TheRetroCritic

Pixar's latest has all the makings of a brilliant, picturesque, fantasy epic: stunning visuals, heart, mystery, bears. What more do you need? I'll get to that... This is certainly a departure for Pixar, the studio this time going for a very Disney princess-goes-rogue tale instead of the usual off-beat approach. If anything, Brave is more like a darker, less bright-and-cuddly version of Tangled than a unique creation on a par with Wall-E or Up . Princess Merida is the heroic, red-haired lass and her story basically involves not wanting to be forced into marriage, running away, meeting up with a witch, turning her mother into a bear and trying to fix that very spell. She is understandably pretty whiny and only seems to be happy when riding a horse, shooting arrows randomly and being a bit of a spoilt brat. Her dad's pretty awesome, not just because he's Billy Connolly, but also because he's actually a fun, friendly guy. Unfortunately he is also a bit of a wi

Well, it's the weekend and although many more Batman things are in store for the rest of Bat Month, including my thoughts on The Dark Knight Rises , here's more DC goodness in the shape of the first teaser trailer for Zack Snyder's Man Of Steel starring Henry Cavill. Wow, a "gritty" Superman movie?! It's so crazy it just might work... 

Oh dear...

If you're going into this movie expecting something NOT silly, you're not paying attention. Read the title again. Ok? Good. Yes, as it turns out good old Abe Lincoln spent his time in Springfield not only working on his speeches and ageing into a rubber prosthetic but also wielding an axe, slicing vampires in half. Fair enough. You gotta hand it to the guy: he kept busy. The movie starts off sort of like a superhero movie with a young Lincoln defending his friend from those cruel vampiric-looking slave traders. But just when you think the film might pause and take a subtle, interesting look at the hellishly divided society of the time... the other kid gets whipped in the face with the whip snapping right in our faces with some of the best 3D effects I've seen in a while. From then on, you know that slavery, the Civil War etc. those aren't events we'll be studying with any sort of intellectual validity in this flick. After all, this is a movie where

If you've never been to my Youtube channel, this won't make much sense lol

So Dredd finally gets a trailer... Hm, not sure about this one you guys. It's got B movie written all over it. Karl Urban is about as intimidating as Rob Schneider in Judge Dredd ... Lets hope the movie proves me wrong.

lol

Well, we're like 10 trailers in and although I'm getting more and more excited about The Dark Knight Rises , I'm still thinkin' all these teasers are hiding a hell of a lot from us. Still don't know whether Anne Hathaway's Catwoman will work at all, we'll see I guess... Anyway: This first trailer brings together some brief new footage with familiar stuff but the addition of a bombastic score and some nifty fast-paced editing just makes it all that little bit more epic. "Mr Wayne..." This TV spot also brings in some short bursts of new stuff including: Whatever's happening here... Bat pod jump... Bat plane... Gotta love that Bat plane... And Batmanuel... Can't wait :)

Ok, two new trailers for Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 and it's looking good. By that, of course, I mean lolgasmic. "She was born, not bitten. She grows every single day!" Gotta love that line. Then there's this one. "We have the same temperature now." Edward has a way with words. Also check out the last bit of that trailer, where Bella stalks a deer : GENIUS. Love that shit.

Here's the new poster for the upcoming Judge Dredd movie. Something tells me the film itself won't live up to this cool, moody image or will match the old Sly effort in lols but we'll see...

Looks badass you guys, can't wait :)

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

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

Yet more Batmaney goodness...

CREAM away San Diego, cream away... ...and now it's THIS teaser's time to play.

Finally, here is the first teaser trailer for 007's next: Skyfall . Doesn't give much away but man are they going for "epicness" this time around. Looks fab. Bring it on.

Here's the first teaser poster for 007's new Sam Mendes-directed outing Skyfall , expect a trailer on Monday! It doesn't tell us much more about the movie itself but it'll have to do until Monday. Lets hope that Bond isn't actually 5cm tall and doesn't walk inside an actual gunbarrel in the finished film though, that would be ridiculous...   Hilariculous in fact! 

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

Yes, Woody Allen's back already with To Rome With Love and this time he's got one crazy-ass cast: Roberto Benigni, Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, Alec Baldwin, Penelope Cruz... Together... at last? Oh and Woody Allen himself also participates. Looks fun :) The Allen-starring ones are always worth checking out, lets hope this one is no exception.

Here's a poster I came upon the other day at my local cinema for upcoming Bollywood movie Kahaani . "A Mother Of A Story lol" Now I understand there's a religious theme going on here in that she seems to have several arms... coming out of her but really: what is going on behind her?  Is Parallax fighting The Abomination? "References lol" What the poster tells me about this movie is that it involves a heavily pregnant woman with the worst photoshopped head around and... the end of the world/God taking a massive shit/ comic book villains fighting it out/ Tripods are rising from her ass/ she is a new Spider-Man villain. I kid, I kid... The movie itself looks alright and very... normal. Not at all the chaos that ghastly poster suggests. Here's the trailer if you want to check it out. Wait for the very last shot: it's great.