TheRetroCritic

Time travel movies are a gamble: they either work or they don't.  Or they work well enough that you feel too dumb to figure out if they actually make sense. Remember Twelve Monkeys ? Man that film made me feel f***in' stupid back in the day... So along comes Looper , a film which once again takes the "let's send Bruce Willis back in time" scenario and puts a brand new spin on it. This time, we follow Joseph Gordon-Levitt who plays a younger Willis whose job it is to kill whoever the mob (who have somehow gained control of time travel technology) sends back. One day, his older self is sent back by order of a mysterious mob boss known only as The Rainmaker who is closing all the "loops" for whatever reason (getting every "looper" to kill their older selves, basically). The lines between hero and villain get blurred as young Joe's mission turns out to be more righteous than older Joe's, which involves killing random childr

What if time was literally money? Well, if In Time is anything to go by, it would make for one idiotic-sounding script. With every mention of money cunningly replaced by " time ", every cent replaced by a "second", every dollar by a "day" and so on and so forth. And if that sounds kinda dumb to you: that's because it is. You're very perceptive. Strange that something this obvious and clunky comes from the writer of The Truman Show and  Gattaca . I like Andrew Niccol's work but this is not the guy's finest hour. I mean, sure In Time looks good and everyone involved is beautiful but where that worked in Gattaca, a film in which perfection was kinda the whole point, here you never know if you're watching a movie or if Justin Timberlake is selling you a new fragrance. Speaking of which, people have to stop putting Mr Lake in movies. I mean it. So many talented folks out there: actors! Occasionally he pulls off a role but he

How could a film called Hot Tub Time Machine possibly be any good? By being so damn freakin' fun and gross out silly you forget to ask all the "whys" and "hows" a normal film would warrant, that's how! As silly as I felt in the cinema asking for a ticket for...Hot Tub Time Machine...it was all well worth it. You've got time travel, John Cusack, the 80s, Chevy Chase, Crispin Glover, that little big guy from Sex Drive , huuuuge amounts of random silliness and the line "nobody fucks my mother in the past!", what more could you want? Nothing that's what. Great great fun. 

There is nothing wrong with Jake Gyllenhaal: Donnie Darko , The Good Girl , Moonlight Mile , even Bubble Boy , it's all good. But give him long hair, pump up his muscles and give him a GODAWFUL english/cockney/irish/other accent and what you're left with isn't so much Jake but Jak Gyllenhaal, Jake's idiotic older brother. And unfortunately that's who they got to play Prince of Persia. Video game to film adaptations aren't exactly famous for their success and this probably won't change much although it is arguably one of the best in that sub genre. Infinitely more watchable than the Resident Evil films or whatever crap oozed out of Uwe Boll over the past 5 years or so. Prince of Persia is a great game, the later ones especially not the NES or Master System ones which had controls about as fluent as that giant wheel Conan pushes in the 80s Arnie film. The film tries to make the most of its swashbuckling action, silly but fun story and exoti