Hiatus.

I’m going on a break. No more reviews until I can watch movies again without being reminded of my job. Or ex-job. Which, did I mention, I left with utmost glee? I won’t start bitching about it, and I never thought I’d live to see the day that has me saying “OMFG Halp!” from an overload of movies, but yeah, there can be too much of a good thing.

I may occasionally return to upload super short rants about movies, but without the free screenings anymore you can expect reviews to slow to a trickle. I will also be busy with school, so that’s that.

Go read the archives or something. But just so you know, I appreciate you reading the stuff I write.

Movie Review: Push

If superpowers made you look this stupid, why keep 'em?

Let’s see. There are Watchers, Pushers, Movers, Jumpers… wait, wrong movie sorry! You get the idea though. Add an “er” to any verb, and it becomes a superpower! Like Jumper, Push makes a great film, if you’re easily wowed by cool effects and flying debris.

The film is narrated by Dakota Fanning, who also stars in the movie donning a trainer-class street prostitute outfit. The opening narration is a lazy way of providing us a backstory, though it seems the lesser of two devils when you’re paying to see the action. Less talky-talky, more beaty-beaty, right? Assuming you don’t care for plot and character development, Push has a couple of cool scenes, my personal favourites the one with Nick (Chris Evans) subtly levitating two guns above his negotiators’ heads, and Kira (Camilla Belle) mind-controlling enemy soldiers in the final battle. Notice the two scenes don’t call for exploding buildings or attention like that – and both of them make good use of their respective characters’ powers.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First you would need to know about the plot, and I suggest reading at least a synopsis before entering the cinema, because Push is impossible to follow (maybe I just didn’t try hard enough). In any case, the screenplay seems to have been written with action sequences as its priority, so any dialogue or plot point would ultimately result in a spectacular showdown of superpowers between the good and bad guys.

Here’s what I got from watching the movie: Nick (a Mover), and Cassie (a Watcher) have to race against time to find a briefcase containing a steroid-type drug capable of enhancing one’s powers before it falls into the wrong hands. To put it simply, they have to find a woman – also the sole survivor of the injection – who knows where the briefcase is, before The Organisation Who Came Up With The Drug and A Hong Kong Triad does.

Speaking of the Hong Kong Triad, almost the entire movie is set in Hong Kong, in what I assume must be an attempt to look “oriental”. By the way, look out for two Screamers in the triad, they’re ridiculously hilarious in an almost painful way. I’m sure they aren’t called Screamers, but hey, that’s what they do – scream until your ears pop, literally.

Like I mentioned, Push’s motivated by its action – which in turn is dependent on a large amount of special effects. Don’t expect a coherent story, or even coherent editing. It’s a popcorn flick through and through, though not a very good one.

(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: Red Cliff 2

Takeshi Kaneshiro returns with his Feathered Fan of Wisdom!

Quick recap: In Red Cliff Part I, Prime Minister Cao Cao bullied the Emperor into letting him command the Imperial Army, after which he used to wage war on warlords Liu Bei and Sun Quan in Southern China. Liu Bei, together with his army and remaining civilians, fled with the aid of  Zhang Fei, his sworn brother. They make plenty of alliances along the way, and this is my shortcut to saying “screw the names, just know that the bad guy is Cao Cao”. The allies work together in perfect synchrony to oppose Cao Cao’s bigger (and dumber) army, in ways that will make you smirk at Cao’s piss poor foresight and over-confidence. The first movie ended with Takeshi sending out a dove all Noah-like, Shangxiang (Zhao Wei) disguised as a soldier riding out to battle, and a fancy football game better left forgotten.

This year, they’re back with an even bigger bag of tricks, turtle and whatnot, up their sleeves. Woo also has a bigger challenge to meet: the expectations of those who’ve seen Part I. Part II, fortunately, is just as hilariously cheeky, unless, of course, you’re Cao Cao. And this time, the girls join in the fray too. We see Shangxiang going undercover and infiltrating Cao’s army within the first twenty minutes of the film, and it’s not long before you start worrying about whether or not she’ll get caught. In this way, Part II quickly slides from being cheeky to worrisome to pure warring carnage. While it was mostly fun and games in Part I, Part II takes casualties. It does not matter that director John Woo seems to be rooting for the good guys – as arrows whistle through the sky, I actually felt worried for Liu Bei and co.

As before, the chemistry of the star-studded cast makes a good viewing reason, the way you expect to be entertained by Danny Ocean and his band of thieves. Watch this with a friend – you’ll have fun second guessing what characters are thinking, and who will end up being cannon fodder.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Bedtime Stories

"Aren't I funny!? Aren't I funny!!?"

Adam Sandler should never be allowed near kids (or any kind of comedy, actually). The amount of sexual innuendos he’s capable of exuding have a morally corrosive effect, so what the hell were they thinking casting him in a movie for children? I know the guy has to put food on his table, but why couldn’t he do something like, oh, another romance comedy, where you know, sexual innuendos can be forgiven?

Before you jump all in to get a ticket, convinced this movie is a fantasy affair, say, something like Enchanted, I should warn you it isn’t. Sure, Adam Sandler reads a bedtime story to the kids, and the next day it comes true! This is all very well and fairytale-ish, until you find out that when they mean “coming true”, they really meant “something similar happens in real life, kinda like a coincidence”. At no point in time does Sandler get transported to an alternate fantasy existence, nor does he have to fight real dwarfs and elves. Having being pampered by the likes of Narnia movies, I doubt anyone’s going to cheer when they find out the “fantasy” bits are more narrative imagination at work than actual magical occurrences. Do I sound horribly bitter? I should, considering how the trailer was obviously edited to cash in on its “fantasy” factor. No.

This disease of a film also takes forever to get to the point, while everyone else sits in uncomfortable silence, waiting for something actually resembling fantasy to happen. If the idea of a poorly computer-generated golfball-eyed guinea pig doesn’t appeal as a joke, the whole movie probably won’t. Its over-dependency on slapstick is a cheap shot at making the younger audience laugh, but really, no kid should be subjected to such last resorts. Did I also mention the whole story-coming-true plot sounds suspiciously similar to make me double-take at the synopsis of Inkheart? Even then, at least Brendan Fraser is capable of holding up a joke.

When all is over and done, Bedtime Stories becomes yet another Adam Sandler vehicle, green-lit just to humour the actor (and his fans). Low-grade entertainment for the kids, I suggest watching Nanny McPhee instead.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Hancock

Irony? I has it.

For those who would much rather watch Will Smith being a badass than a struggling, sweet guy (ahem, The Pursuit Of Happyness), Hancock shouldn’t be a hard to swallow performance. I personally am never convinced by the guy’s teary gazes, so what are you saying again? He’s going to be a drunk superhero? Bring it on, I say. There can’t be a better time to mock superheros than the present.

And Hancock more than knows how to milk the wholly inappropriate antics of its lead. Oh, Spider-Man may have thrown a temper or two after his girlfriend left him, but Hancock takes you to a new level of irresponsibility by making alcohol consumption the perfect lifestyle for a superhero. After all, it’s not like they’re going to get liver cancer. And you know what is the best part? He’s got amnesia, too, so there’s no backstory to be force fed before things actually begin. It is perfectly fine to watch Hancock without having to worry about whether or not you’ve read the comic when you were 12.

The gist of the story is easy to get – nobody likes Hancock, not even the kids, because like a true drunk, his rescue operations always leaves ten times the carnage. It addresses two main things other superhero movies don’t: consequences, and whether or not people endowed with super powers are above the law. And if they aren’t, how exactly to you put them in confinement without them breaking out and possibly dismantling the entire facility?

But things thankfully don’t happen that way, not really. When Hancock saves Ray,  a not very successful public relations professional from a train collision, the latter is so grateful to be alive he immediately takes it into his hand to help Hancock with his reputation. How it progresses takes up a huge part in providing comic relief. And because Hancock is unfamiliar ground for comic book fanboys, the twist ending can come across both a good and a disappointing ending, depending on your definition of “WTF”.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Ip Man

If you aren’t a martial arts guru, chances are you, like me, went around pronouncing the title as “I.P. Man” for a good number of days. What? I.P Man sounds like it could be a cool title. Like uh, “Babylon A.D”. So good job to the person who had the good sense and foresight to put “eep-mun” on the posters! And if my display of ignorance hasn’t scared you off yet, I’m now about to leave you smacking your forehead with the next few paragraphs I’m going to pass off as a review.

The movie is gorgeous. So gorgeous I had to italic the adjective. So gorgeous I’m here reduced to ranting about how good-looking it is. Ip Man, as fans of the genre and sport will tell you, is none other than the kung fu master of Bruce Lee. Did you digest that properly? He is the master of Bruce Lee. The man who taught his moves to a legend. Ip Man is his silver screen biography, set in China between the 1930s and 1940s. Disrupted by the Second Sino-Japanese War, the movie gracefully puts into action the similar values shared by fellow enslaved countrymen and martial artists. Valor, honor, bravery, you know the drill. But who cares, it’s the fight scenes you’re after. And they are freaking good, which I’ve already mentioned.

What tops this is the pacing and direction of the film. Because the real Ip Man didn’t spend every single day of his life fighting evil dudes, the plot we’re talking about does not involve random baddies throwing themselves at him. Now, this is already a first step away from your adrenaline-type martial art movies, but Ip Man handles it well like a perfectly oiled machine. The movie moves along like some honorable master of its craft, easing into the action-y bits but never picking a fight it doesn’t require. So all the fight sequences you get to see mean something, and obvious and admirable effort have gone into choreographing and capturing each move. Japanese kung-fu, Wing Chun or boxing, Ip Man shows them off equally lethally. The tough part: pretending Donnie Yen’s Ip Man. Not that his performance is a disgrace or anything, it’s just… it’s Donnie Yen! It’s the same way nobody would believe Will Smith as a doctor, because he’s Will Smith.

Unlike the promise you get from Tony Jaa’s movies (No stunt doubles, no computer graphics, no strings attached!), there’ll be moments where you’d be left puzzled and suspicious of the art’s seemingly godly strikes. I’m not quite convinced the rapid punching wasn’t the result of fast-forwarding, myself. Nevertheless, this is good stuff, enough to take your adrenaline rushes for a walk before Ong Bak 2 knees us between the eyeballs next year, anyway.

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Yes Man

Rubberface is back. Sorta.

You know, I was really skeptical about what Yes Man had to offer after watching the trailer. All at once Jim Carrey appears and contorts his face, and I’m not going to lie to you – his face freaks me out. I know some people find it funny, but his expressions and the lengths he’ll go to make himself grotesque… it’s disconcerting. The way clowns are supposed to be funny, except they’re not? The other thing you can gather from the trailer is that he’s a Yes Man. It literally means he’s going to agree to every damn thing that comes along his way, and give it no further thought. (And this is supposed to be some self-help thing to battle all the negativity that comes from saying “no”. Which, according to the movie, equates to missing out on opportunities and having no life.)

It’s not difficult to tell the only humour that can come out from such a plot are the kind of questions he has to say yes to, and all the weird, freaky situations he would eventually land himself in, which – bingo! – was exactly how the movie played out. Add the supposedly comical faces, and you’ve got yourself another Jim Carrey movie – funny, but unmemorable.

(First published at InCinemas)

Lists for 2008

The end is near, folks! Which means this is the perfect time to do up a list of the good stuff that happened this year, and what to look forward to in 2009. And since we’re calling ourselves your one-stop movie portal, here’s a quick look at the movies we liked, didn’t like, and thought could’ve done better. And just for the heck of it, we’ve included a list of what to look out for in 2009, so you won’t be stumbling around in your office or whatever, depressed because no one told you John Woo was coming back to blast people up. 

But first, here’s our pick for the most collectable DVDs released this year. We know quantity isn’t quality, but sometimes it’s about getting what you pay for, right? Okay, kidding. We really did like the extras. A majority of those that made it to the list were good either because the extras focused on the important, or won us over with their sheer list of features. If they fall into neither category, they’re in the list because the feature film itself is worth re-watching on DVD again.

Top 12 Most Collectable DVDs of 2008

1. Wall-E (2-Disc Special Edition)
2. The Nightmare Before Christmas (2-Disc Collector’s Edition)
3. The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2-Disc Collector’s Edition)
4. Iron Man (2-Disc Collector’s Edition)
5. Hellboy 2: The Golden Army  
6. The Dark Knight (2-Disc Special Edition)
7. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (Two-Disc Special Collector’s Edition)
8. Horton
9. Kung Fu Panda 
10. Hancock (2-Disc Unrated Special Edition)
11. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (2-Disc Collector’s Edition)
12. Beowulf (2-Disc Special Edition Director’s Cut)

But just because someone behind-the-scenes knew enough on how to spice up a DVD doesn’t mean the film itself is good (though most of the time they tend to be). All good films have one thing in common: a good story. Not great computer graphics, not daring stunts, not pretty people in pretty roles. Sure, those help, and a good dose of humour certainly will point you in the right direction, but a good story’s hard to forget. So, ladies and gentlemen, we’re sure you’ve read this before somewhere, but the top spot in this category goes to the only people who can be trusted to tell a good story: Pixar. Yes, Wall-E will get the recognition it deserves, and then some.

And just in case there ever comes a time when you’ve gotten tired of watching one robot grasp the hands of another, here’s the complete list:

Top 10 Movies of 2008

1. Wall-E
2. The Dark Knight
3. Black Book
4. Cape No. 7
5. Iron Man
6. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
7. Rabbit Without Ears
8. Tropic Thunder
9. Red Cliff 
10. [Rec]

Unfortunately, for every winner there’s always a bazillion losers trailing behind. Some have been lucky enough to be completely wiped off the memories of their audiences, others… well, are not as fortunate. We’re not saying the following list were awful to sit through, but you have to admit they didn’t quite live up to their hype at all. Indiana Jones, for instance, will always be taunted as the dude who hid out in a refrigerator to escape a nuclear blast.

Just saying.

Top 5 Most Disappointing Movies of 2008

1. Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
2. Quantum Of Solace
3. Twilight
4. The Incredible Hulk
5. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

So, what next? What to watch out for next year is next. My personal favourite? The sixth installment of Harry Potter. Did admitting that just void my nominations for the last three categories? Oops.

10 Films To Look Forward To In 2009

1. Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince
2. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
3. Red Cliff II
4. Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs
5. Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
6. Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans
7. G.I. Joe: Rise Of Cobra
8. Dragonball Evolution
9. Angel & Demons
10. Terminator Salvation

(First published at InCinemas)

Movie Review: Pride And Glory

"Tell me motherfucker why'd you signed on to do this cocksucker of a cop story."

Let’s get to the point here: Pride And Glory isn’t perfect. It has a good-cop-bad-cop storyline that frankly, I think we’re all tired of. It has more f-bombs than actual dialogue, employed the shaky-cam technique before someone thought better of it and abandoned it one-quarter into the movie, and altogether felt tired and recycled. But yet it also stars two very entertaining actors you won’t mind paying to watch read a phonebook. I’m quite willing to bet that you, dear reader, got suckered into watching this (or are intending to watch this) because of either Farrell or Norton. I’ll tell you I did as well.

Thirty minutes into the movie I began to speculate the kind of bribes the casting agency must have handed out to this star-studded cast to have their names on the credits.

And that’s exactly what happened: most of the supporting cast really did just have their names appear on the credits, after popping in and out of scenes once or twice. And there are so many of them you feel hustled by their sudden appearances. Characters are brought in long enough for them to provide some sort of “inside information”, before having their brains blown out against windows. No time to feel sympathy there, let’s kill someone else!

Rather than feeling resentment or empathy for anyone, you’ll more likely spend the 130 minutes going, “Wait, who?” Street Kings had the annoying habit of yelling lines out, and Pride And Glory decided to go with mumbling. That is, except Norton, whom I seriously love for enunciating his lines, and keeping f-bombs at bay, scripted or improvised. I’ll tell you the only times I understood completely what was happening was when he was part of the shot.

Pride And Glory is riddled by plot holes, questionable scenes, weak lines, and should have gone through a few more rewrites. The cast were decent given what they had to work with, but it could have been so, so much better.

Oh, and if you’re frustrated from having trouble understanding the dialogue, there aren’t any subtitles (no, not even in Mandarin). That’s still pretty acceptable – except you also don’t get any translations when the gang lords are all throwing hissy fits in Spanish.

(First published at InCinemas)