My Valentine this year? Snow Queen Elsa of Arendelle.

So it was Valentine’s Day a few hours back, which coincided with the Chinese equivalent according to the lunar calendar. Big deal for some, not so for others.  As for me, today itself was not really special; some of the days before were. And a few days of last week as well.

As most people would, I enjoy going to the cinema with friends. I also enjoy going to the cinema alone, more so than I enjoy going with friends, in fact. This is because I get to watch what I want, (almost) when I want without needing to worry if someone has already watched something. And, if I feel like it, I can watch it again, without guilt-tripping my friends who wouldn’t want to watch something that someone has already watched, even if said someone does not mind – or even actually wants to be – watching it again. So, in light of this, I, Ian Chee, will, for the first time, be doing a brief movie review on a few movies I’ve watched recently. So here they are, in no particular order other than the bad ones first before the good ones (except for the last one, which was kept last for a few reasons). Oh, and spoiler alert. Most can’t be helped because when the shitty bit is the story, it’s difficult to complain about it without mentioning it.

First is ‘I, Frankenstein’. This was one which I looked forward to watching, but left me with mixed feelings as I left the cinema. The movie starts off pretty much where the original novel ended, with some changes. Victor Frankenstein tried to kill his monster, Adam. Adam was not happy, came back, killed Victor’s wife. Victor was not happy, proceeded to hunt Adam. Adam escapes to the cold north; Victor pursues but dies due to the extreme cold. Then it starts to get a little crazy. Demons show up wanting to capture Adam but were stopped by gargoyles. Gargoyles, of all things.

To see why this is a problem, we first need to know what gargoyles are. Gargoyles are originally ornamental drains used to let water flow out of buildings. Because of their beastly design, they are said to either protect whatever they happen to be guarding (or whatever they happen to be on, essentially) and scare off evil spirits, or are evil spirits themselves. So the guys making the movie must have gone with the first idea and then decided to take it up to eleven by making them the soldiers of the archangel St. Michael.

Then there is a major inconsistency in the plot. Gargoyles can only be killed by soulless beings, like demons and living corpses or zombies like Adam. So at some point Adam manages to kill the gargoyle captain. Then further down the plot it is revealed that demons can only possess soulless beings, such as living corpses or zombies like Adam. But somehow Adam survives a possession unscathed. The transition was never revealed; it just sort of happened.

Then there’s the character himself. Adam starts of like any other abomination; self-aware of his unnatural state of being, socially awkward. Then he suddenly becomes a chatterbox.

Other than that, the plot progression was alright, the fight scenes were not too bad and the CG was actually good. Though for those who have not watched it, I wouldn’t recommend doing so; you’re better off spending your money watching something better, like some others in this list of mine. But before we get to that, let’s get another rubbish show out of the way.

And that rubbish is ‘The Legend of Hercules’. Cheap CG, poor characters (especially the main character), and a very draggy story towards the end. In fact the CG is so poor it looks worse than the worst from Hong Kong, and that’s saying something considering the best of the CG bits in Hong Kong movies look like they’ve been done in under three minutes. Then there’s the cheap soft-core porn scene which was not cut, a rare thing in Malaysian cinema. Maybe this was because the movie was so dreary that the old creeps of the censorship department got sick of watching the whole movie that they missed it, hence why it was not cut out and kept for their own pleasure. Bottom line is, don’t watch. If you get a free ticket then watch if you must (personally, if I got one I would burn it), but don’t ever give it to a friend; the only thing crueller you can do to said friend is give them AIDS.

The next one also left me a bit ambivalent. ‘The Monkey King’. Obviously meant for kids, this is another movie with cheap CG (not surprising this time as it is movie from Hong Kong), slow pace and puppy love. Keeping that in mind, this isn’t all that bad. The only problem is the cast. Donnie Yen as the Monkey King (you wouldn’t be able to tell with all that fur makeup anyway), Chow Yuen Fat as the Jade Emperor and Aaron Kwok as the big baddie. Yes, let that sink in: the stereotypical good-guy character as the big baddie. That said, it wouldn’t be a waste of your money if you do decide to watch it on the big screen, although I do maintain that you can do much better.

Then there’s ‘From Vegas to Macau’, your typical Hong Kong gambling flick. It was entertaining, but saying that it’s good is a bit of a stretch. The story, while respectable, is getting too clichéd and overused, and the plot twists, while you may or may not see them coming, you won’t be surprised they happened either. Then there’s the slightly confusing ending, because while Chow Yuen Fat plays the main character in this, another of his character from the ‘God of Gamblers’ series of movies makes an appearance, namely the God of Gamblers himself. All in all, worth your money, but won’t really blow your mind.

Now we come to the gems of the season. The first is one that I didn’t expect to be this great, considering it’s a Malaysian movie. It’s called ‘The Journey’, and it will probably drive you to tears. The story is about a girl who was sent away to the UK by her father when she was eight, and returns with plans of getting married to her Caucasian boyfriend. Along the way the story presents very relatable dilemmas of the modern day population of young adults, with the main ones being the generation gap between the X and Y generations, their different takes on tradition as well as the cultural differences between East and West and difficulties that arise when they come together. Speaking of the generation gap between X and Y, this movie also highlights the problem of how some old folks, in this day and age, insist on staying inside caves and getting water from a river or well instead of a tap, and how some of their peers have managed to move with the times into a modern world.

This is a story too good to spoil, and is pretty much faultless anyway. The only problem is the female lead. Seeing as the character is one that has been in the UK since she was eight, is it really too much to ask to get an actress that can actually speak English? You don’t need someone with an accent; just someone who speaks English! Someone who doesn’t say ‘troubow’ or ‘respek’ or ‘considellate’ or ‘deaw’ or ‘wif’. I could go on forever.

The point is, the perfect Malaysian production movie is potentially spoiled by their inability to find someone who can speak English instead of Engrish to play the female lead. This gargantuan fly in the ointment aside, this movie is not only perfect for a Malaysian production, it is perfect. Period. Full stop. I would recommend you to watch. I would also recommend you recommend it to others. Especially older folks; they can really learn to deal with modernisation from this movie.

This next one is good and not surprisingly so. It is ‘RoboCop’. Slightly different from the classic RoboCop, which might irk older fans (myself included, even when I’m not that old myself), but otherwise, a good modern take. Not much spoiling here since the plot is largely the same as the classic, albeit with a few twists. Characters were good, iconic lines were said (though sadly, only once), story progresses at a very comfortable pace. Massive man versus machine theme, and on a very personal level. What more can I say? Other than ‘go watch it if you haven’t’ that is. Oh wait, there is something else I can say. There is a making out scene between the main guy and his wife, and the part where he takes her clothes off were cut, eventhough she was in her bra and garters. I speculate that there are two reasons why this was so, first is because it was one of the scenes in the trailer, which was strangely left uncut. The other is that the old creeps from the censorship department saw this and decided that it wasn't an appropriate scene for the adult (18 years and older) viewing public, eventhough stark nudity in 'The Legend of Hercules' was. So they cut it out so that they have some fap material when they get home.

Then we have ‘The Lego Movie’, one of the most hyped movies since last year. I went to watch this half expecting to be terribly disappointed, and was pleasantly surprised. The story started off slow, but as soon as it reached the first main plot device, progression became fast in a comfortable and not-too-rushed way. There are some pop culture references as well as multiple cheesy clichés but they all add to the comedic atmosphere of the movie, which is pretty much the opposite of what most clichés do. I won’t mention the main theme as it is a very big part of the story, but I will say this: it is similar to that of ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’. This is one I highly recommend to watch, but I must warn you that if you choose to bring friends or any other company with you, please make sure you don’t bring someone that has been living under a rock. While you don’t need to be living in the internet to get the pop culture jokes and references, not getting them really kills the vibe, even if they are few and far in between.

And finally we have ‘Frozen’, the bombshell of bombshells.

Before I continue I need to elaborate on a fact. As far as I can recall, there have only been two movies before ‘Frozen’ which I have actually watched twice on the big screen, even though many, many others were also worthy of another big screen viewing. One was ‘Pacific Rim’, which the second time I watched with a friend because he hadn’t watched it and I offered to go with him because it’s that good (and he wasn’t aware of the fact that I’ve seen the movie). The other was ‘Rurouni Kenshin’, which, incidentally, was aired in cinemas beginning Valentine’s Day 2013. I watched both times alone, mostly out of nostalgia, but also because it was just such a damn good movie. The only problems were the utter destruction of Han’nya and my favourite character, Saito Hajime being quite untrue to the original. ‘Frozen’ is the first movie that I watched twice in the cinema alone for different reasons; the first time for the story and the second for the sake of seeing a single character.

As is the way of Disney, ‘Frozen’ was based on ‘The Snow Queen’, with the typical Disney adaptations which results in the very dark original story turning into a very cheesy and clichéd happy lovey-dovey ending; the same thing happened when Disney decided they wanted to retell the story of ‘The Sleeping Beauty’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’, among others.

Also as is the way of Disney, they make their movies with some of the most extreme polarities, which makes me hesitant to watch some and generally leaves that ambivalent aftertaste. Some of their movies, like the first ‘The Lion King’, ‘Beauty and the Beast’ and ‘Mulan’ are great, while some others like (in my opinion) their version of ‘The Princess and the Frog’ and subsequent ‘The Lion King’s are so bad it’s an insult to the properly bad things like the Black Death and the Holocaust. ‘Frozen’ sits comfortably with the former bunch, but for different reasons.

Allow me to elaborate. The first ‘The Lion King’ was good because it is basically an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’, so there is very little where they can go wrong. ‘Beauty and the Beast’ was good (to me) because I liked the concept; the Beast as the good guy. Pretty much the same reason why I loved the ‘Devil May Cry’ series of games, excluding that ‘Dipshit may Crap’ by Ninja Theory. ‘Mulan’ was good because, for the first time, we have a Disney Princess who didn’t sit on her arse for the entirety of the movie. Quite the contrary, in fact; she fought throughout pretending to be a guy (feminism right there, ladies and gentlemen). ‘Frozen’, on the other hand, is good because it somewhat breaks Disney’s tradition of cheesy lovey-dovey clichés while still ending on a happy note. How it breaks the tradition, you ask? Go find out yourself. There are two to look out for, the first of which was viral on the internet at some point. The only problem with it was their choice of main character. Watch the movie and it will be instantly obvious what I mean, and I’m not alone with this opinion.

So there you are. A movie which I watched a second time on the big screen (forking out money unnecessarily) just because one of the characters was so perfect. Perfect looks, perfect character growth (but unfortunately not explored in enough depth because she’s not the main character), perfect voice. And yes, it’s a she.

And on that bombshell of bombshells, adieu to y’all.