Movie Review: Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li

If Gore Verbinski can make a movie franchise out of a theme park ride, anyone can make a movie about a video game, right?

Wrong!

Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li is, to put it kindly, trash. The CGI’s nothing to brag of, unless you’re from the 60s and easily awed by shiny little energy balls. The acting is a downright pain to watch, unless you find characters deadpanning their lines an art form. It’s actually kind of scary to know that a trash compactor has a wider emotional range than a bunch of actors. 

What is up with the excessive multi-racial casting anyway? Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li might as well be a comedy, starring Kreuk’s Mandarin as the lead.

Oh yeah, Kreuk looks fit, but so what? Did you pay nine bucks to see her on wires, assisted by special effects, whopping ass? There’s a reason why Angelina Jolie exists, and even she does those flying things with style. Not Kreuk. Kreuk looks like she’s about to get strangled by safety wires any minute.

Look, the fights weren’t even great. Why not rent a DVD starring Jackie Chan, Jet Li, or Tony Jaa? I’m no martial arts movie expert, but excessive slow-mos, blurring, close-ups and sped up scenes can’t be too much fun. Kudos to the choreographers, they managed to make fighting as exciting as a trip across the living room.

Don’t even get me started on the “plot”.

(First published at InCinemas)

81st Academy Awards Two Cents

Now that I’ve been fed and watered for lunch, it’s time to get talking about the Oscars. Because, like, my opinion matters.

The parody of Joaquin Phoenix was uncalled for.

It was mean, unfunny, and uncomfortable, and don’t say I don’t have a sense of humour. I couldn’t make out who it was behind all that fake beard, but I’ve a nagging suspicion it was Ben Stiller. Correct me if I’m wrong. Whatever the case – and I’m not being a preacher of good morals here – I did not appreciate the jabs made at the expense of a guy who may or may not be on drugs/possessed/insane. I mean, I thought it crossed the line.

On a lighter note: WTF, Hugh Jackman?!?! I don’t know if “LOL” would be an appropriate response since I’ve known the actor to be cool, and er, Wolverine-ish, so ripping away his sideburns and having him sing and dance looks a little funny to me. I still can’t figure if this is a good or a bad thing, though I do know he is one brave man capable of making a fool out of himself. I mean, I haven’t had much exposure to Jackman’s work, other than the X-men movies.

Another highlight: James Franco ought to do hippie roles forever, period. I don’t think I can get tired of watching him in high “cocaine-snorter” mode. I enjoyed the entire segment with him and Seth Rogen, and that is a joke you laugh with, people. Not insensitive imitations of someone who may or may not be on drugs/possessed/insane. I mean, is Franco’s “I’m high” laughter contagious, or what?

As for my hardest-to-predict category, I’d say it was for Best Achievement in Sound Editing. Its nominees were Iron Man, Slumdog Millionaire, WALL-E, Wanted and The Dark Knight, and frankly I thought all of them were pretty good contenders. Perhaps the weakest here is Iron Man. Slumdog Millionaire was unique, WALL-Epractically had to rely on its soundtrack, Wanted was a pretty decent action flick if you ignore the Loom of Fate, and has The Dark Knight not garnered enough praise? It had, in my opinion, the most deserving set of nominees. Also, I don’t think anyone really wanted to hear the same few titles hogging the limelight, so Wanted and Iron Man were good surprises. I’ll tell you a secret: in my universe, Iron Man would fry Batman in a minute, and I’ll tell you why: he makes his own weapons, whereas Batman bullies someone else to do it.

Where was I? Oh, Best Achievement in Sound Editing. Well yes, so in the end Slumdog Millionairewon, and I think the best acceptance speech was made in this category, too:

“This is unbelievable.”

(pause)

“I can’t believe it.”

(pause)

“This is not just a sound award. It’s history handed to me.”

And indeed it is. How many Hindi films can you say swept Oscars?

Last of all: Is it me or does Kate Winslet look like she aged a century over the past few years? I actually felt… alarmed at her wrinkles, I think I kind of went, “Let her win, oh god, she looks so tired and hopeful, come on!” Fine, it was a sympathy thing, but hey, I thought it was time she went home with one. I particularly enjoyed her shampoo bottle speech. It was a simple analogy, but not at all hard to identify with. (“…[during her childhood] this [Oscar] would have been a shampoo bottle. But it’s not a shampoo bottle now.”) 

Powerful.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: College Road Trip

I’ve don’t recall ever hating a movie from the first scene. The irony? I can’t even remember what the first scene was. When a movie is this unpleasant, it’s better to just remember the memory of it being unpleasant, than why.

Story goes like this: Overprotective dad goes to extremities to keep his daughter close to him. When she has to leave for college, he insists on the nearest one, which predictably isn’t her dream school. They agree to go on a “college road trip” across the state (or rather, he FORCES her to go on the trip), and embarrassingly lame and unfunny things happen en route.

Truth be told, I found it disturbing that the dad seemed to get all obsessive about his daughter, yet weirdly unconcerned when his son was found hitching a ride in the boot of the vehicle, where he could easily have suffocated. (Oh yeah, spoilers!) I don’t know, shouldn’t overprotective parents feel the tendency to protect ALL their kids? Are you telling me now that College Road Trip is just a whole sham preaching family values, when it is in fact a subtle brainwashing move by male chauvinists insisting that females can’t look after themselves? Am I reading into this too deeply? Is something so silly capable of being this manipulative? Actually no, I think it just means my fantastic mind is entertaining itself, and I am giving the film way too much credit. Seriously, which dad watches videos of his 6 year old daughter during his free time when he chould be cheating on his wife?

But you know, College Road Trip is a great movie to laugh at and get annoyed with. If you’re having a particularly bad day and wish to vent it all out by rolling your eyes at all the morons around you, College Road Trip is your outlet. It’s so bad it can’t make your day any worse, so if you’ve got to hate something, I say go out there and hate everything worth hating with a vehemence. I.e. this one.

If you’re having a good day, avoid.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Role Models

Because he deserves a whole fucking still to himself.

Vulgar, obscene, a little bit uncomfortable in excess, and nowhere near as funny as how Superbad managed to be. And I’m comparing this to Superbad because Fogell – McLovin’ – ahem, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, is in it. I waited almost twenty minutes before he made an appearance! Have you ever had a geek steal the show? Well, Role Model is his podium.

Call me conservative but I find it highly disconcerting to swear and make blatant sexual references in front of children under the age of 14. It makes me squirm. And wonder things like, “How come their parents allowed them to act in something that requires f-bombs and boob references every line of the script?” The movie didn’t demand the vulgarities, they weren’t very funny to begin with, and could certainly do without them. I’d even say they feel a little forced. There’s female nudity, which… I’m sorry, didn’t make the greatest of sexual jokes. Come to think of it, Role Models is like PG13 pornography.

Sure, some dirty jokes would have been necessary to facilitate the plot (screwed up adults have to serve community service as an alternative to jail whereby they have to interact with kids), but Role Models goes a bit overboard. I can tell you that ironically, my favourite part of the film was a make-believe fantasy war in costumes. See? That part didn’t require much talking, much less swearing.

Know what is more annoying than a moron who uses his handphone inside a cinema? Another moron whose sense of humour is so lacking, he laughs at anything and everything. You want to tell him to shut up, except you can’t. I was distracted by his irksome cackling, and so maintained a straight face throughout the movie, except for the last fifteen minutes when I did grin a little (during the fake battle I was talking about). It probably isn’t the movie’s fault, though this means it wasn’t great enough to make me forget the idiot sitting next to me. A good movie can do that, you know.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Suspect X

How inconvenient is it to accidentally kill someone and having to suffer the consequences? Suspect X is a movie that feeds you most of the big picture, at the same time twisting your mind into pondering over alternate scenarios. It’s also a bit of a love story, and a battle of wits between a Physics genius and a Maths one. It is a lot of things.

Within the first fifteen minutes of the movie, the murder is committed, and it’s no secret who’s guilty of the crime. This is a perspective I can appreciate because a story told from the bad guy’s perspective needs to do double the work to keep its viewers interested, as opposed to say, keeping the identity of the culprit a mystery. Things go down a more complicated path when the murderer’s neighbour and Maths professor, Tetsuya Ishigami, puts two and two together and discovers the crime. But instead of reporting it, he devises a plan with his brilliant mind to cover up the misdeed. It is how he does it and why that keeps a steady flow of mystery to the film. Suspect X unravels like an extremely complicated (but balanced) equation, when police enlist the help of an almost equally brainy Physics professor, Manabu Yukawa. Despite the crime genre, the movie is by no means a “whodunit”.

At 128 minutes, the movie can be a drag at certain points. Pay attention to lingering close-ups in the movie – most of them are vital clues to the final twist in the cover up of the murder. Acting shifts between being mediocre and above average, and I would certainly advise you, the reader, to wait for it to be released on DVD. Not that it’s difficult to understand, just that rewinding and pausing would facilitate a deeper and more thorough “digesting” of plot points. Suspect X is a good movie to guess and speculate along with, it’s like an invitation to challenge one’s ability to think one step ahead of what’s happening on screen. 

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: The Glorious Team Batista

The best way to murder someone is to do it in front of the surgeon! How ingenious, intriguing, and… so totally pointless.

Look, unless you have a grudge to bear against every other patient on the operating table, it’s just going to look silly. One may argue that not everyone has a motive to kill – some are just twisted and sadistic people, but the step-by-step procedures behind closed doors isn’t as scary as say, being trapped in an old abandoned hut with a demented kidnapper. The high risk of failure of a heart operation, surgery jargon be damned, will make a good cover up, but screwing things up without a good motive just takes away some of the kick.

The Glorious Team Batista takes an incredibly long time establishing its surgery cases and processes, and does not justify it with a good enough climax. I won’t say it wasn’t an anti-climax, it’s just not worth the 1.5 hours one has to sit through before getting there. Weirdly the writers seem to think this, since we’re given two unrelated causes for the recent surgery failures (two climaxes for backup, in other words). The movie will rouse your curiosity, but it definitely does not make you want to sit on the edge of your seat. If I had to say something nice, I’d say it was lucky to fall into the genre of a crime mystery. The very nature of crime, particularly murder, is what makes The Glorious Team Batista bearable than it actually is.

(First published at InCinemas)

6 Movies To Consider For Valentine’s Day

Who needs to spend a fortune on gifts you and your special someone probably won’t need? Company beats any kind of present, and while a candlelight dinner may be a good set-up for Valentine’s Day, it’s going to be rather pathetic having to say goodbye right after. The easiest solution is to take your date to a movie, or, if you just feel like spending time indoors, to rent a DVD.

But who says it’s a rule to snuggle up with someone on Valentine’s Day? The following movies are watchable in their own right, and some of them aren’t in-your-face romances, which means they make perfectly good choices for those who’re single.

 

Slumdog Millionaire

It’s interesting that someone raised in a slum would go on to win the full prize money on a popular game show. But aside from the mystery of “how”, a less obvious question would be “why”. Duh, who doesn’t want to get rich, you say. But Jamal isn’t as greedy as us, you see. This lowly, uneducated and humble young adult has bigger fish to fry: his determined search to reunite with his childhood love.

You won’t immediately consider Slumdog Millionaire a romantic movie, and believe me, neither did I – but the lengths Jamal goes to meet his sweetheart is every bit endearing to watch. The romance doesn’t begin to take center stage till the first half of the movie is over, but this minor twist behind Jamal’s motivation to win money on the game show ties the story up extremely well.

Rabbit Without Ears

A reporter is sentenced to 8 months jail, but is released on probation to work 300 hours for a day care… owned by his childhood bullying victim, Anna. That’s a lot of hours to spend with someone who hates you, yet a lot of opportunities to patch things up. It sounds extremely predictable, but it’s the execution that counts. 

The movie is in German and you’ll need subtitles, but this brilliantly written and acted film juggles both romance and comedy without sacrificing one for the other. It’s every bit sweet, cheeky, and realistically painful the way real life relationships always are, and has jokes that don’t line up to insult your intelligence. The movie explores love as seen from the perspective of both sexes, so its good for both the girls and the guys. 

10 Things I Hate About You

If you’re feeling particularly nolstalgic, whether of your teenage years or of Heath Ledger, 10 Things I Hate About You isn’t a bad teen rom-com. It’s mildly sarcastic, yet capable of making you feel all warm and fuzzy inside the way puppy love is supposed to make you feel. I’m quoting this to convince you:

“I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car. I hate it when you stare. I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme. I hate it, I hate the way you’re always right. I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact that you didn’t call. But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.”

Penelope

Don’t we all often dream that others would love us for who we are, not how we look? Well, Penelope tells the story of a girl born with a snout for a nose. Like your typical fairytale, the curse that can only be broken when “a blueblood loves her for who she is”. Penelope has a touch of fantasy with a smart little twist, the perfect choice if you’re not in the mood to watch something that could happen to you. (I meant the snout thing, not the superficial thing.) 

Shanghai Kiss

You probably haven’t heard of this one as it’s a direct to DVD release. Before you brush it off as B-grade, however, Shanghai Kiss is a gem amongst low budget films. It’s a combination of a fish-out-of-water story, and an explorative take of the relationship between an American-born-Chinese man and an upper class teenage girl he meets on the bus. Whilst the girl (played by Hayden Panettiere, might I add) sees him as a potential boyfriend, he treats her both like a daughter and a brother. That’s the kind of dilemma when one looks a lot younger than one really is. Shanghai Kiss tiptoes on the line between platonic friendship and romance, and is really a well-written, biting yet humorous piece of work.

Me…Myself

This Thai romance drama is dramatic indeed – it revolves around a gay male cabaret dancer whose sexual orientation takes a dramatic U-turn after he is hit by a car. The accident robs him of his memory and his identity, leaving him in the care of Oom, the careless driver whose penalty is to nurse him back to health. I won’t question the ways of the Thai officials, but don’t you just love what amnesia does to people in movies? Starring Ananda Everingham (from Thai horror Shutter) as the transvestite who falls for Oom, Me…Myself mixes drama with gender roles in society. This one’s a heart wencher that’ll make you laugh and cry at the same time.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Outlander

One hell of a fun, B-grade monster flick. We don’t see a lot of such movies these days anymore – you know how every monster movie director out there seems to want to be taken seriously, so we have all these shaky-cam nonsense coming out left and right. Well, Outlander goes the medieval, heroic way; there’s no “freak experiment gone wrong”, no “let’s watch this through the eyes of a character literally”,  no “monster created from toxic waste” bullshit, just vicious fantasy creatures and villagers who live by their bows and arrows. It’s the Iron Age, baby, where bravery is might and Vikings run aplenty on Earth. (Don’t expect it to be historically accurate however.)

I kid. It’s not that straightforward. There’s a bit of Science-fiction involved, and I don’t mean just the monster. See, this creature, the Moorwen, crash landed on Earth together with Kainan, the sole survivor of said crash. Kainan is a soldier from a far, far advanced human race from another planet, whose unplanned landing on Earth sets free the Moorwen, whose stealthy presence on the spaceship caused the crash landing in the first place. Kainan is captured by some villagers and imprisoned, until his warning of the Moorwen and its attacks are heeded by the villagers, and the seed of friendship is sown, blah blah. Basically, they need to kill the damn thing, and the only person who has enough experience with it is Kainan.

“But how will we slay something that runs like the wind, jumps like a monkey, and swims like an eel?”

“I don’t know, let’s ask Kainan, he’s the hero! Also, be happy it doesn’t fly.”

Despite its not very extravagant budget, Outlander has decent computer imagery, not a bad story, and a good looking cast. It’s an entertaining way to spend two hours, and is far more enjoyable than Hollywood’s Godzilla and most other monster flicks. It’s a combination of many other monster movies, Beowulf and Reign Of Fire for example. The Iron Age setting is a breath of fresh air from the typical city-invasion type monster flick, so you’ll have fun ogling at olden day swords and shields. Outlander feels like an old friend from a genre somewhat forgotten – just don’t demand too much of its old-fashionedness. 

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: New In Town

Ever watched something you didn’t particularly think was bad, then discovering nobody seemed to really like it? Such situations trigger alarm bells in me, like, “Uh oh, did my sense of humour die on the way to the screening?” Because frankly, New In Town didn’t bother me as it appears to have bothered countless others. I didn’t find it offensive at all, but maybe that’s because I don’t live in Minnesota. New In Town is, at the end of the day, a feel good movie, and feel good movies seldom come without their cliches and stereotypes. Tell me a time when a chick flick didn’t exaggerate the social hierarchy of a school. New In Town is simply a cannon aimed at the town of Minnesota, the way Scottish people were made to look like buffoons in Made Of Honour. It’s potentially offensive and quite inexcusable, but it’s also unfortunately the tried and true method of squeezing out laughter from the audience.

Renee Zellweger stars as Lucy Hill, a businesswoman who has to leave the comforts of her city home to live in a tiny Minnesota town (as part of her business research). She is, very predictably, not used to a life without automatic doors and supermarkets. Employment in town certainly is a contrast from the indifference of the corporate world, where one’s personal affairs are kept away from one’s work duties. New In Town, besides being a feel good movie, is also a fish-out-of-water flick, though unsurprisingly this fish eventually learns to breathe and begins to enjoy her new, cosier environment. When an order from her superiors back home to close the local factory down reaches Lucy, it’s down to her to save the town from mass unemployment. Could a movie be released at a more unfortunate time?

New In Town is no comedy gold, but it isn’t a far cry from feel-good movies starring, say, Catherine Zeta Jones. None of them are memorable, and at the risk of looking like an ignorant moron, I admit some lines made me laugh. This definitely  isn’t the worst out there.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas

Oddly, the last thing you’ll associate the title with is a movie about the Nazis. I know the first thing I thought about when I saw the title was, “ooh, an animation!” Why, I have no idea, though I suspect that has to do with the Pixar short, “Lifted”. You know, the one about an alien trying to abduct a kid who was fast asleep in his pyjamas, the Pixar short they played before Ratatouille? Yeah, that one. My subconsciousness never ceases to amaze me!

You can ignore the fine print, the title even, but the poster art does one hell of a job saying, “This one’s gonna be depressing, folks”. Nothing says foreboding and tragic and touching and sad than an electric fence between two children, sitting and facing each other on opposite sides. Note the angle of the fence – it’s tilted such that the one in his ‘pyjamas’ comes off as captive, while the other, better-dressed kid has his back to what looks like green fields and blue skies. In other words: freedom. The movie then, must be about some great friendship between the two!

It is and it isn’t. The friendship between Bruno (Asa Butterfield) and Shmuel (Jack Scanlon) forms the main frame of the story, but really, it’s much more about Bruno than about “the boy in the striped pyjamas”. Before I lead you into thinking what a horribly misleading title the movie has, notice too that “the boy” doesn’t seem to be referring to anyone in particular. This, I can only come to one brilliant conclusion: It doesn’t matter who this boy is, as long as he’s in a striped pyjamas. This pretty much mirrors the harsh fact of war – it isn’t who you are, but which side you’re on. In this case, every Jew is as evil as the next to a Nazi, to be identified not as individuals, but by their attire, as a collective term. (I trust that by now you’re clear that “pyjamas” really refers to prisoner-attire.) Bruno sees past this through his friendship with Shmuel, and is a better person for it.

In that way, the title may well be one of the best titles ever attached to a movie (and book).

Without regurgitating the synopsis – and I urge you not to read them and to go in ignorant – The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is every bit hot and cold. For every alarming scene, there seems to be something equally moving to contrast it, so by the time the film has run its course, you would’ve felt like you’ve just taken all your emotions on a jog. Wonderfully written, cast and directed, one of my personal favourites is the film’s use of raw silence. Perhaps one day someone would vote for an empty track for Best Original Score at the Oscars, because it really is.

A film about the Nazis and warfare, this movie will take you by surprise in that it doesn’t at all ever wander close to the battleground. You may have watched countless war movies about spies and treachery, about brotherhoods in the army and prisoners banding together for survival, but I know I haven’t seen the impact of war through the eyes of a kid. Bear in mind the film is no history lesson, it’s a personal, innocent and wonderfully bare account of war far away from where the real fighting is. There are no conspiracies, no top-secret bullshit, no need for any background research before watching – The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas is just a frightfully forbidding tale and a must watch.

(First published at InCinemas)