TheRetroCritic

Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim was something of a breath of fresh air back in 2013. The increasingly tedious Transformers franchise was still going strong so finally seeing a genuinely fun and well made movie about giant robots fighting was hugely satisfying. For all its flaws, Pacific Rim was exactly what it sought out to be: a modern yet proudly cheesy version of Robot Jox crossed with a deadpan Japanese Kaiju movie. This was a thoroughly entertaining visual treat with some memorable city-set fight scenes and one delightfully over-the-top Idris Elba speech. Pacific Rim: Uprising takes place some years later as we meet Elba's character's son Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), a former Jaeger pilot turned thief who sells Jaeger parts on the black market. When he encounters Amara (Cailee Spaeny), a street-smart young orphan who has managed to make her own Jaeger, they are both caught by the Defense Corps and put to work as new recruits. As China's Shao Corporation g

Some time ago, I wrote a joke short story lovingly poking fun at Pacific Rim and anime in general, that story was Hard Warriors . Enjoy ;) (click the pic above)

You'd think something as simple as big robots and big monsters would be super easy to get right in a movie, but with the likes of the Transformers trilogy and 1998's Godzilla in its back catalogue, that kind of flick badly needed a makeover. Good thing Guillermo Del Toro knows roughly what he's doing! Yes, Pacific Rim is the Hellboy director's take on monster movies and big robot movies: the result? A decidedly fun, brainless mesh of anime-style melodrama, epic nonsense, cartoonish lols and  Robot Jox -type live-action 80's goofiness. It's very retro, very silly but very cool. It's one of those movies you can't take too seriously and demands that you sit down, suspend your disbelief quite a bit and enjoy yourself. Nitpicking Pacific Rim would really be missing the point. Now the reason that some pan the Transformers movies, me included, is that their flaws really are completely distracting and do affect the style the films themselves are going

In this eighth episode, fellow film buff Jamie and I discuss movie news, review a recent release ( Pacific Rim , this time) and rewind back to more retro cinematic topics. Guess what song was being sung in last week's  "I Shat Myself"  segment and get a shout-out in the next episode! You can email your answer here:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on iTunes where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com

And you thought Pacific Rim was a crappy title... Yes, Atlantic Rim is the infamous B-movie-making machine that is The Asylum's own take on the new Robot Jox -style blockbuster. Taking the rough idea of big robots (with people in 'em) versus big reptilian monsters, we are once again given a healthy dose of godawful performances and cheap CGI. The one kinda known actor in this one is Graham Greene, who was most recently seen in The Twilight Saga . He plays an admiral in a movie which, sadly, isn't much of a step up from the teen vampire franchise. After an oil rig gets sunk by something no-one can explain, a group of pilots are sent down underwater inside giant robots to find the wreckage and stop whatever is causing such chaos. Why the army had Transformers in the first place and why they couldn't have just sent cameras down to the ocean floor instead of risking lives and billions of dollars is still beyond me. In any event, we focus on a pilot trio who are all