TheRetroCritic

After two disappointing and critically panned Wolverine movies, Hugh Jackman returns to conclude his X-Men spin-off trilogy on a high note with Logan , the film that, he claimed, would be his last time ever playing the role. We meet Logan much later in the timeline: he is older, weaker, he's an alcoholic limo driver whose days are spent picking up meds to appease a sick Professor Xavier's (Patrick Stewart) deadly seizures. His eyesight is failing, he isn't healing as fast as he used to, even his claws get stuck when they come out so this is a post-Wolverine Logan at his absolute worst on his most physically draining mission yet. Because he is more vulnerable, you feel every punch, every stab and it's genuinely heartbreaking to see such a tough, once unbreakable superhero on auto-pilot, even considering suicide as an option. This is a dark, gritty and mercifully R-rated take on the character FOX studios were reluctant to jump into for so long and yet it's appa

As the X-Men franchises continues its journey through time, Bryan Singer is back to direct X-Men: Apocalypse with Oscar Isaac taking on the role of the iconic titular villain. Set in the 1980's, the film follows the timeline of the last two movies and throws in some nods to the original trilogy. If there's one thing the pre-titles sequence promises it's a much bigger scale but also one of the most out-there X-Men movies to date. If you thought a time-travelling consciousness and big evolving robots were too much then wait till you get a load of this adventure which opens in Ancient Egypt and leads us to the world's near-destruction. With the exception of a cool poster (above), the marketing for this new X-flick was clumsy and, as a result, I had little hope it would be any good. The first pictures released of Apocalypse looked awful and the Internet soon compared him to Power Rangers villain Ivan Ooze, then the trailers made it seem like it was essentially The Je

Aaaand just like that: we're back on track. And all it took was the making of two sub-par Wolverine spin-offs, two misguided X-Men films and the return of the franchise's original director as well as several familiar faces. X-Men: Days Of Future Past had two very clear missions: 1- Fix the franchise somehow, ridding it of all its plot-holes and inconsistencies. 2- Be fun and actually pretty good. Luckily, both missions are accomplished admirably despite all the time-travelling and plot tweaks getting in the way of pure Sentinels-on-mutants action. Besides, time-travel plots have rarely proven to be the best way to sort out plot holes, quite the opposite in fact as going back in time only raises more questions and brand new plot holes. That said, by the first 5 minutes, none of that will matter as you should be well and truly hooked after sitting through a thrilling look at the sinister neon-lit future awaiting us and the X-Men should Wolvie not go back in time to

Well, the Summer's officially over and it's looking like the actually good but slightly more depressing movies are starting to come out. And you know what? I'm totally ok with that. In the vein of Zodiac or even Se7en , Prisoners is a new thriller/whodunit with an all-star cast in which two little girls go missing, a bunch of people go looking for them and dodgy suspects are hinted at throughout. I know it sounds pretty standard but Prisoners is by no means a standard, been-there-done-that flick. Surprisingly, the film is one bleak, intense and brutal experience with fascinating, complex characters and so many twists and turns that its maze motif is entirely justified. Hugh Jackman plays the father of one of the missing daughters, a guy we're told likes to be ready for the worse, well: he sure wasn't ready for that one. Which is why the way the film develops that character is so interesting: making him do questionable things yet keeping his humanity intac

A new trend is born. Reboots of unpopular comic-book movies are treated as superior when really they're just as bad or as flawed as the films they're rebooting. Was The Amazing Spider-Man really miles better than Spider-Man ? Nope. Is The Wolverine really that much more watchable than X-Men Origins: Wolverine ? I know you're saying "yes" right now but... come on. The difference in quality is negligible. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is an unpopular Marvel outing. Why? With the exception of Hugh Jackman's ever reliable Wolverine, it got almost every secondary character wrong and went for mindless action rather than dark, raw, gritty yet heartfelt edge. Which is exactly what Darren Aronofsky's The Wolverine promised! So for a studio-friendly, 12A-rated film like THIS to come along and feel just as flawed as that other Wolvie pic did and, in fact, fail to bring anything new and different to the table, I gotta say, that's quite a slap in the f

Bit of a late review this one... After all, this gritty movie version of Les Mis is now a full-blown Oscar-winning blockbuster! Which is pretty cool considering it isn't a tongue-in-cheek crowd-pleaser like Chicago and actually tried something different with the musical genre rather than settle for a generic template. Something which Nine soon learned just is not always the way to go. Not that Les Miserables isn't an Oscar-friendly flick, it totally is, it's simply that it manages to be that and more. Having never physically been to see the musical prior to seeing the film and having never read Victor Hugo's novel (I know, being French it's especially shameful of me), I wasn't 100% sure about what to expect. I'd heard most of the songs from the show, though, so I wasn't completely oblivious as to what Les Miserables was about. Recorded singing directly on camera, sometimes in long one-shot scenes, the cast sure had their work cut out. Hugh J

After director Bryan Singer did his best to introduce Marvel’s team of multi-talented mutants to the world and develop their story further in a superior, if still somewhat restrained, second instalment, he eventually chose to leave the franchise opting for a chance to direct 2006’s  Superman Returns  instead. This was a blow to the series which, after that, underwent several changes in directors and cast members even threatened to leave the franchise. In the end, Brett Ratner, mostly known at the time for giving us the   Rush Hour  movies, took the job and completed a film which had already gone through a lot of messy rewrites. Not an easy feat, in all fairness. X-Men: The Last Stand  is one of those comic-book movie adaptations that gets a handful of things right but drops the ball on 90% of everything else. X-Men  lacked the scale it should have had and its plot revolved around the usual doomsday machine cliché. The sequel provided us with a bigger film, more villains, mor

Post Batman & Robin , back when superhero movies weren't quite as common and quite as expensive as they are today, Marvel decided to take advantage of Batman's irritating demise and kick-start their own rise with the X-Men franchise. Being an X-Fan myself, this was a big deal and, although the result wasn't quite as mind-blowing as I had expected, there was still a lot to enjoy in this first instalment. For one thing, the character introductions were excellent: whether it was Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) cage-fighting or a young Magneto prying open the doors of a concentration camp, the pieces were perfectly set and the show was ready to begin. Only, it doesn't so much begin as it does... go on. This first movie really is just one slow build-up to the X-Men finally becoming a team. And, for the most part, director Bryan Singer does get the characters right: Patrick Stewart makes a spot-on Xavier, Jackman is great (if tall) as Wolverine, Ian McKellen's turn