TheRetroCritic

Two years after the failure of Howard The Duck , Executive Producer George Lucas redeemed himself with Willow , a fantasy film from 1988 directed by Ron Howard. It starred Warwick Davis in the title role with a young Val Kilmer supporting. After sorceress Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) orders the death of children in the kingdom due to a prophecy stating that a female child will, one day, orchestrate her downfall, a chain of events is set into motion when a midwife decides to save one baby. The latter ends up in the hands of kindhearted Nelwyn farmer Willow but, when it becomes apparent that keeping the baby poses a threat to his village, he is sent to bring the child back to where she came from, but in safe hands. He first encounters disgraced warrior Madmartigan (Val Kilmer) and soon entrusts the child to him but that backfires almost instantly. What follows is an epic yet relatively intimate adventure involving fairies, "brownies" (tiny people), magic, trolls and monster

As if the 80's weren't already 80's enough, in 1986 we got the most patriotic, corniest blockbuster imaginable: Top Gun . Directed by Tony Scott, the film starred Tom Cruise in his then most bankable role and followed cocky fighter jet pilot Maverick as he starts training with the best of the best. If you ever wondered why Michael Bay sets all his films at sunset, the answer is Top Gun as pretty much every scene in Scott's movie takes place in front of a golden sky. We first meet Maverick (Cruise) and his friend Goose (Anthony Edwards) as they show off their bold yet reckless flying and manage to save a panicking pilot who would have otherwise crashed. Because apparently mixed messages are an old navy favourite, they are told off then promoted and sent to the Top Gun school of awesome pilot douchebags where their confident, playful attitude is quickly rejected and criticised before Maverick proves himself worthy. There, they meet alpha-douche Iceman (Val Kilmer), w

I play a bit of the SNES version of Batman Forever and talk about all things Batman. Riddle me this!

Gothamized  is a completely unofficial guide to new series  Gotham  and a debate arena for all things Batman. CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE In this 18th episode, we discuss the 16th and 17th episodes of  Gotham , the Red Hood gang, bears and Christian Science. (for my written review of the Gotham Pilot,  click here! ) Hope you enjoy it! You can also find us on podcast  The Big Rewind  (available on iTunes) and send us emails with your Bat-questions, Six Degrees challenges and riddles here:  gothamized@gmail.com (for the pilot episode  CLICK HERE )

Where to start, where to start... So The Island Of Dr. Moreau was a movie and it happened. Actually, it was several movies and, originally, an H. G. Wells novel but we're looking at the 1996 Marlon Brando/Val Kilmer effort for now, a film only half as entertaining as what happened behind the scenes during the making of it but wildly insane and therefore totally worth seeing nonetheless. As you probably already know, the film sees some guy find his way onto an island where a mad scientist called Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando) has conducted a whole bunch of morally despicable experiments thereby making an entire community of half-man half-animal people. David Thewlis is Edward Douglas, the unlucky fellow Val Kilmer's dodgy geezer Montgomery introduces to the island. What follows is basically The Wicker Man except with animal/man hybrids and... whatever Brando's doing. Actually, you couldn't have cast the role of Moreau better. I mean, who else but an ageing, portly,