TheRetroCritic

We talk briefly about Howard The Duck .

Yes, it's true. I'm the real maestro behind the Star Wars theme.

Two years after the failure of Howard The Duck , Executive Producer George Lucas redeemed himself with Willow , a fantasy film from 1988 directed by Ron Howard. It starred Warwick Davis in the title role with a young Val Kilmer supporting. After sorceress Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) orders the death of children in the kingdom due to a prophecy stating that a female child will, one day, orchestrate her downfall, a chain of events is set into motion when a midwife decides to save one baby. The latter ends up in the hands of kindhearted Nelwyn farmer Willow but, when it becomes apparent that keeping the baby poses a threat to his village, he is sent to bring the child back to where she came from, but in safe hands. He first encounters disgraced warrior Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) and soon entrusts the child to him but that backfires almost instantly. What follows is an epic yet relatively intimate adventure involving fairies, "brownies" (tiny people), magic, trolls and monster

Back in 1986, Executive Producer George Lucas brought us a Marvel character in all his live-action glory. That character was Howard The Duck , a talking duck from another planet who somehow gets propelled through space all the way to Earth where his adventure truly begins. The film was critically panned and a box-office failure but it remains one of those cinematic question marks like Super Mario Bros. or Street Fighter  you just can't avoid. For one thing, if you grew up in the 80's, it's unlikely you missed this odd little movie: whether you know the comics or not, the title alone just screams "watch me!". The titular duck was portrayed by Ed Gale with Chip Zien providing the voice and the cast included Lea Thompson as Howard's friend and love interest Beverly, Tim Robbins as their annoying sidekick and Jeffrey Jones as a scientist who slowly turns into main villain Dark Overlord, some kind of space demon. The first half of the film is focused on Ho

My video review of Star Wars:   The Phantom Menace comes rather late after Star Wars Month but hey, better late than never! I, for one, blame Darth Criticus.

After the mostly negative feedback The Phantom Menace received, George Lucas nonetheless continued his prequel trilogy with Episode II: Attack Of The Clones , a vastly bigger, slicker and more action-packed effort.  Anakin Skywalker now all grown up, it was up to newcomer Hayden Christensen to take over the role from the wildly unpopular Jake Lloyd and the result was... another wildly unpopular performance fans are still talking about to this very day in hushed tones. Anakin's courtship of Padmé, which inexplicably included talk of sand ("it's coarse and rough and irritating"), did not help matters as the script's more romantic scenes definitely stood out as slightly clumsy. That said, the film around poor old Anakin looked so good and was so entertaining, even a wooden Christensen couldn't hurt it too much even if it did rub quite a few Star Warsians the wrong way. The film means business from the get-go as it learns from The Phantom Menace's mist

Back in 2008, George Lucas produced a feature length animation set between Episode II: Attack Of The Clones and Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith . The Clone Wars was released in cinemas and would kick-start an animated series on Cartoon Network. While the film earned a very healthy amount at the box-office, it was pretty much critically panned. The animation style not exactly wowing critics who were expecting something a little more big-screen friendly instead of what was essentially just a TV pilot. The 3D animation in question certainly didn't go for a realistic take on the characters who all look like wooden caricatures, their hair never flowing in the wind, their faces not that expressive. It takes a little time to get used to and one could see how a critic expecting Pixar would leave the cinema slightly disappointed but on the small screen it's definitely easier to accept. It helps that the backgrounds and the action sequences look great. The animation may have bee

To say that there was a lot of anticipation for George Lucas' Star Wars prequels back before they were released would be sugar-coating what was probably one of geekdom's all-time biggest events. Seeing the rise of Darth Vader could only be awesome. ...right? Well let's just say that if ever there was a way not to start that trilogy, The Phantom Menace was it. Not that it didn't deliver anything of value but the backlash that followed the film was so huge that it made everyone very worried for the rest of the prequels. Jar Jar Binks became the single most hated Star Wars character of all time and The Phantom Menace, by extension, the most hated Star Wars movie of all time. But was that backlash an overreaction or was it somewhat deserved? While I'd love to say that The Phantom Menace was in fact a misunderstood gem, one can't deny just how inept parts of this movie are. Yes, Jar Jar Binks was a bad idea from the start: his bumbling antics unfunny f

Sequels aren't easy. Especially when they come like 20 too late! A lot has been said about this delayed installment of the Indiana Jones franchise which came after years and years of rejected scripts and on-and-off shenanigans. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg eventually brought us an Indiana Jones flick which, from its release onward, has received all sorts of criticisms, most of them absolutely understandable. This movie has problems, for sure. But for me, it all comes down to one simple flaw: The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull doesn't feel like a genuine Indy movie. It feels more like clunky fan-fiction with the odd spot-on moment that works made by completely different filmmakers. Yes, strangely, this movie doesn't even feel like a Spielberg film, it feels like someone trying to imitate Spielberg's style: lots of smoky, backlit set-ups, playful stylistic nods but there's just something missing. The plot of this one is all over the place. We start with