TheRetroCritic

It’s no secret that Nicolas Cage has a thing for the medieval and antique weirdness in general: castles, sorcery, all that stuff. So when long time friend and financial benefactor Jerry Bruckheimer approached him with a tale which would see him play Merlin’s apprentice, he no doubt jumped at the chance. I’m assuming this all happened before an initial glance at The Sorcerer’s Apprentice ’s script. There’s something about a Disney Nic Cage movie that doesn’t sit right. For one thing he can’t go all out Bad Lieutenant style and that means he can’t be the Cage we love and demand. Also, it means that the movie he’s in won’t exactly live to become a cult classic. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice is every bit as bland as the trailers suggested and this looks set to be the one Cage flick EVERYONE will completely forget about. Yup, even more so than Season Of The Witch . The aforementioned script is mostly to blame. In a clumsy opening montage, we’re roughly told about

Welcome to another of my Top 10s! This time I'm looking at Nicolas Cage movies and if you know me at all then you know that Mr Cage is something of an obsession with me... I'll be counting down the Top 10 Cage films that I personally enjoy watching the most. I'll be leaving out loads of good movies of course ( Lord Of War ), as well as movies I haven't seen in a long time and really need to re-watch ( Snake Eyes , 8MM , The Rock ) so I might revisit this list eventually. Some films that I actually quite like, I'm thinking Trapped In Paradise , Matchstick Men or Peggy Sue got Married just missed out on the list which includes genuinely good movies and movies which may not be particularly great (or simply so bad they're good) but are worth watching since The Cage is at his most entertaining. On that note, lets "Cage" that shit up: 10 DEADFALL/THE WICKER MAN In the so-bad-they're-good category, here we have two films, both clunky

Ok, so the new-ish Nicolas Cage film is coming out... ...and it's called STOLEN . Remember how TAKEN was essentially a fun B movie? Well this looks like the C movie version of that. After all: Stolen, Taken, same f****in' thing, right? But is it a "Cagey" enough outing to warrant a viewing? Bear lol Big mouth lol Elevator fight lol Fire car lol Well, it looks like we're in safe Cage territory here. Just sayin', could be fun. Ass, no doubt, but fun.

Drive Angry probably boasts THE best storyline of the year so far: Nicolas Cage breaks out of Hell in a car. I'll repeat that: breaks out of HELL, in a CAR. This is gonna be sweeeeet! The trailers promised extreme Grindhouse-style silliness the likes of which Robert Rodriguez ( Planet Ter ror, Machete ) would be proud of with Nic Cage at his wackiest, exciting (read: ridiculous) action scenes and plenty of facepalm-inducing dialogs. Alas, you'll need to lower your expectations just a little if you are to truly enjoy Drive Angry. There was a great film in there somewhere (great as in so bad it's good, of course) but, unfortunately, something went wrong along the way. For one thing, Cage is at his most soporific here and goes for monotone swagger rather than Bad Lieutenant -type goofiness. Which is not to say he doesn't entertain: seeing the guy fully dressed having sex whilst blasting the bad guys with a giant gun, standing randomly staring at fire or saying the wo

After a decade packed with lame action-hero roles ( Next , Bangkok Dangerous ) and cheesy nonsense ( Knowing , World Trade Centre ), Nicolas Cage returns to the top of his game with one of his all time greatest, craziest performances. Cage is no stranger to playing awkward, random, wackos and with films like Wild At Heart , Vampire's Kiss and Raising Arizona under his belt it seems like pairing up with Werner Herzog is no less than a match made in heaven. Bad Lieutenant sees the titular lieutenant spiral down into a drug-infused folly whilst trying to solve a crime he may or may not even care about. The film could be seen as a Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas -style drug comedy or a dark thriller but truthfully, it's a bit of both. A black comedy cop movie with enough random insanity to satisfy Herzog's followers and pretty much anyone with a dark sense of humour. A strange, unique creation which will no doubt alienate some but which will make others Nic

After watching Ghost Rider for the first time since I saw it at the movies back in 2007, I re-read the review I'd written at the time: in a nutshell "1 star, avoid". What's with the anger? What drove me to banish Ghost Rider to 1 star Hell? I seriously don't know. I mean, I remember hating the first bit where you see a young Johnny Blaze making a deal with the Devil, I remember hating Eva Mendes, I remember hating the direction... Now don't get me wrong, the first bit is pretty bland, Eva Mendes is annoying and the direction feels more suited to a music video than anything else. But then there's the Ghost Rider! Sure the CGI isn't exactly top of the line but the Rider scenes are all pretty gosh darn awesome: riding in town melting parking meters, riding up and down buildings, pulling down helicopters with chains, riding with a fiery Sam Elliott cowboy, melting a jail cell... pretty kick ass. It's just a shame Nic Cage feels misca

Oddball genius Nic Cage returns with yet another supernatural effort and although we're not getting the delightfully madcap Cage of Bad Lieutenant or Vampire's Kiss , this is restrained but silly NC. Always entertaining. He stars alongside Ron Perlman in this adventure which sees both knights/crusaders escort a witch to some castle. From the offset we get bad hair, silly helmets, dumb one-liners, American accents and epic slo-mo: all the ingredients of a true epic fail. And yet, from the genuinely very good opening sequence, this is a really fun ride from start to finish.  In what other film can you see Ron Perlman headbutting a demon repeatedly in the face? Well, perhaps Hellboy... But still, it's awesome! The whole thing feels very Hammer from the start and this feeling is confirmed when Christopher Lee himself shows up for a creepy but effective cameo. Everyone seems to be having a ball and although the ending relies way too much on CGI, it's well wor