TheRetroCritic

The sequel to Son Of Batman , animated feature Batman Vs. Robin continues the story of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul's son Damian (aka the new Robin) as he is torn between being Batman's sidekick or joining Talon, an assassin working with The Court Of Owls. Still very much a wild card, Damian Wayne (voiced by Stuart Allan) is initially Batman's ally but he is constantly trying to do his own thing and is always conflicted about killing his enemies or sparing their lives. This affects his relationship with Batman (Jason O'Mara) to the point where he starts to consider joining another vigilante and eventually even fights his own father on the rooftops of Gotham. This is a tense, action-packed if loose adaptation of The Court Of Owls storyline and, while Son Of Batman was a little slight in terms of story, a lot happens in Batman Vs. Robin and it's never boring. The film makes an interesting parallel between Bruce Wayne's childhood and Talon's and we

Set before the Arkham Asylum video game but after Arkham Origins , Batman: Assault On Arkham is an animated feature by DC which sees the Suicide Squad attempt to retrieve The Riddler's cane from Arkham under Amanda Waller's orders. Two years before the Suicide Squad live-action movie, we got this animated adventure focusing on the dysfunctional team of villains which, this time, includes Deadshot, Harley Quinn, Captain Boomerang and new recruits Killer Frost, Black Spider and King Shark. They are assembled after Batman (voiced by Kevin Conroy) captures The Riddler who may be holding information on the Squad he's planning to release to the public. Along the way, the team encounters Batman and The Joker (Troy Baker) who has his own agenda as he is plotting to unleash a dirty bomb in the city, just to make things more difficult for everyone. This is a busy little film with a lot of main characters to keep track of but it somehow holds together better than Suicide Squad

Here's the video version of my Suicide Squad review.

Batman: Mask Of The Phantasm was the only film based on Batman: The Animated Series to be shown in theatres and, despite receiving critical appraise back in 1993, its rushed release meant it was a flop. It would eventually gain a cult following on home video, though. The film sees Batman (Kevin Conroy, as ever) encounter a mysterious new vigilante called The Phantasm who has been settling scores with various mobsters around Gotham City. It's also something of a prequel as we learn more about how Bruce Wayne became Batman, his relationship with old flame Andrea Beaumont (voiced by Dana Delany) and The Joker's (Mark Hamill) involvement in The Phantasm's revenge mission. This is a tense, melodramatic, layered Batman story every bit as dark and stylish as the best episodes of The Animated Series. The look of Gotham keeps that retro, Tim Burton-esque feel and the whole thing is like a 1940's film noir romance with lots of action and a fascinating mystery thrown in.

And so it's time to list my Top 10 Best DC Movie Villains , to even things out with my Top 10 Worst compilation. I'm not counting the animated movies in this list, just so you know. 10 HECTOR HAMMOND Green Lantern Probably the most underrated part of Green Lantern was Peter Sarsgaard's solid performance as Hector Hammond. The pathetic nature of the character is portrayed really well by the actor who gives the villain a growing edge as he is consistently ignored by his father and eventually turns into a macrocephalic monster. Sarsgaard takes the character seriously, even after his freakish transformation, and you do care about Hammond since he didn't start out as a bad guy so seeing him turn into an evil super-villain is surprisingly tragic.   9 THE RIDDLER Batman Forever Here's a villain that easily could have made it into the Top 10 Worst list in that he's both so over-the-top it's distracting but, on the other hand, he's

After looking at the worst Marvel villains , I thought it might be interesting (and fair) to list some of DC's worst movie baddies. 10 TWO-FACE Batman Forever If you've ever wondered what Two-Face would have looked like in the old Adam West Batman TV series, then you might want to check out Batman Forever . To this day, it's a mystery how Joel Schumacher managed to get such a manic, over-the-top performance out of the typically deadpan Tommy Lee Jones who has never been this nutty. This Two-Face is not only far from sinister, he's basically a more purple version of The Joker and it's pretty clear that Tommy Lee Jones is trying too hard to pull off a Jack Nicholson and compete with Jim Carrey's even more OTT Riddler. A silly interpretation of one of the most tragic, creepy and interesting Batman villains. 9 SELENA Supergirl If you haven't seen Supergirl , Selena is a wannabe witch who, through sheer coincidence, gets her hands on

In this 67th episode of  The Big Rewind , we review  Captain America: Civil War ,  talk about Fantastic Four , Supergirl and Jumanji . CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher ,  Soundcloud  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind #SuperheroMonth retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

Back when Shaquille O'Neal was in movies because... basketball (?) we got Steel , a superhero movie based on the DC comics character with good old Shaq in the lead. Willingly ignoring the whole Superman connection to the character save for a shot of Shaq's "Man Of Steel" tattoo, the film instead decides to do its own thing with Steel by packing the story with new supporting characters and giving him another, simpler origin story. Released the same year as Spawn , Steel unfortunately failed to wow critics and audiences alike and it's still seen as one of the most misguided comic-book films out there. Despite a healthy budget, Steel still managed to look cheap somehow with the hero's costume not looking metallic so much as it looked rubbery and thrown together. Shaq's performance also left a lot to be desired as his constant toothy grins and stiff demeanour didn't exactly sell Steel as a moody tough guy going around the streets of Los Angeles making

Gotham is a weird one. The first season of Fox's Batman prequel series was an uneven mess with the odd clever moment or likeable performance here and there. What should have been a simple detective show focusing on a young Jim Gordon trying to bring the person who killed Bruce Wayne's parents to justice turned out to be packed with over-the-top obscure and familiar villains all entangled in conflicting subplots. For my review of Season 1, you can check it out  HERE . Season 2 promised the "Rise Of The Villains" and we certainly got a few more key baddies including the likes of Hugo Strange, Mr Freeze, Clayface and Azrael. The first half of the season is focused on Theo Galavan (James Frain), a member of the Dumas family out for revenge against the Waynes who supposedly disgraced his ancestors: he hires the help of Jerome (this season's Joker), his niece Silver St. Cloud (Natalie Alyn Lind), his sister Tabitha (Jessica Lucas) and the newly unhinged Barbar

I play a little bit of Batman Returns on the Sega Genesis. And rant along, of course.

One of the most fascinating unmade Hollywood movies has to be Superman Lives , a 90's Superman movie which would have starred Nicolas Cage as the DC hero and would have been directed by Tim Burton of all people. The Death Of Superman Lives is a crowdfunded documentary which finally gives us a better idea of what that film would have been like. This is, of course, not the first time a documentary has spilled the beans on a film that never was: very recently we had Jodorowsky's Dune and, a while back, Lost In La Mancha which focused on the making of Terry Gilliam's Don Quixote . With interviews from the likes of Kevin Smith, Tim Burton and eccentric producer Jon Peters, director/interviewer Jon Schnepp, through valid questions, nifty animated visuals, previously unseen test footage and artwork, translates a project which was often dismissed as a silly idea and a deserved failure into a comic-book movie epic like no other. After the underwhelming Superman Returns and th

Believe it or not, this movie actually exists. Or at least it did... Back in 1975, we got a Superman musical TV special called It's A Bird... It's a Plane... It's Superman . The BBC, wanting to cash-in on what they thought would be a big production unlike anything the world of television had ever seen, decided to produce their own superhero extravaganza. The film cost about £10M which, in dollars, adjusted for inflation, is... like a lot. It was titled Batman In Space and starred a young Michael Caine as Bruce Wayne/Batman with Jeremy Irons as Robin. The plot was confusing, to say the least, as no less than eight writers chipped-in ideas including an ageing Agatha Christie. The Joker (played by Michael Gough) having escaped Arkham Asylum, travels to the Moon in order to play the biggest, cruelest joke of all: destroy the world from a great distance. After finding out that a rocket has been stolen from NASA, Batman soon figures out The Joker's plan and Commi

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

I talk about DC's latest blockbuster Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice . The spoilers are coming...  

The SPOILERS are coming... The SPOILERS are coming! Finally, DC comics and director Zack Snyder deliver their big, expensive, world-building clash of titans as the son of Krypton and the bat of Gotham face-off for the very first time on the big screen. Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice not only promised one heck of a one-on-one battle but also the start of even bigger things. This should have been a no-brainer: Batman and Superman, the two biggest superheroes out there, in a movie together fighting it out. The words "screw you, take my money!" come to mind. And yet from the casting of Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight to the mixed response Man Of Steel received upon its release, Snyder's patchy track-record, the confusion around whether this would be a Justice League movie or not, the casting of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, the much too generous (and spoilery) marketing and, ultimately, the many unkind early reviews, this increasingly looked set to be much less

The Justice League comes together in this animated feature which sees the likes of Batman, Green Lantern, Superman and Wonder Woman join forces to take down Darkseid and his army of mutants who are planning to invade the Earth using portals. If that sounds familiar it's because this is essentially the plot of the first Avengers movie. Swap Loki for Darkseid and it's basically the same deal except with DC characters. Which isn't a bad way to go, frankly, since it gives us an early glimpse at what the Justice League live-action movie could potentially look like, with added Zack Snyder foggy CGI, of course. The film kicks off with Batman investigating strange abductions in Gotham City as Green Lantern shows up to help and they are soon off to Metropolis to get Superman's take on the alien technology they picked up from one of the Parademons. Following an accident involving an alien box found by The Flash in Central City, a football player is turned into Cyborg and h

Son Of Batman , as the title suggests, is an animated film which sees Batman discover he has a son. When an army of Man-Bats invades Gotham City, it'll be up to the Dark Knight and Damian, his son-turned-sidekick, to stop Deathstroke's evil plan. We first meet young Damian when Ra's al Ghul's mansion comes under attack after a former student of the League Of Shadows' leader, Slade (aka Deathstroke) turns against his old master. Despite Talia al Ghul's (Damian's mother) best efforts, Ra's fails to make it to the Lazarus Pit in time and he is killed for good. Batman, who was busy taking on Killer Croc, is then told about Damian who soon becomes a liability, treating Alfred like just another servant, fighting enemies single-handedly and clashing with Nightwing. Soon enough, Damian puts on Robin's old costume and joins Batman in stopping the Man-Bat invasion and saving Talia in the process. The film opens strong with a violent, action-packed battl

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE In this 23rd episode, we discuss  Gotham  Season 2 news, the Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad trailers, The Joker, "seeing" and we take a quiz. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on iTunes, Stitcher and Player FM) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

In this 56th episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review  Mad Max: Fury Road  and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

In this 55th episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie, along with special guest Dale, discuss movie news, review   Avengers: Age Of Ultron   and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic @Silent_Consumer #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/SilentConsumer youtube.com/Cablogula