TheRetroCritic

I talk at length about sequel  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows . Turtle power!

Critics may not have quite embraced the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie reboot but it nevertheless had enough Turtle Power to guarantee this sequel which sees our heroes in a half shell take on more larger-than-life baddies. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out Of The Shadows makes a genuine attempt to bring to life familiar characters from the comics and cartoons, which is very refreshing. By playing the classic theme song during the end credits and introducing the likes of Bebop & Rocksteady, Krang, Casey Jones and Baxter Stockman, this movie certainly earns some big fan points. Some of these characters had never made it to the big screen so there's definitely something to be said about finally doing that for those nostalgic about the source material. If only the Transformers movies cared this much. The plot of this film sees Krang (voiced by Brad Garrett) influence Shredder, who has escaped from prison, to open a portal through which the Technodrome could come

Megan Fox sucks. Now the elephant in the room's finally out of the way and I've clarified that for ya right off the bat: let's take a look at the new Michael Bay-produced Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or, as it is also called, Ninja Turtles . This looked set to be a disaster from the get-go with Bay attached, the casting of Fox and major changes to the Turtles' story all announced at the same time. Then came the very dumb trailer which didn't look all that amazing and actually turned off a lot of people who thought the turtles looked too freaky. Because we all know what a teenage mutant ninja LIVE ACTION turtle should look like, don't we? And what we're all picturing right now isn't weird at all, right? Come on, mutated turtles that can talk, fight and eat pizza were always going to look bizarre not in a cartoon or a comic book. The biggest surprise the film had to offer wasn't the new "roided-out" look of its titular characters

As we enter the Age Of Incomprehension, so do the Transformers enter the Age Of Extinction . In other words: what WAS this movie?! Now, a lot has been said about the Transformers franchise and about its director. With each release comes a backlash usually mocking either Michael Bay's incompetence, how silly the films are, the leads' miscasting or the bots themselves. Well... This one won't be any different, I imagine. Which is a shame seeing as this is easily the best (read: least painful) Transformers film since the first one. Having said that, Bay's asking for it, at this point. After the surprising return to form that was Pain & Gain , this would have been the perfect opportunity for the director to take the money-grubbing franchise into a new, more involving, better direction. On the plus side, the grating Shia Labeouf is absent this time around, replaced by the infinitely more appropriate and likeable Mark Wahlberg, a man who can make even the wo

I must admit, I was skeptical. When it was announced that Michael Bay would produce a reboot of something as beautifully retro and as beloved as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , I was certain that this would backfire into quite probably the biggest mistake of his career. But then I remembered other films produced by Bay: I Am Number Four , the Nightmare On Elm Street remake, the Hitcher remake, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake, the Amityville Horror remake, the Friday The 13th remake, that film with that lady's behind on the poster. All strikingly original films which have LITERALLY shaped my twenties. And with a Bay-produced remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds on the way, it's looking like the director/artiste is back at the top of his game. Like a chimp meeting a cage for the first time. Case and point: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The film opens with a montage showing how the titular turtles came to be. The "ooze", in this version, is transl

Ok, so Michael Bay's latest Transformers movie, Transformers: Age Of Extinction , finally got a trailer this week, thanks to the Superbowl, and it was... well, interesting. Now, unfortunately you still have human characters running around screaming, which I'm guessing is all they can do in this movie since the Autobots look a bit too busy with those Dinobots and Decepticons to really pay any attention to them. The trailer opens with some fun Autobot action in the countryside: Complete with dramatic moments: And cars being sliced in half: Punkass Decepticons... Alright, so the trailer does a good job at keeping your attention throughout but, just in case, it still finds the time to fit in a big-ass gun: And some space action: After some awkward slo-mo shots of Mark Wahlberg and co, we finally get some short glimpses at the main action sequences in the film: Green Autobot with parachute jumping out of a building before taking

The late nineties were a weird time. Nicolas Cage kept being cast in ridiculously overblown action movies ( Con Air , Face/Off ), Michael Bay was about to work with J.J. Abrams on Armageddon , dogs and cats living together: mass hysteria. Back in 1996, The Rock came out and combined the acting talents of Mr Cage and Mr Sean Connery in what seemed like an odd pairing, and, I suppose, in what  was an odd pairing, but which also worked surprisingly well. Knowing what we now know about Bay, The Rock is an interesting film to revisit because it's both very much his style and yet nowhere near as irritating or cheesy as the likes of Armageddon and Transformers 2 . I mean, of course you still get soldiers marching in slow-mo at sundown, insulting comic-relief stereotypes (look out for a gay hairdresser more concerned about hair than he is about bullets), perplexing one-liners ("How do you like how that shit works?") and ludicrous art direction but there's just somet

Well well well... Who knew that Michael Bay still had one ok film in him?! Based on a true story, Pain & Gain sees Mark Wahlberg's Daniel Lugo come up with a plan to kidnap some obnoxious rich dude and steal all his dough with the help of a couple of other bodybuilders (played by Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie) and soon finding himself trying to desperately contain the damage he's caused. The film is big, dumb, bloated and completely over the top. And, you know what? That's exactly what it needed to be. After all, most of it is seen through the eyes of our main characters, slightly unhinged, not very smart fellas, so the film's overblown style does make sense. Unlike with the Transformers movies, you've got context that makes sense here. Plus Bay captures the goofy nature of 90's action movies really well. The result is basically Scarface meets Pumping Iron crossed with a little The Whole Nine Yards . I say that because the film really does pla

In this 13th episode, fellow film buff Jamie and I discuss movie news, review a recent release ( Pain & Gain , this time), and rewind back to more retro cinematic topics. Guess what song was being sung in this week's  "I Shat Myself"  segment and get a shout-out in the next episode! You can email your answer here:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com

Oh boy, where to start... Ok, basic structure of the film: Act I - Everyone's Happy, Act II - Everything Blows Up, Act III - Everyone's Sad. This is literally it guys, if you're expecting anything deeper or more complex than that...then you obviously don't know who's directing this masterpiece of patriotic, macho cheese. Michael Bay's film actually taught me many things about the war: apparently all women were sexy, retarded nurses back then, all black men were cooks and Franklin D Roosevelt had no less than four chins. Yes, this is one history lesson I'll never forget. Every cliché in the book is thrown at us full throttle as every shot sports a giant American flag, every line is peppered with Parmesan and people walk in slo-mo whenever things get dramatic (read: all the time). Historical inaccuracies aside, at the heart of the film is a love triangle so irrelevant and predictable that it makes you wonder how the script could have possibly been more