TheRetroCritic

Here's some cool Batman -themed art from up and coming UK artist Steven Farmer !  More can be found on his Facebook page and on Myspace . Watch out for a very special cameo appearance from Steven himself in one of the new Batman video reviews which will be posted towards the very end of Bat-Month. Stay tuned!

More Prince-tastic goodness...

There was a time when this Prince soundtrack just wasn't for me. It was just so distracting, so 80's and so not in line with anything else in the movie which went for more of a 1940's film noir-style vibe. I actually used to count it as one of the film's (very few) shortcomings. Listening back to it now though, I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. It's a guilty pleasure, for sure, but there's just something irresistible about a "funky" Batman soundtrack. Prince opens the album with " The Future" , a song you hear roughly in the background during the opening scene of the film where that family is wandering the streets of Gotham. It doesn't build up to anything particularly memorable but it's fine. Things get good with the second track though, " Electric Chair" sounding like a cross between Stevie Wonder and... AC/DC, as Prince gets to rock-scream a bit near the end of it. Gotta love the rock-screamin&#

Lets begin with a riddle: ‘What weighs six ounces, sits in a tree and is very dangerous’? Answer at the end of this review...   With the release of The Dark Night Rises   drawing ever closer, let us take a nostalgic trip back in time to the year 1966. Bring on the exaggerated acting and props that looked as if Blue Peter had made them. For anyone not familiar with Blue Peter: it’s a British children’s TV show which demonstrated how to make everything from cardboard sea creatures to rockets (I hated that show with a passion!!!!). If you liked the Batman TV series starring Adam West (as Batman/Bruce Wayne) and Burt Ward (as Robin/Dick Greyson) then you will love this film. It’s basically an extended version of the TV show. But having said that, it does stand alone as a movie and feels as if you are watching something more substantial than just a long episode. It has a good plot, lots of retro visual effects and all the mad Gotham villains we have come to love, assemb

It could have gone either way. After Batman Begins , a film that was half about slowly rebuilding the iconic character and his franchise in the eyes of the fans and half about being a kickass Batman flick, it could have all started going downhill straight away or the sequel could have used Begins as a template to build something bigger and better on. Yeah they got it right. What Batman Begins really needed was a good villain and The Dark Knight certainly delivered that. The late Heath Ledger giving a unique, unsettling performance as The Joker and Aaron Eckhart, so good as Harvey Dent, giving us THE best and most intimidating Two-Face ever put to screen. And that's saying a lot seeing as the Two-Face from the Animated Series scared the shit out of me as a kid in that first couple of episodes. It's the first time in a Batman film where you really feel that the hero is actually in danger of losing everyone he cares about and losing the fight overall. The unpredictable J

After the catoonish lunacy of the Adam West 60's TV series which had the Dark Knight dancing, surfing, running to crime scenes ON FOOT and stroking his chin repeatedly speaking bat-nonsense and adding the word "bat" before any device, it was definitely time for something a little more, shall we say, edgy? Not that the old series weren't fun: they were great! But as far as comic book heroes go, this one had more potential than the West series could ever produce. So who better to bring out the gothic weirdness and quirky theatrics of The Bat than Beetlejuice maestro Tim Burton? Michael Keaton is the troubled caped crusader, an unlikely choice but one which proved to be surprisingly spot-on: he brings humour and likeability to a character which could easily be bland and "one-note". Of course, the real scene-stealer here is Jack Nicholson's devilish joker who prides himself on being the world's first "homicidal artist" by trashing a museu