TheRetroCritic

After sitting through the controversial new Fantastic Four film   and revisiting Marvel's 2005 attempt at bringing Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's beloved, (and ever-so slightly) wacky superheroes to life cinematically, I thought I'd finally look back at the sequel, a film I did not care for upon its release and did not watch after that. Until now. Is it as bad as a remember it? Luckily no. Much like the first Fantastic Four movie, I had more fun with this effort than I expected. The cast (except, of course, Jessica Alba) once again does a pretty decent job, Chris Evans particularly, and the addition of iconic character The Silver Surfer was an inspired choice. A mixture of (now dated) CGI and practical effects (with good old Doug Jones once again buried head to toe in make-up) plus Laurence Fishburne's booming voice, the Surfer is such an interesting character he almost fully overshadows the Fantastic Four here, making us wish we were watching his movie instead of

During the late 80's/early 90's, Kevin Costner could do no wrong. So it's no surprise he was cast as Robin Hood in this 1991 blockbuster despite the actor not having an English accent in the slightest or having any interest in even attempting one. I guess this was only a few years after we all accepted Sean Connery as an Egyptian from Spain in Highlander so an American Robin Hood probably didn't sound like too crazy of an idea. Incidentally, Sean Connery does cameo in this movie as King Richard the Lionheart. Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves is one of those movies that really should not work and yet does mostly thanks to the fact it's a shameless, mindless blockbuster with enough cheese and ham to entertain even the most stubborn viewer. The familiar tale of Robin Of Loxley and his gang of misfits is told without many surprises but what it lacks in unpredictability it makes up for in gusto. Kevin Reynolds' movie follows Robin's journey from prisoner

One of those big 90's flops which rarely gets talked about is Bruce Willis-starring action comedy Hudson Hawk , a film which not only lost a bomb at the box-office upon its release but pretty much universally confounded audiences. Misunderstood cult classic or deserved failure? The answer, funnily enough, seems to be both! Yes Hudson Hawk is indeed something of a cult gem in that there aren't many other films quite like it and its rather unique approach remains fascinating to this day. It's one of those oddities like The Adventures Of Pluto Nash or that Rocky and Bullwinkle movie where you "get" what they're trying to do and appreciate some of what they're trying to do yet still acknowledge it doesn't work. These are action comedies with cartoonish, old-fashioned vibes and they are admittedly fun in parts but these are also quite niche meaning that spending bazillions of dollars on them was and is folly. It doesn't help that Hudson

When Pixar announced Inside Out , a film mostly taking place inside a kid's head, it sounded insane but promising in that it's something that hadn't been done before and it had the potential to be the animation studio's most affecting film since Up . The film's big concept is explained to us little by little as we see young Riley's early years develop from a single emotion, Joy (voiced by Amy Poehler), to several including Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black) and Disgust (Mindy Kaling). When Riley and her parents move to San Francisco, this jumbles up her emotions to the point where Joy and Sadness find themselves out of the loop completely. The film follows the latter two as they desperately try to get back into Riley's head through any means possible. This is arguably the most surreal Pixar adventure since Monsters Inc. , which was also directed by Pete Docter, and the gimmicky concept once again doesn't distract from

Born out of an episode of Kevin Smith's Smodcast podcast, Tusk was a story inspired by a fake ad on Gumtree in which a man was looking for someone to come and spend time with him while acting like and being dressed up as a walrus. The ad would turn out to be a prank but a truly insane/genius horror movie idea was born, an idea you can hear in the episode of Smodcast entitled "The Walrus And The Carpenter" . The film, which was released a year ago today, was not a big hit at the box-office but it helped give birth to Smith's promising Canada-set horror comedy trilogy which will include the upcoming Yoga Hosers and Moose Jaws , along with the belated sequel to Mallrats around the same time. Plus the idea that some goofy joke conversation two friends one day have in a podcast can turn into a proper movie is inspiring. The film's cast would include Justin Long, Michael Parks, Haley Joel Osment, Genesis Rodriguez and a surprise appearance by Johnny Depp, whose p

Here's a movie which, on paper, sounds like the worst thing you'll ever see: an Adam Sandler rom-com starring Drew Barrymore as a girl with no short term memory, a girl Sandler has to woo every single day. The Hawaii-set romantic comedy, as expected, is a pretty cheesy affair with more than its share of infuriating moments. For one thing, Rob Schneider cameos as Sandler's slobby pal so expect loads of bad jokes and borderline racist stereotyping, plus awful child actors speaking loudly around him as a bonus. Then there's the plot which is about as believable as whatever happened in The Adventures Of Pluto Nash and the earnest way in which it's handled often clashes with the usual mostly low-brow Happy Madison brand of humour. Walrus vomit jokes, anyone? Then there's Drew Barrymore who really does her utmost to hammer in how adorable she is, often to irritating effect. Though one scene sees her hitting Schneider repeatedly with a baseball bat, something

If The Lone Ranger taught us one thing it's that movie adaptations of really old TV shows starring Armie Hammer just aren't worth it. Now here comes The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in an attempt to correct this assumption. The classic Robert Vaughn-starring series, out of which a few TV movies were born back in the day, gets a full makeover courtesy of director Guy Ritchie who recently enough gave us a couple of action-packed, surprisingly fun Sherlock Holmes movies. The appropriately retro opening titles sequence along with a thrilling car chase quickly sell us on the idea that this Man From U.N.C.L.E. is in safe hands. Indeed, the film continues to look slick and stay smooth throughout with its fancy split-screens and its classily kitsch 60's costumes. Plus the two leads are competent, Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer both giving reliably solid performances, and the same can be said for Alicia Vikander, who plays a central component of the U.S. and the Soviet Union's

Where to start with this one? What could I possibly say that hasn't already been said? Indeed, this new Fantastic Four did not do well at all with the critics upon its release, nor did it do very well financially due to poor word-of-mouth. But was the film written off too quickly? Were critics much too harsh on it? Mmmwell... I'd love to say yes but this is one hard movie to defend. For one thing, the casting is tough to get behind. As brilliant as newcomer Miles Teller was in last year's mini-masterpiece Whiplash , he finds himself miscast here and, about halfway through the film, possibly due to increasing on-set shambles, soon stops giving a f***. As do we. House Of Cards ' Kate Mara is also miscast as our new Invisible Girl as she delivers no charisma or personality, something for which the script, I should point out, is entirely to blame. Jessica Alba may have been pretty dire as Sue Storm in the 2005 Fantastic Four but at least she seemed awake an

What's that, Hollywood? You wanna make a movie about retro games which would include the likes of Pac-Man and Donkey Kong? I'm in! As long as you don't turn it into a dopey, half-assed Adam Sandler comedy or something! Hahaha. Oh... Yes, just when you thought your memories of Jack and Jill were finally fading forever, Adam Sandler and his Happy Madison troupe are back in cinemas (minus Rob Schneider, mercifully). This time, Sandler plays the ex-best Donkey Kong player around who is called upon to help stop some hugely unconvincing alien invasion with the help of some old friends. We're told the reason the aliens have taken the shape of old video games is because we once sent out game footage into space but the film leaves so many plot-holes wide open that pretty much everything past the first minute mark will make little to no logical sense so you might as well give up on that front straight away. And if that wasn't enough nonsense to buy, we're then t

In this 62nd episode, Adam (aka The RetroCritic) and fellow film buff Jamie discuss movie news, review The Man From U.N.C.L.E.  and talk retro stuff. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE EPISODE CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE Email us here if you have any questions, requests or contributions:  bigrewindpodcast@gmail.com Or simply comment below :) Oh and you can also find us on  iTunes ,  Stitcher  and  Player FM  where you can subscribe to the podcast and download every episode thusfar! @TheRetroCritic #TheBigRewind retrocriticblog.blogspot.com thebigrewind.blogspot.com youtube.com/TheRetroCritic youtube.com/Cablogula