TheRetroCritic

Review available on the new website .

After re-imagining Sherlock Holmes his own way, Guy Ritchie recently turned his attention to the Arthurian legends and delivered  King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword . Due to a ridiculous budget that didn't translate to much on screen, the film was a box-office flop and was mostly panned critically. The film opens with a scene in which Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana) takes on giant elephants in an over-the-top sequence that would fit quite well in a Lord Of The Rings movie. This could set the tone for a proudly ridiculous, action-packed epic but, while it is indeed shamelessly silly, it's not exactly the thrilling actioner you'd expect. Parts of the film are over-stylised, bloated and full of giant CGI creatures, other parts feel bare and not unlike a relatively low-budget effort like Centurion or an Uwe Boll movie. But it's the sub-par writing that really prevents this King Arthur film from being the fun roller-coaster ride it wanted to be. The masterful  Excalibur

I try to find 10 cool things about Ang Lee's Hulk movie.

After Blade and, later, X-Men kick-started the first wave of modern blockbuster comic-book movies, Marvel jumped head-first into a Hulk movie and handed the directing keys to Ang Lee, known to Hollywood back then mostly for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon . An odd choice of director but then again Kenneth Branagh made Thor so... Maybe not so odd after all. The result was a unique take on the Hulk character and the superhero genre in general which might have very well been ahead of its time. The film was by no means perfect and did suffer from the occasional "what-the-hell?!" moment as well as a ridiculous running time but looking back, the bad rep it often receives nowadays really feels harsh and, at times, misguided. Visually, Hulk is still an impressive achievement. Lee's film boasts an incredibly stylised look which really pays homage to the comic book form and gives the film a grand, operatic quality. Ang Lee doesn't f*** around! When he makes a comic