TheRetroCritic

There were some great spoofs back in the day: Airplane! , Top Secret! , The Naked Gun . Hot Shots: Part Deux , I recall being pretty good also. But as for the original Hot Shots! nothing rang a bell expect that it was a Top Gun piss-take and that Charlie Sheen was once again the lead. One re-watch later and, although Hot Shots! does have its amusing moments, I wouldn't list it on the same level as the aforementioned bunch. Maybe I've just grown-up or maybe a lot of the humour hasn't dated terribly well, I don't know. Watching it now, it was more miss than hit I felt. One of the jokes sees an old Native American dude listening to a walkman and asking Sheen to bring back some AA batteries. I guess back then that was like the equivalent of an iPod reference or something (for the kids?). Thing is: random "modern" technology references in spoofs are rarely funny, they're just... there. Remember those ads the Scary Movie gang parodied in their franchise?

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

When Tim Burton re-invented the Dark Knight back in the 80's he took some aspects which made the original Adam West TV series fun but added a moody-looking Gotham City and treated the DC hero seriously, almost like a detective from an old film noir thriller. The goofy kid-friendly humour was replaced by Burton's trademark darkly comic tone and what we got was one action-packed, stylish, unique, funny, clever blockbuster and one of the best comic book movie adaptations ever. The sequel, Batman Returns , "Burtonised" the concept to the max giving Batman a more gothic setting, a disgusting villain, a sexier, troubled love interest, Pee-Wee Herman, a circus gang, Christopher Walken and a penguin army. It was great: darker, snowier, Christmassier, Burtonier. It remains my favourite to this day. Then came Joel Schumacher's turn in the director's chair... We all know how that turned out in the end but looking at Batman Forever today: it's honestly not bad.

Although it's based on a true story, I Love You Philip Morris feels about as real as Avatar . The gay Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor pair-up is surreal enough but the conman story itself is pretty unbelievable and would be right at home in a Coen Brothers film. The tone of the film is extremely whimsical and goes for a lighthearted, modern feel mixing a Jim Carrey-type comedy similar to Fun With Dick and Jane with a gay prison rom-com setting. Although the film is undeniably funny in places thanks entirely to Jim Carrey, who clearly has a ball pretending to be a lawyer, jumping down escalators and being generally camp, it just doesn't feel sincere on the whole. The twists and turns of the compelling story are well handled and unpredictable but the dialogs feel ridiculously artificial. Characters speak "movie speak" instead of speaking like real people and it makes the Carrey/McGregor love story hard to believe and truly care about. It doesn't help that, once again,

And here's the full scene without commentary: enjoy!

Back in the mid 90's, Jim Carrey redefined slapstick comedy with his own brand of cartoonish goofiness. Then in the mid 00's, we were given Carrey-free outings such as Dumb and Dumberer , Ace Ventura Jr (shudder) and Son of the Mask, mainly rubbish sequels aimed at the poor nostalgic fools suffering withdrawal symptoms from the old JC days. Jamie Kennedy (star of Dr Dolittle 2 and Malibu's Most Wanted ) takes on the Jim Carrey everyman role and Alan Cumming is thrown in because...one annoying dude making faces at the camera is never really enough. Hence why the Ernest movies were always so underwhelming (sarcasm). Oh and there's Bob Hoskins voicing Odin in an extended, pointless cameo, a CGI baby, a CGI dog and a CGI everything else. Comparing Son of the Mask with the original The Mask would probably take all day and the conclusion would be pretty anti-climactic. Lets just look at what this sequel does wrong, for starters. After a promising opening s

Ok, how many viking sci-fi film with giant monsters, spaceships and the line "Foxfire!" can you name, right now? OUTLANDER, that's how many! The ever charisma-free James Caviezel stars in this random but pleasantly entertaining and good-looking action adventure which also stars John Hurt as the king of...whatever, vikings. Sophia Myles is the inevitable love interest, like a clone of Keira Knightley from the film King Arthur , Jack Huston offers an unintentional homo-erotic relationship for Caviezel's "Outlander" and Ron Perlman sports a beard and yells a couple of times. It's all very silly but the first half hour is genuinely very entertaining and competently made, especially because the monster is kept hidden from us long enough to build up a fair amount of well-needed suspense. The rest is pretty predictable and feels less focused but is equally fun and miles more worthwhile than dull efforts like Ridley Scott's Robin Hood .

  Steve Oedekerk stars in this glorious cinematic rant and complains about all the little things which make up his life's DNA. A young Jim Carrey cameos as a rubberfaced weirdo who pesters him about "8 o'clock". What does it mean? What does he want? Well it's well worth sitting through the rants to find out. Like a sort of more intense Seinfeld film, High Strung is as pure as a stand-up comedy movie could ever get so if you don't like stand-up or Oedekerk's wacky style, it's very simple, you'll hate this film. If, however, you were charmed by the likes of Kung Pow , Bat Thumb and Ace Ventura 2 , you'll be in heaven. Very funny, very random, clever and surprisingly entertaining (mostly due to Oedekerk and the cartoonish camera work), High Strung is an underrated little gem and a must-see for fans of the goofy duo.