Review: Captain America - The Winter Soldier

Franchise Changing!

Those two words came up instantly in my head after watching The Winter Soldier, as the movie offer the most impact I've seen so far to The Avengers franchise than any other heroes' individual outing thus far.

The Winter Soldier takes place two years after The Avengers, where Captain America continues to work with SHIELD even though he doesn't like it, as he has no other way to go after 70 years in cryostasis and teamed up with Black Widow.

This basis set up for a more grounded approach in comic book movies, as the story mostly heavily influenced by the state of our real world, driven by fear and heavily political. This creative and different approach makes Captain America's second solo outing one of the best Marvel's adaptation in recent years, and aside from The Avenger, this is the best Marvel Cinematic Universe movie since the first Iron Man.

As for action sequences go, The Winter Soldier has also adopted a different approach. Contrast to the heavy CGI of previous films, Marvel this time has opted to go for a more grounded approach, with CGI sequences much reduced this time around. This has resulted The Winter Soldier to have a more exciting and realistic actions compared to its siblings.

Character-wise, The Winter Soldier is also brilliantly done. Chris Evans is Captain America, just like Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, he really portrayed the character well, Samuel L. Jackson is back as Nick Fury, Scarlett Johansson is back as the super duper sexy femme fatale secret spy, Black Widow, and Falcon is really really cool! The Winter Soldier himself is a really good character, he really makes the movie feel terrifying in many ways and exciting as well. Cobie Smulders is also back as Agent Maria Hill, whom has a more expanded role than The Avengers, but I still can't get over the Robin Scherbatsky of How I Met Your Mother, whom she also portrayed. Captain America: The Winter Soldiers features an actual and great character development that is interesting to watch.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a fine and smart entry to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It serves up with a smarter script, interesting character developments, terrifying villain and a more grounded and realistic approach to the action sequences. It is definitely worth a watch!

Pros: Smart and interesting script, heavy impact to the overall franchise, great character development, terrifying and well-matched villain, realistic action sequences

Cons: That Robin thing, although it is smart, the plot could be bit better.

SCORE: 4.5/5 (Watch)

Review: Need For Speed (film)

Trailers ended, the lights started to dim, Touchstone Pictures & Dreamworks Studios logo going through they standard splash screen. Then, some chuckles in the cinema (myself included) when EA logo appeared, probably because it is unusual to see it in theatres, and it feels like we are booting up a video game.

Introducing, HOWARD STARK!

This is normal as the movie I'm talking about is Need For Speed, a loose movie adaptation of the video game of the same name. At first glance, it feels like a Fast & Furious wannabe, fast cars, good looking dudes and babes and racing set pieces, but that's where the similarity ends.

Wait, I'm not coming with you? WHAT??!!

The movie features a bare bone storyline and backstory of characters, which is disappointing because of the loose adaptation of this vast franchise. The writers could almost write anything, but instead they make it feel like it was written in a matter of hours while distracted by some other stuffs. Some unneeded plot twist here and there, it feels like a total mess.

This can be a very good fitting for Caption Contest

Aaron Paul (Tobey Marshall) and Michael Keaton (Monarch) could only done so much because of  the bad script, they are the characters worth exploring, and while not as good, Imogen Poots (Julia) also felt limited. Other characters, well, they felt flat all the way that we could even see the whole movie without noticing them.

Burn Baby! BURN!!!

But luckily, the action sequences shine when they mattered the most in the movie like this. Director Scott Waugh clearly knows how to handle the actions stuff well, as I love the action sequences in Act of Valor (he directed) as well. He chose the use of first person view of the racing sequence, which I really like it as it added the thrill into the movie. Final race sequence, the first race and swerving around Detroit are particularly exciting. Some of the action sequences felt better because there's no music interrupting the action, which is sometimes essential for racing sequences.

Look ma!

What I'm really so impressed about the movie is the low to no usage of CGI in the movie, so the end result is it felt realistic. This also meant that a lot of the stunt driving by the actors and stunt drivers are actually real, which is really impressive as most of the actors nowadays rely on green screen or body double.

Played too much Burnout perhaps?

As a car nut, watching the movie first time around, I noticed a few errors that really caught my eyes. The Bugatti Veyron Super Sport (which I think it is) was not particularly well replicated, the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento features a freaking power window and  the McLaren P1 doesn't raise its spoiler at high speed. With EA and its partners involved, I'm pretty sure they can at least have a look at some of these issues before they get the green light eh?

All and all, Need For Speed is a good, entertaining, adrenaline pumping popcorn movie. Its action sequences managed to overcome its dreadful story, but only just. More work is needed if they want a sequel.

Pros: Well-made action sequences, audio effects, realistic driving is a big welcome
Cons: Abysmal storyline, some sketchy dialogue, worrying looking replicas

Score: 3/5

Opinion: Why I'm Holding off Buying a PS4 (For Now)

PS4 is here in Malaysia, and many other countries, right now. It's definitely one of the gadgets I'm having in my wishlist. It packs a 8-core AMD Jaguar architecture CPU, Radeon GPU, 8GB of RAM, 500GB HDD, secondary processor to handle background and OS tasks. So, it's a ridiculously more beefy specs over the PS3, which definitely need to be, considering the PS3 is on its 7th year.

I'm certain that PS4 is my next console instead of the Xbox One, as my gaming habit and collections are built around the PlayStation, I'm not willing to start all over on the Xbox. But I'm not buying a PS4, at least within the first year, as I considered certain things I believe it's not worth it right now.

Malaysian PS4 is expensive

Economically speaking, this is the killer blow, Malaysian PS4 are ridiculously priced at launch. The US is retailed around $299 (RM1,200++) and Hong Kong is around the RM1,300++ range. However in Malaysia, PS4 is priced at a whopping RM1,799 for standalone and RM1,899 for the bundle! This makes the local PS4 not worth it, even with the beefy specs. I would hope that I can ask my relative who travel to other countries frequently to help me to look out for it, or wait for the local price drop.

Hardware Issues could be around

As a frequent gadgets follower, I know that a lot of tech gadgets suffer from hardware issues earlier in their life cycle, game consoles are no different. PS2 suffered from disc reading errors, Xbox 360 suffers from the infamous Red Ring of Death until the Xbox 360 S revision and PS3 also has a poor and half-baked software and OS earlier in the life cycle. There are some reports of PS4 not starting up properly and loose HDMI port while Xbox One suffers from discs reading issues as well. So advice is, if you're not eager to put your money on PS4 early, it's better you wait.

Launch Games are not that great

Killzone Shadow Fall, NBA 2K14, Battlefield 4 and Resogun looks and plays like a next-gen game, but the rest, CoD, Need For Speed Rivals, InJustice, Assassin's Creed Black Flag feel more like a port from PS3. And with games like inFamous Second Son, Watch_Dogs, DriveClub and many other good games are not coming to PS4 until sometime in 2014, holding off buying a PS4 until more great games comes along is a no-brainer.