TheRetroCritic

Review available on the new website .

Here's the video version of my K-PAX review.

Here's a forgotten little thing that happened back in 2001: Kevin Spacey starred as Prot, a man claiming to be from a distant planet called K-PAX in a movie called just that. Prot is found early on wandering around a train station and is soon taken to a mental institution where Jeff Bridges' psychiatrist meets him and tries to figure out whether Prot is really from K-PAX or whether he's just a very troubled fellow and, if so, what could have prompted creating such a fantastical and convincing persona. The film is kind of a cross between Starman and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest as the very off-beat Prot meets all the colourful characters living in the institution and has an impact of some sort on their lives. Kevin Spacey finally lives up to his last name and delivers a decidedly "spacey" performance, his Prot being a complex character to say the least: on the surface he's a wise, friendly, if eccentric, alien with cool Bono-style sunglasses but t

Long before Peter Jackson took on the iconic beast, John Guillermin tried his hand at a King Kong movie and, although it didn't exactly shake the world upon its release, how does it hold up looking back? Can man-in-King Kong-costume outdo CGI Kong? Actually... In terms of the King Kong character and how bad you feel for him come the inevitable downer ending, I'd probably give the point to this movie. Where Jackson's mega budget motion-captured Kong was given far too many moments to be cute and likeable, this admittedly faker-looking Kong is more akin to the 1933 classic's depiction: very much monstrous but also subtly innocent. Which means that, by the time the surprisingly violent and bloody end scene happens, it should hit you pretty hard. It's refreshing to re-watch this one post-the 2005 version as it makes the latter's flaws stand out a little better. The recent film just tried too hard to get to that dramatic ending (see the random ice-skating sc

Rip-offs are a funny thing... Some can pass off as homages, some have to be rip-offs in order to survive in a world of big, crushing blockbusters, others are just lazy. R.I.P.D. is, indeed, one of the lazy ones. We get it, we got it from the trailers: it's Men In Black . The M.I.B.-style initials, the cliched buddy cop movie scenario with one young guy being paired up with an older guy with a Southern drawl as they shoot their fancy, shiny toy guns at alien-looking things... we're not idiots. We get it. It's no wonder that by the time this film came out people were already tired of it: they knew exactly what it would be! R.I.P.D., I must admit, did not offer any surprises and that's really what I wanted from it. I wanted the trailers to scream Men In Black but for the film itself to bring enough new, fun things to the table that it would be eventually elevated, through a cult following, to something a little bit different, a decent action comedy with a slightl