TheRetroCritic

As both our polls finally end, I can now reveal that the film joining Captain America (voted Best Film Of 2011) in the Hall Of Fame (& Shame) as Worst Film Of 2011 is... BATTLE: LOS ANGELES   The faithful followers & visitors of the RetroCritic blog have voted and chosen... MY own pick for Worst Film Of 2011... Go figure! And no, I didn't vote several times. Believe it or not, more people disliked Battle: LA than Sucker Punch , Transformers 3 AND Alvin & The Chipmunks 3: Chipwrecked . I'm guessing most skipped that last one. But what makes this Aaron Eckhart-starring sci-fi war flick so hard to get behind? Well, for one thing the awesome trailer was about as misleading as it gets: it promised tons of exciting action, loads of suspense, ground-breaking special effects, an interesting, gritty take on the familiar alien invasion plot and strong performances. But noooooo. Fuck that shit! Lets plow through sand with Team Douchebag for two hours on the offc

Those familiar with my less-than-glowing review of Lost's first season already know my stance on that snooze fest. Whoop-dee-freakin'-doo! We're looking down a hole! That was TOTALLY worth a million episodes! Grrrr... Anyway, onto Season 2 and, you know what? I have to hand it to the show: it learns from its mistakes. A heck of a lot of my criticisms are tended to in a superior second season which not only has an awesome subplot (which amazingly does deliver!) and things actually happening (almost) every episode but it introduces two of the show's best ever characters and disposes of some unwelcome cast members. It all begins in the "hatch" found at the end of the first season and although not nearly enough is done with the whole subplot that goes with it, it provides a new equilibrium for our colorful crew of troubled assholes with good hearts to struggle with. A lot of time is spent introducing the Anna-Lucia character, played by notorious tough-co

Alien invasion disaster movies have always been a hit-and-miss affair. From the old Earth vs The Flying Saucers -type B movies to more recent big budget efforts like Independence Day . You'd think such a simple concept would be pretty straight-forward and easy to get right. Not so. Unfortunately Battle: LA, like so many similar films before it, fails to deliver. Instead we are given a kind of B-side cliched war flick with rubbish District 9 -style aliens thrown in. Earlier this year we had the awful Skyline in the same vein and although Battle: LA isn't qute as dire, it's still pretty poor all around. It's like the film contains all the shittest cliches and flaws which made Independence Day so cheesy but minus Jeff Goldblum, Randy Quaid and ANY sense of fun whatsoever. What's left? Not very much alas. Early on we're introduced to the film's main characters: a bunch of Marines, who are about as likeable and interesting as the plastic chair I'm c

Although there never was a fake trailer for this one, Hell Ride is indeed a worthy addition to Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse . After zombie movies, Mexploitation films ( Machete ) and car chase movies we get this biker flick which comes with QT regulars Michael Madsen and David Carradine but with added Dennis Hopper and Vinnie Jones. *squee* The result? Nothing sensational but it fits very nicely in between Planet Terror and Death Proof in that it contains the overblown silliness of Robert Rodriguez films and the style, dialogs and cool of QT's films. Of course, this being made by Larry Bishop it never achieves the highs of both directors but it makes a fair attempt nonetheless. Somewhat underrated, yes Hell Ride is big, lumbering, confused and dumb but...hello? That's the point. It's a 70's style biker flick! Of course you need lots of ladies in hot pants, gratuitous nudity, unmotivated biking, a trippy magic mushrooms scene and nonsensical dialogs!

One of the best bits of Grindhouse was definitely the fake trailers. And one of the best bits of the fake trailers was Machete , which promised flying motorbikes, killer priests, threesomes and Danny Trejo kicking a whole lotta ass. Three years later, we finally got the promised feature. Better late than never, I say. Shame  Sin City 2 took decades... Robert Rodriguez excels at mimicking 70's exploitation films, whether it be horror movies ( F rom Dusk Till Dawn , Planet Terror ) or Mexploitation action flicks ( Once Upon a Time in Mexico , Desperado ) so Machete was always going to be a shoe-in. That it took so long to make is therefore surprising but as long as it exists, I'm not about to complain. So does Machete get the job done? Perfectly capturing the sleaze and silliness of Grindhouse action B-movies, Machete is about as badass, random and fun as it gets. Rodriguez's film certainly shows weak efforts like A-Team and The Expendables (out the same year)

  Uwe Boll directs (that's a big word) this mess of a video game adaptation and offers us little more than about a million jittery flashbacks, some of the worst acting ever filmed and basically one of the most boring films I've seen in a very long time. Three things save this turkey from the dreaded 1 star rating: gore, boobs and Ben Kingsley. As catastrophically rubbish as Kristanna Loken's acting may be...she is compelling to say the least (though not so much in the big clown rubbery pants she gets near the end lol). The gore is gratuitous but fun and Ben Kingsley can do "creepy bald man" in his sleep.  The biggest disappointment here may very well be Michael Madsen who is a complete non-event. It's almost as if he refused to act and instead stood in front of the camera with his ridiculous Highlander haircut waiting for the "ker-ching" sound of his pay being counted. Overall, this is dire and it was so dire I actually found myself missing House