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

The film that started it all... kind of. Jon Favreau's Iron Man was really the moment where Marvel revealed to the world their mad intentions of putting together crossover mega-movie  The Avengers . As we all know, they pulled it off remarkably but it could have all gone pear-shaped super early. I mean, with the likes of Captain America and Thor it wasn't going to be a walk in the park to make each character and their far-fetched stories plausible, let alone cram everybody into one movie. But Iron Man showed early on that you can make a silly superhero flick without screwing it up, creating a movie that, even to this day, is simply a lot of fun. Robert Downey Jr is genius billionaire douchebag Tony Stark, who is made to face the reality of his misguided work directly and henceforth grow a conscience. The entire movie is one big build-up to the creation of that badass armored suit with some cool action scenes and a last-minute villain thrown in for good measure. Because

There's no doubt that Steven Spielberg's dino-blockbuster made a huge impact upon its release. As a kid watching it for the first time: I was mesmerized. Seeing dinosaurs interact with humans in an action/sci-fi/comedy of this type was jaw-dropping and exciting as hell. But looking at it now, how does it fare? Well, thankfully the film still holds up as a suspenseful thriller with the raptors and that T-Rex still as intimidating as ever. Also the core concept of a theme park owned by a charming but somewhat misguided entrepreneur (Richard Attenborough) is inspired and it's hard not to feel for the guy even after the disastrous tour Sam Neill and co. unfortunately endure. The cast is fun and some of the little twists here and there make the film unique in its approach and far more interesting than anything Michael Bay has to offer these days, by far. Who thought that things would turn sour so quickly for Wayne Knight's slimy backstabber or Martin Ferrero's wea

When thinking about alien movies in the 80's, what comes to mind? Besides Alien . Spielberg, right? E.T. , Close Encounters Of The Third Kind etc. For me, though, a close second is Mr John Carpenter, who quietly brought us two of the best alien movies to date around about the same time: one was The Thing , the other was Starman . Thinking about it now, the idea of Jeff Bridges as a child-like alien is pretty hilarious. And, indeed, there are silly/cheesy things about Starman, no doubt about it. And yet, it works better as a sci-fi film than either E.T. or Close Encounters...weird, huh? It is a shame that John Carpenter's sci-fi romance is often overlooked, I remember as a kid everything was all about E.T.: I didn't even like E.T.! That whole bit where he turns white and starts dying for half an hour: freaked the hell out of me! Gave me nightmares! Starman however I would just sit and watch no problem: it was funny, sweet, sad, entertaining...I just loved it. Still do!

From Richard Pepin, director of the Cyber Tracker movies, comes this ambitious disaster...thriller in which LA is pretty much destroyed by some big-ass earthquake. Is it any good? Lets find out. The film actually starts off as some kind of spy thriller with Gary Daniels stealing some files and microchip off some big company in order to sell it to some bald Russian mobster. But this undercover FBI agent (played by consistently rubbish Traci Lords) manages to arrest him. So far so thriller but then Jeff Fahey shows up and there's an earthquake that NEVER ends! Could this film be getting awesome? No, not quite. The whole thing is pretty clumsy throughout: the acting ranges from awful (Lords) to good (Fahey), the effects range from lame (a sex scene in which obviously the actress refused to be naked so they only show her face and some unknown stunt-boob lady's body) to surprisingly decent (buildings falling apart etc.) making for a pretty uneven affair. The ending is also laug

It was somewhat inevitable that the Coen Brothers would end up making a straight-up western, especially after modern-day effort No Country For Old Men . This time we get True Grit, a remake of a John Wayne classic but with an alcoholic Dude and a pipe-smokin’ Matt Damon. Borrowing not much more than the core story from the original, the Coens introduce us to a familiar setting and a very simple plot but add their own spin on it, whether it is through touches of black comedy or dark undertones which few John Wayne films would have been comfortable with. Newcomer Hailee Steinfeld is the little girl who drags Jeff Bridges' "meanest" US Marshall and Damon's unsure Texas Ranger across the desert to find her father's killer. Steinfeld is great and really steals the show: she is strong-willed, tough, determined, courageous and doesn't take no for an answer. Bridges is always a safe bet and he does well here but his thick accent, grungy voice and constant mumbl

Never a big fan of the original Tron myself, I can't say the prospect of a sequel to Disney's 80's creation got me jumping up and down with anticipation. Then I heard Daft Punk were doing the soundtrack. Then I saw the trailers...So I thought I'd give it a go. Unfortunately what annoyed me about the first Tron remains but what worked in the original thankfully still works here, in a different way. Visually, Legacy looks amazing and, with a good script, could have potentially surpassed both Matrix sequels at least. This neon-lit world is definitely worth letting yourself be immersed into for a couple of hours. And needless to say Daft Punk's fantastic score adds a welcome 80's feel to the whole thing and pumps up the action scenes perfectly. Bridges does well, even with the dodgier lines ("Bio-Digital jazz, man!"), Olivia Wilde is stunning and Michael Sheen effortlessly steals the show as a dodgy and delightfully camp club owner. Then there's G

One of the best bits of Grindhouse was definitely the fake trailers. And one of the best bits of the fake trailers was Machete , which promised flying motorbikes, killer priests, threesomes and Danny Trejo kicking a whole lotta ass. Three years later, we finally got the promised feature. Better late than never, I say. Shame  Sin City 2 took decades... Robert Rodriguez excels at mimicking 70's exploitation films, whether it be horror movies ( F rom Dusk Till Dawn , Planet Terror ) or Mexploitation action flicks ( Once Upon a Time in Mexico , Desperado ) so Machete was always going to be a shoe-in. That it took so long to make is therefore surprising but as long as it exists, I'm not about to complain. So does Machete get the job done? Perfectly capturing the sleaze and silliness of Grindhouse action B-movies, Machete is about as badass, random and fun as it gets. Rodriguez's film certainly shows weak efforts like A-Team and The Expendables (out the same year)