TheRetroCritic

I review Robert Zemeckis' What Lies Beneath .

We discuss the prospect of a fifth Indiana Jones movie on The Big Rewind .

Behold! My latest lengthy Blade Runner 2049 rant!

Before Blade Runner enjoyed a revival with a Director's Cut released 10 years after its original release in 1982, it was nowhere near the masterpiece it is now recognised to be. The film underperformed at the box-office, its more optimistic take not resonating with audiences. Indeed, this is the only version of the film with a happy ending of sorts as Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and replicant love interest Rachael (Sean Young) leave Los Angeles together after fellow Blade Runner Gaff (Edward James Olmos) spares her life. The infamous voice-over unconvincingly explains to us that Gaff just assumed she would only live for 4 years but luckily Tyrell told Deckard otherwise off-camera. Most people, including Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford, would agree that this voice-over, which pops up pretty randomly and abruptly, sometimes stating the blindingly obvious, was a mistake. Its content, delivery and placement just don't work. It constantly interrupts Vangelis' beautiful sco

Set 30 years after the events of Ridley Scott's cult classic sci-fi noir  Blade Runner , Denis Villeneuve's Blade Runner 2049 aims to expand the world established by the original while also continuing the story of replicant hunter Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford). Our lead this time is K (Ryan Gosling), an advanced, more obedient type of replicant who also works as a Blade Runner, hunting down older models who are hiding all over Los Angeles. After taking down one of them, a farmer played by a criminally underused Dave Bautista, K finds the remains of another replicant buried nearby and an investigation is opened. This new development piques the interest of the mysterious Niander Wallace (Jared Leto), the creator of all new replicants. The investigation leads us back to Rick Deckard, who turns out to be the key to this whole mess. Meanwhile, K's relationship with hologram girlfriend Joi (Ana de Armas) goes weird places and a prostitute is tasked by someone to place a trac

Some thoughts on the upcoming Blade Runner 2049 .

Visuals look 10/10. We'll see if the film delivers.

Review available on the new website .

The Star Wars mania which had rocked the late 70's and become a huge phenomenon real quick finally came to an end in 1983 with  Return Of The Jedi ,   the third instalment of the space opera which saw our heroes fight back after losing some steam against the Empire in the last movie. Still frozen in carbonite, Han Solo (Harrison Ford), is hanging as a wall decoration in an alien blob's humble abode. Said blob is Solo's last employer Jabba The Hutt, a cold, vile and greedy creature who not only lets the guy gather up dust but soon reduces Leia (Carrie Fisher) to a scantily-clad slave woman and sets a trap (it's a trap!) for Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), before almost having him thrown in the Sarlacc (don't ask) pit for lols. Luckily, Luke has now pretty much mastered the powers of the Force and is a bonafide Jedi master so the gang are promptly reunited and escape, droids and all. The tone for this one is a little different than in the previous films. A New

Back in 1977, George Lucas released Star Wars , an epic sci-fi fantasy space opera with a save-the-princess plot and it soon became a phenomenon, to say the least. It would later be retitled Episode IV: A New Hope as Lucas decided to expand the storyline further. The film was such a commercial hit that two (soon to be three) more films would follow, then three prequels, countless tie-ins, endless novels, tons and tons of merchandising, several cartoon series, it made Harrison Ford's career and Jedi even became a legitimate (-ish) religion! And the crazy thing is the franchise is still as huge as it ever was, with many, many more films planned so let's take a look back at the movie that started it all. Star Wars opens with a captured Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) sending a couple of droids off to planet Tatooine to bring back help. She is being held by iconic baddie Darth Vader (played by David Prowse, voiced by James Earl Jones) who is running a gigantic space station f

So I watched Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and, let me tell ya... This is not the Wars you're looking for. For one thing, the title makes no sense when you're actually watching the movie. The "Force" Awakens? The Force is not mentioned once during the entire film! I distinctly remember the Force being mentioned at least four times in the original sexylogy.  Maybe five. And as for the "Awakens", the only way that makes any sense at all is by linking the main actor, whatever his name is, who looks a heck of a lot like Robin Williams, to a film starring the iconic comedian himself called Awakenings . Then again, this movie has nothing to do with that other movie so, again, we find ourselves in a pickle.  The droids are all wrong. They're too blocky and they look too much like plastic robots. Now I understand that J.J. Abrams ( Felicity ) was very keen to go "old school" and use "practical" effects

Review now available on the new website . 

Based on the popular novel comes Ender's Game , your typical boy-meets-girl, boy-becomes-army-commander-against-a-race-of-ant-aliens-in-space story. It certainly took a while for this one to get made but I guess with the success of The Hunger Games , it was only a matter of time before they actually gave it a go. That Ender's Game is a 12A is both surprising and not all that surprising since, although the source material has its brutal moments, studios need to sell it to kids as well as adults so they were never going to bump it up to a 15 or more. Not that the film is devoid of any dark stuff but it's much more implied than it is in-your-face. The young actors are also older than in the book, I understand, thereby making their cruel environment not quite as scary. If you don't know, the film is set 50 years after a war between humans and Formics (alien ant things) and sees a young boy called Ender (Asa Butterfield) get recruited by Harrison Ford's Colonel Graf

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

Famously a flop upon its initial 1982 release, Ridley Scott's  Blade Runner was based on Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep? and, although it was rather different from the book in many ways, it captured the look, feel and spirit of the writer's dystopian future. The Director's Cut , released 10 years later, removed the voice-over, shortened the ending and hinted at the main character's true nature. Although some did miss the extra touch of noir the voice-over provided, it's frankly not necessary looking back plus Ford's monotonous read takes away from the stunning visuals. As for the twist ending, I'm not saying it makes perfect sense and far surpasses the original's optimistic take but it certainly makes more of an impact dramatically. Neither ending truly "gets" Philip K. Dick's point but for the film specifically, The Director's Cut feels more appropriate. Visually, this movie looks amazing: the city