TheRetroCritic

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Total Recall is one of those movies that should be terrible but somehow manages to be completely enjoyable and completely great. Based on a Philip K. Dick short story, Recall stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid, a construction worker who dreams of getting his ass to Mars even though a war is breaking out over there and he's had goofy-ass dreams about the place. He's married to Sharon Stone and apparently can afford to go on a mind-holiday through ever-so-slightly dodgy company Rekall so things aren't going too bad for Mr Quaid. However, as Arnie is plugged into Rekall's memory-implanting machine it all starts going pear-shaped pretty darn quick. Suddenly his wife's a murderous spy, he's hunted by a particularly unfriendly Michael Ironside and he's pulling big glowing balls out of his own nose. What a day. He finally gets to Mars where he becomes entangled in a pretty far-fetched but action-packed plot involving Ronny Cox's evil tycoon,

Back when Tim Burton films were still awesome and not "just ok", Mars Attacks! came out and gave us a delightful piece of 50's-style sci-fi B movie goodness complete with a stellar cast and Burton's own brand of surreal, nasty wackiness. It's funny to think that Independence Day came out the same year as Mars Attacks! since the latter feels like a complete spoof of Roland Emmerich's disaster cheese-fest. Burton's film takes the clichéd alien invasion formula we've seen in movies like War Of The Worlds , Earth vs The Flying Saucers or The Day The Earth Stood Still and gives it a playful edge. We see our world react to a potential alien encounter stupidly and naively. Rather than fearing the Martians, we're in fact pretty darn welcoming and peaceful about the whole thing. It's a clever take on that plot because in those old movies people are usually terrified of an alien invasion and completely overreact. Here, we only acknowledge how scre

Cowboys & Aliens may still be fresh in our minds but that doesn't mean we should NOT have another movie with cowboys and aliens, right? ...right? Come on, you know those two things kick ass and you know you want it... again. That's how John Carter begins: like a moody old western complete with saloons, the cavalry, feather-wearing native Americans and Sergio Leone-style swagger. "Beans: beans is the first item..." "My name is Carter. John Carter." Cut to: MAGIC! Shazam! WHOOSH! Mars. Fair enough. I mean there's no need for Disney to screw around with horses and sarsaparilla and shit when you can just beam to Mars! So anyway, Mars looks great. It's like CGI heaven but the effects are actually awesome. Like Avatar awesome. You've got these kinda gross-looking green guys with four arms, their even grosser-looking babies, some bulldog-type fast-as-shit mutt and loads more goodies. The Mars humans, on the other hand, are