TheRetroCritic

Following The Ridiculous Six , Adam Sandler delivers his latest Netflix-produced creation The Do-Over , a buddy comedy in which Sandler gives David Spade's loser the chance to build a whole new life for himself. It's a much smaller film in scale than the aforementioned Western and it's all the better for it as it allows more focus on the characters and the story rather than endless silly jokes and too many side characters. Which is not to say The Do-Over doesn't have silly jokes but it doesn't feel the need to hit you over the head with them too often. The core premise is pretty clever as Max, Sandler's character, reconnects with Charlie (Spade), an old friend from high school, before the former takes it upon himself to fake their deaths in the hope of freeing each other from the burdens of their current lives. It turns out that Charlie isn't too keen on reinventing himself just yet plus it turns out that Max isn't the FBI agent he was claiming to b

I try to find 10 cool things about Marvel's first attempt at a Daredevil movie. It wasn't easy...

Pee-Wee Herman finally returns with a new movie outing nearly 30 years after Big Top Pee-Wee and this welcome return comes courtesy of Netflix, director John Lee and producer Judd Apatow who helped make Paul Reubens' long gestating project a reality. Pee-Wee's Big Holiday sees everyone's favourite 60 year-old man-child having seemingly moved on with his life somewhat since he chased his beloved bicycle all over the country in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure and grew hot dog trees on the farm: he's got a job working in a diner, he hasn't left small town Fairville in ages and he's in a rut with the world changing around him, much to his despair. That's until he meets and befriends actor Joe Manganiello who invites him to his birthday party in New York and urges Pee-Wee to go on a journey across America and live a little. Which he, of course, does. Pee-Wee may be in a rut and you actually see him in a more miserable state than ever before, but his wacky lif

Last week, Netflix released  Sword Of Destiny , a sequel to the Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon . With Michelle Yeoh returning and Donnie Yen joining the cast, this looked like it had the potential to, at the very least, be entertaining. Co-produced by Harvey Weinstein, the film has been criticised for being too "Westernized" and seeing as the film's dialogs are spoken in English, cast members Jason Scott Lee, Harry Shum Jr and Natasha Liu Bordizzo are only partly Chinese and the whole thing is packed with CGI, I'd say that was a fair complaint. But the main problem with this sequel is it really bears little to no resemblance to the original both in terms of the story and the overall quality. Sure, there's mention of Chow Yun-Fat's Li Mu Bai (though the actor doesn't even cameo), Yeoh is present and the sword is once again a big deal but it's like Zhang Ziyi's entire character arc never happened, the flying sword fights are extrem

Outcast is one of those Nicolas Cage movies which looks like such a half-assed effort it could only be entertaining. The casting of Hayden Christensen as his co-star and yet another ghastly-looking, misleading poster covered in fire being further proof of this. It also seems odd that Cage would take on yet another Crusader flick so soon after Season Of The Witch but heck, why not? It's not like it's an overdone subgenre. Besides, Season Of The Witch was more of a fantasy film and Outcast is like a Zhang Yimou epic minus the budget, the battle scenes or the talent. The plot follows a Chinese prince and his sister, who escape when the prince's warrior brother kills the King. They meet a Crusader-turned-drunk (Christensen) and he helps them take back the throne. On the way (read: an hour into the movie), they meet an old pal of Christensen's (Cage) who also deserted the Crusades. Of course, everyone in China speaks perfect English all the time, even to each other,

One of the two films Nicolas Cage starred in last year was Pay The Ghost , a supernatural thriller about a father whose son disappears all of a sudden on Halloween night. Of course, the film then doesn't try to say anything about loss or neglect like, say, The Orphanage , instead going for a ludicrous horror mystery plot you'd have to be pretty darn high to even consider believing. The film's first mistake, really, was to have Cage running around frantically looking for his son dressed up like a cowboy. If that doesn't suck all the potential drama out of the scene, I don't know what could. Oh sure it's a riot and as a fan of the actor's wackier efforts I'm loving it! But silly stuff like this doesn't help the film much, unless giving us an early hint that it builds up to a truly absurd ending counts as helping. Now, you could have easily told an interesting, heartfelt story here about a bad father who loses everything but tries to make up for

Left Behind was sold to us as a disaster movie with only a soupçon of religion included in it to benefit the film's big concept. We were promised mostly CGI destruction with some Nicolas Cage thrown in and that didn't sound too bad, even if the film itself looked ridiculous. And ridiculous it is! Ah if only that was this movie's biggest flaw... If you don't already know, the film follows a pilot (Cage) fly a plane while, everywhere, the Rapture is taking place: people are disappearing out of their clothes leaving chaos to settle on the Earth. While that may sound entertainingly apocalyptic, Left Behind makes it feel about as plausible and threatening as that event did in Seth Rogen comedy This Is The End , a far superior film in every single way, I should point out. The disaster part of the movie doesn't kick off until half an hour of mostly Cage-less exposition where the pilot's daughter Chloe (a godawful Cassi Thomson) has sleep-inducing discussions

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!!!!