TheRetroCritic

I narrow it down to 20 hilariously bad  Lost In Space  lines.

Released in 2001, when CG animation was starting to rival 2D in a big way, Atlantis: The Lost Empire was Disney's science-fiction love letter to Jules Verne and, while it was successful at the box-office, the film got mixed reviews so it remains a cult favourite. This wasn't your typical Disney musical aimed at a very young audience, Atlantis is a song-free action adventure with a proper sci-fi plot and it feels more like a big-budget Spielberg epic or a Star Wars movie set underground than anything else. The plot sees nerdy linguist and cartographer Milo Thatch (voiced by Michael J. Fox) lead an expedition to Atlantis after his research piques the interest of an eccentric millionaire. He is joined by a team of loveable misfits, mysterious femme-fatale Helga Sinclair and stern Commander Lyle Rourke. After a surprisingly deadly run-in with an unusual creature under the ocean, the gang finally reach Atlantis where Milo meets Princess Kida (Cree Summer) and they both start

Behold! My latest lengthy Blade Runner 2049 rant!

Before Blade Runner enjoyed a revival with a Director's Cut released 10 years after its original release in 1982, it was nowhere near the masterpiece it is now recognised to be. The film underperformed at the box-office, its more optimistic take not resonating with audiences. Indeed, this is the only version of the film with a happy ending of sorts as Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and replicant love interest Rachael (Sean Young) leave Los Angeles together after fellow Blade Runner Gaff (Edward James Olmos) spares her life. The infamous voice-over unconvincingly explains to us that Gaff just assumed she would only live for 4 years but luckily Tyrell told Deckard otherwise off-camera. Most people, including Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford, would agree that this voice-over, which pops up pretty randomly and abruptly, sometimes stating the blindingly obvious, was a mistake. Its content, delivery and placement just don't work. It constantly interrupts Vangelis' beautiful sco

CLICK HERE for the review, which was posted for the first instalment of Review A Bad Movie Day on September 8th.

As Terminator 2: Judgment Day enjoys a 3D re-release in theatres this Summer, there's no better time to revisit James Cameron's blockbuster masterpiece. The film was originally released back in 1991 and it was a huge hit, surpassing the original Terminator commercially and critically. Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as the Austrian killing machine who terrified us all years prior except, this time, his mission is not to murder Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) but protect her son John Connor, played by a young Edward Furlong. The main threat being another Terminator, Robert Patrick's T-1000, a liquid metal shapeshifter who is even more unstoppable than the T-800. Terminator 2 keeps a lot of what we loved about the original film but presents a brand new character dynamic, big action set-pieces, more groundbreaking special effects and an altogether more epic experience. The Terminator was essentially a slick yet gritty robot slasher flick with a sci-fi edge, this sequel

Based on the French graphic novels, Valerian And The City Of A Thousand Planets is writer/director Luc Besson's latest sci-fi epic starring Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne as two special agents on a particularly unusual space-set mission. Boasting colourful visuals and lots of action, the trailers for Valerian evoked the fast-paced serial style of The Fifth Element and it definitely looked like fun. The film opens with a cool montage set to David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in which we see the evolution of the titular City Of A Thousand Planets as increasingly odd-looking aliens shake hands with the humans greeting them: it sets the playful tone perfectly and we even get a Rutger Hauer cameo. We then follow a peaceful alien race as their paradise planet is destroyed by spaceships crashing into it out of nowhere and the plot is set in motion as special agent Valerian starts dreaming about that planet's dying princess. The special effects and art style are beautif

I talk briefly about Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.2 .

With the surprise success of 2014's  Guardians Of The Galaxy at the box-office, Marvel quickly confirmed a sequel and fans were overjoyed. A bit of a dark horse in that it felt like a possible one-off flop on paper before its release, the charm of the characters and the colourful galactic setting made these Guardians such a likeable bunch that seeing more of them was kind of a must. And so here we have Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 , which continues the heroes-for-hire's ongoing adventures, without worrying too much about how everything will fit into the next Avengers movies, surprisingly. The film opens with an action sequence where the Guardians are attempting to take down a giant octopus-like monster except most of the time we're watching the adorable Baby Groot dance and wrestle around with tiny creatures. This sets the tone for another light and playful outing for the gang, with the cartoonishness of it all enhanced somewhat. All the familiar characters are stil

I n this 73rd episode of  The Big Rewind , we review   Alien: Covenant ,   talk about  Ghost In The Shell and play Ridley's Believe It Or Not . CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher ,  Soundcloud  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula

Ridley Scott's long-awaited return to the science-fiction genre was met with both praise and cynicism as Alien prequel (of sorts) Prometheus delivered in the stylistic department but failed to convince those more demanding fans of the franchise who perhaps expected something slightly different. Alien: Covenant is very much a direct sequel to Prometheus with Michael Fassbender returning as dodgy robot David and the story picking up some time after he and Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) departed for the Engineers' planet in the alien ship. Initially, however, we focus on new ship The Covenant and its crew who are travelling with thousands of human colonists and embryos in order to start a new life in a specific planet. Following a destructive accident in space which kills its Captain (an odd James Franco cameo), new robot Walter (also Fassbender) wakes up the crew and the new Captain decides to follow a radio transmission down to a nearby unknown world despite the fact it is

I talk about Chinese science-fiction film Battle Of Memories .

The new teaser's here, folks. And it looks pretty sweet.

As the world digests Hollywood's recent attempt at producing a live-action adaptation of Mamoru Oshii's much celebrated animated feature, there's no better time to revisit the original Ghost In The Shell from 1995. Based on one of the popular manga's stories involving a mysterious hacker known as the Puppet Master, this first film was not only groundbreaking as an anime but as a science-fiction film in general influencing pretty much every science-fiction film after it including The Matrix . We're introduced to a dangerous world where people can be cybernetically enhanced which creates new threats for special units to deal with. Major Motoko Kusanagi is the mostly artificial leader of an assault team tasked with various missions including finding the Puppet Master. The film is a complex sci-fi thriller which deals with self-identity, what it means to be human and technology gone mad in a subtle yet often brutal way. There are unexpected bursts of gore in this

Much to most anime fans' displeasure, Hollywood finally delivered on its promise to adapt the hugely influential animated classic Ghost In The Shell from 1995, directed by Mamoru Oshii, with Scarlett Johansson playing the lead role. After a controversy which saw the project get accused of "whitewashing" and persisting complaints that such an adaptation is basically sacrilegious, this looked set to be the least popular remake since Ghostbusters . Indeed, after hardly glorious anime adaptations like Dragonball: Evolution and Speed Racer , it's no surprise why so many were nervous about this new venture. Early trailers looked uninspired yet the more we saw from the film, the more interesting it looked with its slick Blade Runner -meets-Neo Tokyo look and all the potentially cool action scenes on display. It's very clear, right off the bat, that a lot more effort was put into this film than the criminally lazy Dragonball: Evolution. Visually, this new Ghost In T

I talk briefly about new sci-fi horror film Life .

A few months before the release of Alien: Covenant ( Ridley Scott's latest entry into the long-running sci-fi franchise), comes Life : another creepy space-set horror thriller in which a group of astronauts are forced to face a thoroughly unpleasant monster. While some reviews for this movie might not go much further than mentioning how derivative it is since it is essentially a mix of Alien , The Thing and Gravity , one could argue that what it lacks in originality it makes up for in sheer terror and, in fact, surpasses some of the aforementioned films in some ways. Life may seem like a B-movie but it is so well made that dismissing it as just that would be unfair. The way in which the inside of the space station is shot really makes you buy the setting with its zero gravity and tight compartments as we follow the crew members floating through the station convincingly, something that Gravity didn't quite capture. The reasonable running time actually means the tension is

From the director of Take Shelter and Mud comes another cult oddity starring Michael Shannon. Midnight Special is a science-fiction film about a young boy with unpredictable abilities who is being driven out of the city by his father as government agents hunt them down. Very much a nod to all those E.T. -style sci-fi films of the 1980's, Midnight Special remains a modern update rather than a straight-up homage like Stranger Things . The tone and pacing throughout is about as gloomy and slow as you'd expect from a Jeff Nichols film so if you're looking for big action sequences or tons of trippy effects then this will probably disappoint. The cool thing about Midnight Special is it really doesn't feel like a science fiction movie so when something out of the ordinary happens it has an impact. The mood is pretty depressing from start to finish which is rare for a movie of that type but appropriate as the characters all journey towards a goal that can only mean one

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

Back in 1985, Terry Gilliam directed Brazil , a science-fiction comedy like no other about a dystopian future in which the world is run by totalitarian bureaucracy. It wasn't a big hit in the US but it did well everywhere else and over time it has become something of a cult classic. The film follows Jonathan Pryce's Sam Lowry, a meek government employee whose dreary life is turned upside down when he literally meets the woman of his dreams. The world depicted in Brazil is a gloomy, depressing one with its backwards technology, its inhuman laws, its crushingly industrial metropolis and yet Gilliam manages to find the humour in that setting by emphasising just how ridiculous this society has become with countless larger-than-life characters and awkward tech. The result is kind of a cross between 1984 , Blade Runner and Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life . The dreams Lowry has, in which he's flying, saving a damsel in distress from monsters, look beautiful and work a