TheRetroCritic

L.Q. Jones' cult sci-fi film A Boy And His Dog gets its own video review.

Review available on the new website .

Following  Ratatouille , Pixar tackled the science-fiction genre with WALL-E , the story of a big-eyed little robot stuck all by himself in the middle of a post-apocalyptic Earth until he meets an unexpected visitor. This was Pixar's boldest concept since Toy Story as a good portion of the film is basically silent save for music and sound effects. The human characters don't show up until much later and when they do, they never steal the focus from WALL-E or his modern robot love interest EVE who is sent to Earth, we soon find out, to look for any source of vegetation. The world the film depicts is one overcome by garbage due to the environment having crumbled under the weight of industry and commercialism. Incidentally, the weakest aspect of WALL-E is probably its environmental message, which isn't exactly subtle, but it is admittedly done quite well in that it gives the characters something to fight for and presents a uniquely comfortable yet lazy and ultimately grim

There's never been a better time to revisit a movie which basically started a whole sci-fi subgenre and led to one of this year's best blockbusters. Mad Max was the film which gave Mel Gibson his big break and provided a welcome alternative to Hollywood's movie-making machine. Now, if you've never seen Mad Max, don't sit and watch it expecting Mad Max: Fury Road . Those two movies may share the same character but one is expensive and is set in a post-apocalyptic desert world with some, admittedly pretty, CGI thrown in while the other is very low-budget and is set in what looks like pre-apocalyptic small town Australia. There are trees, houses, cops, Halls Of Justice (of sorts), there's still some form of society present here. For something closer to Fury Road, you might want to just check out Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior but why would you not want to know how Max became "Mad" Max? This is one character arc that's worth sitting through, trus

Patrick Swayze. In a Mad Max -style post-apocalyptic future. With a sword. In the 80's. Why would you NOT watch that movie?! It almost sounds too good to be true, and it is. The film starts off just like you'd hoped, with a very silly, very cheap-looking sequence involving Swayze being attacked by sand mummies. To give you an idea, the scene ends with Swayze making the SAND bleed. Yup, it is that awesome. Then he meets up with an old friend, some martial arts master and/or sheriff-type dude and just when you expect things to go all Kung-Fu , a bunch of bad leather-wearin' rejects from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome show up to drag the plot down to something resembling a cliched western minus the hats. Which I do like, genre-bending is welcome in most films as far as I'm concerned, but I really wanted Steel Dawn to go all out. Instead of ripping off every Mad Max film and every Sergio Leone flick ever made, why not differentiate from that Mel Gibson-starring