Friday 23 November 2012

Review: Skyfall


There's some sense of nervousness before I went to the cinema to watch this movie. First, Daniel Craig's interpretation of James Bond is great. Secondly, his first outing as 007 is outstanding in Casino Royale while his 2nd movie in Quantum of Solace is a disappointment. Then, rounded up everything up in 2012 is 50th Anniversary of the famous fictional British spy on screen sums up the hype surrounding the movie. But, there will be no worries, Skyfall is and will be considered as one of the best Bond films to date.

The movie started off superbly, even better than how Daniel Craig was introduced in Casino Royale, on the street of Turkey. It quickly moved straight to the chase, with Bond chasing one of the enemy on the roof, streets, market, train. You name it, the chase is in it. After the abrupt end of the prologue, Adele's superb voice was introduced as the OST of Skyfall and the classic Bond intro commences. The song has made the movie has that special something.


The performances from the actors are one of the best in recent years for the Bond franchise. Daniel Craig, like his other entries, excelled in his more grittier Bond. Then you have Judi Dench again as M, her performance in Skyfall is one of the best in years, her performance is so good that there are rumours that she will get nominated for Academy Award. Then surprisingly, it is the villain that steal the show at many parts of the movie, Javier Bardem as Silva. His character is comedic and funny, at the same time sinister and deceiving.

Skyfall explores the origin of James Bond and his relationship with M, and cyber terrorism, and M's past. Skyfall also sees some of the classic characters being reintroduced, Q and Miss Moneypenny. One thing is a bit tad disappointing  though, is the Bond girl, Severine, played by Bérénice Lim Marlohe. Her performance is too short and disappointing.

In short, Skyfall is one the best bond films to date, and it is also one of the best films released this year. To sum it up, Skyall is memorable and riveting from start to finish.

Pros: Great performance by Daniel Craig, Judi Dench and Javier Bardem, great storyline, fast-paced and exciting action sequences, great soundtrack, and Adele's OST is awesome!!!

Cons: Bond girl is disappointing, the final third of the film is a bit dark in colour.

Score: 5/5



Saturday 15 September 2012

2012 - Year of Superhero Movies

Summer just ended (I guess, because I'm not from a four seasoned country)! For me, this year is the year of superhero movies.Why? Because my Top 3 movies (not in any order whatsoever) are all from superheroes, only 3 of them are released this year, but all 3 of them are brilliant.

The Amazing Spider-Man

 
If the movie didn't get rebooted so quickly or there's no other Spider-man before this film, it would have been even better. Marc Webb's (500 Days of Summer) version of Spider-Man is much closer to the comics version than the old trilogy, that's what makes the movie stand out. The chemistry between Spider-Man/Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) & Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) really clicked as a couple and doesn't feel cheesy (probably due to Webb's excellence in 500 Days). Overall, it's an general improvement of the old ones.



The Dark Knight Rises


One of the most epic film of the last few years, The Dark Knight Rises is a little bit disappointing, due to the how great The Dark Knight is. Director Christopher Nolan chose to go bigger scale this time around, it's bigger in terms of battle and casts and it gives the ending The Dark Knight deserved. Plotholes and very obvious mistakes aside can't stop The Dark Knight Rises from being one of the best film of the year.


Marvel's The Avengers


As a superhero movie, The Avengers is the best of them all. A clever marketing by Marvel by releasing some of the most famous superheroes as individual movies before assembling them together in one big movie, and oh boy it works! Joss Whedon managed to compile so many superheroes together, without compromising quality, unlike many movies with ensemble casts. Every heroes have their time to shine.So many memorable one-liners and so many memorable scenes that can keep you excited.


Whether you prefer Batman, Spider-Man or The Avenger, you must know everyone is the winner this year in superheroes franchises...

Friday 27 July 2012

Review: The Dark Knight Saga

Christopher Nolan's ingeniuty is shown again in The Dark Knight Rises, it is a fantastic film that gives the end of his Batman saga to a well-deserved and satisfactory closure. To pay tribute to this brilliant director, I've decided to give a summarised thoughts of all three film of the saga.

Batman Begins (2005)


This is where it all begins, the first movie after the disasterous Batman & Robin, Christopher Nolan decided to pick up Batman and rebooted it and gave it a very strong start to the saga. In contrast to other movie trilogies, the first movie is not the best in the whole trilogy, it is still very great film though. An origin story about Batman and the emotional death of Bruce Wayne's parents is the highlight of the movie. This is a good film but it's not going get the filmgoers and critics raving about it.

Score: 4/5

The Dark Knight (2008)


 In my book, The Dark Knight is the best film of 2000s era. Everything, plot, backstory, humour, realism, and the dark theme of The Dark Knight is almost pitch perfect in this movie. Not to mention the fantastic performance of the late Heath Ledger as the Joker, which won him numerous posthumous awards, including Best Supporting Actor for his role as The Joker. Christopher Nolan showed the world that superhero film can be a success by going a serious route. The Dark Knight is also Christopher Nolan's best work so far, and the best film since the turn of the millennium.

Score: 5/5

The Dark Knight Rises (2012)

 
One of the highest anticipated film of all time was released last week. In some ways, The Dark Knight Rises is disappointing, but only due to the unbelievably high standard of the previous film, The Dark Knight. It's still an amazing film in it's own right. Bane, is just as scary as The Joker, not because of his craziness and antics, but is his sheer size and brutality towards his enemy. Bruce Wayne a.k.a. Batman has to come back after 8 years of self-imposed exile from the society. Christopher Nolan keeps the movie interesting by putting quite a few plot twists here and there throughout the movie, which make the movie really good.

Score: 4.5/5


I think I have never seen a movie trilogy so consistently well done throughout all three movies. Even my favourite movie saga, Star Wars, have been disappointing with it's final film in the original saga, Return of the Jedi. Christopher Nolan has done well with all three films and show he is one of the best directors in the modern era. Not to mention, the fantastic score for The Dark Knight trilogy from film composer, Hans Zimmer. I recommend everyone to watch the whole trilogy, two-thumbs up!

Wednesday 11 April 2012

Aftershock

Today was supposed to be the day to hang out and enjoy, since it was a public holiday. Me and some of my friends decided to go to Sunway Carnival Mall to watch Battleship and do some shopping.

At around 4.38pm, somewhere at Bandar Acheh, Indonesia, there was a 8.9 magnitude Earthquake happening. The aftershock was felt at Sunway Carnival Mall, which I didn't notice anyway, just followed the crowd and the mall's orders to evacuate to outside. After awhile everyone walked back in and enjoy the usual shopping.

We decided to have dinner because our movie was at 7.45pm and again, at around 7pm, the shocks are felt again!!! And this time is pretty seriously, I can fely it shaking and the lamps swinging left and right. This time everyone felt the tremour and rush to the ground floor without hesitation!

Everybody is going down!!!

After the second shake, Sunway Carnival management decided it is best to closed down the mall for the time being and tell the shops and shoppers to evacuate. GSC announced they're closing the cinema as well and will refund the tickets, THANK GOD!!!

This was a bad moment, but it was quite an experience. Evacuate the mall during emergency, something useful... Let's hope everyone's okay!

Sunday 25 March 2012

Review: The Hunger Games





The Hunger Games is a very dark film, I mean really dark. It is about a nation holds a competition, called The Hunger Games for twelve districts, to remind them that who holds the ultimate authority over them. Every district has to choose one boy and one girl to participate in The Hunger Games and out of the 24 participants, only one will survive the brutal battle to the death competition.


This movie is able to capture the grittiness of the society of the movie, war torn and poverty stricken of the districts. It also captures what's wrong with the societies, a bunch of lies. The atmosphere of The Hunger Games is just terrific!

The best moments is not when the movie is at its loudest, but at its quietest, the director is pretty good at using certain music and sounds to inject emotions, actions at the same time.

Actually is very hard to describe this movie in a blog post, because of the long story about the background of the movie. But I just have to say one thing. The Hunger Games is the best movie I've watch this year, by a big margin! I recommend this to everyone!

Verdict: 4.5/5

Tuesday 14 February 2012

Review: STAR WARS Episode I 3-D


Here we go again, George Lucas is messing around with the classic Star Wars saga again, he's doing that for years and he will keep doing as long as he wants. Now, he's adding 3-D features into all six films and re-release The Phantom Menace (a.k.a. the prequels) first.


I've decided to watch this in the cinema because I've never watch the whole Star Wars in the cinema, The Phantom Menace included. Star Wars is a kind of movie that should be experienced in cinemas, even you're not a fan. So, for a fan like me, re-watching it in 3-D is no brainer.

First thing first, this is a 3-D review, not the whole movie as a whole, because everyone already knows The Phantom Menace is not as good as the original trilogy, and it never will.

But let me rant about the bad things about The Phantom Menace first, it is not the definitive Star Wars, it's not as good. The young Anakin Skywalker is really annoying, Jar Jar Binks, although funny at times, is an awfully poor character, annoying as well.

Let's get into the good stuff, the 3-D is far better than my expectation, and I'm not saying that because I'm a big fan of Star Wars, but because the 3-D is really good in the sense of that it worked well with a movie that's12-years-old. In many post conversion 3-D movies, the video quality there's multiple layers of 2-D image in the picture, not in the case for The Phantom Menace though, the 3-D looked natural in the eye and the quality doesn't affected by the conversion.

The 3-D is also very "healthy" for the eyes. In many 3-D videos, the image will look dimmed due to the 3-D effect, The Phantom Menace looked surprisingly clear, crisp and bright, very easy in the eye. The Phantom Menace is also the first time I do not feel tired or having a tired pair of eyes after watching a 3-D movie, I feel comfortable and I even watched another movie after that!!!

The main highlights of The Phantom Menace 3-D are the podracing sequence and the final battle of Naboo. With 3-D, the podracing is even more exciting with racers whooshing through the screen. And the final battle in space and the duel between Obi-Wan, Qui Gon and Darth Maul are fantastic!

The Phantom Menace is not the best Star Wars movie ever made, look bland compared to Revenge of the Sith and The Original Trilogy. But, for die hard Star Wars fans, this is a great opportunity for you to watch it in theaters again And for those who haven't watched Star Wars, please go and watch it, you're missing one of the greatest film series of all time! The surprisingly good conversion is worth the ticket.

Verdict: 4/5 (This score only count the 3-D, the movie as a whole is not included)