TheRetroCritic

Because Christmas wouldn't be complete without an obligatory raunchy holiday-themed Hollywood comedy, 2016 gifted us Why Him? starring Bryan Cranston and James Franco as a mismatched potential father and son-in-law who finally meet around Christmas time as hilarity supposedly ensues. The plot sees Stephanie (Zoey Dutch) invite her parents to meet her older boyfriend Laird (Franco) for the first time after it is revealed via a disastrous Skype call that they were seeing each other for a while. As it turns out, Laird is not only the super rich CEO of a video game company but also an eccentric, impulsive weirdo who just says and does the first thing that pops into his head. Having such a wacky character clash with the comparatively uptight and square Ned (Cranston) should have been an easy way to bring some laughs to the table, much like how Planes, Trains and Automobiles did back in 1987. One big problem becomes apparent very quickly, however: neither Bryan Cranston or James Fr

After the success of the last two Kung Fu Panda movies, a third instalment was inevitable and the first two being as good as they were, the pressure was on for Dreamworks to not mess things up with a soulless cash-in. The good news is that Kung Fu Panda 3 is definitely not that and is actually a very decent, worthy second sequel. This time, Po (Jack Black) is tasked by Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) to teach his team mates Kung Fu but, of course, that soon backfires. Meanwhile, evil yak Kai (J.K. Simmons) comes back from the spirit world with the goal of taking the "Chi" from every Kung Fu master in the land. He goes on a rampage just as Po's long lost father  Li Shan (Bryan Cranston) shows up to take Po back to the panda village and show him the ways of the pandas. Both plots eventually meet and, once again, Po will have to learn a bunch of valuable lessons to defeat the villain and become the master he was destined to become. It's a busy sequel and, in lesse

After the widely reviled and mocked 1998 Godzilla gave a classic franchise a bad name, this new reboot was highly anticipated to say the least and, with every trailer preceding it promising nothing but great things, this looked like a winner. And, for a while, it kinda was. The build up for this one certainly takes a page out of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind , teasing us throughout and taking a human focus rather than a purely monstrous one. All the disaster monster movie clichés you want and expect are still present yet they are never played for cheap laughs like in Roland Emmerich's take. Instead, the tone remains serious, even dark, which makes it easier to get into. The whole thing really has a Spielbergian tone to it both visually and in terms of the character dynamics. It's a gorgeous-looking film with more than its share of beautifully put together images and the first full Godzilla reveal is a delight, even if the iconic monster does look a tad chunkier tha

Here's the new trailer for the upcoming Godzilla , folks. Still lookin' gooooood.