TheRetroCritic

Talking about the latest season of Arrested Development .

Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams star in Game Night , a dark comedy about a couple and their friends who are invited to play a new game one night, only to find that the ensuing chaos is very real and not actually part of said game. Sort of like a cross between The Man Who Knew Too Little and Date Night with a little of  The 'Burbs thrown in, Game Night takes a gimmicky, slightly derivative premise and runs with it with enough gusto to make Baby Driver jealous. For all its goofier aspects, this is a sharply written comedy that strikes a good balance between dumb and clever without losing track of its characters and why we should care about them. Max (Bateman) and Annie (McAdams), through their playfulness and competitiveness, seem to be perfect for each other and, even though some problems are revealed along the way, this is a relationship we root for throughout. Their friends are mostly one-dimensional but they each have their moments and remain likeable despite their ob

I talk a bit about Netflix's new show Ozark .

This year, Disney had a surprise hit with CG-animated feature Zootopia , a buddy-cop movie set in a modern metropolis populated by animals. We follow Judy Hopps, a determined bunny police cadet who moves to the big city to start her career. On paper and from the early trailers, Zootopia really didn't seem like much with the whole animals-acting-like-humans thing having been done many times before. Watching the film, however, you realise that the marketing just didn't pick the right angle to sell this one. Instead of going for a generic approach, why not couch the film in a Lethal Weapon -style 80's cop movie type of thing? Judy (voiced by Ginnifer Goodwin) is one of the most endearing animated characters Disney's created in a while and just when her overwhelming positivity starts to get a little much, she has to deal with the cruel real world and Nick, a sarcastic fox con artist. Judy is first dismissed by the police force as a meter maid because of her small size

If there was one comedy I was not expecting to ever get a sequel, it was  Horrible Bosses . Armed with a fun, clever concept and a strong cast, the film still somehow managed to be very uneven and instantly forgettable. So now we have Horrible Bosses 2 and our moronic trio are back with yet another unlikely plan involving, albeit rather indirectly, some horrible bosses. The plot sees Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day try to sell a new product of their conception called "The Shower Buddy" to a big company run by an intimidating Christoph Waltz and his spoilt, twisted son, an almost show-stealing Chris Pine. Of course, the gang are soon tricked into being ruined and selling their product for cheap to Waltz and they are soon plotting their revenge. Murder isn't so much on their mind this time as they turn their intention towards kidnapping. Or "kidnaping", rather. What follows is a series of nifty twists and turns as Pine gets involved in thei

Here's one I missed upon its release. Dunno why, maybe because it was boringly called " Extract ". From Mike Judge, the director of Office Space and Idiocracy , comes this random comedy about an extract factory and how the arrival of a con-woman, played by Mila Kunis, starts screwing things up for the people working there. Jason Bateman plays the owner who not only has to deal with whatever marital problems he's got (his wife is played forgettably by Kristen Wiig) but an unfortunate testicle-related accident that happens to one of his workers leading to the threat of being sued and, of course, Kunis' distracting meddling. Meanwhile, you've got Ben Affleck as a bad-advice-giving stoner bar tender, J.K. Simmons in a fun but underdeveloped role and David Koechner as an annoying neighbour. Extract really is full of those typically quirky Mike Judge characters and some of them do provide some good jokes throughout the film. The problem is the film itself. B

New posters are up for the new season of Arrested Development , coming soon to Netflix. Here's one of 'em: For more, go to empireonline.com . ...COME ON!!!!

Well it looks like the old uptight person/large person road trip comedy genre still has some mileage on it! With Due Date and now Identity Thief , it's looking like John Hughes' classic Planes, Trains And Automobiles might have been more influential than we originally thought. And for years I thought Tommy Boy would be the last word on that genre... This time around we've got Jason Bateman playing a normal boring dude with a normal boring office job (fancy that!) who gets his identity stolen by a loud, obnoxious, manipulative Melissa McCarthy. To keep his new job, Bateman decides to travel to Miami to somehow find his sworn enemy and bring her back to his state to get arrested. Of course, this already not very good-sounding plan turns out to go really wrong. For one thing, the identity thief in question keeps punching people in the neck, she's hunted by criminals for some reason and is generally a nightmare to be around. To sum up: she makes John Candy in th