TheRetroCritic

Legend is one of those movies you remember watching as a kid but don't remember what it was even about. Thinking back to it I could only picture a young Tom Cruise wearing no pants, Tim Curry's demonic villain and... unicorns? It turns out the movie's about a young princess who decides to be an idiot one day and screw up the very balance of nature and everything that's good in the world leaving some young Peter Pan-esque dude to set-off on a quest to sort it all out. Hm, girls back then weren't given the best parts, were they? But yeah, because she touches one of only two sacred unicorns in the universe, this alerts what is essentially the Devil (aka Darkness) and his goblin minions and they're soon on the way to destroy them and their pure, good-hearted human fans. She also throws some ring out into a river and Baby Cruise, because he's so damn in love (read: NUTS), jumps off a cliff to try and retrieve it. When he finally comes out of the water to fi

Now Prometheus is finally out, I thought I'd take a quick look back at visionary director Ridley Scott's career and outline which of his films I've personally enjoyed the most so far. Here goes... 10 1492: CONQUEST OF PARADISE Well aware that this isn't THE most popular choice out there but I'm putting it in the list because of how... weird of a project this actually is. It's Ridley Scott basically making a Werner Herzog film with Gerard Depardieu playing Christopher Columbus and Sigourney Weaver as Queen Isabella I. The film itself is a dark, atmospheric, brutal mess with a lot going for it despite being a million hours long (I'm exaggerating). Underrated. 9  AMERICAN GANGSTER Did not expect to like this one. By the time the film was released I'd pretty much given up on seeing another good Ridley Scott movie ever again (walked out of the unforgivably irritating A Good Year ) but I gave it a shot and found myself weirdly getti

The film that started it all, Alien represents a director at the top of his game: Ridley Scott lends his classy, atmospheric, moody style to what is essentially a monster movie slasher horror flick and the result is both genuinely unnerving and unique. Not to mention friggin' great. Only very few Ridley Scott movies have that dream-like quality to them and although Alien is most definitely one of them, this is more of a nightmare than anything else. H. R. Giger's detailed, oppressive style shot so poetically creates an atmosphere that's comforting on the surface yet holds an underlying darkness and mean-spirited violent chaos at its heart. One second you're having a nice dinner with the crew, the next you've got blood spurting out of some guy's chest into your eyeballs. Yes Alien has that typical slasher template of people-being-killed-off-one-by-one-by-something-unpleasant but it's so well done you do get attached to those characters, no matter how

As I'm aware that Ridley Scott's latest sci-fi blockbuster isn't yet out in the US, I'll try to keep this review spoiler-free so the coast is clear. During my review of Scott's Robin Hood , I ranted the following: "Some directors are great at one thing in particular. Some are very versatile. Scott thinks he belongs to the latter category when really he's part of the former. Ever since his sci-fi/fantasy days (Alien, Blade Runner, Legend) he has avoided those genres like the plague focusing instead on Russell Crowe-led bore-fests like A Good Year or, indeed, Robin Hood" And here we are, several years later with Ridley Scott's sci-fi comeback which finally comes following some truly masterful marketing and several kickass, mouth-watering trailers. Big budget, big cast, big story: surely this is the comeback I was waiting for! Well, yes and no. On the one hand Prometheus is exactly what I wanted: Scott doing what h

Watching this third Alien film after a re-watch of Alien Resurrection certainly offered a contrast. Where one was somewhat reminiscent of Ridley Scott's original vision, the other felt more like a fun, if stupid, cartoon. It is quite a big leap between Alien 3 and Resurrection so lets see how the Alien Trilogy ended before it... began again. From the offset, Alien 3 stylistically pays homage to the first Alien with it's white/greenish tones and clinical feel rather than the bluey, sweaty look of Aliens . We are led to believe that this will be a back-to-basics outing with a focus more on atmosphere and subtle horror with less action but more impact. To a certain extent, this proves to be an accurate assessment: Alien 3 most definitely approaches the horror aspect of the franchise the way Scott went about it. You get several scenes where something thoroughly unpleasant is going on, whether it's gory surgery or an autopsy, and we mostly see the event through the charac

Some jokes never get old. Then again some do. Sadly, the whole American Pie thing started getting old with American Pie: The Wedding , and that was before all those straight-to-DVD ones. So yeah, a reunion I guess could have been a good way to update the franchise a little bit and maybe do something epic with those characters for once... Unfortunately, studios went for the safer route: American Reunion is the typical comedy sequel with everyone having a bit of a mid-life crisis before all growing up and settling down like good little human puppets. YAWN. Now I suppose they can take comfort in the knowledge that American Reunion is the best American Pie film since the second one but it's a pretty big drop-off in between and with all the cast back for a full-on reunion, they could have put a tad bit more effort into telling some kind of memorable and different story. You know the drill: everyone shows up, Stifler screws up their lives after a (mildly) crazy week-end, ever

Remember in my Robin Hood review when I told Ridley Scott off for not going back to sci-fi and doing what he does best instead of these endless half-assed attempts at macho-pretentious thrillers, epics and comedies? Probably not. Well I said it and, you know what? After seeing the new Prometheus TRAILER (aka Alien prequel-ish, but not really, or is it?) I might have just developed super-powers because lo and behold: something which looks light years better than ANYTHING Scott's produced since the 80's! And it's sci-fi! *gasp* And give me a break, Gladiator was fine but an Oscar for Crowe? Really? I can grunt. Anyway, Alien prequel or not, Prometheus looks fab and if Scott's film is half as good as it seems I will gladly bow to him once more and have intercourse with my Blade Runner  DVD boxset. It's been too long...

You've seen Quantum Leap , you've seen the Source Code trailer...

Some directors are great at one thing in particular. Some are very versatile. Scott thinks he belongs to the latter category when really he's part of the former. Ever since his sci-fi/fantasy days ( Alien , Blade Runner , Legend ) he has avoided those genres like the plague focusing instead on Russell Crowe-led bore-fests like A Good Year or, indeed, Robin Hood. Which is not to say some of his ventures into the unknown haven't been successful: Gladiator , Thelma and Louise and Matchstick Men were all fine but Scott's original style got lost somewhere along the way and his films these days could have been done by pretty much anyone else comfortable with generic fare. Robin Hood is by no means a terrible film it's just unnecessary. Do we care how Robin Hood became Robin Hood? Do we care about his inner turmoils? Do we need to see a boring, gritty, "realistic" Robin Hood prequel? Or do we want to see a good Robin Hood film with Robin happill

Life post Superbad hasn't been easy for Michael Cera. His various attempts at adapting his nerdy, awkward persona to other ventures felt somewhat hit and miss ( Nick and Norah , Youth in Revolt ) even if Cera himself was always spot on. Finally, with Scott Pilgrim, we not only get his most enjoyable (and different) performance but also his best film to date and one of the best teen movies of the Noughties. Based on the quirky Manga-style comic books, Scott Pilgrim vs The World is really an ode to 80s-90s video games, kung fu films and anime so if all this geekiness isn't your cup of tea it's very likely that Edgar Wright's latest will fly right over your head like its P-bar's up to its full potential. And if you don't know what a "P-bar" is then, well, good luck with that. There's loads to enjoy regardless, though. I mean you've got Chris Evans as a skateboard-riding douche with a funny beard, Brandon Routh as a super-powerful vegan, a