TheRetroCritic

Christopher Nolan's breakout hit Memento was a big deal back in 2000 but risked not being relevant for much longer than that, with it being very much a concept movie. Luckily, very few have attempted/risked telling a story backwards so it's looking like Nolan's film is safe for now. The film sees Leonard (Guy Pearce), a guy with a unique condition making him unable to create new memories who is on the hunt for the man, known only as John G., who raped and killed his wife. The story is told backwards and is intercut with a slow-developing strand told chronologically (if at an unknown point in time) and shot in black and white. The film opens with Leonard shooting his friend Teddy (Joe Pantoliano) in the face and we get to see, little by little, how this came to be. Like with Inception or The Prestige , here we have a thriller with a different approach which develops sort of like a maze, almost losing you here and there but ultimately keeping you hooked. Leonard uses v

(Slight SPOILERS ahead)

(SPOILER-FREE REVIEW) Hey, remember when movies didn't flat-out lie to your face? I mean, I know all trailers are lies to a certain extent but... I gotta say: this one takes the cake. What Iron Man 3 promised during its kickass marketing campaign seemed so right, so perfect, and yet somehow the movie I was faced with while sitting comfortably in the cinema sipping on a large, watered-down Diet Coke, was not what I expected and, by extension, not what I wanted. Or, I feel, what the franchise itself deserved. Surprises can be a great thing in movies: Psycho killing off its main actress early on, for example, worked as a surprise because it made sense with what happened next, it was masterfully executed and left the audience feeling lost but curious and ultimately hooked. Iron Man 3 is no Psycho. The film boasts a couple of shock reveals which you wouldn't even think about from watching the trailers but instead of adding an extra layer of awesomeness to the film,