TheRetroCritic

With cinematic superhero crossover universes currently competing, so too it looks like monster universes are about to fight it out with The Mummy possibly being the first of a modern Universal Monsters reboot franchise and Godzilla facing Kong in an upcoming sequel. Kong: Skull Island introduces us to the mighty King Kong in a prequel of sorts where a group approved by the US government travels to the evasive Skull Island with a military escort in the 1970's. Don't expect Kong to get chained up and brought back to New York City where he climbs up the Empire State Building etc. in this one. There are some clever nods to these familiar events throughout the film but it's mercifully not just a straight-up retread and, stylistically, it is very different than Peter Jackson's King Kong from 2005. Kong: Skull Island owes a lot more to the likes of Apocalypse Now , Predators and the more over-the-top classic Kong sequels than the 1933 original or any remake. The ea

Taking a page out of his own Silent Hill video game demo P.T., visionary director Guillermo Del Toro helped us celebrate Halloween this year with a horror movie mostly set in a creepy, conveniently lit house packed with monstrous ghosts. Crimson Peak is an old-fashioned ghost story through and through complete with a period setting and a convoluted whodunit plot. Wonderland alumni Mia Wasikowska stars as the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur who falls in love with a not-so-wealthy entrepreneur with big ideas, she and the latter (a charmingly dodgy Tom Hiddleston) marry and he invites her back to his crumbling, red clay-infested big house in the middle of nowhere where he lives with his clearly evil sister (Jessica Chastain). To nobody's surprise, this whole arrangement doesn't go that well. Terrifying ghosts start showing up, the sister loses it little by little and the fact it's snowing (and claying) indoors doesn't help either. Eventually, this new husband's

After Iron Man 3 and The Wolverine , I was half expecting Thor: The Dark World to be yet another disappointing Marvel outing. The first Thor film was nothing mind-blowing but it was solid enough and it brought to the screen the story of one of the most out-there Avengers about as convincingly as it could have possibly been done. But in a world post- The   Avengers , what is Thor to do? Well, a heck of a lot, as it turns out. If you thought the first film was rather bare plot-wise, which it was, you'll be happy to find that Thor: The Dark World is rich with things happening. They may not all make sense or work, but things are happening this time around. Less time is spent on Earth, definitely a good thing, and the film does a far better job at making sense with The Avengers than Iron Man 3 did. Unfortunately, Earth-wise, we leave the desert of New Mexico for the greyness of Greenwich, England. Why are the Thor movies given all the least impressive locations? Seems a bit