TheRetroCritic

I talk a bit about Solo: A Star Wars Story .

Just when you thought the Star Wars franchise was well and truly done with prequels after the last three got so retroactively panned, here we have Rogue One: A Star Wars Story which takes place directly before Episode IV with a Han Solo prequel already in the works. Felicity Jones is Jyn, the daughter of research scientist Galen Orso (Mads Mikkelsen) who is one day taken by the Empire. Not sure whether her father is alive or dead, Jyn is rescued by a man called Saw Gerrera (Forest Whitaker) and she eventually becomes a Rebel. When the Rebels find a message from Orso to Gerrera, they take Jyn to help deliver it but, with the Death Star being finally built and Imperial douchebag Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) on the Rebels' tail, this proves more difficult than anticipated. Soon enough, an unlikely team is assembled, their rogue mission being to steal the Death Star plans and deliver them to the right people. The team includes blind swordsman Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen) and his p

I put on my best Christmas sweater and talk Rogue One: A Star Wars Story .

Back in 2008, George Lucas produced a feature length animation set between Episode II: Attack Of The Clones and Episode III: Revenge Of The Sith . The Clone Wars was released in cinemas and would kick-start an animated series on Cartoon Network. While the film earned a very healthy amount at the box-office, it was pretty much critically panned. The animation style not exactly wowing critics who were expecting something a little more big-screen friendly instead of what was essentially just a TV pilot. The 3D animation in question certainly didn't go for a realistic take on the characters who all look like wooden caricatures, their hair never flowing in the wind, their faces not that expressive. It takes a little time to get used to and one could see how a critic expecting Pixar would leave the cinema slightly disappointed but on the small screen it's definitely easier to accept. It helps that the backgrounds and the action sequences look great. The animation may have bee

After Jurassic Park gave us the World last month,  The Terminator gave us Genisys, an oddly spelled sequel/prequel/reboot starring the franchise's very own Jason Voorhees, the unstoppable Arnold Schwarzenegger. The result was one messy Terminator film to say the least. The core premise of the film being to pull a Star Trek and deliver an alternate timeline thereby somehow creating a fresh and new storyline. This time, we go back to 1984 where the original Terminator film takes place only to find that a T-800 had already been around for 10 years training Sarah Connor to be a badass. Oh, also a T-1000 who doesn't look like Robert Patrick shows up. Everything is given a reason to be but it's all rather far-fetched, even for a series of films about time-travelling Austrian robots. Weirdly, the fact that Terminators can age ends up being the least distracting plot point. In what is easily one of the least respectful franchise moves I've seen, new Arnie literally an

Upon hearing that we'd be getting a new Dracula movie this Halloween and that it would star the usually reliable Luke Evans in the title role, I was definitely looking forward to it. It had been a while since the last Dracula movie and an epic period piece sounded like a good idea. Then the trailer happened. Then the movie happened. And then I started missing Dracula 2000 . As it turns out, this Dracula story was "untold" for a reason: it's mostly rubbish. The film is kind of a prequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula in that you see a fuller version of how Vlad The Impaler became a vampire but, of course, minus the style and poetic approach of Francis Ford Coppola's film (or Bram Stoker's novel for that matter). What we're left with is a by-numbers epic movie with some unlikely vampire theme thrown in. Dracula Untold , much like Man Of Steel , is a reboot for the sake of being a reboot: it serves a functional purpose, nothing more. Essentially, a

Hands up who wanted a prequel to The Thing ? Really? Come on! No one cares about the Norwegians? Well now you have to, for here is their story. Yes it follows almost every single key scene from the original film to the letter, but why wouldn't something this crazy happen twice in two different places just around the corner from each other? Because Hollywood knows better, that's why. So indeed we finally get to see the untold story of the Norwegians, who were the first to uncover the Thing before Kurt Russell and the gang even had a look at it. This time we get Mary Elizabeth Winstead being called into a base in Antarctica to help dig the titular whatchamacallit out of the ice. You know what happens next: Thing breaks out, people scream, paranoia sets in, it all becomes a "whoisit" (as opposed to whodunit) and it all ends in flames. That this The Thing remake isn't a disaster is almost shocking. Replacing practical effects as amazing as the ones in J