City Of Ember - Released 10th October 2008

Here we go again, another science fiction Novel turned into a big budget (US$38 Million) movie blockbuster. Another production wanting to be the next Lord Of The Rings masterpiece. Looks like these producers will never learn. Up to date, total gross revenue for the film is under the US$15 Million mark. Books rarely translate better to film and this one suffers for many reasons. Jeanne DuPrau's book is simply amazing with her perfect imagination driven storyline such as the library, the Pipeworks, and the city itself. Director Gil Kenan should have at least offer the audiences with more than one works of literature that is in the book.

If there's one thing that Kenan manages to get across here however, it is the imagination and vision that is present in the script - ermm, vision-wise I mean. The props and buildings were unbelievable. The first few scenes was remarkably breath-taking with the City of Ember itself is a sight to behold. I have no idea whether the ceiling light bulbs were CGI or real, but I would not change how these bulbs were presented. The special effects were brilliant however it did came off a little bit obvious especially during the scene of the mole-ish looking monster.

While the setting is top-notch, the characters that populate the underground city receive far too little development. The introduction of each characters were averagely presented. However, the relationship between Lina Mayfleet (played by Saoirse Ronan) and Doon Harrow (played by Harry Treadaway) were somewhat stuck and the progression never really got through the final stretch. Ronan did live up to her expectations of a post Oscar nomination in the past. The American-born Irish actress was fabulous acting as the girl who was destined to bring Ember to the surface and seems a lot more engaging in this movie than she did just last year in Atonement. Newcomer Treadaway, although looking like one who just came out of Disney's School of Academy, is also brilliant. He was appealing and firm with his lines. That's always promising for a young actor.

Mayor Cole (played by Bill Murray), Tim Robbins (played by Loris Harrow) and the other adult characters never really provided as much support as they should. The casting of such well-known actors in this film really did not do much to enhance the understanding and motives behind the city's cryptic suppression. They probably could have cut much of the budget by introducing upcoming actors. That way, they would maybe, yes maybe, somehow broke even. No offense to these actors, but blame it on the under-developed script.

Overall, it was an entertaining family movie. Not one for the sci-fi enthusiast though, even if it was categorized as one. The gross revenue may just be enough to put you off from watching it, but in my humble opinion, it did not do justice to the quality of movie. Surely a hit with the young ones however.
3/5 stars

Burn After Reading - Released (Various Dates - but first premiered on 12 September 2008)

When you have George Clooney (Oceans 11), Frances McDormand (Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day), John Malkovich (Eragon), Tilda Swinton (The Chronicles of Narnia) and Brad Pitt (Oceans 11) in your movie, one would think that cinema tickets will sell and the movie would turn out magnificient. For Burn After Reading, the former is definitely true with initial production budget at just about $30 million with gross ticket sales of about $130 million. The movie, however, did not turn out well enough for me. There are movies with bad scenes and there are movies with good scenes. This one's a no brainer. There was neither.

The whole movie was a boring nodding-off-fest. I can understand why people was attarcted to buy tickets for the film but I wasn't sure what so many people saw in it. I simply just felt like packing the movie projector, drive it to a lake and dumping the whole damn roll into the water! In saying that however, the film was consistently amusing. It kept me interested enough to want to see what happens next, well, it was Brad Pitt's role who kept me going literally. Watching him play an idiot seems to amaze me much (sorry angie :p). His hyper-activeness and geeky attitude just got the best of my giggleness.

Performances was very satisfying - for the script that is. Malkovich, McDormand, Clooney, and Swinton all manage to define their characters through individualised quirks without ever going over the top, however, there were too much talent wasted. Whoever did the casting did their job completely, overly well. The script did not do the cast justice. You have Golden Globe nominees and winners in there, not to say Oscar winners as well as nominees. But what do you get out of them? Pure stupidity acts, which I can safely say, they did extremely well anyways. I feel sad for them and for the Coen brothers to make a mish-mash drama/dark comedy/satire that was uninspiring at best and boring at its worst simply adds insult to an open wound.

Overall-I had mixed feelings with this production. I salute the Coens in doing that to me. All I can say is that I had little good laughs and now I'm off to bed.
3/5 stars for the cast-not the script.

Nothing Like The Holidays - Released 12 Dec 2008

Christmas with the Rodriguez family brings more than its fair share of secrets, lies and drama (oh and also some comedy) in this absurd and silly but warm-hearted festive production. As each son and daughter (plus a few close family friends cum ex-es) visit gets underway, the secrets begin to come to light and the family actually becomes closer because of the strife. Each member of the family has an issue to be put up with the rest of the family at some point. A father is dying and is reluctant to tell, a mum is being ridiculously jumping up to conclusion, one son comes back from the war and has his personal persona to deal with, the other son is conclusively being a smart-a$$. A typical, everyday, norm family. Seriously!

The plot is safe to say unremarkable but acceptable. The whole thing centers on a Christmas gathering of a latin-american clan with one son being welcomed home after serving for the military, and as fitting such a concept, nearly everyone involved has at least one secret, where the secret(s) that is often less secret than is presumed. It is all far too dramatic and sentimental. You have love issues at every angles, revenges, poor judgemental attitudes and the good old 'over the dinner conflicts'. They did try to sneak in some comedy relief in there, and thankfully they worked (to some degree).

With a star-studded cast, Debra Messing (Will and Grace), John Leguizamo (The Happening), Freddy Rodriguez (Six Feet Under), Vanessa Ferlito (CSI:NY), Alfred Molina (Spiderman 2), one would think that there is much quality in the movie. Performance-wise, yes, there are qualities. Their roles on the other hand, kinda dissapointing. Messing's character is rather low-key for Messing's standards. Lequizamo was probably offered the role simply to add some laughable scenes, just to balance the drama out. It worked and definitely paid off, thought they could have done far much better than relying on 1 single person for sillyness comedy. Ferlito was as beautiful as she could have been. Trading places from a chick who carries a pistol in CSI for this role really helped her image as a vesatile actress. Although the toughness can still be seen at certain lines. Nevertheless, the whole production deserves a handful of credit given to them. The message that I got after watching this movie - "One can always rely on one's family's strength to get through many difficulties and obstacles in life". Powerful message but fairly average delivery.
3.5/5 stars

The Day The Earth Stood Still - Released 12th Dec 2008

The Day The Earth Stood Still is a remake of the 1951 film of the same name. It revolves around alien forces trying to jump-start Earth back to a more populate-able planet by destroying mankind. Basically, keywords involved in the story content of the movie are 'Environmental Care', 'Stupid Human Habits and Ignorance That's Destroying The Planet' and 'Please Enjoy and Appreciate The Special Effects
We've Done'.

Checklist After Watching:

• Environment Message - I'm going to be more respectful towards our beautiful blue planet.
• Habits and Ignorance Realization - CHECKED! REALIZED!
• Special Effects - Excellent! You can always count on the people at WETA DIGITAL (The guys who did LOTR Trilogy and King Kong).

Keanu Reeves was simply perfect for this role. There's just that Neo from The Matrix feel when he does these types of movies. It blends in very well in this one.

I can't figure Jennifer Connelly out. In every movie that she's been in, the way she acts is put it simply SIMILAR. Don't get what I'm talking about? Go watch HULK, BLOOD DIAMOND and A BEAUTIFUL MIND back to back. It's not a bad thing, I'm merely saying that, the way she acts simply works in every movie she's in. Gifted? I suppose.

A lot of people gave negative comments on this movie. I was almost sucked in to these remarks. But I was strong, I managed to stay away from the Dark side :p
Overall, it's a very entertaining movie and the effects was just inspiring. There's just one thing I can't figure out though - what's with the sphere thingy? couldn't they just used spaceships?
4/5 stars - mostly for effects

Four Christmases - Released 26th Nov 2008

What more can you ask for during these festive seasons. A Christmas themed movie just around Christmas time is an excellent add-on to the busy presents bustling, turkey bookings yada yada.....

Four Christmases is basically an adaptation of how normal people would spend their christmases each year - though this movie pretty much added too much flavour to the Turkey stuffing, so to speak.

We have Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as a joyfully happily unmarried couple whose parents are divorced and remarried (to other people that is). They were on their way to Fiji to escape the typical family reunions during christmas, but with the flight cancelled and accidentally showed themselves on national TV, they could not avoid from skipping those reunions.

So they needed to finish up christmas day visiting all 4 of their parents' house, which they eventually managed to. By house number 2, I was already so exhausted watching 2 insane families. But I had to give the movie a chance. It's Vince Vaughn for goodness sake. So I continued, unwillingly. Turned out, it wasn't so bad after all. Apparently there's 5 oscar winners in the movie, and they didn't even need to act much, with the script being all squishy squashy. I don't even think they'd bothered having a written pre-production script. It was probably all done up during principal filming.

I can't stand watching such movies, but at the same time, I can't stand not watching them. Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's just Hollywood messing up our heads. Overall it was an acceptable Christmas movie and Vince Vaughn always delivers.
3/5 stars

Twilight - Released 21st Nov 2008

Despite the whole hype and massively extensive marketing on the movie, this 'another-novel-turn-movie' flick is just what you would think it is. Weak, pathetic and amazingly silly special effects. And to top it off, the storyline was simply wayyyyyyy OFF from the original paperback.

There are actually a few good points that this movie manages to give out and, seriously, I'm just not trying to be nice.

Kristen Stewart did really well portraying the mysterious, dark teenager Bella. She tried and she succeeded in executing Bella's character just like the way it was written in the book. 2 thumbs up for this chick.

Robert Pattinson (Ed Cullen) however was intensely covered with a somewhat constipated look throughout the whole movie. The Harry Potter and the goblet of fire star really tried to do too much with his role. And what's with the lame cosmetics on his face? Who did his make up - Michael Jackson?

Everyone kept defending the movie's poor quality by saying the initial budget for production was really low. HELLO!! $37 million is low budget? Hell you could do 50 indie movies with that kind of budget. Speaking of budget, where in the world did money went for the 'ed carrying bella running up the hill' special effects go to? It resembled an old Chinese Kung Fu movie for goodness sake.

Overall, I was disapointed with the execution done by director Catherine Hardwicke but I would want to be in her place right now. With ticket sales in the opening night staggered up to $35.7million (almost broke even with the initial budget on its first night), for a crap movie, its totally unbelievable.
2/5 stars

Quantum of Solace - Released 31st Oct 2008

I have to say this directly, I hated the ending! The final action scene was horrid. And why would there be a hotel right in the middle of the desert anyways?!! Maybe Marc Forster (director) was trying too hard.

However, Daniel Craig receives my absolute praise for acting as a real deal human James Bond once again. He brings character to 007, that no other 007 actors has achieved. Don't ever rub that steel look off of you Danny Boy, it works, just like Zoolander did. :p

QOS might have overspent on their marketing department, but with ticket sales still soaring till this date proves how money has been well spent. Oh btw, what does Quantum of Solace means anyways? Seemed odd that they chose an overly intellectually sounding title.
4/5 stars

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa - Released 7th Nov 2008

Another sequel movie, yikes!! On second thought, this one's not so bad after all. I've been a fan of cartoons (oops), i meant animation ever since I was born (thats around about the early 80s if you're so keen to know). I really thought this one was going to be a flop just like Pocahontas 2 and The Little Mermaid 2 (both went direct to DVD). However, it turns out that if you can steal a tiny bit of story line from one of the greatest animation movies ever made, ehemmm, The Lion King of course, then you'd probably survive ticket sales. Yes...there's an evil uncle waiting to take the Kingdom throne and Alex (Ben Stiller - The Lion) has to stop him. Yada-yada....

What I like most about this sequel is that there is more things to laugh at this time around. The first movie was really funny. Escape 2 Africa is just HILARIOUS!!! Someone's gotta Shoot down King Julien, Pleeaaaseeeee!!!......he's so adorable and comedic. Humor me more Your Highness!! lol.

Animation is sharper this time around, with more detail within the environment. This one's a hit with the kids, for sure.
3.5/5 stars

Transporter 3 - Released 26th Nov 2008

Making a third installment of any movie franchise is a risky business. Movie producers would normally try to stay away from creating no more than 1 sequel to any movies. The reason being that audiences normally have higher expectations on the a sequel or even a third installment compared to the initial movie. Hence, in order to create the high expectations, movie producers would have to raise their budget. That's the Hollywood style. But then again, The transporter franchise isn't made in Hollywood is it. So this theory doesn't really apply I suppose.

Needless to say, Jason Statham still looks fit as always and you can always count on him to whoop some a$$ in any production that he's in. There's a scene where it resembles a more realistic 'Neo vs 1000 Agent Smiths' fighting choreography. Seriously!

This time around though, the Transporter chick, Natalya Rudakova, suffice to say, did not impress me at all. Let's just say Shu Qi, the chick in the first movie, was far better off eventhough she had a weak knowledge in the English language. Sigh, that's what you get by putting a model in the big screen. Hollywood never learns *shakes head*.

Regardless, the movie manages to entertain me as the other 2 did. Great martial arts display, awesome AUDI (the part where he flipped the car on 2 wheels was sick!) and a very acceptable storyline. The transporter always delivers the package as promised, this one is no different. Overall, a decent over the weekend movie.
3/5 stars