the X-Men should Wolvie not go back in time to

Only two movies in and Bryan Singer already had us in the palm of his hands. The Usual Suspects was a big deal when it came out, mostly because of its cleverly crafted twist, that iconic line-up scene and Kevin Spacey, who really confirmed himself as an actor to look out for. With a strong cast, a slow-burning film noir plot and careful, detailed direction, this was a refreshing thriller in that it didn't go for full-blown action instead sticking to something a bit more cerebral and mysterious, introducing a new type of whodunit. Armed with a razor sharp script by Christopher McQuarrie, The Usual Suspects strives to always be one step ahead of the audience and, unless you know an M. Night Shyamalan-style twist is coming, it does just that very well. Gabriel Byrne plays an ex-criminal who is soon lured back into the game by, ironically, the police and the other "suspects" brought in for a line-up with him. Stephen Baldwin is actually fun as the most energetic and kee

Here's the thing about Superman Returns : It's not THAT bad. I wouldn't even call it "bad", it's just... misguided, really. Instead of reinventing Superman for a new generation, here's a film which decides to pay homage to those old Christopher Reeve movies, the only Superman movies we've ever seen. Was that really necessary? No. That was a bad idea to begin with: not original, not ground-breaking, not different. As a slick retread and as a sort-of sequel to Superman II , however, it just about works. You've got Kevin Spacey taking on Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor role and doing a really good job, though he's only a tad more threatening than Hackman was back in the day. The film looks good, the classic Superman theme is still there, the action sequences (all TWO of them), as rare and far between as they may be, are really well done and Bryan Singer's direction is slick and stylish. That said, there's a serious problem when

With the box-office proving repeatedly that 3D fantasy films do very well financially these days, it's no surprise that, following the successes of both Alice In Wonderland and Oz: The Great And Powerful , yet another contender would come along and attempt to do just as well. Which brings us to: Jack The Giant Slayer . Directed by Bryan Singer, the film merges Jack And The Beanstalk with Jack The Giant Killer to tell a story in as traditional a way as possible without having to resort to that recently in vogue steampunky Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters -style Hammer horror vibe. The film actually opens on our two main characters as kids in their respective beds, one is poor, one is a princess, being told fairy-tales involving giants and a world in between Heaven and Earth. Then the film stumbles around for a while feeling like a mix between a flat episode of Blackadder and an ugly, live-action retelling of Disney's Aladdin . Seriously: this movie's Aladdin.

After director Bryan Singer did his best to introduce Marvel’s team of multi-talented mutants to the world and develop their story further in a superior, if still somewhat restrained, second instalment, he eventually chose to leave the franchise opting for a chance to direct 2006’s  Superman Returns  instead. This was a blow to the series which, after that, underwent several changes in directors and cast members even threatened to leave the franchise. In the end, Brett Ratner, mostly known at the time for giving us the   Rush Hour  movies, took the job and completed a film which had already gone through a lot of messy rewrites. Not an easy feat, in all fairness. X-Men: The Last Stand  is one of those comic-book movie adaptations that gets a handful of things right but drops the ball on 90% of everything else. X-Men  lacked the scale it should have had and its plot revolved around the usual doomsday machine cliché. The sequel provided us with a bigger film, more villains, mor