Movie Review: The Plague

This is a movie that actually manages to set off the alarm bells clanging in your head with its opening sequence, if you look past the cheesy font in the title credits and even cheaper overuse of creepy clichés on the DVD cover. One thing I liked about the introduction is that unlike the usual scenery sequences normally used to establish the mood of the film, The Plague has two very short footages of its setting before jumping straight into the story. There is good use of pacing here – instead of going into monologues introducing the characters (Person A to Person B: Hi, pleased to meet you), the audience is drawn into the plot right from the beginning right after the very brief introductory shots. The sudden attack of the plague resulting in simultaneous convulsions in children all over town at the exact second is more than freaky enough to get the audience glued to their seats wanting more.

Unfortunately for a film with such a promising start, everything goes downhill the moment the screen flashes to black and we are fast-forwarded ten years into the present, where the comatose children (now teenagers) wake and go on a killing rampage. Here’s one thing I can’t decide is scarier: killers that kill on a mission to so-call cleanse the world (Hitler), or killers who kill for no reason at all other than to satisfy their sadist natures (Freddie vs. Jason). One is reminded of War of the Worlds, except instead of aliens you have infected children bent on exterminating the adult population.

It’s fine if you actually are given some explanation behind whatever was plaguing the children ten years ago, causing them to go into catatonic states and then finally waking up murderous, but instead we sit through sequences after sequences of blood and gore and made-up extras, clueless about why the hell things are happening the way they are, other than the children are “sick of this shitty world”. It makes a hell lot of sense to go into coma for ten years because you’ve got too much teenage angst. The filmmakers don’t rest at that, either. Rather than have simple, cold-blooded murders, there is some soul-sucking involved that is hardly elaborated on, so you come up with the conclusion that they are so into scaring the audience, it doesn’t matter how various people die as long as they do die in the bloodiest and creepiest way possible. Every scene is an opportunity to soak the actors in stage blood, and those who aren’t dead are either on their way there, or are wearing clothes stained with someone’s red blood cells.

However, I have to applaud the child-actors in the film for one of the most impressive mass fits in movie-making history; the simultaneous convulsions are more than enough to get the creepy factor across. It’s like a scene out of a war film whereby soldiers get mass poisoning, except we don’t know who’s the culprit here, and it pretty much sucks not to know who you’re dealing with. The villains in the film are the comatose, zombie-like teenagers who go around murdering people, but you can’t help thinking they’re just puppets and there’s a bigger badass involved. The film has tremendous potential, but the filmmakers fail to deliver the goods to make this something more than a B-grade horror flick.

For a movie priding itself on its “horror” elements, the film also fails to scare with its weak and recycled tactics, so every murderous teenager you expect to pop up pops up at the right places. Anything potentially impressive ends up under the deleted scenes section of the DVD for some reason, and you feel an urge to interrogate the editor why those didn’t make the final cut. The other bothersome thing about the movie is the way random characters appear onscreen without any plausible background story. It may be the filmmakers’ intention to create creepy characters that do the weird things they do without much explanation, but contradictory to building up on the shroud of mystery surrounding them, you feel that the characters are underdeveloped and paper-flat.

Watch The Plague only when you have time to waste and popcorn to spare, because although there’s blood and gore, there’s so much of it you get desensitized pretty quickly. Don’t tear your hair out trying to figure out who’s who and the reasons behind the why, because there aren’t any, apparently.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End

It’s probably a good idea to go into the cinema Coke-free, because at 168 minutes and a plot far more complex than the previous two installments of the Pirates trilogy, you wouldn’t want to miss out any action while going for an urgent toilet break. Disney’s ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’ brags about its final and decisive battle, and an epic battle it is. Also prepare to sit through the hundreds of other fights that break out between the leads and the extras three-quarters of the movie.

What am I saying? While the first had a rather unique script and the second brags of visually stunning villains and exceptionally choreographed swordfights, the third movie comes across as a vain attempt to tie up the loose ends left hanging in the previous two, involving quick solutions like the sudden deaths of various secondary characters. It brings the plot to an end, but you’re left with a “so that’s it?” afterthought, because nothing creates as big an impression than the killing of characters when you don’t need them.

Bland in its script, the movie makes up a little to its audience with its impressions of “World’s End”. There is an ominous-looking waterfall signifying “the edge of the map”, and you probably will have a hard time believing it as a tourist attraction, the Niagara Falls. The film is really Mother Nature meets Supernatural Forces, and you ought to have guessed by now that the final decisive battle takes place within a gigantic whirlpool, mostly because having just an ordinary battle on a calm sea is a repetition of the first two. Come to think of it, the Pirates Trilogy is really a bundle of themes, Dead People meets Supernatural Forces in the first, and Sea Creatures meets Supernatural Forces in the second.

Without giving too much away, characters that don’t seem to matter before now take center stage, Tia Dalma (Naomie Harris) and Ragetti (Mackenzie Crook), for example. There is more than meets the eye, as Chinese pirate Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat) says it so accurately, not of Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), whom we already know is a really gung-ho tiger in mouse skin, but of various people and objects. Artifacts that seem to be made for decoration by the props department are now important objects used for important missions, although the filmmakers could have decided to give an explanation for the overdone bits and pieces of pirate property lying around (“I know, let’s make this particular strand of hair from so-and-so important!”). There is an element of surprise in the importance of seemingly trivial things, but when that wears off, you begin to think it as fluff to make the film a little more ooooh-worthy. The film, rather than focus on Jack and elaborate on Barbossa’s (Geoffrey Rush) return from the dead, concentrates more on solving the knot in the love-triangle between Jack (Johnny Depp), Will (Orlando Bloom), and Elizabeth.

There were a number of things that could have been improved; Jack and Tia mumbling less and speaking more, less random fights, and overall less of a mess that betrays the film’s rushed schedule.

It’s a neat use of a cliffhanger in Dead Man’s Chest so you’re forced to watch this last installment of the trilogy in order to satisfy your curiosity, but if you haven’t watched the first or the second, don’t bother turning up for this, because you won’t get much out of the plot. Also, Disney is fast breaking its record in the amount of gore in their films, because unlike in the first where we only have sound effects accompanying stabbing actions where swords don’t meet flesh half the time, this third film not only shows you the sword going through a person, the occurrences of swords meeting their targets are many too. What you probably will enjoy about pirates is the fact that there isn’t any clear good/bad guy. The pirates are selfish, the supposedly law-abiding members of the East India Trading Company are selfish, and they’re both selfish to fight for their selfishness.

Similar to the first two installments of the trilogy, the filmmakers reward those who sit through the credits with an extra scene.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Amazing Grace

Although Amazing Grace is based on the true story of William Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd), I wouldn’t personally call it a bibliography, or even a “fight against the odds”. The plot is simple – a brave attempt by a man to end the extremely profitable British slave trade, but the film lacks several factors that, if taken into account, would have been more engaging.

The movie covers a portion of William Wilberforce’s personal life and history, but it takes an effort to relate to him, for some reason I can’t quite place my finger on. Ioan Gruffudd does put on a fair appearance, but nevertheless there seems to be a detachment between the actor and character, and although his portrayal is believable, you don’t feel much sympathy for his struggles. In fact, the score does better tugging at the emotional cord.

Another reason why there is nothing much to feel for Ioan’s William is perhaps because he faces minimal opposition. Unlike during the fight for justice in A Time To Kill where houses are set on fire and the lead’s property vandalized as threats to end the crusade, we watch as William is only taunted and booed in Parliament. There is nothing exactly fearful or dangerous in an orderly confrontation, and the film misleads the audience into thinking that only the disagreeing members of Parliament are to blame for the flourishing of the slave trade. The lack of focus on the real people living during the time period (slaves, commoners) makes it difficult to feel for character’s fight to abolish slavery. There is hardly anything from the perspective of the commoners, who may have also profited financially from the trade, and thus you get the feeling of being restricted by the filmmakers. William says at one point, “No matter how you shout, you can’t drown out the voices of the people”, but the only “voice of the people” in the film comes in the form of a ten-metre long roll of parchment filled with signatures.

We also don’t get to see much footage of slavery besides emptied shackles and a few hazy flashback-like sequences of how slavery might have been like, so you only feel unsatisfied yet at the same time, left to imagine the horror suggested by the very sparse slavery footage and narration. Each time we come on board a slave ship, the slaves are always gone and the ship empty, save the terrifying living conditions and stench they were forced to stay in, so much so that the thought, “what happened to these people?” always manages to worm into your conscious. The film is not in the least gory, but the absence of such footage only amplifies the horror that suggests it may be too much even for the audience to take despite the passing of centuries since its occurrence.

There are numerous references to Christianity in the film, but Amazing Grace isn’t one that preaches its intended message. Instead, where action speaks louder than words, moral values waiting to be understood and soaked up by the audience are shown through William’s determined struggle. The hero is not perfect in any way – he gives up, loses his focus, craves for the support of people who share the same vision, grows old, so even though the runtime of 111 minutes is insufficient to paint the entire crusade against slavery, you know that plenty more goes on in between the edited sequences. Acknowledging that, the film ends with a postscript on William’s purposeful life.

Set in the 1810s, Amazing Grace boasts of several artistic sets and an impressive wardrobe, a commendable effort to transport its audience back in history. There are several concerns about the low-cut dresses worn by women at that time and the mild use of “vulgar” language, however, that may spark controversy regarding its relation to Christianity. The movie is also named after the few occasions the Christian hymn was sung throughout, and is written by Englishman and ex-slave trader John Newton (Albert Finney).

Amazing Grace is a film to watch if you are able to overlook the few flaws mentioned. The storytelling may be less than adequate, and the movie is a crash-course on 1810s politics, but despite this, therein lies a story of humanity, and the things men are capable of doing for their own luxuries.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Failure To Launch

The last time Matthew McConaughey appeared in a romantic comedy (How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days), he was the aggressor in a relationship with a betting deadline. If you remember, his feat was to have a woman fall in love with him within ten days. If you look back a little more, you might even recall the time when he starred opposite Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner. Now, he is once again playing the same role, in the same genre. I’m not even bothering with the characters anymore, it’s just Matthew McConaughey charming the eyelids off random actresses in front of a camera.

Failure To Launch centers around Tripp, a thirty-five year old who has everything an average guy would be grateful for – a job, friends, car, and a home. The problem doesn’t exactly lie with him, but with his parents, who live with him. You follow? They don’t want him living off them, in their house, which they paid for. It doesn’t matter that his parents love him, and don’t mind doing simple household chores for him, they want him out because its embarrassing to live in your parents’ house the moment you’re considered an adult, so you kind of get the feeling that their lives are so perfect, they’re creating problems for themselves to mope about.

You wouldn’t want to hurt someone by telling him to his face you want him to get off your property, so Tripp’s parents do it behind their son’s back by hiring Paula (Sarah Jessica Parker), an interventionist and an apparent expert on the subject. It’s a cool job because you get to flirt extensively while claiming to raise the self-esteem of your client. Kind of like a honey trapper, except you aren’t a spy hired by a suspicious and jealous spouse. It’s a notch higher on the dignity ladder than a prostitute, because hey, all you’re trying to do is help the son be independent by a certain date, satisfaction guaranteed.

We are treated to a barrage of scenes with Paula leading poor, clueless Tripp on, although I wouldn’t feel sorry for Tripp because he isn’t an interventionist and he flirts as much. Through various set-ups and schemes, Paula tries to raise the confidence of Tripp, the perceived reason for his dependence on his parents. I beg to differ, because the guy is just lazy. His self-esteem and social skills are fine, because if they aren’t, he wouldn’t be sleeping around with the entire population of his country, much less get them to dump him (you heard right, he gets them to dump him using his “I’m still living with my parents, what’s wrong with that?” trick, so he seems like the one we ought to feel sympathetic towards).

One fine day, however, he discovers the truth about Paula and carefully plans his revenge. Pretty everything from this point onwards is modeled on how Matthew McConaughey reacted to Kate Hudson after he finds out she’s doing a scoop on him for a publication in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, so predictability is an understatement. I have to give it to them though, that although you know how it’s going to turn out, the film keeps you guessing on what they do to get to that ending. There is also a hilarious scene involving the shooting and revival of a mockingbird, but otherwise, Failure To Launch is a manual on how to hook up, break up and settle relationship conflicts. You might find this enjoyable if you’re into romantic- comedies, but the film is mediocre to say the least.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Robin Hood

Imagine a Lion King/Bambi meets Robin Hood, where anthropomorphised animals take the place of real people. That’s what you get in this new version, Robin Hood: Most Wanted Edition. And because of this change, the film now has lines like “Snakes don’t walk; they slither”. All in the name of humour, and if you’ve already watched the original and know who’s on the good and bad side, it’s nevertheless interesting to see the director’s choice of animals for each role.

Here’s the classic in a nutshell if you haven’t had a chance to catch the original: Robin Hood is a hero to the poor and a villain to the rich as he goes about stealing from the well-off to feed the poverty-stricken. It’s pretty easy to get, if you think communism and equality. Although he is well-known in other versions to travel with a “band of thieves”, this version sees only Little John (Phil Harris) as his sidekick and accomplice, unless you consider the crowd of villagers of Sherwood Forest in support of him. The villain here is Prince John (Peter Ustinov, who also voices King Richard), who starts abusing his power the moment he’s appointed to rule while his brother, King Richard, is out on a crusade. By raising the tax to exorbitant amounts, Prince John then lives a life of luxury at the expense of his subjects. We are also introduced to a totally new character, the Prince’s lackey, Sir Hiss. As the Prince’s spy, Sir Hiss alerts other villains to various plots against themselves, although majority of them fall on deaf and stubborn ears. He is punished by Prince John although the latter has only himself to blame for choosing to ignore the snake’s advice, and we sense Sir Hiss’s underlying dislike of the Prince, a good analogy of the selfish traits found in villains who only care for themselves. In this Disney movie not unlike other Disney movies, we also watch a spark of romance between Maid Marian and Robin Hood.

Much comic relief comes from the anthropomorphism and exaggeration only achieved in cartoons, although the villainy characters are good jokes on their own. It’s true that the characters are stereotypes, each an epitome of silliness, valiantly, etc., but the characters are believable and somewhat fun to watch as symbols of idioms, “sly as a fox” for example. The songs are catchy, and one has to grin at the lyrics and their delivery. It’s a film to watch if you’re in the mood for something silly yet hilarious, both in dialogue and action.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Zoom

There’s something creative about recapping the previous film of a trilogy in Spiderman 3’s opening sequence, but doing the same thing in Zoom seems more of a lazy than clever way of telling the story. For one thing, it isn’t a trilogy, and the audience is treated to a crash-course in the opening sequence on the history of Team Zenith, a group of superheros out to rid the world of evil blah, blah. A villain is born when an attempt by the government to increase the group’s powers goes haywire, causing the group’s leader, Captain Zoom (Tim Allen), to lose his brother Connor (Kevin Zegars) to the dark side. The creation of the villain here is not unlike Spider-man’s Green Goblin, whereby the victim is subjected to personality-altering doses of chemicals/radiation. So here we have an ex-good-guy nicknamed Concussion, creating havoc and killing everyone else on the team. Sole survivor Captain Zoom manages to get even with Concussion, although the film doesn’t quite say how. Apparently he’s been banished to another dimension or something. Also, for other reasons I still can’t quite grasp, Captain Zoom seems to have lost his power ever since. Does it mean he exhausted himself fighting with Concussion, or what?

We fast-forward to the present, where it’s nearly thirty years since supposedly-dead (undead?) Concussion finds a way to escape from wherever he’s been imprisoned, and is out to finish off his brother. The backstory is a mess and has little link to the story other than hammering in the fact that the villain is the hero’s brother. As the government prepares for mayhem, efforts are made to contact the last surviving but retired superhero of the team, Captain Zoom, to lead against this battle with evil. Four special kids are recruited in less than an hour, so why they call Zoom the last superhero still puzzles me, because almost every nine out of ten people within a one-meter radius appears to have some power. One has amazing strength, the other has the power of invisibility and is psychic, the third has telekinesis and the forth is able to blow himself up like a puffer fish. Oh, and Zoom has superspeed. I would trade Superman for any of them because he has bullet-proof skin, laser vision, X-ray vision, speed and strength altogether.

It’s like Sky High, or X-men, really. They go to a school where they’re trained to develop and control their powers, all on a tight schedule because Concussion is about to arrive. From where, and how, we’ll never know. I hope this doesn’t mean they’re planning a prequel, though. Zoom is at first reluctant to train them because he’s bitter and secretly worried they’ll be subjected to the same radiation/chemical that made his brother turn evil, and they’re all kept in the dark about who they’re fighting, but nevertheless they bond after Zoom has a flashback to the good o’days of his ex-team bringing peace and justice to the people. It’s the fastest change-of-heart in movie history.

There is a final battle between good and evil (are you surprised?), and although the villain is plenty eye-candy, he is the least convincing villain in villain history. All he has are red contact lenses and a matching red (but torn) superhero suit. And the ability to explode stuff. All in all, he seems like a spoilt brat, but then they all are. Like all true heroes, Zoom’s aim isn’t to destroy, but to correct. And in case you’re prone to short-term memory loss, the villain is in fact the hero’s brother, so murdering is almost out of the question.

For a superhero movie, Zoom doesn’t pack as much action compared to other movies in the genre, and we are treated to somewhat fan-fiction-like sequences that makes you wonder if the director was just paying tribute to the superhero comics. The only memorable scene is one whereby Zoom trips and falls while super-zipping through barren land, but otherwise the jokes aren’t all that laughable. There is a weak attempt at romance, but nothing really develops. Surprisingly though, the climax isn’t during the fight sequence between Concussion and Zoom, but during the tension build-up before Concussion is due to appear. You could call Zoom (the movie, not the character) a family movie – watch it when you’re bored, but don’t expect much from it.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

There is always a risk making something that has the simplicity of E.T., but unlike films that are overly straightforward and leaves the audience going “so what was the point of that”, E.T has the feel of a traditional yet simple tool, a valuable film that isn’t a waste of space.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial tells a story about an alien who gets marooned on Earth unintentionally during a botanic expedition, and is later adopted by a lonely boy, Elliott (Henry Thomas). The two become bonded telepathically through the alien’s power, and both begin a struggle for secrecy against the movie’s villain, the government, who – you guessed it – wants to experiment on E.T. Elliott’s siblings (played by Drew Barrymore and Robert Macnaughton) are led into the secret one-quarter into the movie, and together they attempt to help E.T. “phone home”, using items like hangars and speaking toys. Honestly? I’m impressed. As time passes, E.T.’s health deteriorates and this causes Elliott to fall ill as well, due to the telepathic link that seems more than just a mental bond now. He dies, or seems to die (E.T., not Elliot), but armed with the Manual of Hollywood’s Miraculous Endings, comes back to life in time to leave in a spaceship, leaving a distraught Elliott.

One of the first successful Sci-fi / adventure blockbuster films by Steven Spielberg (following Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Raiders of the Lost Ark), E.T. makes a good addition to the resume of a director with almost thirty years in the business. It deserves a place on the shelf along with other Disney classics, which I personally find darker than a lonely alien who gets himself stranded while on a plant research trip. There really isn’t much to fear from an alien that knocks himself out drinking beer and is half the time dressed in rags, and it takes a heart of steel to dislike a plot that features the friendship between two extremely innocent characters, one a lonely boy, and another the aforementioned alien. My favourite part comes when we find out that the villain is none other than the local government, represented by people we only see waist down throughout the movie.

There are minor shortcomings such as unbelievable conveniences (just how the hell do you track down an alien with a counter? I’m no rocket scientist but don’t they only read radioactive particles? Unless E.T. farts all the time I don’t think he emits any.) Saying E.T.’s miraculous coming-back-to-life spectacle was corny is an understatement, and the only plausible reason excusing E.T’s revival is the fact that he’s an alien, and we don’t have a clue on how aliens really die, so we can’t call that a corny “rebirth”. The thing about E.T., however, is that you’re thrown into the dilemma of wanting it to be unpredictable, and wanting a happy ending that has the adorable alien transported safely home. The exaggerated police chase at the end didn’t sit well with me, and although it did drive home the whole “grown-ups versus kids” theme the movie is based on, it was just too…far-fetched (the entire police force out on the streets after a bunch of kids and an alien? Gee, what a great time to commit murder). But those are trivial faults compared to the film’s real focus, so if you aren’t bothered by the predictability of Hollywood, this movie will be worth a watch. A good film on the whole for the young at heart, E.T. is comparable to the few evergreen Disney classics.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: The Fifth Element

Movies like The Fifth Element make up minority of films that feature somewhat unoriginal plots but yet fail to disappoint. Where it is unsuccessful at being original, The Fifth Element generously makes up in its acting and dialogue.

Set not too distant in the future, The Fifth Element centers around the concept of good versus evil. What immediately makes you go “oooh” is the fact that Evil comes in the form of a gigantic intelligent fireball that tries every five thousand years to extinguish life on Earth. With that many opportunities, I’m surprised life still exists. Maybe it wanted to play cat and mouse or something. I mean, what fun is there to just crash and kill everybody, right? More fun with all the “I’m coming, I’m coming…”

Hey, I don’t claim to understand intellectual fireballs.

Anyway. To prevent this from happening, you need the following things: a temple, four stones that represent the elements earth, wind, fire and water, and a fifth element also described as a “perfect being”. But here’s the problem: when the spaceship transporting the perfect being is attacked, all on board perish, save for a severed arm. With modern technology, scientists are able to reconstruct this perfect being from just a few living cells in the arm, and we are introduced to the humanized Supreme Being, Leeloo (Milla Jovovich). Oh, and everybody’s shocked when a naked woman appears in the tissue-making machine, so there are some perverted jokes and a little sexism. It’s like in Dogma when God is a She.

Leeloo doesn’t speak English, unfortunately, so there are communication problems when she starts sprouting The Divine Language. Nobody likes dirty old men, so she escapes the leering authorities by crash-landing into the cab of future hero and ex-soldier Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis). Look. I know she’s the Supreme Being but when someone leaps off the edge of a building into a crowd of on-coming futuristic flying traffic and crashes into the metal top of a cab, they just don’t only get scratches. But okay, have it your way, Hollywood.

The ‘save the earth’ mission begins when Leeloo demands to be taken to Father Vito Cornelius (Ian Holm), and together they go in search of the stones, which apparently have been stolen by minor villain, Zorg (Gary Oldman – Remember him? You should, because he’s Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies!). Here is one good example of a really, really good dumb villain. There are two kinds of villains I like, the really smart ones (Lion King’s Scar, Collateral’s Vincent) and the really dumb ones (Lion King’s Hyenas, Home Alone’s thieves), but I digress. There’s something about Zorg that makes you feel sympathetic towards his failed attempts at getting the stones, and at the same time you feel the urge to laugh at him because he’s so silly it’s unbelievable – checking the cases for the stones before lugging them all the way back, for example. His flamboyance and self-importance is a joke, because he is nothing but the pawn of a bigger villain, the fireball (yeah, he works for the fireball!).

There are multiple villains and heros in The Fifth Element, and the focus is spread out amongst them, so there is an equal amount of screentime for everyone and you won’t get bored looking at the same good/bad guy all the time. Chris Tucker makes a humourous, over-the-top and annoying DJ Ruby Rhod, unwillingly dragged into the mess after a rigged competition to get to the stones’ hidden location. In fact, the movie pretty much has the characters fighting, traveling and searching for the stones. Good and bad people are killed in various action sequences, and for a film made before the overuse of CGI, the visual effects are pretty good. Also, a little trivia you might be interested in: the film has founding director of Wild Rice (a local theatre company in Singapore), Ivan Heng, appear as a cameo in a scene opposite villain Zorg (Gary Oldman).

The movie comes to a climatic ending where everything’s at stake at the count of 3…2…1, but it succeeds in building some pressure and excitement. It’s predictable at some parts, but this film and its numerous witty exchanges makes it a movie worth the watch.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: High School Musical

If it weren’t for the fact that almost everyone was painful to watch lip-synching through their lyrics in a supposed musical, I might have found High School Musical bearable, what with its good-looking cast and all. Okay, maybe not that good-looking, but that’s as much praise it deserves for being the overhyped Disney channel show it is.

High School Musical is centered around the life of Jesse McCartney, ahem, I mean Troy Bolton (Zac Efron), star basketball player of his high school, East High, and Maths wiz Gabriella Montez (Vanessa Anne Hudgens). Both meet on-stage when they’re forced to sing a duet at a New Year’s party, but as soon as their five minutes of fame is over, each is convinced that due to the sheer size of the world they will never once again cross paths and hence proceed to exchange mobile numbers. The director shakes his head because ending a movie within ten minutes is absurd, and decides to transfer Gabriella’s mom’s working location to New Mexico, where Gabriella has no choice but to enroll in the same class as Troy.

I love Hollywood. Everything’s so complicated, yet simple.

After hesitating for a century and worrying about responsibility issues, both Gabriella and Troy decide to audition for their school musical, having discovered their love for singing. However, they are rejected by Ms. Darbus, the teacher-in-charge. That’ll teach you to procrastinate, fools. Disappointed, they sing without an audience but fortunately for them, the sneaky but impressed Ms. Darbus “overhears” from behind a curtain and tells them that they’ve won a call-back, along with competitors Sharpay and Ryan Evans, narcissistic siblings with a record in theatrical performances as leads. Both the basketball and decathlon teams then combine forces to prevent Troy and Gabriella from joining the musical, after learning about the call-back. Feeling guilty, they later admit to their villainy and lend moral support to both potential leads. The Evans siblings meanwhile devise a plan to thwart Gabriella and Troy from attending the call-back, thus securing their own victory.

Everything seems hopeless for the two “heros” until a fantastic computer comes along that has the ability to short-circuit the scoreboard for the basketball match. I think they stole it from Ocean’s Eleven or something. Anyway. With the scoreboard down, Troy is able to rush to the call back and then back to the match.

Really, this film is just a cheesy and shallow rip-off of countless other movies starring people who break stereotypes in an effort realize their dreams. While I understand that High School Musical is meant to be a comedy with exaggerated acting, the characters come across as inconsistent and changes in temperament lack credibility. For instance, Sharpay Evans goes from bitchy in the first hour of the movie, to being incredibly nice in the last ten minutes for a happy ending. In fact, despite her loss to Gabriella for the lead, she doesn’t seem all that bitter for a sore loser, but instead congratulates and wishes her competitor luck. I would have swallowed that if it had been someone like Peter Parker, but Sharpay is just not…nice.

It also shouldn’t come as a big surprise that the kids in East High are so reliant on their inborn talent when lessons only last as long as five minutes. In one of the scenes where Gabriella meets Troy for the first time in her new class, we watch as she walks in when the bell rings, loses her cell to Ms. Darbus in exchange for detention, and leaves when the bell rings again. The entire sequence takes place without interruption from other scenes, so you know time isn’t compressed either.

Just when you thought it couldn’t make any less sense, Troy is seen looking down at his wrist the way you would do to check the time, except that he obviously isn’t wearing a watch. Gabriella then comes and pulls him by the hand and he goes, “you’re late”. Um, invisible watch? Tsk, Troy, did you steal that from the set of Minority Report?

Perhaps the only watchable sequences are the dance scenes. Although they are cheesy and remind you of the time when Justin Timberlake was still in Nsync, the coordination isn’t bad. One particularly memorable one is the basketball dance, which is rather well choreographed. Characters aside, Ashley Tisdale and Lucas Grabeel (who play Sharpay and Ryan) are entertaining to watch. So entertaining, in fact, that they steal the limelight away from the leads of the movie, whom we see singing ballads half the time. It does suck to see the leads get all the credit when the siblings obviously put in more effort. Sure, Troy did some moonwalking, but still.

On the whole, High School Musical is worth a watch if you’re in the mood for a chick flick (e.g. when you’re stoned, high or bored), although there are better chick flicks out there like Freaky Friday and She’s The Man that deserve more priority.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Bridge To Terabithia

Bridge To Terabithia is based on a book by Katherine Paterson. So if you haven’t read that, I daresay you’re in for a surprise (more bad than good) if you were thinking this is going to be about a group of children discovering some far-off kingdom populated with magical creatures. Nothing is real in Terabithia. That’s what we first learn, unlike the snake-eat-tail plot of The Number 23, The Sixth Sense, and Secret Window, whereby we’re told everything’s in the imagination only at the end. And although it does not matter whether what happens is real or not as long as it is something of value to the children involved, the audience isn’t so fortunate because every potentially seat-gripping scene is destroyed the moment you know it’s made-up – there’s no thrill whatsoever watching the two leads scramble from CGI you know can’t hurt them. Some sequences border on being silly, and having a film based on the going-ons of Leslie’s (AnnaSophia Robb) overactive imagination is a little too random and chaotic to take.

Unlike in Pan’s Labyrinth where reality and fantasy overlap such that the audience is left with a sense of ambiguity, the reality of every scene is laid bare for the audience in Bridge To Terabithia; you know when something is real and when it isn’t, and there isn’t much to feel during those scenes you know aren’t really happening. In fact, play-pretend pretty much starts when the kids swing across a creek on a rope to the other side of the woods, where they fantasize getting chased by flying monsters, crawling monsters, trolls and whatnot – things we’ve seen in the trailer. What they leave out is this: “Okay, I’m tired. I’m going home to sleep and we’ll continue this imaginary game again tomorrow. It’s not fun to walk back so I’m gonna pretend there’s this Eragon/Harry Potter black-cloaked guy chasing us and we’ll have to race back out, alright?” They run, and all of a sudden there’s a heavy downpour, and they are out of the forest without so much as a pant.

It’s a simple concept, and it goes on. They imagine. And imagine some more. For someone who doesn’t own a TV, Leslie has an imagination working in overdrive. And then there’s school, and basically they’re lonely outcasts (that’s why they’re friends), although I did like the fact that the bully wasn’t some bimbotic rich cheerleader who hung out in elite cliques. Said bully is then ridiculously distorted into a giant ogre-like creature in the children’s minds, and so stars as a monster in this magical, non-existing world. Maybe it’s time I let loose with some clever analysis of the movie being good with analogies like facing one’s fears in the imagination and having creativity, but…no. The scene leaves you gasping, but not in awe.

The book is probably more accurate in describing the imaginary scenes and apparent friendship between Jesse (Josh Hutcherson) and Leslie, but CGI has always been misused and here’s a good example. If you’re looking for a Narnia-like movie plot-wise, forget it. As for a film that seems to market itself using its visual effects, the CGI isn’t particularly spectacular either.

The film comes to a major ending that may have been impactful if it weren’t for the fact that you somehow get the feeling it was done to impress. The conclusion explores emotions like guilt, and for a newcomer in the business for only five years, Hutcherson plays his role adequately. It’s difficult because the book might have told it better where the cameras failed, and rather than say “it was a bad film”, it’d be more truthful to say “I’d rather they didn’t make this at all”. A last note though, if you thought this is a movie for the kids, the ending might come as a shock, so consider yourself warned.

(First published at InCinemas)