TheRetroCritic

Remember when that movie came out? How excited we were? I know I was! A perfectly cast Angelina Jolie playing the one game character EVERY geek fantasized about in a full-blown action adventure flick? Finally? I couldn't wait. Then I watched it... I hadn't been this disappointed in a video game movie since Street Fighter and at least that one was enjoyable in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way, it was entertaining at the very least! Not that this Tomb Raider outing is completely joyless: there is a sense that they were trying to make a fun movie complete with loads of action, playful one-liners and comic relief characters (both of which are awful here, by the way) but somehow it managed to completely miss the point. It's really quite simple: what Tomb Raider should be is nothing more than a modern Indiana Jones with a quietly badass female lead and cool, cartoonish villains. Yet this movie finds it necessary to spend no less than 40 minutes building exposition f

From the Young Indiana Jones game Instruments Of Chaos on the SEGA Genesis, I give you the most heartbreaking game over screen you'll ever see: Shit man! That's depressing... But wait, what about Old Indiana Jones?

Indiana Jones faces off one final time against those dastardly nazis who, once again, are after a powerful religious artifact and ultimately world domination (of course!). This time, Indy is joined by his father (Sean Connery), Alison Doody's deadly femme fatale and his long-time bumbling pal (played by Denholm Elliott). After a rather strange trip down the Temple Of Doom , here we are back to the basics, so how does it fare? Rather "intolerably" well, to put it simply. For many, Raiders Of The Lost Ark will forever remain the best Indy movie but for me, just the fact that we've got Sean Connery along for the ride rather than Karen Allen's damsel in distress makes it the better film. It just feels bigger, slicker and overall more entertaining than any other Indy movie. The film itself plays out like The Da Vinci Code (but GOOD) crossed with Raiders and although there's a lot of familiar things here from past Indy films it still feels as fresh and origi

People often tend to forget the nature of Indiana Jones films, that is to say what they're actually meant to be: B movies. Sure, glossier, more stylish, more entertaining, ridiculously GOOD B movies but B movies nonetheless. So saying an Indy movie is silly... It's about an archaeologist who fights nazis WITH A WHIP, ok? On that note: yes, Temple Of Doom is sillier and really more of a horror film than Raiders. But we are warned from the offset that this is a very different type of movie than the first instalment as we begin with a flamboyant, cheesy musical number. From then on it plays off a lot like a Bond film before getting back to true Indy territory...and going off into child slavery and black magic about halfway through. This one really is a good companion piece to Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull in that both films stray pretty far from the general concept Raiders and Crusade tried to establish. Of course, Crystal Skull strays a little too far but Temple Of Doom

Many have tried before or since the Indy franchise to recapture the magic and the fun of the old adventure serials with efforts like Romancing The Stone , The Phantom , Doc Savage or Alan Quartermain and the Lost City of Gold but all have come short of Spielberg's classic trilogy. So what makes Indiana Jones so successful? For one thing you've got the iconic casting of Harrison Ford as the archaeologist-turned-adventurer which feels like the role Ford was born to play: cool, witty, always on-the-ball, occasionally goofy, strong, good-hearted, a ladies' man...he's the ultimate action hero. He's Han Solo with a whip and leather jacket, can't go wrong with that. Then you've got the Lucas/Spielberg/Williams trilogy of movie masterminds, a team which, in the 80's anyway, were at the top of their game. Fresh from Star Wars , Lucas knew how to produce a catchy flick, The Berg could direct a masterpiece in his sleep and John Williams' scores were ab