So I’ve watched Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles twice now, the second time unplanned with a bunch of friends. I must say, while it’s not great, it doesn’t quite deserve the flak it gets just because Michael Bay is one of the producers. In fact, compared to all the Transformers movies beyond the first, TMNT is acceptably good. And Shredder actually looks good. Not as good as in the comics and the old TV series cartoons, but at least you get the impression that the people who made the movie knew what they were doing. Unlike the idiots who pissed, spat and shat on the Silver Samurai in the most recent Wolverine movie. And to a lesser extent, Deadpool in X-men Origins: Wolverine.
All that said, TMNT was mediocre, not great, and here’s why. First off, this movie slightly gives the impression of being April O’Neil feat. TMNT rather than TMNT, but it’s not as badly done as Godzilla. Second, Megan Fox who plays April is like Kirsten Stewart Mk. II; you can see more emotion in Shredder’s face than in hers, and that’s saying something, considering you can’t actually see Shredder’s face since his face is always either shrouded in shadow or behind his mengu (mask / face armour).
And since I mentioned Shredder, Shredder’s Japanese is pretty poor, especially considering the fact that he was played by a Japanese Canadian dude. While I’m in no position to criticise grammar or anything of the like, his speech sounds so blocky and awkward, much like Bryan Cranston’s Joseph Brody in Godzilla. In fact, Ken Watanabe speaks more fluent English than Tohoru Masamune – who plays Shredder – speaks Japanese. Not sure if this is true in real life, but as far as the movie is concerned, this is fact. In fact, I would go as far as to say that he speaks English far more fluently than he speaks Japanese, at least in the movie.
And now for spoilers. Early in the movie, April sees a group of vigilantes stopping a Foot Clan robbery. She is later caught and, along with other hostages, were used to threaten the vigilantes to give themselves up. Instead, they show up and save the hostages, but vanish right after. April trails them and manages to snap a photo of the vigilantes, who – surprise, surprise – turn out to be the ninja turtles. They catch her and wipe her phone, but just as they leave she snaps another photo. Then for whatever reason, she fails to produce this photo to convince her boss that this is worthy news material, instead showing her a lot of other nonsense which will obviously seem irrelevant to the person she is trying to convince. She gets fired for being the idiot that she is, but when she goes to talk to Eric Sacks about them, she shows the very photo that could have not only prevented her from losing her job, but also get promoted and freed her from covering fluff that she despises so much. Again I iterate that a movie will never be great if dishonesty and/or stupidity is/are essential to a movie’s plot, and this is one such example. If she wasn’t being deliberately stupid, the plot of the movie will be severely compromised.
Next in the spoilers’ segment we have the blatant disregard of logic, even in a fictitious universe. Three of the turtles are captured by Shredder and Raphael attempts so save them. April injects enough adrenaline to the three captive turtles to the verge of overdose. They then break out, and the four of them proceed to hunt down Shredder. Nothing wrong so far. Soon after they break out, they were shot at by some Foot clan henchmen. Some bullets gets lodged in the shell of the turtles. Then Raphael, the only turtle to not get a near-overdose of adrenaline, goes into a fit of rage, shooting the bullets lodged in his shell out like the shell was some soft tissue. So yes, the question now is why is it so difficult to not let shells behave like an inflatable, or if it absolutely has to be in the movie, at least let that stunt be pulled off by one of the three turtles that actually got the adrenaline overdose? Never mind that Raphael’s shades never fall off his head, even when he is used as catapult projectile.
So that’s TMNT for you. Not as bad as people make it out to be, but it sure as hell won’t blow you away. So it’s quite surprising why it seems to be doing better than Guardians of the Galaxy. I say this simply because, Guardians of the Galaxy is awesome. Like, almost The Lego Movie level of awesome. As far as I’m concerned, there are only two problems with the movie, one of which is Groot. If you can just replant him after he dies, why bother making his self-sacrifice such an emotional experience? I mean yes, that was a very noble act and especially so considering he is the supposed last of his kind, which we all feel for, but when I see a mini Groot in a pot, I feel cheated of my emotions. It’s like feeling pity for a rich person instead of a homeless person when the rich person’s car broke down or something. The second problem is the lack of Richard Rider of the Nova Corps. I mean, you have the Nova Corps, you have Nova Prime, but no Nova? Come on, now.
That said, seeing as Disney does a better job at respecting Marvel than 20th Century Fox (Disney does own Marvel, after all), hopefully the X-men franchise will one day land in Disney’s hands so that we can see a proper Silver Samurai and/or Deadpool in the future. Then again, if stopping 10th Century Fox from shitting on X-men means no more Hugh Jackman as Wolverine or Sir Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier, then I’m not so sure I actually want that anymore.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Friday, August 15, 2014
Monday, August 4, 2014
Gundam Warrior Reborn
Is the reason you see a two-month gap. And I refuse to call it Dynasty Warrior Gundam Reborn because that’s how you wrongly translate the name. Granted, Reborn is also translated wrongly, but since 無双 means warrior, and there is no ‘Dynasty’ in 真・ガンダム無双, I would just call it the way I do, regretting that Tecmo Koei failed on the magnificent wordplay on ‘Shin’, which could also mean ‘new’, hence Reborn.
And the fact that I’ve forgotten some of the movies I’ve watched over the months. A few memorable ones remain in my memory banks, but I have nothing much to say about them anyway.
We start with How to Train Your Dragon 2. It’s good, with an acceptable story, relatively strong finale, but I can’t bring myself to like it for two reasons: first, which is a reason shared with the first movie, is that because I was introduced to Monster Hunter before this, I can’t help but think that the dragons, including the giant in the first and the alphas in the second, were weaker than the weakest Wyverns of the MonHun universe. I especially can’t help but see Toothless as a tamer version of the Nargacuga. The second reason is because Toothless blatantly rips off Godzilla. How? By glowing spines that start from the tail, which leads to more powerful fire breaths.
Then there’s Maleficent. Which is nice, but much less than what I expected. The famed most powerful villain of the Disney world was so…soft, to say the least. In fact, her one act of cruelty was the curse on Aurora. The rest of the movie was showing how she is completely doubtful of the whole thing, her kindness to the one she cursed, and, in my mind, her not killing her crow sidekick for talking back to her the way he did. Then there’s the sentient pair of wings. The last thing that I found to be so disturbing was PlatinumSukamon, so that’s saying something.
For comedy we have A Million Ways to Die in the West. Screw all the naysayers because this is one of the best comedies of the decade for now. One that spits in the face of political correctness and historical accuracy to bring a movie that will make you laugh out loud in the cinema like a mental case, while making you cringe with its comedic cheesiness. Mind you, cheesy stuff are always cringe-worthy, and cringe-worthy things are rarely good, but when it is this funny, it makes it into the list of exceptions. A lot of modern day gag references, a lot of historical gags, and quite appropriately, a cheesy happy ending to make sure you stay laughing like a maniac when you leave.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was good if you watched Rise. If you didn’t, it’s still good, though viewers might be confused with the intelligent apes, the society and why Caesar was leader and why Koba was such a piece of shit. Though as someone who was watched Rise, I would have imagined that they could speak coherently by now instead of still using sign language primarily, and grunting a word or two of English. And that grim ending. I understand why people are saying this is going to be a trilogy with the last movie being a Planet of the Apes reboot.
Of course, there’s the new Transformers movie. And I must say, for the first time ever, I nearly fell asleep while watching a movie in a cinema. During an action sequence no less. That, I think, is enough said about how bad this one was.
There’s the new Hercules movie starring Dwayne Johnson, which is great, especially when compared to last year’s gutter fillings with the same name. Although, like most Hercules movies, this is another missed opportunity. I maintain that no Hercules movie will ever be better than one which tells the story of the 12 Labours. That said, this interpretation of the legend is a very good one. Not the first with this approach, but does not disappoint. This Hercules is a mortal. He isn’t the son of Zeus, and his 12 Labours were not as impossible as legend had described them. And I believe this movie has the best message cum moral ever: Legends are interpretations of fact with insufficient information. Take the hydra. For every head cut off, two takes its place. But this is because the hydra is in fact tribesmen/assassins who operate in the lake of an extremely foggy forest. People report seeing multi-headed serpents because all they saw in the fog was the monster mask/helmet they wore, and without seeing the body, people imagined them to be whatever their imagination sees fit. And with that, spreads legends. And lies. Centaurs were merely the silhouettes of people on horseback but no one saw the head of the horse because of the angle of which they were seen; they were up hills, in between the glaring sun and the poor blinded witness. As such, this movie tells us to verify to the best of our extents whatever rumours we hear before believing them. Also, with the appropriate legend a.k.a. lie, it can boost ally morale while breaking enemy morale. And lastly, tell a lie often enough and you may actually believe it yourself. As mentioned, this Hercules is a mortal. Extremely strong, but still a mortal. During the final act of the story, in a situation dire enough, an ally convinces him that he is, in fact a hero and the son of Zeus, which boosts his morale to the extent of amplifying this already impressive strength to superhuman levels. TL;DR, lies are powerful tools, which can be used and misused like any other.
Since I’ve mentioned Maleficent, I’m inclined to admit something this movie and Oculus has made me realize. I realize that I found the young Aurora, as well as young Kaylie Russell, to be more attractive than their adult counterparts. These two movies have since then left me casting doubt about myself and I end up suspecting that I might in fact be a pedophile.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
And the fact that I’ve forgotten some of the movies I’ve watched over the months. A few memorable ones remain in my memory banks, but I have nothing much to say about them anyway.
We start with How to Train Your Dragon 2. It’s good, with an acceptable story, relatively strong finale, but I can’t bring myself to like it for two reasons: first, which is a reason shared with the first movie, is that because I was introduced to Monster Hunter before this, I can’t help but think that the dragons, including the giant in the first and the alphas in the second, were weaker than the weakest Wyverns of the MonHun universe. I especially can’t help but see Toothless as a tamer version of the Nargacuga. The second reason is because Toothless blatantly rips off Godzilla. How? By glowing spines that start from the tail, which leads to more powerful fire breaths.
Then there’s Maleficent. Which is nice, but much less than what I expected. The famed most powerful villain of the Disney world was so…soft, to say the least. In fact, her one act of cruelty was the curse on Aurora. The rest of the movie was showing how she is completely doubtful of the whole thing, her kindness to the one she cursed, and, in my mind, her not killing her crow sidekick for talking back to her the way he did. Then there’s the sentient pair of wings. The last thing that I found to be so disturbing was PlatinumSukamon, so that’s saying something.
For comedy we have A Million Ways to Die in the West. Screw all the naysayers because this is one of the best comedies of the decade for now. One that spits in the face of political correctness and historical accuracy to bring a movie that will make you laugh out loud in the cinema like a mental case, while making you cringe with its comedic cheesiness. Mind you, cheesy stuff are always cringe-worthy, and cringe-worthy things are rarely good, but when it is this funny, it makes it into the list of exceptions. A lot of modern day gag references, a lot of historical gags, and quite appropriately, a cheesy happy ending to make sure you stay laughing like a maniac when you leave.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes was good if you watched Rise. If you didn’t, it’s still good, though viewers might be confused with the intelligent apes, the society and why Caesar was leader and why Koba was such a piece of shit. Though as someone who was watched Rise, I would have imagined that they could speak coherently by now instead of still using sign language primarily, and grunting a word or two of English. And that grim ending. I understand why people are saying this is going to be a trilogy with the last movie being a Planet of the Apes reboot.
Of course, there’s the new Transformers movie. And I must say, for the first time ever, I nearly fell asleep while watching a movie in a cinema. During an action sequence no less. That, I think, is enough said about how bad this one was.
There’s the new Hercules movie starring Dwayne Johnson, which is great, especially when compared to last year’s gutter fillings with the same name. Although, like most Hercules movies, this is another missed opportunity. I maintain that no Hercules movie will ever be better than one which tells the story of the 12 Labours. That said, this interpretation of the legend is a very good one. Not the first with this approach, but does not disappoint. This Hercules is a mortal. He isn’t the son of Zeus, and his 12 Labours were not as impossible as legend had described them. And I believe this movie has the best message cum moral ever: Legends are interpretations of fact with insufficient information. Take the hydra. For every head cut off, two takes its place. But this is because the hydra is in fact tribesmen/assassins who operate in the lake of an extremely foggy forest. People report seeing multi-headed serpents because all they saw in the fog was the monster mask/helmet they wore, and without seeing the body, people imagined them to be whatever their imagination sees fit. And with that, spreads legends. And lies. Centaurs were merely the silhouettes of people on horseback but no one saw the head of the horse because of the angle of which they were seen; they were up hills, in between the glaring sun and the poor blinded witness. As such, this movie tells us to verify to the best of our extents whatever rumours we hear before believing them. Also, with the appropriate legend a.k.a. lie, it can boost ally morale while breaking enemy morale. And lastly, tell a lie often enough and you may actually believe it yourself. As mentioned, this Hercules is a mortal. Extremely strong, but still a mortal. During the final act of the story, in a situation dire enough, an ally convinces him that he is, in fact a hero and the son of Zeus, which boosts his morale to the extent of amplifying this already impressive strength to superhuman levels. TL;DR, lies are powerful tools, which can be used and misused like any other.
Since I’ve mentioned Maleficent, I’m inclined to admit something this movie and Oculus has made me realize. I realize that I found the young Aurora, as well as young Kaylie Russell, to be more attractive than their adult counterparts. These two movies have since then left me casting doubt about myself and I end up suspecting that I might in fact be a pedophile.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Friday, May 16, 2014
The God, the Zilla, and the MUTOs.
Okay, the title is a lie, because neither God nor Zilla showed up. I say that because, while Godzilla was awesome in this movie, he seemed to be very toned down, at least compared to his original glory. That said he still is a god compared to Zilla, but the fact that he wasn’t as godlike as his original incarnation might get a few hard core fans fired up for the wrong reasons and thus setting others on metaphorical fire. MASSIVE, HEAVY SPOILERS AHEAD! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! I usually don’t care too much about spoilers, but this is Godzilla we’re talking about; he deserves the preferential treatment. SO GO NO FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS!
We start with Bryan Cranston. His part as Joseph Brody in the trailers gave the impression that he’s be a very important character in the trailers. He is, except that he died less than quarter way into the movie. Not much false advertising here ladies and gentlemen; the trailer just left that impression but most of what you see in the trailers actually shows up in the film. Except for four bits. Four exact bits. Others had more, non-memorable bits, but many obvious ones, but this had only four, memorable or not. But since it’s still not in the movie, let’s identify them. Number one, form the trailer where the soldiers HALO jump from the plane. That did happen, but the commander’s speech in the background didn’t. Then, as we go into one of the soldier’s point of view, we see a dark figure in the midst of a dark, burning city. In the actual movie Godzilla was clearly visible, facing off with one of the MUTOs, but since this is the first trailer meant to check anticipation levels of the film, I’ll let it slide. So second again. The bit where a silhouette is barely visible behind the smoke and is finally revealed to be Godzilla. That didn’t happen in the movie. Moving on to the second trailer, one scene where Ford Brody ask someone “can you kill it?” That didn’t’ happen at any point in the movie. And lastly the bit where Elle and Sam Brody are looking at Godzilla, roaring in their direction as doors between them close. Sam wasn’t there and Godzilla was already fighting when the doors start to close.
Now that we’ve gotten the trailer inaccuracies out of the way, let’s move on to the kaiju designs. Of course, we start with the main character himself. HE LOOKS GREAT! Many say he looks to be on the fat side this time around, and they’re quite right. But that only applies to when you look at him from the side, though it has something to do with the fact that he is leaning forward instead of standing straight up like an obvious man in a suit. There’s a big gap between both legs like a proper reptile, instead of having them close together, again, like an obvious man in a suit, so from the back it gives the impression that his legs are all fat and no muscle. Look at him from the front and you will see a very square chest, kind of like a human bodybuilder’s, except less disproportionate. He has his proper, stegosaurus-esque, maple leaf shaped spines going on the back, albeit slightly smaller than the original. And, probably less apparent, he has gills, probably to explain how he stays underwater forever, never surfacing until needed. And the Atomic Breath is back. As for his character role in the show, he’s the anti-hero-ish good guy. Which is good and bad at the same time for the movie, for reasons I will explain later.
Moving on to the MUTOs, they are called that as an acronym to Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (M.U.T.O). Now if you notice in the title referencing the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the MUTOs are actually very beautiful, contrary to where I place them in the title. They were co-created by Legendary Pictures and Toho, and it shows. Well, they are beautiful to me at least. I find this to be worth mentioning because I have some very peculiar tastes, such as preferring the look of Predators without their masks on unlike others, among others. Design aside, as actual animals they are very well made too. They communicate with each other with clicks, grunts and roars, in a pattern of behaviour very similar to birds. The ways the male and female MUTOs interact with each other makes them feel so real and with emotion, like how they look into each other’s eyes and rub their noses together upon meeting. You could almost feel the love between them. Since I’ve mentioned the male and female, the former is much smaller, at less than half the size of the female, but can fly. The latter, while almost as large as Godzilla, has no wings.
There’s also a backstory explaining how these creatures lived during times when the Earth was very highly radioactive. Some, like Godzilla and MUTO, have evolved in a way that allowed them to feed on radiation, instead of/in addition to conventional food. And now in modern times, the survivors live much further underground to feed on radiation off the Earth’s core. I think it’s a nice reference to the Godzillasaurus origin story. Godzillasaurus, while not named directly, was identified as the apex predator of the time, hunting all but hunted by none. “A god in all respects,” as Vivienne Graham, Dr. Serizawa’s assistant, described.
With all that covered, here are my thoughts about the movie, starting with what I like. And first on the list is the design, which I’ve mentioned. Second is the role of Godzilla in the whole movie. Like I said, he’s the silent observer, guardian angel type anti-hero protagonist. This is good because from the get go – at least when that role is made clear to the audience – we are all rooting for Godzilla. The emotional investment is very rewarding, especially at the end, when Godzilla walks away from the whole affair, with the news headlines reading “King of Monsters, Saviour of our city?” It was a very happy feeling. The downside is it downplays the uncertainty of whether he is a reliable saviour or if he will go on a rampage once he’s done killing the MUTOs. And also, knowing that he’s a good guy makes the very rational decisions of the military seem very stupid. I mean, who would trust a giant radioactive lizard with taking down other monsters that eat nuclear warheads for breakfast? Do you blame the soldiers for firing their cannons at Godzilla at the first sign of provocation? In most situations, it is understandable, maybe even praiseworthy and encouraged. But when you know that they are shooting at their saviour, it’s hard to empathise with their decisions.
We also get an Ichiro Serizawa played by Ken Watanabe, as homage of sorts to the original Daisuke Serizawa. He is in the film to remind everyone that “the arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around.” My favourite line from the movie, however, while coming from the same character, is spoken much earlier, when the military is deciding on how to deal with the MUTOs and whether Godzilla is a threat to be dealt with in a similar fashion: “Nature has an order... A power to restore balance. I believe he (Godzilla) is it.” I know this deviates from the original Daisuke Serizawa, but it was at this point that the movie makes quite clear that Godzilla is not a baddie. He also serves as the movie’s anti-nuke messenger, always carrying a pocket watch belonging to his father, which has stopped at precisely 8.15 am, 6th of August 1945. And, of course, like a true Japanese, he calls Godzilla ‘Go Jira’ (ゴジラ), and is the only one in the entire movie to do so.
Things I don’t like: I have the fact that the military decided that the best way to kill 3 creatures that feed on radiation is a nuclear blast. Which leads to a plethora of other problems. In the trailers and earlier in the film they mentioned the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll were in fact attempts to kill Godzilla that obviously didn’t work. The military’s response? This new nuke had explosive power measured in megatons, not kilotons, and will make the nuke at Bikini Atoll look like a firecracker. Also, since both MUTOs were capable of using EMP, they decided to use an analogue countdown timer on the nuke, send it to the middle of the ocean and detonate it there once all three monsters were lured there. At this point it seems that only Dr. Serizawa was concerned that even in the middle of the ocean, there are other life forms that will be affected by the radiation and that it’s impossible for there to be no wind to carry the fallout landwards, never mind that the three that they were trying to kill with the nuke eat nukes, and might do so before the timer ran out and proceed to head towards land. What happened was worse: the nuke was stolen by the MUTOs to feed the babies the female was carrying, and was left in the MUTO nest along with the spawn. So a team of soldiers had to go steal it back and either disable the timer on the nuke, or if there is enough time, continue with the plan to send it to the middle of the ocean. And they decided to go with the latter because when they got to the bomb there was 26 minutes left, and they needed more time to open the cracked glass panel that was covering the timer.
Another thing I don’t quite like: Godzilla being quite far from godlike. While the usual rockets and cannons do cause him pain, he seems to take no damage from any of them. This looked like a good sign, but was a bit misleading. He was outmatched by both MUTOs in their initial encounter, which I guess was natural, being a 2-on-1 situation, but quite easily kills them when facing them individually. That’s great, but he seems to be really tired after every encounter despite the seemingly easy kills. First was the male MUTO. A very surprisingly quick tail slam knocked the male MUTO into a skyscraper. Unfortunately, the same skyscraper, over three times taller than Godzilla, crashes onto him. It is shown that while he managed to survive and crawl out of that rubble, he did so with great difficulty. And after killing the female MUTO, he was shown to collapse, awaking what looked like hours later before heading back into the sea. Long story short, this fat Godzilla gets tired too easily, and even collapsed out of fatigue, waking up after hours of sleep before heading home, although after taking a massive beating while being ganged up on might justify that. That said if there were to be a Pacific Rim x Godzilla crossover, I hate to say this but Godzilla will not be a clear winner without contest.
So, the final verdict for this movie. A great 60th anniversary reboot in the year 2014. Fans of the movie will have reason to not give this movie a perfect score while on the other hand, the rest who are just looking for a great kaiju flick might. My personal score is a solid 8/10. Definitely watch it on the big screen. Go IMAX big if you can. Only don’t watch it in 3D, as the 3D version looks very 2D still.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
We start with Bryan Cranston. His part as Joseph Brody in the trailers gave the impression that he’s be a very important character in the trailers. He is, except that he died less than quarter way into the movie. Not much false advertising here ladies and gentlemen; the trailer just left that impression but most of what you see in the trailers actually shows up in the film. Except for four bits. Four exact bits. Others had more, non-memorable bits, but many obvious ones, but this had only four, memorable or not. But since it’s still not in the movie, let’s identify them. Number one, form the trailer where the soldiers HALO jump from the plane. That did happen, but the commander’s speech in the background didn’t. Then, as we go into one of the soldier’s point of view, we see a dark figure in the midst of a dark, burning city. In the actual movie Godzilla was clearly visible, facing off with one of the MUTOs, but since this is the first trailer meant to check anticipation levels of the film, I’ll let it slide. So second again. The bit where a silhouette is barely visible behind the smoke and is finally revealed to be Godzilla. That didn’t happen in the movie. Moving on to the second trailer, one scene where Ford Brody ask someone “can you kill it?” That didn’t’ happen at any point in the movie. And lastly the bit where Elle and Sam Brody are looking at Godzilla, roaring in their direction as doors between them close. Sam wasn’t there and Godzilla was already fighting when the doors start to close.
Now that we’ve gotten the trailer inaccuracies out of the way, let’s move on to the kaiju designs. Of course, we start with the main character himself. HE LOOKS GREAT! Many say he looks to be on the fat side this time around, and they’re quite right. But that only applies to when you look at him from the side, though it has something to do with the fact that he is leaning forward instead of standing straight up like an obvious man in a suit. There’s a big gap between both legs like a proper reptile, instead of having them close together, again, like an obvious man in a suit, so from the back it gives the impression that his legs are all fat and no muscle. Look at him from the front and you will see a very square chest, kind of like a human bodybuilder’s, except less disproportionate. He has his proper, stegosaurus-esque, maple leaf shaped spines going on the back, albeit slightly smaller than the original. And, probably less apparent, he has gills, probably to explain how he stays underwater forever, never surfacing until needed. And the Atomic Breath is back. As for his character role in the show, he’s the anti-hero-ish good guy. Which is good and bad at the same time for the movie, for reasons I will explain later.
Moving on to the MUTOs, they are called that as an acronym to Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms (M.U.T.O). Now if you notice in the title referencing the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, the MUTOs are actually very beautiful, contrary to where I place them in the title. They were co-created by Legendary Pictures and Toho, and it shows. Well, they are beautiful to me at least. I find this to be worth mentioning because I have some very peculiar tastes, such as preferring the look of Predators without their masks on unlike others, among others. Design aside, as actual animals they are very well made too. They communicate with each other with clicks, grunts and roars, in a pattern of behaviour very similar to birds. The ways the male and female MUTOs interact with each other makes them feel so real and with emotion, like how they look into each other’s eyes and rub their noses together upon meeting. You could almost feel the love between them. Since I’ve mentioned the male and female, the former is much smaller, at less than half the size of the female, but can fly. The latter, while almost as large as Godzilla, has no wings.
There’s also a backstory explaining how these creatures lived during times when the Earth was very highly radioactive. Some, like Godzilla and MUTO, have evolved in a way that allowed them to feed on radiation, instead of/in addition to conventional food. And now in modern times, the survivors live much further underground to feed on radiation off the Earth’s core. I think it’s a nice reference to the Godzillasaurus origin story. Godzillasaurus, while not named directly, was identified as the apex predator of the time, hunting all but hunted by none. “A god in all respects,” as Vivienne Graham, Dr. Serizawa’s assistant, described.
With all that covered, here are my thoughts about the movie, starting with what I like. And first on the list is the design, which I’ve mentioned. Second is the role of Godzilla in the whole movie. Like I said, he’s the silent observer, guardian angel type anti-hero protagonist. This is good because from the get go – at least when that role is made clear to the audience – we are all rooting for Godzilla. The emotional investment is very rewarding, especially at the end, when Godzilla walks away from the whole affair, with the news headlines reading “King of Monsters, Saviour of our city?” It was a very happy feeling. The downside is it downplays the uncertainty of whether he is a reliable saviour or if he will go on a rampage once he’s done killing the MUTOs. And also, knowing that he’s a good guy makes the very rational decisions of the military seem very stupid. I mean, who would trust a giant radioactive lizard with taking down other monsters that eat nuclear warheads for breakfast? Do you blame the soldiers for firing their cannons at Godzilla at the first sign of provocation? In most situations, it is understandable, maybe even praiseworthy and encouraged. But when you know that they are shooting at their saviour, it’s hard to empathise with their decisions.
We also get an Ichiro Serizawa played by Ken Watanabe, as homage of sorts to the original Daisuke Serizawa. He is in the film to remind everyone that “the arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around.” My favourite line from the movie, however, while coming from the same character, is spoken much earlier, when the military is deciding on how to deal with the MUTOs and whether Godzilla is a threat to be dealt with in a similar fashion: “Nature has an order... A power to restore balance. I believe he (Godzilla) is it.” I know this deviates from the original Daisuke Serizawa, but it was at this point that the movie makes quite clear that Godzilla is not a baddie. He also serves as the movie’s anti-nuke messenger, always carrying a pocket watch belonging to his father, which has stopped at precisely 8.15 am, 6th of August 1945. And, of course, like a true Japanese, he calls Godzilla ‘Go Jira’ (ゴジラ), and is the only one in the entire movie to do so.
Things I don’t like: I have the fact that the military decided that the best way to kill 3 creatures that feed on radiation is a nuclear blast. Which leads to a plethora of other problems. In the trailers and earlier in the film they mentioned the nuclear tests at Bikini Atoll were in fact attempts to kill Godzilla that obviously didn’t work. The military’s response? This new nuke had explosive power measured in megatons, not kilotons, and will make the nuke at Bikini Atoll look like a firecracker. Also, since both MUTOs were capable of using EMP, they decided to use an analogue countdown timer on the nuke, send it to the middle of the ocean and detonate it there once all three monsters were lured there. At this point it seems that only Dr. Serizawa was concerned that even in the middle of the ocean, there are other life forms that will be affected by the radiation and that it’s impossible for there to be no wind to carry the fallout landwards, never mind that the three that they were trying to kill with the nuke eat nukes, and might do so before the timer ran out and proceed to head towards land. What happened was worse: the nuke was stolen by the MUTOs to feed the babies the female was carrying, and was left in the MUTO nest along with the spawn. So a team of soldiers had to go steal it back and either disable the timer on the nuke, or if there is enough time, continue with the plan to send it to the middle of the ocean. And they decided to go with the latter because when they got to the bomb there was 26 minutes left, and they needed more time to open the cracked glass panel that was covering the timer.
Another thing I don’t quite like: Godzilla being quite far from godlike. While the usual rockets and cannons do cause him pain, he seems to take no damage from any of them. This looked like a good sign, but was a bit misleading. He was outmatched by both MUTOs in their initial encounter, which I guess was natural, being a 2-on-1 situation, but quite easily kills them when facing them individually. That’s great, but he seems to be really tired after every encounter despite the seemingly easy kills. First was the male MUTO. A very surprisingly quick tail slam knocked the male MUTO into a skyscraper. Unfortunately, the same skyscraper, over three times taller than Godzilla, crashes onto him. It is shown that while he managed to survive and crawl out of that rubble, he did so with great difficulty. And after killing the female MUTO, he was shown to collapse, awaking what looked like hours later before heading back into the sea. Long story short, this fat Godzilla gets tired too easily, and even collapsed out of fatigue, waking up after hours of sleep before heading home, although after taking a massive beating while being ganged up on might justify that. That said if there were to be a Pacific Rim x Godzilla crossover, I hate to say this but Godzilla will not be a clear winner without contest.
So, the final verdict for this movie. A great 60th anniversary reboot in the year 2014. Fans of the movie will have reason to not give this movie a perfect score while on the other hand, the rest who are just looking for a great kaiju flick might. My personal score is a solid 8/10. Definitely watch it on the big screen. Go IMAX big if you can. Only don’t watch it in 3D, as the 3D version looks very 2D still.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
Tying Up Loose Ends
Before I get to Godzilla – which was awesome – I’d like to review the other two great movies I mentioned before, which are Oculus and The Machine, as well as The Amazing Spiderman 2: Rise of Electro which I completely forgot I had watched. How could I forget that I have watched a movie, and said movie being Spiderman 2 of all things? That’s simply because while it was great, it was pretty unspectacular and thus forgettable, and here’s why. Spoilers alert. Duh.
First off, and this is not exactly the fault of the movie, but if you’ve seen the trailer, you can consider that trailer as a trailer for a different movie. This is because, as far as I can recall, there are only three notable scenes in the trailer that’s actually in the movie, which are the Electro releasing charges in the middle of Times Square scene, the clock-tower Goblin fight scene and the final Rhino fight scene, which, incidentally happen in chronological order in both the trailer and the movie. Other notable scenes like the dialogue between Peter and Harry – “My father has spent more time watching you than me.” “Why?” “Is not the question of the day.” – or the one between Peter and his Aunt May – “There’s something you’re not telling me, Aunt May.” “I once told you that secrets have a cost. The truth has, too.” – are missing. So yes, problem number one is false advertising. This movie is by far the guiltiest one in that respect.
The movie itself starts off good. Showing how Electro became Electro. And I really like this Electro. This is one of the few characters that I prefer the movie version over the original. But after that, it’s mostly about Peter Parker finding the truth about this father and dealing with his relationship with Gwen Stacy while Harry Osborne tries to prevent his imminent death. In fact, you wouldn’t be lying if you told your friends that you came out of the cinema having just watched The Amazing Peter: Rise of Harry Osborne.
Then there are the fight scenes, which are extremely short. I liked the clock-tower Goblin fight because it shows Spidey fighting by jumping around while spinning his web, trying to limit the space in which the Goblin can fly around, although there isn’t much impact to that tactic. Or at least, the movie doesn’t show it. Then there’s the Rhino. The damn fucking Rhino. When the movie finally shows the Rhino, I was thinking to myself, is there really enough time for there to be a third villain showdown? Sure enough, there wasn’t. The movie ended with the stupid scene you see in the trailers where Spidey swings the manhole cover at the Rhino. And speaking of the Rhino, why must the Rhino be a robotic suit that has machine guns and missiles? Why? Why ruin it the way The Wolverine ruined the Silver Samurai?
So there you have it. While it’s a good movie, there are enough problems that pull the total score down to a mere average, comparable with other titles in the cinema. The Machine and Oculus, on the other hand…
Oh and since I mentioned The Wolverine, I’d also like to mention the fact that there are quite a fair number of people who think that name is based on a wolf, without realizing that there is a standalone creature in the animal kingdom called a wolverine – which isn’t an expansion or sequel, to use modern gaming and movie terms, to the wolf. I thought I should get that thought out of my head.
So yes. We continue with Oculus first. While it isn’t particularly very scary, especially for a horror movie, and the plot details are fairly simple, thus leaving me with nothing much to talk about, the concept of the story is very radical. Very Original. Very Unorthodox. Very Daring. Very New. Very… You get the idea.
Picture this: An older sister and a younger brother, both still children, had their family wrecked by a ghost/demon/fiend/whatever inhabiting an antique mirror in their house; mom was possessed and dad was driven insane, causing them both unspeakable trauma. The whole affair ended with both parents dead, the father putting a gun in the boy’s hand with what’s left of his sanity, asking the poor kid to shoot him. Kid complied. Cops arrive and take the boy away, diagnosed with mental disorder for shooting dad and blaming it on a mirror and lived till adulthood in a mental institution, while girl lived in a foster home. Both kids make a promise to exact revenge on the evil entity when they grow up. That’s right. How often do you come across a horror story where the victims SEEK VENGEANCE instead of just simply getting brutally murdered right away, run in fear and forever burying this dark chapter of their lives in the deepest depths of their memories, or have an exorcist come over to read a few lines off a holy book, and proceed to live happily ever after?
Actually, other than the exorcist, (spoiler alert) the other two did happen; one did get brutally murdered in the end while the other initially tried to forget everything, thinking that everything was made up by the imagination of children. But the fact that they actually tried getting back at a supernatural entity against all odds, despite failing, was enough to sell the movie to me.
The story too has an interesting way of progressing. Being trapped in the mirror, naturally (wait, what?) the supernatural force of evil will have to resort to indirect means of causing harm and protecting itself, and it does so by consciousness and memory manipulation. It makes you remember things that didn’t happen or forgets things that did, and makes you do things you naturally won’t by diving into your consciousness and actually making you want to do it of your own free will, without you realizing of course. At least, not until it’s too late. This leads to a very confusing mix of hallucinations and flashback sequences. That said, as confusing as it is, it’s a very rewarding feeling when you concentrate, and as a result get the story and are able to tell which is the present and which is the past. Well, for me anyway; some others would just say that movies are not meant to make you think too much during the movie and state this method of storytelling as complete crap.
All in all, good stuff. Poor value as a horror movie, but amazing in terms of fresh idea, content and concept. I say go watch it, if it’s still showing in cinemas. If not, watch it anyway through any other means.
Next in line is The Machine. THIS IS A DAMN GOOD MOVIE! If you think you have even one cell in your brain that you use when you think, then you owe it to your own intelligence to watch this movie.
Premise is this: instead of the usual AI being programmed to respond to a wide array of questions and situations appropriately, someone actually manages to replicate the brain; empty at birth but learns through imitation and analysis, is conscious and aware of its own existence and attempts to learn the moral code of other humans around it. Needless to say, it passed the Turing Test with flying colours. Unfortunately, its creator was killed, so it was left in the hands of an AI expert, who entered the field to create a digital version of his daughter who is dying of Tourette syndrome. Scientist continues to ‘raise’ the AI, simply called ‘The Machine’ or just Machine which is also given a militarized humanoid female body resembling its murdered ‘mother’. As the learning progresses, said scientist is conflicted whether to treat is as a super advanced AI that can be weaponized or to actually acknowledge its humanity.
While the core of the story is too complex for me to spoil, I will say that the ending is the complete opposite of that in 3 Days to Kill. While the latter ends with an unrealistic but happy ending, this goes out with an anticlimactic but very real and thought provoking epilogue. The movie itself was halfway tearing my insides with conflicting feelings, and the ending just dealt the finishing move *Que Fatality from Mortal Kombat*. What else can I say? WATCH IT! I DON’T CARE HOW! PIRATE IT IF YOU MUST!
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
P.S.: The promised Godzilla review is up next. Stay tuned. And keep your flamethrowers ready.
First off, and this is not exactly the fault of the movie, but if you’ve seen the trailer, you can consider that trailer as a trailer for a different movie. This is because, as far as I can recall, there are only three notable scenes in the trailer that’s actually in the movie, which are the Electro releasing charges in the middle of Times Square scene, the clock-tower Goblin fight scene and the final Rhino fight scene, which, incidentally happen in chronological order in both the trailer and the movie. Other notable scenes like the dialogue between Peter and Harry – “My father has spent more time watching you than me.” “Why?” “Is not the question of the day.” – or the one between Peter and his Aunt May – “There’s something you’re not telling me, Aunt May.” “I once told you that secrets have a cost. The truth has, too.” – are missing. So yes, problem number one is false advertising. This movie is by far the guiltiest one in that respect.
The movie itself starts off good. Showing how Electro became Electro. And I really like this Electro. This is one of the few characters that I prefer the movie version over the original. But after that, it’s mostly about Peter Parker finding the truth about this father and dealing with his relationship with Gwen Stacy while Harry Osborne tries to prevent his imminent death. In fact, you wouldn’t be lying if you told your friends that you came out of the cinema having just watched The Amazing Peter: Rise of Harry Osborne.
Then there are the fight scenes, which are extremely short. I liked the clock-tower Goblin fight because it shows Spidey fighting by jumping around while spinning his web, trying to limit the space in which the Goblin can fly around, although there isn’t much impact to that tactic. Or at least, the movie doesn’t show it. Then there’s the Rhino. The damn fucking Rhino. When the movie finally shows the Rhino, I was thinking to myself, is there really enough time for there to be a third villain showdown? Sure enough, there wasn’t. The movie ended with the stupid scene you see in the trailers where Spidey swings the manhole cover at the Rhino. And speaking of the Rhino, why must the Rhino be a robotic suit that has machine guns and missiles? Why? Why ruin it the way The Wolverine ruined the Silver Samurai?
So there you have it. While it’s a good movie, there are enough problems that pull the total score down to a mere average, comparable with other titles in the cinema. The Machine and Oculus, on the other hand…
Oh and since I mentioned The Wolverine, I’d also like to mention the fact that there are quite a fair number of people who think that name is based on a wolf, without realizing that there is a standalone creature in the animal kingdom called a wolverine – which isn’t an expansion or sequel, to use modern gaming and movie terms, to the wolf. I thought I should get that thought out of my head.
So yes. We continue with Oculus first. While it isn’t particularly very scary, especially for a horror movie, and the plot details are fairly simple, thus leaving me with nothing much to talk about, the concept of the story is very radical. Very Original. Very Unorthodox. Very Daring. Very New. Very… You get the idea.
Picture this: An older sister and a younger brother, both still children, had their family wrecked by a ghost/demon/fiend/whatever inhabiting an antique mirror in their house; mom was possessed and dad was driven insane, causing them both unspeakable trauma. The whole affair ended with both parents dead, the father putting a gun in the boy’s hand with what’s left of his sanity, asking the poor kid to shoot him. Kid complied. Cops arrive and take the boy away, diagnosed with mental disorder for shooting dad and blaming it on a mirror and lived till adulthood in a mental institution, while girl lived in a foster home. Both kids make a promise to exact revenge on the evil entity when they grow up. That’s right. How often do you come across a horror story where the victims SEEK VENGEANCE instead of just simply getting brutally murdered right away, run in fear and forever burying this dark chapter of their lives in the deepest depths of their memories, or have an exorcist come over to read a few lines off a holy book, and proceed to live happily ever after?
Actually, other than the exorcist, (spoiler alert) the other two did happen; one did get brutally murdered in the end while the other initially tried to forget everything, thinking that everything was made up by the imagination of children. But the fact that they actually tried getting back at a supernatural entity against all odds, despite failing, was enough to sell the movie to me.
The story too has an interesting way of progressing. Being trapped in the mirror, naturally (wait, what?) the supernatural force of evil will have to resort to indirect means of causing harm and protecting itself, and it does so by consciousness and memory manipulation. It makes you remember things that didn’t happen or forgets things that did, and makes you do things you naturally won’t by diving into your consciousness and actually making you want to do it of your own free will, without you realizing of course. At least, not until it’s too late. This leads to a very confusing mix of hallucinations and flashback sequences. That said, as confusing as it is, it’s a very rewarding feeling when you concentrate, and as a result get the story and are able to tell which is the present and which is the past. Well, for me anyway; some others would just say that movies are not meant to make you think too much during the movie and state this method of storytelling as complete crap.
All in all, good stuff. Poor value as a horror movie, but amazing in terms of fresh idea, content and concept. I say go watch it, if it’s still showing in cinemas. If not, watch it anyway through any other means.
Next in line is The Machine. THIS IS A DAMN GOOD MOVIE! If you think you have even one cell in your brain that you use when you think, then you owe it to your own intelligence to watch this movie.
Premise is this: instead of the usual AI being programmed to respond to a wide array of questions and situations appropriately, someone actually manages to replicate the brain; empty at birth but learns through imitation and analysis, is conscious and aware of its own existence and attempts to learn the moral code of other humans around it. Needless to say, it passed the Turing Test with flying colours. Unfortunately, its creator was killed, so it was left in the hands of an AI expert, who entered the field to create a digital version of his daughter who is dying of Tourette syndrome. Scientist continues to ‘raise’ the AI, simply called ‘The Machine’ or just Machine which is also given a militarized humanoid female body resembling its murdered ‘mother’. As the learning progresses, said scientist is conflicted whether to treat is as a super advanced AI that can be weaponized or to actually acknowledge its humanity.
While the core of the story is too complex for me to spoil, I will say that the ending is the complete opposite of that in 3 Days to Kill. While the latter ends with an unrealistic but happy ending, this goes out with an anticlimactic but very real and thought provoking epilogue. The movie itself was halfway tearing my insides with conflicting feelings, and the ending just dealt the finishing move *Que Fatality from Mortal Kombat*. What else can I say? WATCH IT! I DON’T CARE HOW! PIRATE IT IF YOU MUST!
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
P.S.: The promised Godzilla review is up next. Stay tuned. And keep your flamethrowers ready.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
The Eve of Godzilla
It’s one day before the most anticipated movie of the year. Well, my most anticipated anyway. So what I’m going to do today is review all the movies I’ve watched since the last time, saving two gems for what will come with Godzilla. And just to get them out of the way, they are The Machine and Oculus. They are awesome in their own unique way, so I do recommend that you go watch them somehow, or wait for my review of them along with Godzilla to know what they’re about and why I think you should watch them. Without spoiling too much, Oculus brings a fresh concept out of the old boring recipe of horror films, while The Machine, well, you owe it to your functioning brain to watch it because the movie brings the phrase ‘food for thought’ to a whole new level.
And what about the rest that are not as good, as fresh and/or as thought-provoking as the other two? We start with Need for Speed. The movie, not game. That’s right folks. The most played arcade racer franchise which is widely criticized for trying to have a story with a point in a game that, in the minds of many, shouldn’t bother with. Well, for the most part that’s true, because how deep of a story can you have when you’re trying to have it revolve around illegal street racing? While it is my favourite arcade racer franchise, I have to agree with most critics that if all the main character does is race, there isn’t much story development possibilities, especially when the main character is just a camera giving you the point-of-view of the main character.
So what happens when you turn that into a movie? The same stuff you get from the Fast and Furious series, minus the guns and explosion. Well, most of them anyway. So as you might expect, the depth of the story starring Aaron Paul is just as deep, or shallow, as the one starring Vin Diesel. So how does it go exactly? A racer is set up and incarcerated for illegal street racing, but the guy who set him up and was racing him manages to get away scot-free. After serving his sentence, he comes out hell-bent on revenge, even if it means going to jail again. As you might expect from a movie like this, the final race involves a few of the fastest, rarest and most expensive cars in a sprint race, with the winner taking all of the cars. As mentioned, the story is not bad considering what it’s based on, but there are a few factual inaccuracies, such as the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento being able to match the Bugatti Veyron SuperSport in straight-line speed, and the movie stating that there are only 2 in the world, when in fact there are 20.
It’s a little late for this, but if you are wondering if this is worth watching on the big screens, the answer depends on how much of a Need for Speed fan are you. Suffice to say, if you’re the average movie goer, then probably not.
Next in line is a superhero flick, one which I was rather looking forward to because of the appearance of the titular villain. That’s right, it’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Not much needs to be said about this; the story is based on the comics, with the extra ingredients that make a great movie. Good action, good story progression pacing, good character portrayals. That said, some parts of the plot seem overly convenient (as always), which makes you question the actual plausibility of the characters having the foresight that they do. Is it worth paying for a one-time-viewing-only ticket? Yes. It has its flaws, but they are otherwise negligible.
Another good movie worth watching in the cinemas is Transcendence. Starring Johnny Depp, the movie is more of a social commentary, if anything, but it does ask a serious question through the plot. Very heavily flavoured, but not necessarily delicious, food for thought. A scientist aims to build the perfect computer system which is not only perfect in every single way, but which also possesses a consciousness. A bunch of people (whom you would be forgiven if you consider them cultists) who think technology will be the end of humanity, tries to kill the scientist before that happens, and the scientist’s wife then tries to upload his consciousness into the internet, turning him into the perfect computer system he attempted to create. The plot touches on some things Terminator started, namely the man versus machine theme in a very command-and-control/conquer kind of way. My favourite scene in the movie is when the scientist is giving his talk about this system, which he calls Transcendence, and one of the audience asks “so, you’re trying to create a god?” to which he answers “Isn't that what mankind has always done?”
Of course, the irony is the anti-technology cultists use technology to undermine technology, which makes them fight-fire-with-fire hypocrites who shouldn’t be taken seriously, in my mind. Then there’s the social commentary directly referencing our need to be connected, where people are given cybernetic enhancements and are connected to the internet, which is now the super-system scientist. So they turn into mindless pawns whenever he needs them to. Which, in my opinion, is stupid because that’s what led other, still unaffected people to think that this AI is a threat to humanity’s freedom. Obviously you don’t force people to be connected that way. Sure, most people today rely on connectivity to the internet, emails and social media to live their lives, but we don’t die if we don’t have it the way we die if we don’t get oxygen now, do we? In other words, the AI is a blithering idiot, and serves him right for finally getting destroyed in the end. That aside, it’s a great movie, asking us to seriously reconsider the way we perceive our ability as a species to handle the rapidly improving technology that we come up with.
Lastly, we have Divergent, a movie based on the novel of the same name. The story takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic version of Chicago where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues. The main character is warned that she is Divergent and thus will never fit into any one of the factions and soon learns that there are others like her, and that it is an open secret that such people are being hunted down and killed to 'preserve the peace' by eliminating people that do not conform. The basis is good, the action bits are good, the story is also not too shabby. My only complaint with is is that the lovey dovey bits in it, as you would imagine, is a bit too cheesy for my liking. Something about the development of the relationship that irks me, which if I were to identify exactly what, might be the fact that it's the same formula that always works in fiction, but never in reality. That said, it is a good movie that, while I don't recommend, you still won't regret watching on the big screen.
Sadly, not all the movies are great. In fact, there are two which are rubbish, and for the same reason. They are Sabotage and Tokarev. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nicolas Cage respectively, these two movies waste their star actors on plot which will not exist if honesty did. In Sabotage, members of an elite DEA task force find themselves being taken down one by one and their money gone after they rob a drug cartel safe house, leading to a wild goose chase of who is responsible for taking the money and killing the members, with a totally anticlimactic reveal and finale. Tokarev, on the other hand, tells the story of how an ex-mobster’s daughter was killed, and him going on a wild goose chase of finding the supposedly mob-related culprit and killing many otherwise innocent mobsters, before finding out that no such person exists before killing himself for starting a major gang war. Both movies had their share of action and gore, with Sabotage having more of those, but they are far from what you’d call impressive. Both are dark, gritty, but otherwise hollow. Not something I’d recommend going to the cinemas for, to say the least.
Which brings me to a point I’d like to make. I find it very revolting if a movie’s plot can be completely taken apart, ripped to pieces and torn to shreds with a single ingredient, especially if every other aspect of the movie wasn’t completely utter shit. That single ingredient is usually either honesty, or simply not being stupid. That’s right. Some stories completely fall apart if the characters are honest, or just not being so calamitously idiotic beyond possibility. This is the problem with Sabotage, Tokarev and, to a lesser extent, Non-Stop. They are otherwise plots with some massive potential, but either completely ruined beyond salvation in the case of the former two, or not reaching its maximum potential in the case of the latter. All thanks to a single factor: dishonesty. Even the most clichéd plot of evil super villain trying to take over the world holds more water if it does not contain any of these plot destroyers.
All that said, these two things do not always wreck a plot. Sometimes they actually add some spice and substance to the whole thing. Unfortunately, such occurrences are few and far in between.
And on that defused bombshell, adieu to y’all.
And what about the rest that are not as good, as fresh and/or as thought-provoking as the other two? We start with Need for Speed. The movie, not game. That’s right folks. The most played arcade racer franchise which is widely criticized for trying to have a story with a point in a game that, in the minds of many, shouldn’t bother with. Well, for the most part that’s true, because how deep of a story can you have when you’re trying to have it revolve around illegal street racing? While it is my favourite arcade racer franchise, I have to agree with most critics that if all the main character does is race, there isn’t much story development possibilities, especially when the main character is just a camera giving you the point-of-view of the main character.
So what happens when you turn that into a movie? The same stuff you get from the Fast and Furious series, minus the guns and explosion. Well, most of them anyway. So as you might expect, the depth of the story starring Aaron Paul is just as deep, or shallow, as the one starring Vin Diesel. So how does it go exactly? A racer is set up and incarcerated for illegal street racing, but the guy who set him up and was racing him manages to get away scot-free. After serving his sentence, he comes out hell-bent on revenge, even if it means going to jail again. As you might expect from a movie like this, the final race involves a few of the fastest, rarest and most expensive cars in a sprint race, with the winner taking all of the cars. As mentioned, the story is not bad considering what it’s based on, but there are a few factual inaccuracies, such as the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento being able to match the Bugatti Veyron SuperSport in straight-line speed, and the movie stating that there are only 2 in the world, when in fact there are 20.
It’s a little late for this, but if you are wondering if this is worth watching on the big screens, the answer depends on how much of a Need for Speed fan are you. Suffice to say, if you’re the average movie goer, then probably not.
Next in line is a superhero flick, one which I was rather looking forward to because of the appearance of the titular villain. That’s right, it’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Not much needs to be said about this; the story is based on the comics, with the extra ingredients that make a great movie. Good action, good story progression pacing, good character portrayals. That said, some parts of the plot seem overly convenient (as always), which makes you question the actual plausibility of the characters having the foresight that they do. Is it worth paying for a one-time-viewing-only ticket? Yes. It has its flaws, but they are otherwise negligible.
Another good movie worth watching in the cinemas is Transcendence. Starring Johnny Depp, the movie is more of a social commentary, if anything, but it does ask a serious question through the plot. Very heavily flavoured, but not necessarily delicious, food for thought. A scientist aims to build the perfect computer system which is not only perfect in every single way, but which also possesses a consciousness. A bunch of people (whom you would be forgiven if you consider them cultists) who think technology will be the end of humanity, tries to kill the scientist before that happens, and the scientist’s wife then tries to upload his consciousness into the internet, turning him into the perfect computer system he attempted to create. The plot touches on some things Terminator started, namely the man versus machine theme in a very command-and-control/conquer kind of way. My favourite scene in the movie is when the scientist is giving his talk about this system, which he calls Transcendence, and one of the audience asks “so, you’re trying to create a god?” to which he answers “Isn't that what mankind has always done?”
Of course, the irony is the anti-technology cultists use technology to undermine technology, which makes them fight-fire-with-fire hypocrites who shouldn’t be taken seriously, in my mind. Then there’s the social commentary directly referencing our need to be connected, where people are given cybernetic enhancements and are connected to the internet, which is now the super-system scientist. So they turn into mindless pawns whenever he needs them to. Which, in my opinion, is stupid because that’s what led other, still unaffected people to think that this AI is a threat to humanity’s freedom. Obviously you don’t force people to be connected that way. Sure, most people today rely on connectivity to the internet, emails and social media to live their lives, but we don’t die if we don’t have it the way we die if we don’t get oxygen now, do we? In other words, the AI is a blithering idiot, and serves him right for finally getting destroyed in the end. That aside, it’s a great movie, asking us to seriously reconsider the way we perceive our ability as a species to handle the rapidly improving technology that we come up with.
Lastly, we have Divergent, a movie based on the novel of the same name. The story takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic version of Chicago where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues. The main character is warned that she is Divergent and thus will never fit into any one of the factions and soon learns that there are others like her, and that it is an open secret that such people are being hunted down and killed to 'preserve the peace' by eliminating people that do not conform. The basis is good, the action bits are good, the story is also not too shabby. My only complaint with is is that the lovey dovey bits in it, as you would imagine, is a bit too cheesy for my liking. Something about the development of the relationship that irks me, which if I were to identify exactly what, might be the fact that it's the same formula that always works in fiction, but never in reality. That said, it is a good movie that, while I don't recommend, you still won't regret watching on the big screen.
Sadly, not all the movies are great. In fact, there are two which are rubbish, and for the same reason. They are Sabotage and Tokarev. Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Nicolas Cage respectively, these two movies waste their star actors on plot which will not exist if honesty did. In Sabotage, members of an elite DEA task force find themselves being taken down one by one and their money gone after they rob a drug cartel safe house, leading to a wild goose chase of who is responsible for taking the money and killing the members, with a totally anticlimactic reveal and finale. Tokarev, on the other hand, tells the story of how an ex-mobster’s daughter was killed, and him going on a wild goose chase of finding the supposedly mob-related culprit and killing many otherwise innocent mobsters, before finding out that no such person exists before killing himself for starting a major gang war. Both movies had their share of action and gore, with Sabotage having more of those, but they are far from what you’d call impressive. Both are dark, gritty, but otherwise hollow. Not something I’d recommend going to the cinemas for, to say the least.
Which brings me to a point I’d like to make. I find it very revolting if a movie’s plot can be completely taken apart, ripped to pieces and torn to shreds with a single ingredient, especially if every other aspect of the movie wasn’t completely utter shit. That single ingredient is usually either honesty, or simply not being stupid. That’s right. Some stories completely fall apart if the characters are honest, or just not being so calamitously idiotic beyond possibility. This is the problem with Sabotage, Tokarev and, to a lesser extent, Non-Stop. They are otherwise plots with some massive potential, but either completely ruined beyond salvation in the case of the former two, or not reaching its maximum potential in the case of the latter. All thanks to a single factor: dishonesty. Even the most clichéd plot of evil super villain trying to take over the world holds more water if it does not contain any of these plot destroyers.
All that said, these two things do not always wreck a plot. Sometimes they actually add some spice and substance to the whole thing. Unfortunately, such occurrences are few and far in between.
And on that defused bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Monday, March 31, 2014
For Argument’s Sake: a personal reiteration.
I have, just earlier today, watched a TED talk by Daniel H. Cohen about arguing. You might ask, “What is it about arguing that is so profound that it deserved a TED talk?” To which I ask in return, “what is the definition of arguing or being engaged in an argument?” To out-reason our opponents, prove them wrong, and, most of all, to win, some will say. But is that really the point? Arguments are not a zero-sum game where one must win and the other must lose, after all, since the loser learns something new, that there is more convincing evidence contrary to what he or she initially knows.
So essentially, arguments should always end in a win-win situation, where the winner gets their egos stroked and the loser learns something new. Keyword being ‘should’, since, as we all know, that this is rarely the case. People get involved in arguments not only to state their opinion and reasons behind it, or to exchange information and come to a conclusion based on statements and evidence presented by both sides, but to be crowned grand champion of having the most right opinion in the first place even if the opposition presented agreeable points in the process.
This sad scenario happens because of the innate competitive drive in our nature. Or indeed in the nature of everything alive. You want to pummel your competition to submission, willing or otherwise, even when doing so is counterproductive. In the wild, it gives a sense of security (it ensures one’s survival, after all), but in civilization, it just gives you a sense of pride, sometimes unjustified. Another reason might be the fact that people are mostly educated into being phobic about making or having made a mistake, but that just leads to the right thinking that they are superior and the wrong are inferior, which was illustrated by the initial point.
The reason I mention this is because I just had an argument barely an hour ago. With the worst possible opponent – a grumpy old man who is incapable of moving with the times (and the changes that come with it) as well as being pathologically afraid of being wrong. Textbook "short man syndrome” is how one would describe this man, though I honestly hesitate to use the word. The subject of our argument? A Guinness World Record for the highest kick among women. The record, last I checked anyway, was 2.15 meters by the way.
How it started? Well, two people were to kick a small platform with a pin sticking out of the top, which would poke and burst a balloon being held slightly above it when said platform was pushed upwards. Seemed pretty straightforward, didn’t it? Except for the fact that one of them managed to kick the platform without popping the balloon. Said person’s foot only grazed the platform’s surface, as it were. The judges still counted it as a hit, despite the balloon being intact.
So I asked a question – which, to me, was simple and completely justified – “what was the point of the balloon, then?” The record attempt was in front of a live audience so I thought aloud that the effect was meant to for the spectators; probably to excite them or something, the way some spectator sports work I guess – people watching NASCAR for the crashes or rugby or American Football for the clashes and injuries sustained from them. Short grumpy old-fashioned old man then went on to say that the pin and balloon was for an affirmation that the platform below had indeed been kicked. To which I replied by pointing out the fact that the previous attempt was still counted even when the balloon remained intact after the platform was kicked, rendering the pin and balloon redundant. To which he then insisted on his previous point, just adding to the fact that if the balloon popped, it would not require a close-up slow-motion video playback for the judges to consider. I then said it was still redundant because the live audiences were not the judges, and the official judges had access to the video recording which would be working either way, and would still be referred to should the pin and balloon fail to serve their purpose, which they have. In other words, why waste resources, no matter how cheap they may be, in setting up a fallible secondary method of validation when the primary, fool-proof method was already there to begin with? It’s not like watching a video playback would take more than a few seconds anyway.
Instead, of saying “I don’t know,” which was precisely the reason behind my asking the question, or “that was just the decision of Guinness or the organizer,” he uttered his trademark line of “I don’t want to argue with you. You argue for the sake of arguing.” Which I took quite seriously and a bit personally as he says that every single time I succeed in countering an argument of his no matter how valid my rebuttal was. Not being able to take anymore of such bullshit, I confronted him and said that if he had any point to counter my point or defend his, he should just say them until I was convinced, since I was able and willing to do the same. Then came an attack which I can only consider personal: “Before you talk so much, go get a job first.”
Well, what gives? Not only has he failed in in doing his part in the active disagreement, he resorted to personal attacks just to have the last word. Yes, I am currently between jobs, but do I need to have the fact rubbed in my face as retaliation to my argument? By my own father, no less.
This is why if he was to end up in any life-threatening situation, I will do many things – committing suicide included – before I save him. Any anyone trying to convince me that he is a good man with good intentions will be about as successful as anyone trying to convince me that a benevolent monotheistic God exists.
People used to ask me if I had a single most influential role model and my answer was usually ‘no’. In fact, I did and I still do, but for the complete opposite reason. While people try to emulate their role models, I do the complete opposite for the one that has the most influential impact on my moral identity. Which is why anything my father is, I do or try to be as exact an opposite as humanly possible, with the only exception so far is my unfortunate employment status.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
So essentially, arguments should always end in a win-win situation, where the winner gets their egos stroked and the loser learns something new. Keyword being ‘should’, since, as we all know, that this is rarely the case. People get involved in arguments not only to state their opinion and reasons behind it, or to exchange information and come to a conclusion based on statements and evidence presented by both sides, but to be crowned grand champion of having the most right opinion in the first place even if the opposition presented agreeable points in the process.
This sad scenario happens because of the innate competitive drive in our nature. Or indeed in the nature of everything alive. You want to pummel your competition to submission, willing or otherwise, even when doing so is counterproductive. In the wild, it gives a sense of security (it ensures one’s survival, after all), but in civilization, it just gives you a sense of pride, sometimes unjustified. Another reason might be the fact that people are mostly educated into being phobic about making or having made a mistake, but that just leads to the right thinking that they are superior and the wrong are inferior, which was illustrated by the initial point.
The reason I mention this is because I just had an argument barely an hour ago. With the worst possible opponent – a grumpy old man who is incapable of moving with the times (and the changes that come with it) as well as being pathologically afraid of being wrong. Textbook "short man syndrome” is how one would describe this man, though I honestly hesitate to use the word. The subject of our argument? A Guinness World Record for the highest kick among women. The record, last I checked anyway, was 2.15 meters by the way.
How it started? Well, two people were to kick a small platform with a pin sticking out of the top, which would poke and burst a balloon being held slightly above it when said platform was pushed upwards. Seemed pretty straightforward, didn’t it? Except for the fact that one of them managed to kick the platform without popping the balloon. Said person’s foot only grazed the platform’s surface, as it were. The judges still counted it as a hit, despite the balloon being intact.
So I asked a question – which, to me, was simple and completely justified – “what was the point of the balloon, then?” The record attempt was in front of a live audience so I thought aloud that the effect was meant to for the spectators; probably to excite them or something, the way some spectator sports work I guess – people watching NASCAR for the crashes or rugby or American Football for the clashes and injuries sustained from them. Short grumpy old-fashioned old man then went on to say that the pin and balloon was for an affirmation that the platform below had indeed been kicked. To which I replied by pointing out the fact that the previous attempt was still counted even when the balloon remained intact after the platform was kicked, rendering the pin and balloon redundant. To which he then insisted on his previous point, just adding to the fact that if the balloon popped, it would not require a close-up slow-motion video playback for the judges to consider. I then said it was still redundant because the live audiences were not the judges, and the official judges had access to the video recording which would be working either way, and would still be referred to should the pin and balloon fail to serve their purpose, which they have. In other words, why waste resources, no matter how cheap they may be, in setting up a fallible secondary method of validation when the primary, fool-proof method was already there to begin with? It’s not like watching a video playback would take more than a few seconds anyway.
Instead, of saying “I don’t know,” which was precisely the reason behind my asking the question, or “that was just the decision of Guinness or the organizer,” he uttered his trademark line of “I don’t want to argue with you. You argue for the sake of arguing.” Which I took quite seriously and a bit personally as he says that every single time I succeed in countering an argument of his no matter how valid my rebuttal was. Not being able to take anymore of such bullshit, I confronted him and said that if he had any point to counter my point or defend his, he should just say them until I was convinced, since I was able and willing to do the same. Then came an attack which I can only consider personal: “Before you talk so much, go get a job first.”
Well, what gives? Not only has he failed in in doing his part in the active disagreement, he resorted to personal attacks just to have the last word. Yes, I am currently between jobs, but do I need to have the fact rubbed in my face as retaliation to my argument? By my own father, no less.
This is why if he was to end up in any life-threatening situation, I will do many things – committing suicide included – before I save him. Any anyone trying to convince me that he is a good man with good intentions will be about as successful as anyone trying to convince me that a benevolent monotheistic God exists.
People used to ask me if I had a single most influential role model and my answer was usually ‘no’. In fact, I did and I still do, but for the complete opposite reason. While people try to emulate their role models, I do the complete opposite for the one that has the most influential impact on my moral identity. Which is why anything my father is, I do or try to be as exact an opposite as humanly possible, with the only exception so far is my unfortunate employment status.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
When spring is hotter than summer
It’s another slow month, for a number of reasons, chiefly being Sony Malaysia’s unwillingness to release the Xperia Z1 Compact before people completely lose interest. So, to kill time, I have decided to review four more movies that I have watched recently. I know it’s still very early in the month, considering Need for Speed isn’t even out yet, but worry not for I shall work on that when it does go on air. Again, spoiler alert, because some really deserve mention.
First off is American Hustle. A show which starts with the most amazing intro ever: ‘Some of this actually happened’ instead of the usual ‘based on a true story’. A story about how a pair of con artists get pulled into an FBI op to nab as many ‘criminals’ as possible, or that’s how it started anyway. It slowly turned into an operation to arrest as many people as possible, even if it means baiting honest politicians (two words you don’t normally feature in the same sentence, let alone next to each other) into taking bribes. The film ends with politicians being arrested and real criminal masterminds
remaining free to terrorize whoever they thought was born with a wrong face.
This is a good movie, which I like for a number of reasons. The first is that despite the happy-ish ending, it ends with a bitter taste, much like reality, though this may be because of it being based on a true stor… *ahem* because some of it actually happened. Actually, most of which still hold true today; rich criminals kill every man than isn’t a subordinate and rape every woman that isn’t a wife or mistress and still get away scot free while the one politician that actually serves the people among the infinite that lord over the people get lumped together and are treated like scum anyway.
Second is that it touches on the very grey nature of the world, with insights into the life of the nearly non-existent good guy politician and maybe the FBI as well. Now, I’m not sure how the FBI actually works, but in this movie, which I’m going to trust because apparently some of it actually happened, they’re much like salesmen; like how the sales of the salesmen matter while the quality of a product and the honesty of their marketing doesn’t, the FBI seems to work with a similar principle where it’s the number of arrests that count and not who they arrest and the legitimacy of the arrests. And so there’s a very convenient plot: the FBI needs to meet their arrests quota for the year or something, so they go at first aiming to arrest members of the criminal underworld. When they realize that that’s not possible due to insufficient evidence and time to gather them, they turn to arresting politicians, most of which are not clean anyway. When even then they fall short, they resort to baiting the rarest thing in existence – a clean politician that actually serves the people of his constituency – into taking bribes and hence putting some dirt on him to justify his arrest. So yes, this world is very far from black and white, where the supposed good guys do very far from good things to falsely maintain their good image, and the brilliance of one good guy politician getting overshadowed by and lumped together with the rest of the scumbag politicians. And this movie portrays it quite nicely. Almost perfectly, in fact, but that may be due to the fact that some of it actually happened (yes, I absolutely love that phrase).
So yes, good movie all in all, but I will not recommend watching on any of Malaysia’s big screens. This is simply because there are far too many cuts, most of which I would attribute to Amy Adam’s character, who is very scantily dressed at her most dressed moments, to say the least. While this is very much understandable as she has to play a stripper in the late 1970s, what is not understandable is the movie, being rated 18, still has cuts. So what is the bloody point of the bloody age restriction? They might as well give it a 13PG or U rating since they cut all the bits deemed inappropriate for kids anyway despite the 18 rating. Either that, or I overestimated the standards of the horny old geezers at the censorship department; they can probably fap to a female tennis match, when the players’ clothes start to get soaked in sweat and their nipples start poking out of their clothes (this is not meant to be an insult to athletic women, but it is meant as an insult to the horny old geezers at the censorship department and their mind-bogglingly low standards of pornography). So to rectify this problem, there should be two classifications for this movie; 18 for the uncut version and a 13PG or U version where they can cut the whole movie as far as I'm concerned.
With that done, we move on to Non-Stop. If you’ve seen the trailers, then there’s not much more to say, since that’s pretty much the gist of it. Also, if you have seen the trailer, you’ll be able to see the plot twist coming way before it happens. Or at least won’t be surprised when it does. There isn’t much action, but there is a lot of tension. Which is to be expected from that sort of scenario, but a lot of it seemed very unnecessary; nothing good old honesty can’t solve. Because of this, the movie can feel quite draggy. Then you have the clichéd good guy wins ending.
Despite all this, I would still say that this is worth your money. Yes, it is stereotypical without much innovation, but the characters are played so perfectly that the realism alone makes it worth your money. Well, realism of the characters staying in character at least. The major fly in the ointment is that the plot would be dramatically shorter and there would be less tension in the air if the main character was honest from the start, but I still say that this movie deserves a chance to be judged by yourself.
Then we have 3 Days to Kill. This is, to me, a gem in more ways than one. The first being the main character who isn’t the most overpowered character in the story. This is a rare break from the cliché that we are otherwise too familiar with; the main character always has the better technique, reflex, instincts, thinking etc. This time, the main character is strangely overshadowed. Sure he is skilled, but it is strangely pleasant to find that there is someone out there half his age with twice his skill. And while not the first, it is quite refreshing to see a movie that mixes seriousness with comedy, and in this particular film, you see the main character juggling his job with his family as well.
The fly in the ointment, however, can be found at the ending. It’s quite fairy tale-ish when it could have ended in a darker, more realistic tone. That aside, this is a movie that I would really recommend watching.
And finally we come to Philomena. I was initially put off by the title because it sounded like a Malay movie, which meant complete utter rubbish with very, very, VERY few exceptions. As it turns out, that was just my ignorance in action, because it was actually a British-French-American comedy-drama based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. So yes, a based-on-a-true-story movie. Which I loved, because it does touch on some fairly emotional themes.
What I did find strange, however, was that there was a cut or two in this film. With hindsight, this wasn’t strange at all because the film was distributed by The Weinstein Company, which was famous (or infamous) for the production of many anti-Catholic films. This meant that the cut scenes had something to do with the presence of religion-bashing dialogue. What this shows is, the feeble-minded horny old geezers at the censorship department not only have low standards of fappable material, they also have dangerously low faith in the faith of their fellow believers. The bleeding irony right there, ladies and gentlemen.
And so, because of that, this is the perfect movie – with no flies in the ointment – that I will not encourage you to watch on the big screen. Sure the cut dialogue may seem insignificant, but I can’t help but feel cheated. In fact, I don’t even know if it was actually insignificant or not. It might actually turn out to be a big chunk of key plot explanations, for all I know.
Right. Now that we are done with my reviews, I would like to talk about movie reviews. Yes, irony number two incoming. It would seem that the current trend, based on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, at least, is that if there is action, the movie isn’t good. Which is rubbish. Take 3 Days to Kill for example. It has one fly in the ointment. One. But there was a lot of shooting and killing and driving fast sideways. And what rating did it get? 31% based on 64 reviews. American Hustle, with close to no action and no fly in the ointment? 93% based on 240 reviews. So one fly in the ointment, muzzle flash, death and tyre smoke deserves a 62% drop? Really? Seriously? The consensus at Rotten Tomatoes says that American Hustle is “Riotously funny and impeccably cast, American Hustle compensates for its flaws with unbridled energy and some of David O. Russell's most irrepressibly vibrant direction.” Which is fair, except for the first bit, because if American Hustle was ‘riotously funny’, then 3 Days to Kill would give you asthma. American Hustle was funny, sure, but only just, while 3 Days to Kill, on the other hand, was properly funny. You could have a full house watching American Hustle and you would still not get louder laughs than an empty 3 Days to Kill screening, let alone more of it. The only exception to this ‘action is bad’ trend is The Lego Movie, for reasons that will forever remain unknown to the thinking man.
Then we have RoboCop which got a 49% based on 180 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes consensus writes "While it's far better than it could have been, José Padilha's RoboCop remake fails to offer a significant improvement over the original," which is to say “it’s as good as the original, therefore it’s rubbish.” I mean, seriously? So filmmakers take a 10/10 film and turn it up to eleven and you call it rubbish. Do they have to make it eleventy one zillion times better before you give it the good rating it deserves?
In conclusion, reviews – including this one – are useless. This is because sometimes you get a reviewer having completely wrong expectations about a movie, getting disappointed when watching and ends up raging about the movie not meeting the initial unrealistic expectations. These are probably idiots who go watching 3 Days to Kill expecting it to be literally 72 hours long, among other things. Although, admittedly, it would be better if they named it 3 Months to Kill instead.That said, some movies really do deserve their low as hell rating, like I, Frankenstein and The Legend of Hercules which got 4% based on 71 reviews and 3% based on 63 reviews, respectively.
So what you should do instead is read on a movie’s synopsis, not review, and then decide if it would be worth your money. Because reviews – which tell you if a movie is worth watching – are unreliable, you will, as I did, just have to make the gamble yourself and see if a movie is really worth your money.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
First off is American Hustle. A show which starts with the most amazing intro ever: ‘Some of this actually happened’ instead of the usual ‘based on a true story’. A story about how a pair of con artists get pulled into an FBI op to nab as many ‘criminals’ as possible, or that’s how it started anyway. It slowly turned into an operation to arrest as many people as possible, even if it means baiting honest politicians (two words you don’t normally feature in the same sentence, let alone next to each other) into taking bribes. The film ends with politicians being arrested and real criminal masterminds
remaining free to terrorize whoever they thought was born with a wrong face.
This is a good movie, which I like for a number of reasons. The first is that despite the happy-ish ending, it ends with a bitter taste, much like reality, though this may be because of it being based on a true stor… *ahem* because some of it actually happened. Actually, most of which still hold true today; rich criminals kill every man than isn’t a subordinate and rape every woman that isn’t a wife or mistress and still get away scot free while the one politician that actually serves the people among the infinite that lord over the people get lumped together and are treated like scum anyway.
Second is that it touches on the very grey nature of the world, with insights into the life of the nearly non-existent good guy politician and maybe the FBI as well. Now, I’m not sure how the FBI actually works, but in this movie, which I’m going to trust because apparently some of it actually happened, they’re much like salesmen; like how the sales of the salesmen matter while the quality of a product and the honesty of their marketing doesn’t, the FBI seems to work with a similar principle where it’s the number of arrests that count and not who they arrest and the legitimacy of the arrests. And so there’s a very convenient plot: the FBI needs to meet their arrests quota for the year or something, so they go at first aiming to arrest members of the criminal underworld. When they realize that that’s not possible due to insufficient evidence and time to gather them, they turn to arresting politicians, most of which are not clean anyway. When even then they fall short, they resort to baiting the rarest thing in existence – a clean politician that actually serves the people of his constituency – into taking bribes and hence putting some dirt on him to justify his arrest. So yes, this world is very far from black and white, where the supposed good guys do very far from good things to falsely maintain their good image, and the brilliance of one good guy politician getting overshadowed by and lumped together with the rest of the scumbag politicians. And this movie portrays it quite nicely. Almost perfectly, in fact, but that may be due to the fact that some of it actually happened (yes, I absolutely love that phrase).
So yes, good movie all in all, but I will not recommend watching on any of Malaysia’s big screens. This is simply because there are far too many cuts, most of which I would attribute to Amy Adam’s character, who is very scantily dressed at her most dressed moments, to say the least. While this is very much understandable as she has to play a stripper in the late 1970s, what is not understandable is the movie, being rated 18, still has cuts. So what is the bloody point of the bloody age restriction? They might as well give it a 13PG or U rating since they cut all the bits deemed inappropriate for kids anyway despite the 18 rating. Either that, or I overestimated the standards of the horny old geezers at the censorship department; they can probably fap to a female tennis match, when the players’ clothes start to get soaked in sweat and their nipples start poking out of their clothes (this is not meant to be an insult to athletic women, but it is meant as an insult to the horny old geezers at the censorship department and their mind-bogglingly low standards of pornography). So to rectify this problem, there should be two classifications for this movie; 18 for the uncut version and a 13PG or U version where they can cut the whole movie as far as I'm concerned.
With that done, we move on to Non-Stop. If you’ve seen the trailers, then there’s not much more to say, since that’s pretty much the gist of it. Also, if you have seen the trailer, you’ll be able to see the plot twist coming way before it happens. Or at least won’t be surprised when it does. There isn’t much action, but there is a lot of tension. Which is to be expected from that sort of scenario, but a lot of it seemed very unnecessary; nothing good old honesty can’t solve. Because of this, the movie can feel quite draggy. Then you have the clichéd good guy wins ending.
Despite all this, I would still say that this is worth your money. Yes, it is stereotypical without much innovation, but the characters are played so perfectly that the realism alone makes it worth your money. Well, realism of the characters staying in character at least. The major fly in the ointment is that the plot would be dramatically shorter and there would be less tension in the air if the main character was honest from the start, but I still say that this movie deserves a chance to be judged by yourself.
Then we have 3 Days to Kill. This is, to me, a gem in more ways than one. The first being the main character who isn’t the most overpowered character in the story. This is a rare break from the cliché that we are otherwise too familiar with; the main character always has the better technique, reflex, instincts, thinking etc. This time, the main character is strangely overshadowed. Sure he is skilled, but it is strangely pleasant to find that there is someone out there half his age with twice his skill. And while not the first, it is quite refreshing to see a movie that mixes seriousness with comedy, and in this particular film, you see the main character juggling his job with his family as well.
The fly in the ointment, however, can be found at the ending. It’s quite fairy tale-ish when it could have ended in a darker, more realistic tone. That aside, this is a movie that I would really recommend watching.
And finally we come to Philomena. I was initially put off by the title because it sounded like a Malay movie, which meant complete utter rubbish with very, very, VERY few exceptions. As it turns out, that was just my ignorance in action, because it was actually a British-French-American comedy-drama based on the book The Lost Child of Philomena Lee. So yes, a based-on-a-true-story movie. Which I loved, because it does touch on some fairly emotional themes.
What I did find strange, however, was that there was a cut or two in this film. With hindsight, this wasn’t strange at all because the film was distributed by The Weinstein Company, which was famous (or infamous) for the production of many anti-Catholic films. This meant that the cut scenes had something to do with the presence of religion-bashing dialogue. What this shows is, the feeble-minded horny old geezers at the censorship department not only have low standards of fappable material, they also have dangerously low faith in the faith of their fellow believers. The bleeding irony right there, ladies and gentlemen.
And so, because of that, this is the perfect movie – with no flies in the ointment – that I will not encourage you to watch on the big screen. Sure the cut dialogue may seem insignificant, but I can’t help but feel cheated. In fact, I don’t even know if it was actually insignificant or not. It might actually turn out to be a big chunk of key plot explanations, for all I know.
Right. Now that we are done with my reviews, I would like to talk about movie reviews. Yes, irony number two incoming. It would seem that the current trend, based on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, at least, is that if there is action, the movie isn’t good. Which is rubbish. Take 3 Days to Kill for example. It has one fly in the ointment. One. But there was a lot of shooting and killing and driving fast sideways. And what rating did it get? 31% based on 64 reviews. American Hustle, with close to no action and no fly in the ointment? 93% based on 240 reviews. So one fly in the ointment, muzzle flash, death and tyre smoke deserves a 62% drop? Really? Seriously? The consensus at Rotten Tomatoes says that American Hustle is “Riotously funny and impeccably cast, American Hustle compensates for its flaws with unbridled energy and some of David O. Russell's most irrepressibly vibrant direction.” Which is fair, except for the first bit, because if American Hustle was ‘riotously funny’, then 3 Days to Kill would give you asthma. American Hustle was funny, sure, but only just, while 3 Days to Kill, on the other hand, was properly funny. You could have a full house watching American Hustle and you would still not get louder laughs than an empty 3 Days to Kill screening, let alone more of it. The only exception to this ‘action is bad’ trend is The Lego Movie, for reasons that will forever remain unknown to the thinking man.
Then we have RoboCop which got a 49% based on 180 reviews. Rotten Tomatoes consensus writes "While it's far better than it could have been, José Padilha's RoboCop remake fails to offer a significant improvement over the original," which is to say “it’s as good as the original, therefore it’s rubbish.” I mean, seriously? So filmmakers take a 10/10 film and turn it up to eleven and you call it rubbish. Do they have to make it eleventy one zillion times better before you give it the good rating it deserves?
In conclusion, reviews – including this one – are useless. This is because sometimes you get a reviewer having completely wrong expectations about a movie, getting disappointed when watching and ends up raging about the movie not meeting the initial unrealistic expectations. These are probably idiots who go watching 3 Days to Kill expecting it to be literally 72 hours long, among other things. Although, admittedly, it would be better if they named it 3 Months to Kill instead.That said, some movies really do deserve their low as hell rating, like I, Frankenstein and The Legend of Hercules which got 4% based on 71 reviews and 3% based on 63 reviews, respectively.
So what you should do instead is read on a movie’s synopsis, not review, and then decide if it would be worth your money. Because reviews – which tell you if a movie is worth watching – are unreliable, you will, as I did, just have to make the gamble yourself and see if a movie is really worth your money.
And on that bombshell, adieu to y’all.
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