TheRetroCritic

After Tarsem Singh's "attempt" at a Snow White movie, the odious-looking Mirror Mirror , this instalment looked amazing. The trailers promised a stylish, exciting, dark, moody epic sort of like Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland but grittier and actually probably better. For the most part, Snow White & The Huntsman delivers. I was afraid the film would go down the Alice In Wonderland route and trick its audience into thinking they were about to watch the classic Snow White story when in fact giving them some weird, stand-out sequel but this one does stay surprisingly close to what you'd expect from a Snow White movie. You get the evil queen, the creepy brother, the mirror, the dwarves, gloomy forests... it's pretty much all there. It's almost like the film tries to hide its Snow White-ness wanting to be something altogether darker and more twisted but restraining itself for the sake of the fairy-tale. The cast is hit-and-miss with Charlize Theron&

On paper, The Raven is awesome. Having Edgar Allan Poe try and solve murders linked to his own stories is a premise which could be used for just about any writer and... you know what? I'd be up for that franchise. Can you imagine? Jules Verne-themed murders with Jules Verne himself on the case? Tunneling down to the center of the Earth to find some crazed criminal in a hot-air balloon... Silly? Perhaps. But also pretty darn great. The Raven has a fun concept and although the reviews were rather harsh with it upon its release, this is a terrific little movie! Like Sleepy Hollow , The Raven brings back the vibe and gothic sensibilities of old Hammer horror movies and does so brilliantly creating a unique whodunit that's both camp and completely involving. This is mostly thanks to John Cusack's fun interpretation of the Poe character, the film's slick, moody look and, funnily enough, the love story at the heart of it all. Rare thing that, a romantic subplot in a th

After Disney's big comeback  The Little Mermaid , it was now the dawn of a new era and the opportunity for the studio to think big and stop just making animal versions of things, for a little while at least. So here we have Beauty And The Beast , another classic fairy-tale being given the Disney treatment, and if you watched it growing up then you probably know there's not much to whine about: it's definitely one of the good ones. The film looks fantastic, the score is excellent, the story is timeless. You've got some great voice acting from the likes of Robby Benson (Beast) and Paige O'Hara (Belle), not to mention Angela Lansbury as... a talking teapot. The songs in the film are celebrated, the title song even won the Academy Award, but they're arguably not quite on the level of the songs in The Little Mermaid, Aladdin or even The Lion King . This is one of those rare Disney movies where the score is actually way better than the songs themselves. "Be

Holy new footage Batman! Bat-jump your way to Empire Magazine to check it out: good stuff.

Danny DeVito and Richard Griffiths head this new adaptation of a Neil Simon gem in London's Savoy Theatre and breathe new life into this comedy classic. I remember watching the 1975 film starring Walter Matthau and George Burns as a kid and thinking it was pretty darn hilarious for a movie about two grumpy old dudes. It's a great story: two Vaudeville legends who parted ways long ago on not so cordial terms are made to meet-up again and rehearse for one last show. One is bitter, moody and delusional, the other stubborn, passive and near senile. Their whole relationship is a Vaudeville routine, even subconsciously: they can't interact without their arguments turning into comedic gold. It's unlikely anyone will surpass Matthau's take on Willy Clark, even Peter Falk, as great as he was, could not dethrone the man. Danny DeVito makes the role his own and his take on the character is loads of fun. Willy is portrayed a bit more like a spoiled brat, taking his nephe

Sacha Baron Cohen in a Larry Charles film about how Americans are assholes playing a stereotype douche with funny hair and a dodgy accent? I've gotta see this! ...again. Yes it's that time again where the man dons a silly costume and sets out to effortlessly offend the entire planet. And you know what? The formula still (mostly) works! I'm doubtful that the team will ever reach the highs of Borat again, Bruno was already a step down, but this middle ground isn't too unpleasant so roll on with The Dictator . This time, Cohen is dictator Aladeen, leader of made-up North African country Wadiya: he's got an impossible accent, a LOT of pubic hair, Megan Fox as only one of his many celebrity prostitutes, an anti-Jew Wii game, the list goes on. Nothing terribly new so far but it's a character we haven't seen before and he is more than appropriately goofy to stand proudly alongside Cohen's other creations. The film sees Aladeen showing up in New Y

Having never been a fan of Roger Moore's take on Bond, I have to say that, with the exception of Live And Let Die , I barely remembered the likes of The Spy Who Loved Me or For Your Eyes Only . So revisiting those was a bit of a must. The Spy Who Loved Me is Moore's fourth movie and as such lacks the oomph and general quality of the first couple of outings but it does fit into the pre- Moonraker category not only literally (it IS just before Moonraker :P) but also in terms of it being before Moore's films started getting really, groaningly ridiculous. This one sees Bond face a nutty villain with an underwater/overwater lair who enjoys sending people through an elevator down to a shark-infested pool of death Team America 's Kim Jong Il-style. 007 is joined by Russian Agent XXX who is played not by Vin Diesel but Barbara Bach, queen of B movies and... whatever Caveman was meant to be. Sadly, she really is the weakest link in this movie performance-wise making her

I knew it! You remember how ass Clash Of The Titans was? Man, now THAT was one boring-ass blockbuster completely with near-absent 3D, blank characters and a serious lack of imagination. When the trailer for Wrath Of The Titans came out, I was surprised: this actually looked like a film! It looked like they might just have fixed the original film's shortcomings... And lo and behold: they did! Wrath Of The Titans is exactly what Clash should have been: a cool, stylish action movie that throws everything at you leaving you feeling all pumped-up, ready to punch an eagle in its stupid face. Non-event Sam Worthington's back but this time he's got a better haircut and a lot more stuff to do so we thankfully get very little of him being essentially a potato from which sounds come out of. The look of the film is much grittier and dustier making the action sequences feel much less like plain CGI fests and more like big, impressive, fuck-off scenes that actually do deserve t

As good as it is to see Hammer back in town, so far their movie choices haven't exactly been mind-blowing. The Woman In Black , if the play was anything to go by, seemed like a promising vehicle though. With its moody, dated look, an effective ghost story at its heart and more than just some woman wearing a silly mask (see the play) to scare the bejeesus out of us. Daniel Radcliffe is our protagonist and heads to the rather unpleasant, reportedly haunted, house in the middle of nowhere. There's also a small town nearby with a bunch of dodgy inhabitants all hiding some sort of big secret which might have something to do with several kids randomly committing suicide around the village. Yes it's pretty standard and very predictable but it's also very Hammer so there was a lot of schlock potential there! These guys practically invented this nonsense, surely this should be a walk in the park for them. Well, yes and no. There is a sense throughout The Woman In Black

Ok, I'm rising... I've risen: chill. Ok I'm risin', I'm risin'! Jeez...

For a film that's sat on the shelves for so long, The Cabin In The Woods has done rather well for itself. It's been called a "game-changer" within the horror genre and it's been compared to Scream for its self-awareness and satiric take on a familiar horror template. The result? One hell of a fun movie! And pretty darn clever. ... and spoilers so if you haven't seen it: beware. As the trailers spoilered (new word), The Cabin In The Woods mixes sci-fi with Evil Dead -style slasher conventions to create something resembling a cross between Cabin Fever and The Truman Show but altogether infinitely better than the former, don't worry. Actually, the sci-fi twist isn't much of a "twist" at all: the film begins with both genres firmly meshed together. You've got the ever reliable Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford casually chatting in a futuristic Bond villain-style lab setting before the title bangs on the screen loudly in bloo

In his third outing as Bond, Pierce Brosnan sure gave us a good show bringing his trilogy to an end in style with a film that, although not quite as good or memorable as its predecessors, made a worthy conclusion to one of 007's best eras. Before Die Another Day , that is... But The World Is Not Enough starts off with one of the longest (and best) pre-titles sequences around: Bond in an MI6 speedboat chasing a female terrorist around The Thames only to end with a hot-air balloon explosion and 007 rolling down the Millenium Dome. Check out Bond fixing his tie while underwater, boating on the road and cheekily splashing parking wardens. Then the plot kicks in as we learn that Robert Carlyle is Renard, a superhuman dude with a bullet in his head and Sophie Marceau's stripper-named Elektra King is an important part of the puzzle. Along the way, Bond meets Robbie Coltrane's always welcome sleaze-bag Valentin Zukovsky and Denise Richards who plays, ahem, nuclear physici

More Catwoman, more of Bane sounding like Sean Connery, more Bat-Plane!

So I'm watching Rainer Werner Fassbinder's World On A Wire , a German TV movie from the 70's fleshing the idea of a simulated reality and it's all well and good (and long) but in the back of my mind I'm thinkin' there surely  must be an easier way to tell that story. And that way, it turns out, is The Thirteenth Floor . Ok, the latter film may not exactly be quite as interesting as World On A Wire in terms of the subtle, surrealist way in which it depicts simulation and the fact the film came out about the same time as The Matrix makes it much less visionary than Fassbinder's ahead-of-its-time effort. That said, The Thirteenth Floor handles its big ideas very well fitting in nicely as a good companion piece to the likes of Blade Runner or Dark City with its "film noir-meets-the near future" vibe and as a good companion piece to the likes of The Matrix or even  eXistenZ . Basically, the film looks at familiar sci-fi ideas of simulation and hu

Another day another Bond... Looking back, the 80's didn't look good for 007: For Your Eyes Only , Octopussy ... not a good start. And that was just after Moonraker . Thankfully, Roger Moore bowed out with a half decent effort,  A View To A Kill , which boasted kickass villains in the form of a Christopher Walken/Grace Jones dynamic duo. It was a fine movie but it was, indeed, time for a change. Pierce Brosnan not being available at the time, Timothy Dalton steps in as the new Bond and would bring with him a somewhat more serious, harder-edged feel to the character and his new adventures. Well... compared to Roger Moore's, that is.  The new Bond reinvention began with The Living Daylights , arguably THE most legitimately 80's of the 007 movies. With its irresistible synth-led score and its cool A-ha theme tune, it's almost shocking this Bond doesn't have a mullet and legwarmers! What Dalton lacks in natural pun deliveries he makes up for in making Bond feel m

Going into The Hunger Games with no prior knowledge of the story or the book, with only a really vague trailer and a rough guess of it being like a kid-friendly Battle Royale -type deal, I was hardly dying to see it. But, desperate for a popcorn movie and half-aware of some decent reviews for it I decided to check it out in the hope of finding some sort of originality, simple entertainment or maybe, just maybe, some good old fashioned Battle Royale teen cruelty. So how did The Hunger Games "play out"? Not bad, as it happens. I mean, I'm amazed it's done so much better than John Carter financially since both films are just as enjoyable but I can understand the film being more accessible going in. For one thing the concept is fairly straight-forward and bears no resemblance to Flash Gordon in the slightest, and there's no sign of any intimidating use of Avatar -style CGI in what can only be described as the plot for a really epic, campy Saturday morning 8

Hitchcock blonde Kim Novak’s now famous (or infamous?) expression of displeasure for The Artist ’s use of Bernard Herrmann’s classic Vertigo score may have caused a mini web-quake but how derivative is Michel Hazanavicius’ film, really? And how does that work to the film’s advantage and disadvantage? Looking at the director’s other Jean Dujardin-starring films: namely the OSS 117 duo ( Cairo Nest Of Spies and Lost In Rio ), it’s obvious the man already had a love for aged Hollywood genre movies. OSS 117 channelling the James Bond franchise and 60’s spy capers perfectly. What elevated the films from being pure carbon-copy homages to great comedies, though, really was how its main star stood out from that world. This is a guy who may very well be as misogynistic and insensitive as early Bond himself but for him specifically it’s simply impossible to hide his clueless, bigoted views making him stick out like a sore thumb from an environment seemingly so stylish, clean and perfect (on

Can YOU guess... GUESS NOW!

I'll come right out and say it: I didn't really grow up with The Muppets. Oh sure I saw the odd show and the odd movie, A Muppets Christmas Carol is almost unavoidable every December, but I was never much of a fan. I mostly watched The Muppet Show for the guest stars but going into this Jason Segel homage I was nonetheless familiar with all the characters and was looking forward to seeing those furry bastards again. And with all the praise this new outing has been getting I must say I was left somewhat underwhelmed and overall disappointed. Now, I like Jason Segel as much as the next guy: his "Dracula Puppet Musical" at the heart of Forgetting Sarah Marshall made the film and he's a lot of fun in most films he's in but this just isn't a very good Muppets movie. Don't get me wrong: it's cute, heartfelt and decent in parts but everything that doesn't take place during the reborn Muppet Show itself mostly falls flat and feels a tad awkwar