Movie Review: Shoot ‘Em Up

He bangs! He bangs!

It’s damned near impossible to keep track of the number of gun-firing rounds in the movie, much less count the number of brilliant action sequences happening consecutively after one another. From exchanging rounds while free-falling from an airplane, to playing midwife while having an ammunition face-off with a thousand or so baddies, Clive Owen’s Mr. Smith won’t ever give you enough time for a breather. Quite the Bugs Bunny of this devil of an action flick, Smith even comes equipped with carrot sticks – for which he uses to eat and stab people with (!). I’ve seen all sorts of murder weapons on CSI, but nothing comes quite as close as using the storage root of a plant to off somebody you don’t like.

The film opens with a blast (literally) when Smith aids a pregnant woman to escape from a bunch of incompetent hitmen. In one of the best opening sequences in action history, Smith cooly fends off flying bullets while delivering said baby. Thrown into something bigger than what he bargained for, he lands himself the role of nanny when the mother is hit by a stray bullet. Monica Bellucci then pops into the picture as mega-alluring prostitute Donna Quintano, whom Smith approaches to wet nurse and care for the newborn. More maternal than slutty despite her “tough chick” image, Quintano fortunately isn’t the action heroine and sits well away from typical female-warriors like Aeon Flux and Elektra. But really, it all fits the formula because what’s an action flick without a sexy woman gracing the scenes with a never ending supply of sensuality? If the action isn’t enough for the testosterone-filled individual, Quintano is definitely the icing on the cake.

The film comprises of over-the-top fight sequences that easily makes it one of this year’s most entertaining action movies. Not only does the nonstop gunfire impress, Smith’s “never say die” attitude puts even Energizer bunny to shame. Add that to the awesomely choreographed and imaginative stunts – Shoot ‘Em Up is a celebration of all things ammunition. The annoying thing, though, is Michael Davis’ attempt at storytelling – there’s a conspiracy about bone marrows and a pompous political dude, but who cares, really? By sticking Smith into crazy situations and subjecting him to various forms of torture, you wonder why he even tries filming with a script.

Shoot ‘Em Up is pure fun that doesn’t take itself seriously, and neither should its audience. Sure, Smith looks and feels like a god with his uncanny ability to doge bullets and only one facial expression from start to finish, but seriously? Since when do leads die in their own action movies?

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Balls Of Fury

One can only imagine the number of unoriginal jokes about the male reproductive organ with a title like that, but Balls Of Fury fortunately doesn’t bend as low as Little Man in its choice of comic relief. You’d be surprised to find out that the only sexual reference is one by Maggie Q when she’s giving ping pong student Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler) a lecture on how it’s old to make references to said organs. It’s almost like an assurance from the director, “Nope, no ball jokes.”

The story is cliched as follows: Former ping-pong professional Randy Daytona is reluctantly recruited by amateur FBI Agent Ernie Rodiquez (George Lopez) to solve some sort of bigger crime, and like any unwilling candidate, he gets involved in something a lot more messed up than what he signed up for…like crazy underworld ping-pong rules. Before you can say “bad ass!”, Randy has to play for his life, literally.

The movie isn’t great, but neither is it bad. It’s stupid but more because it is meant to be stupid, the way Hot Fuzz is stupid (though Balls Of Fury is arguably less witty). The film has its giggly and what-the-heck moments, though such are short-lived but plentiful. It’s also one of those films that lets you identify those in the audience with a lesser sense of humour, Balls Of Fury contains your typical slapstick jokes like, oh, tripping and falling in the most comical way possible (this task sadly falls on the frail shoulders of James Hong, who plays a blind ping-pong master teacher).

Here’s something I can’t quite put my finger on: did the cast get a crash course on ping-pong, or were they blindly hitting balls that were digitally painted on post-production? It’s near impossible to tell with the balls, rackets and hands a blur mess on the screen, and even then the occasional slow-motion doesn’t reveal anything other than giving the ping-pong competitions their dramatic effect.

If there’s any reason at all for non ping-pong fans and the overly-lusty male to watch this, it’s Maggie Q in her sports bra and tight shorts as she cuts down her ping-pong opponents by *gasp* – fours.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Hannah Montana: Behind The Spotlight

At a glance, Hannah Montana looks like every other Disney production – a group of materialistic teenagers in front of the camera throwing out cheesy music and dance routines popular about a thousand or so years ago while trying to give the impression that one has to be a celebrity to be successful and rich. It’s the shortest cut any filmmaker can take to inspire those from the younger age group. By providing a demoralised lead with an ambition and a restrictive environment (peer pressure, unsupportive parents, you name it), almost any “dare to dream” movie can be filmed. Tried, tested and boring, Hannah Montana’s dramatic delivery somehow manages to take the old and overused formula to a higher level that isn’t so, well, old and overused.

Hannah Montana: Behind The Spotlight isn’t the straight-to-DVD release it looks like; it is a compilation of sitcom episodes like Friends, complete with a live audience so you know when you’re missing a joke when they laugh and you don’t. The thing about Hannah Montana is its over-the-top drama that has every girl talking in pitches higher than tin whistles. There comes a point when you start wondering if it was done on purpose, so okay, benefit of the doubt.

What really makes the sitcom bearable is Jason Earles as Jackson Stewart, who steals the show on and off camera. There’s a priceless chemistry between Jason Earles and Billy Ray Cyrus (who plays a “cool” dad Robbie Stewart) that evens out the estrogen input with ridiculous manliness, balancing out the giant extremities in the show. True, events are much too coincidental to happen in real life, but why take things seriously when you can giggle at Miley’s double life as Hannah Montana the teenage music sensation and Miley the girl-next-door? It’s even lovable to watch Oliver Oken (Mitchel Musso) drool over Hannah while oblivious to the fact that like Clark Kent, all Hannah Montana does to disguise herself is throw on a wig and a pair of shades.

This is the film to watch if you’re reminiscent of your teenagehood (depending of course, on your generation), but while the film’s parody of itself may fly over the heads of its target audience, those older are bound to catch and have a good laugh at the underlying mockery of all things celebrity.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: The Sun Also Rises

Different and experimental are perhaps the best words used to describe this time-flitting film. For first-time viewers of director/actor Jiang Wen, The Sun Also Rises will feel like a whirlpool of otherworldly experiences – and with good reason too, as four different spellbinding stories unfold only to come into contact with one another as characters and events fall on a collision course.

The introductory scenes at the beginning are enough to intrigue the unsuspecting viewer – a lost pair of embroidered shoes becomes the spark that sets a young widow onto a journey of fantasy and perhaps even insanity. Her son, who looks just a few years younger than her, then tries desperately to protect and understand his mother’s fluttery antics – from her strange hobby of collecting pebbles, to her sudden tree-climbing fetish. It is only during a visit to her island hideaway that reveals something of her sad past, and one is forced to question if her shoe-induced madness is really just her defence mechanism at work shielding her from painful memories.

The second story is a lot more quirky compared to the first – set in a college campus, it gives a peculiar recount of the desires between two Indonesian Chinese returnees and a seductive female doctor. In a hilarious scandal involving several molesting cases, the doctor then has to seek out the pervert by going through a butt-pinching test – all a ploy to confess her love with a “climax”.

Linking the next story with the previous is the protagonist whom is sent to the very village of the mad widow and her son. This story explores the concept of male pride and ego, and teaches a thing or two about love and jealousy.

Last of all, audiences are brought back in time to the Gobi Desert, where the two lovers meet “at the end of the road”, with the entire journey across the desert as a test of their love for each other. It’s both touching and romantic, to say the least.

What’s most gripping about the film is its mind-boggling scenery. From villages to grasslands in Yunnan to the never-ending plains of the Gobi Desert, it’s not much of a problem getting lost and blown away by the cinematography. The scenery makes up for the somewhat fast transitions from past to present in the film which may take some effort to follow. The film drags on a little too long and begins to lose its charm three-quarters into the storytelling, but if you’re the sort to appreciate the non-conventional and the strange, this may just be the answer to your prayers.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Android Apocalypse

Think robots, and films like I, Robot and Terminator come to mind – robots with feelings, robots who rebel, robots that eventually try to dominate the world by wiping out their creators. Android Apocalypse isn’t a lot different. Created from the biological makeup of real humans, the androids in Apocalypse are more human than your average metal-and-wire machines – they can defend themselves and register pain, amongst other human-like traits.

When Jute (Scott Bairstow) accidentally “murders” a skilled fighting android, he becomes an outlaw and is detained as a specimen for future robot experiments. En route to the prison camp with other outlaws and shackled to an android, their transport is attacked by “stray” machines terrorising the wastelands through which they are passing. Both Jute and the android DeeCee are then forced to get along in order to survive.

As you can imagine, both man and machine develop a friendship of sorts. Both must learn to trust one another and that leads eventually to friendship-related themes such as betrayals and sacrifices. Although the plot is predictable to say the least, the chemistry between Joseph Lawrence as android and Scott Bairstow as human criminal is something worth watching. With similar facial features, the two almost resemble clones – one destined to absorb the life of the other. Instead though, both are united by their determination to survive, leading to the planned destruction of the perfect new-generation robots, of which DeeCee is considered “defective” and must be destroyed.

Joseph Lawrence puts on a brilliant performance as DeeCee the defective android. His actions are detailed down to the fluid movements of a newly-reset machine and the sudden twitches of electrical faults so you really find yourself struggling to believe that he isn’t just a puppet but an actor. However, the main thing that disappoints in the movie is its plot – there are more holes in the story than you can find in a block of cheese. You won’t ever find out the details of the biological engineering of the robots, explanations are brief and illogical, and you will never get the deal behind the insane creator of the androids (If he’s human, why create a race to wipe his own race out? If he’s android, who created him? If he’s a mixture of both, when and why did he experiment on himself?).

A promising film that sadly ends on an anti-climax, you’ll need to watch it with low expectations to be impressed. It’s also a Sci-fi television-to-DVD release, so don’t go expecting an epic.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Chaos

This may seem like a total rip-off of Inside Man, but don’t be fooled by its later release – the film has been sitting on the shelf after being filmed two years earlier.

Chaos stars two very prominent leading men – Jason Statham and Ryan Phillippe. This is an action movie as well as a ‘good cop bad cop’ film, though be thankful it doesn’t involve bigger masterminds like those in The Departed, where crime lords murder and bribe to get their way past state-of-the-art security. The CIA and FBI aren’t involved (though the SWAT are), and the crime committed is purely one of greed, straightforward in terms of its goal (money) and sweet in its execution (revenge). It’s not hilarious the way Starksy and Hutch can’t quite take itself seriously, nor is it a parody of cop films (Hot Fuzz). Chaos is about a simple bank robbery with a twist ending, predictable depending on your expertise and exposure to cop films.

Perhaps you’ve already dismissed the title as the reaction to the robbery – chaos is almost always the response whenever someone starts waving a gun about, but the story apparently isn’t that simple. This is where the film gets overambitious – by trying to relate to the ever-intriguing Chaos Theory where seemingly random events take place, only to form a pattern afterwards. It does give the film an air of mystery, but at the same time raising chances of disappointing its viewers, which it kind of does.

Chaos is engaging the way every detective film is – it’s hard to tear your eyes away from the screen when a crime is being solved, but this film introduces too many characters to be understood fully. It’s easy to get lost in the whirlpool of similarly-spelt names, never mind the brief glances of characters’ faces too short for anyone to be recognised.

Polished but watchable, Chaos is worth the DVD rent.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Are We Done Yet?

You can almost imagine the writers trying to convince each other how stupid children are while they were coming up with a plot for the sequel to Are We There Yet?. After all, children are too dumb to tell the difference between a good film and a bad one, no? Sure, the film makes a great family flick with its perfectly family-orientated themes, nonviolence and language, but why complain when kids turn out dumber than they are as a result of such a dose of stupidity?Here, Nick (Ice Cube) marries Suzanne (Nia Long) and on an impulse to get a “dream home”, he whisks his step-family from the city to the country where land is abundant and houses are huge. The children start whining about having to leave their friends, though Daddy is deaf to their pleas. Everyone gets pissed, but they eventually roll themselves in happy dust and are friends again. Yawn.

Overspilling with mundane slapstick humour and recycled jokes, Are We Done Yet? is as enjoyable as a jab in the eye by a scorching iron rod. The film is jam-packed with gags at the expense of the blind, clumsy and eccentric as renovations of Nick’s house leads to chaos and a near break-up of the family. If plot meant “falling as many times as possible while building a house”, the film wouldn’t be the comedy it is in reality where falling through a roof can be fatal. And if you thought this was bad, wait till you find yourself face-to-face with Chuck (John C. McGinley), who plays multiple roles and a Jack of all trades in the movie not unlike in Norbit. It really is the kind of humour that serves the budget of the film well. Hell, there are even cute talking animals!

Are We Done Yet? sits alongside poorly made comedies like Norbit, The Pink Panther and Epic Movie. Unfunny and unimaginative, the movie is a predictable, bumbling mess not worth the rental. For that matter, never has there been a movie so well-titled.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Wind Chill

“There are worse things than dying”…like dead policemen! The concept of Wind Chill isn’t that different from those in Red Eye, Phone Booth and even Snakes On A Plane – confined and isolated in a small space, desperate characters do everything they can to stay alive, be it outwitting, attacking or distracting the bad guys.

Two Portland college students with contrasting personalities and opposite social status share a ride home but are stranded after a collision with another mysterious car on Route 606. Stuck in a snow drift with nothing to eat and barely enough to keep warm, the two fall prey to spirits of the dead on the same lonely stretch of road. As you can imagine with two teenagers at such close proximity, the two forge a relationship amid a life-or-death situation.

Unlike true-blue horror films, Wind Chill comprises of elements from psychological thrillers and suspense movies. Instead of resorting to jump cuts where pale, scary faces appear without reason or warning, the movie milks the dread before each potential scare with lengthened silences and creepy scores. Wind Chill is admittedly different and doesn’t deliver the “horror punch” with its lengthy dialogue compared to an average horror flick. Annoying though are the “dream within a dream” sequences – not the easiest of things to follow in a movie that walks on the thin line between the living and the dead.

What is most enjoyable about the movie is the blooming relationship between the two socially contrasting leads as the film progresses. It brings to mind the question of cooperation and tolerance between two different people when faced with a crisis – are they to cooperate in the fight for survival, or should one betray the other in an act of selfishness to be the sole survivor? As the two leads are confronted by spirits on the isolated stretch of road in the mist of an approaching snowstorm, audiences are forced to face their fears of the unyielding cold, the supernatural, strangers, and the paranoia of being in an unknown territory.

In fact, thrown into an impossible situation as this, both the characters never learn of each others’ names.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: The First Emperor

The First Emperor reuses some of the talented geniuses such as renowned director Zhang Yimou and Academy Award winner Tan Dun from films like Curse of the Golden Flower and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

First Emperor is based on real life emperor Qin Shi Huang, known for uniting China with force and erecting a portion of the Great Wall. The opera is split into two acts, Shadow and Anthem, and is centered around the conflicts between three main characters: the Emperor, his crippled daughter Princess Yueyang, and his childhood friend Gao Jianli, whom he tries persuading throughout the acts to compose an anthem glorifying his mighty and powerful empire. The story is a lot more grounded in history and is therefore darker and a tad more sensual than the imaginative but fictitious Metropolitan Opera Magic Flute.

Emperor sings a different tune compared to the visually stunning Magic Flute, as composer and conductor Tan Dun puts his music genius to use by meshing the distinctive traits of Chinese and Western opera. The haunting chords of harps, gu zhens and even rocks rubbing together is bound to wow the audience with simple but harmonious melodies. While musically impressive in its East meets West compilation of tunes and instruments, Emperor loses out visually due to its uninteresting sets. There’s a noticeable difference between the joyous and colourful costumes in Magic Flute and its contrast to the duller-coloured Emperor, where red, gold, black, white and grey seem to be the only choice for both set decoration and costumes. The only interesting set up in Emperor is perhaps the never ending stadium-like arrangement of Emperor Qin’s (Placido Domingo) soldiers in the background, providing a lively backdrop to the otherwise boring and propless scenes.

A live recording of the opera, the camera once again takes audiences closer to the actors on the stage through zoom-ins and close-ups. The camera doesn’t quite explore the stage angles though, so viewers are stuck at fixed positions and forced to view the specific footage – unfair to those craving for reaction shots. It’s a performance that entertains rather than engages, no thanks to the restricted camera angles. Sound-wise, the microphones do perform up to standard in terms of sensitivity, perhaps too perfect since it also captures the fidgeting and coughing of the live audience, and even the actor’s cues!

At almost 190 minutes long, the opera is interrupted in between the two acts by an intermission, during which screen audiences are taken behind the scenes of the live performance, as well as before-performance preparations where we get to witness the actors donning costumes, make-up, and rehearsing. It even goes as far back as the composing stages of the opera where composer Tan Dun basically mixes and matches lyrics, pitch, tune and beats. Viewers are also treated to a short interview with Plácido Domingo, the man behind Emperor Qin, though I personally feel the conversation lacks substance, not helped by the interruptive host.

Sung in English with English subtitles, this gargantuan production serves as icing on the cake for opera fans. If you aren’t impressed visually, you’ll certainly be by its unusual music compilation.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: The Reaping

Imagine dismissing this film as B-grade trash. After all, everything about the cover art screams “Cheap horror thrills”; the font, the swamp of locusts, even the tagline. Suddenly, you find yourself doing a double take because, hey, isn’t that Hilary Swank on the cover? And didn’t Hilary Swank, like, win two Oscars? You pick the DVD up, inspect it, and think, “What the hell, it’s Hilary Swank and that girl from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. No harm watching something that looks promising.” After all, it’s a gamble between Swank bending low to get her paycheck, and a really good movie with a budget big enough to accommodate recognisable stars.

The movie is a suspense thriller based on the 10 Biblical Plagues of Egypt set in the present world. Relying mostly on the strange phenomenal events occurring in the film to engage its viewers, The Reaping can’t exactly be classified as a cheesy and predictable B-grade horror film. Depending on your knowledge of the Bible, the ten plagues will amaze you by keeping you on the edge of your seat anticipating the next plague. It’s not a whole yard different from the thrills of Jumanji, where the audience is captivated entirely by whatever is going to appear from the enchanted board game. As part of the ten plagues, there are instances of locusts attacks, dead frogs, bloodied rivers, unidentified diseases, flies et cetera et cetera. It’s weirdly horrifying, to say the least.

As an investigative scholar, Katherine Winter (Hilary Swank), together with assistant Ben (Idris Elba), then goes to the apparent “cursed” town to set things right with scientific facts and figures. At first everything seems explainable when Katherine discovers an illegal stash of toxic waste in an underground oil well, but as coincidence heap upon coincidence, Katherine is forced to question her faith in science and logic. The film is quite subtle in its “screw logic, miracles are real” message, though ironically it takes a scripted movie to bring across “proof” of God’s existence.

The Reaping doesn’t quite impress as a horror flick, though the suspense in the film is quite something. Up and coming child actress AnnaSophia does a splendid job as the mysterious, aura-shrouded McConnell kid on suspicion for the murder of her brother, and even somehow overshadows Swank for her age. This certainly is worth the DVD rental, though not so much the DVD purchase.

(First published at InCinemas)