TheRetroCritic

Talking about the latest season of Arrested Development .

Two years after the failure of Howard The Duck , Executive Producer George Lucas redeemed himself with Willow , a fantasy film from 1988 directed by Ron Howard. It starred Warwick Davis in the title role with a young Val Kilmer supporting. After sorceress Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) orders the death of children in the kingdom due to a prophecy stating that a female child will, one day, orchestrate her downfall, a chain of events is set into motion when a midwife decides to save one baby. The latter ends up in the hands of kindhearted Nelwyn farmer Willow but, when it becomes apparent that keeping the baby poses a threat to his village, he is sent to bring the child back to where she came from, but in safe hands. He first encounters disgraced warrior Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) and soon entrusts the child to him but that backfires almost instantly. What follows is an epic yet relatively intimate adventure involving fairies, "brownies" (tiny people), magic, trolls and monster

Despite the lukewarm reception of both The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons , this year saw Ron Howard bring us yet another instalment based on Dan Brown's popular series of novels. Inferno continues Robert Langdon's (Tom Hanks) quest to save the world through running around museums and solving obscure historical puzzles. We first meet Langdon as he wakes up in hospital following some kind of accident he can't remember. His vision blurred and memory fuzzy due to head trauma, he is led out of the hospital by Dr. Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) who sees an assassin heading her patient's way. Strange, apocalyptic dreams and a hidden item lead Langdon and Brooks to slowly uncover the truth behind a mystery linked to Dante's Inferno. The real challenge for Robert Langdon this time is having to try and stop a potential terrorist plot despite not knowing who to trust because of partial amnesia. This being a Ron Howard film, it is competently made: the tense hosp

Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah star in this 80's comedy re-imagining of the Little Mermaid fairy-tale which did what Disney is currently trying to do with its live-action adaptations of every animated film they've ever done but without any big special effects. And all before Disney's The   Little Mermaid was even released. Really, on paper Splash should have been awful but in the safe hands of director Ron Howard and with a first class cast which also included John Candy and Eugene Levy, it was a big hit and was even nominated for an Academy Award back in 1984. By handling the movie like a grown-up (and literal) fish-out-of-water story with some romance and jokes thrown in, Howard manages to make Splash more of a modern fairy-tale adults can enjoy rather than corny, kids-only fare. The very good, very funny script keeps a perfect balance between comedy and fantasy and the cast is simply flawless from Hanks' lonely romantic to Daryl Hannah's wide-eyed, innocent

With Michael Keaton's comeback pretty much sealed and ready to take effect, I thought I'd revisit one of my own personal movies starring the actor: Night Shift . The film, directed by Ron Howard of all people, is a comedy in which Henry Winkler plays mild-mannered morgue attendant Chuck who is made to work the night shift with ebullient, fast-talking new recruit Bill (Keaton). While their completely different personalities fail to gel initially, Bill's constant flow of ridiculous business plans finally leads to an idea Chuck ends up going along with. Chuck's neighbour Belinda (Shelley Long), a prostitute, is left pimp-less after some shady goings-on involving the competition and Bill's plan to become "Love Brokers" with Chuck soon becomes a reality. The unlikely duo is soon working with a group of prostitutes, running their totally legit business harmoniously. Soon enough, of course, their success becomes threatened and Chuck's relationship with B

Not content with painting his face green in The Mask and wearing nothing but green as The Riddler in Batman Forever , Jim Carrey decided to cover himself in green fur for Ron Howard's live-action version of Dr Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas . This decision did pay off in that Carrey turned out to be the perfect choice to play the moody Grinch and, whether you like the movie or not, it's hard to deny the rubber-faced actor's energy makes his portrayal of the classic character a lot of fun from start to finish. Who else could have pulled off such a cartoonish role so convincingly? He even aces the old "You're A Mean One, Mr Grinch" tune in one of the movie's best and most memorable sequences. The make-up effects on Carrey as well as on all the actors playing the Whos of Who-ville are impressive and spot-on, bringing Dr Seuss' unique visual style to a live-action setting beautifully. Unfortunately, while the film boasts tons of Christma