Avatar Review

This review will be a short one because I don't think any praise will do Avatar any justice. Just go watch this movie. If you are able to watch it in 3D please do so. I will be catching it again because the experience is beyond awesome. The effects are orgasmic and Sam Worthington, the only saving grace in that pile of shit called Terminator Salvation, had delivered a good performance yet again.

Smurfs, now in Hi-def

The very simple story is the only flaw in this one hell of a movie, but the rest of everything had certainly made up for this 2 and a half hour experience. Please watch it. James Cameron had outdid himself and I certainly had totally forgiven him for making Titanic.

Final verdict: 9.5 out of 10. Definitely, hands down, the experience of the decade. (NOTE: experience of the decade is not equivalent to movie of the decade by the way).

Yes Jim, you are worthy of being King of the World once again.

Storm Warriors Review

What would you do if you are asked to make a movie and you are given a good decent budget, a successfully proven franchise to adapt, a cast of heavyweight stars and a team of talented visual effects artists? In case your answer is "No idea", then Storm Warriors shall be your perfect guide.... of HOW NOT TO. Yes, you read it right with caps and bold.

Story
The official synopsis of this movie goes something like this: An evil Japanese warlord, equipped with the most weapons of mass destruction of his time, wants to conquer China. A bunch of patriotic warriors which include Wind and Cloud can't bear to see their country goes to their small neighbours in the East and started resisting him. Unfortunately, the official synopsis is very misleading as the whole bloody plot of this movie is one huge jumbled mess. After the first 10 minutes, the whole movie started to go astray and directionless as the directors (the one hit wonder team called the Pang Brothers) prefers style over substance..... which kind of backfire because the style isn't there as well.


Acting
There's nothing I can really comment regarding the acting as they are simply not given any time at all to act. The script and character development is so bland that even 2012's natural disasters had more character and acting in them. Great actors like Simon Yam, Aaron Kwok, Nicholas Tse, Lam Suet and Ekin Chen are squandered. For example, Lord Godless (Simon Yam), despite being the main villain is only given some angsty lines which portrays him more like a whiny teenage kid then an evil warlord. Imagine a young Darth Vader but more shouting.


Direction
Seriously, I think the only vision that the Pang Brothers seems to had in mind is to see how many movies they can rip it off from and get away with it. The most evident victim of the directors is none other than 300. The style in 300 is breathtaking. Every single slowmotion is done with precise timing which does a good job in enhancing the action scenes. Which unfortunately is not the case for Storm Warriors. Slowmotions are used or in this case, spam so frequently and unsparingly that it is more likely to further enhance your boredom then anything else.

Another victim that seems to be also unmercifully butchered by this movie is Zhang Yimou. During fight scenes in between the slowmotions, The Pangs tried to squeeze in some "artistic fighting" movement like the ones you see in Zhang Yimou's movie (ie. "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers"). In Zhang's version, these fighting scenes are done so beautifully and gracefully that it looks more like ballet then act of violence. However, with this movie, such scenes only serves to drag the movie even further and make the fights look even more nonsensical then a Monty Python's sketch.

Pacing is godawful. Plot related scenes are too brief and non-plot related scens are overly bloated. There's no sense of climax in the whole movie as the movie feels flat and for an action movie.... feeling flat is the last thing you want to feel. The final battle with the movie's main villian Lord Godless is very disappointing. Its like the movie suffers from premature ejaculation. It ended before anything gets to exciting. And to make matters worse the movie didn't end there (I will not go into details as this might consider as spoilers to some), unsatisfied of cumming to fast, it decided to go for second rounds. The result? One hell of a overly bloated and boring fights I had seen recently.


Conclusion
One of the most disappointing movies I had ever seen this year. The only saving grace that this movie had is the beautifully done visual effects. Though not perfect (some scenes look outrageously fake), it is still impressive to look at. Now lets just hope that the producers listen to my wishes and never let the Pang Brothers ever touched this franchise again.

4 out of 10

2012 Review

Ah, Roland Emmerich. I still hold a huge grudge over how he raped my brains with his horrible prehistoric epic 10,000 B.C. If there's any director that I hate more than Michael Bay (in terms of overrated-ness that is) it is Mr. Emmerich himself. At least Michael Bay ain't pretentious when it comes to his movies. He knows and embraces the fact that his movies are meant to be dumb and enjoyable. Also, Michael Bay don't try to cover up his movies with pseudo-Science to make it look smart. I think that's enough about Mr. Emmerich here for now, let's get on with the review to the over-hyped movie of the year, 2012.


Story
It's 2012, it's the end of humanity as the world decided to fuck us good in almost anyway possible. There's some pseudo-Scientific explanation here and there, but fuck that. By taking interests of this movie just by watching the trailers and its other promotional materials you ain't here to watch scientists telling you WHY it will end. You are just here to watch HOW it will end. Practical bunch of people aren't we?

If you can believe a man can out-drive an earthquake that sank the whole of California, outrun a volcanic explosion and can escape unscathed (yes there's not even a scar on John Cusack's face at the end of the movie) despite coming face to face with almost any disaster ever known to man, then yes the story is Epic. If you are a person which have, say a slight bit of common sense, then yes the story is bullshit. The plot is so thin that I wonder if Roland Emmerich did the visual effects first before writing in a story. Or maybe he just hire a 10 year old ghost writer to write the screenplay... Hmmm....

Outrunning a volcano. Usain Bolt should be ashamed of himself.

Acting

If by acting you mean how the natural disaster perform? I say its fabulous. If I were to award next year's Oscar winner for Best Actor, I will give it to Mr. Tsunami himself! Mr. Earthquake comes close with his Jesus shattering performance, but it's Mr. Tsunami's White House smashing scene which killed the President of the United States (which conveniently is a black man played by Danny Glover) that totally swept me away. As for the rest of the human actors, they are just there to be killed by natural disaster or do something heroic and logic bending. If there's one human character that I actually liked was Woody Harrelson's hippy conspiracy theorists.

And the Oscar for Best Actor goes to..... Mr. Tsunami for 2012!!!

Direction

There's only one thing in Mr. Emmerich's mind and is how to destroy the world in the most beautiful way possible and with that, he succeeded. Maybe even outdid himself. Nevermind if the whole movie is way over bloated and too long, he knows that people don't really exactly mind if they get to see almost every single landmark in the world being destroyed by almost every single disaster thought possible. Nevermind if the scene is illogical, no one cares if they get to see people die from disasters. Like that particular scene where almost the whole world is almost destroyed by earthquakes and still one particular scientist from India can call his good friend using his cellphone who is in a cave in China! I hope Maxis is watching. If they can't guarantee me coverage come Armageddon, I am sure as hell changing my telco!

"I want more of whatever disaster you guys can think off right over there...."

Conclusion

Watching 2012 is like watching porn. It excite your senses with its imagery but at the end of the day you get nothing out of it. It is a decent watch and satisfying too if all you want to see is natural disasters as the visual effects are the best I had seen so far.

5.5 out of 10

First Review for The Gallery: Surrogates

Since this is my first ever review for The Peanut Gallery (the old ones doesn't count as it was written in my personal blog), I am going to change the format a little bit by going with a more systematic approach. So here goes:

Ever had that feeling that you wished to have a copy of you doing all the dirty work for you while you just sit in a room an control him/her with only your brain? Free from crime, fear, discrimination and pain, you live life with zero consequences where even if your robotic copy died you can always start over by buying another replacement. Is this the utopia that we human beings want for our future? This is the question Surrogates asked.



Story
The premises that Surrogates wants to explore is something which had the potential of being an awesome Sci-fi flick if given the hands of a capable scriptwriter and director. Instead of provoking the minds of the audience like how a great Sci-fi movie should be (ie. Children of Men, Minority Report and even 28 Days Later), the scriptwriters opt for the more dumb down approach to attract a more "mainstream" audience.

What we get from this is a very predictable plot of a FBI agent investigating a conspiracy against society. Or if you are an anime fan, imagine a retard version of Ghost in a Shell. Plot twists have minimal impact as they are unraveled quite hastily. Character development is flat as we don't feel or really care about the characters on screen. Its amazing how Up could do it in just 10 minutes and with minimal dialog! Overall, the story is weak but still not to the point of hopelessness. Well at least the ending is quite decent.


Acting
Acting is passable. As usual Bruce Willis is doing a "Die Hard" on action scenes and a "Six Sense" on dramatic scenes. Nothing noteworthy here or outstanding here. Supporting casts don't really catch my eye except for maybe Ving Rhames cool Bob Marley look as The Prophet.



Direction
The movie itself feels a little flat. As the pacing is a bit off while the movie tries to explore the characters more which unfortunately only seems to slow the movie down as it fails to invoke any sort of emotion we had on the characters. The director had failed totally to provoke the audiences thoughts or keep us at the edge of our seats with intense psychological action.

Conclusion
Surrogates is a decent watch as it is quite accessible to most audiences. Standard Hollywood fair, and is definitely better than most of the Summer Blockbuster crap that I had watched this year. At least this movie did not bombard my eyes with overdramatic explosions like some giant robot flick I have the (dis)pleasure to watch.

6 out of 10.

Old Reviews available in the Gallery

I had exported all my old movie reviews from my blog, The Bear Cave, to the Gallery. Writing ain't solid though after all, some reviews are written some years back. Enjoy!

What is The Peanut Gallery?

According to Wikipedia:

"A peanut gallery is an audience that heckles the performer. The term originated in the days of vaudeville as a nickname for the cheapest (and ostensibly rowdiest) seats in the theater; the cheapest snack served at the theater would often be peanuts, which the patrons would sometimes throw at the performers on stage to show their disapproval. The phrases "no comments from the peanut gallery" or "quiet in the peanut gallery" are extensions of the name."

Arm yourselves with peanuts! Its time to join me at The Peanut Gallery!

Shinjuku Incident Review

Before going into the cinema I was expecting some sort of a Rumble in the Bronx type of story but substitute the Bronx with Tokyo and swap the black and latino gangsters with the yakuza and you have Shinjuku Incident since after all, this is a Jackie Chan movie. I was wrong which was good... sort of.

This movie have zero stunts. No kungfu and zero action. In this movie, Jackie acts as an illegal (kungfu-less) Chinese immigrant who "sneaked" into Japan to find out his girlfriend's whereabouts and is caught up in a Yakuza civil war. Usually a typical Japanese will put Jackie in a wrong place at a wrong time and you will have him running around the whole of Tokyo and the movie ends with Jackie catching the top crook. But this ain't your typical Jackie Chan movie.

Instead of heading straight into the "wrong place wrong time" scenario immediately, we were shown how hard the lives of the illegal Chinese immigrants are. How they band together into a slum like environment and how this small community strives hard to survive in such a foreign environment and how they were drawn into a middle of an ongoing Yakuza civil war which actually turns out to be between a mix of Young and Dangerous and The Godfather.

What I like about this movie, is how for once Jackie is playing out of his usual goody-two-shoes accidental hero or superhuman cop character and jumped into a more down-to-earth kungfu-less chap and also how they try to make a Jackie Chan vehicle movie into an Asian gangster flick. The story is quite decent but when it reaches to the second half of the movie, plot holes began to show up at a rapid-fire rate. The cinematography is excellent and some scenes which is so nicely taken that it almost let you forget about the plotholes in the story. And last but not least the acting is very solid. I mean after all the whole cast is made up of veteran actors which could act without effort at any given time.

Time to play Spot the Familiar Faces from this picture

Other than the (second half of the) story, the pacing of the movie is something that I have big issues with. The story started of at a slow pace which was good as they used the characters to slowly buildup the story (kinda like GTA 4 only without the annoying cousin). Just when the buildup began to build momentum, the director slows things down again which kind of kill off all the buildup that the director had so painstakingly build. Then there are some parts of the movie which happened just like that with zero buildup which kinda totally kills my interests when the movie reaches the two thirds mark.

So what's my final verdict of this movie? A decent 6.8 out of 10. This movie could easily be Jackie Chan's chance to cement his reputation as a "serious" actor but unfortunately a classic this movie is not. Too many plot holes and bad pacing had spoiled what could be a movie of both technical and scriptwriting brilliance.


P/S: If only one of the assasination scnes could be as cool as the Godfather's "Baptism of Fire" scene I would had easily give this flick a 7.

12 Rounds Review...

Usually at any given day, I would had avoid any WWE (that wrestling organization formerly known as WWF before that panda organization sued them and had their name changed) produced film like a plague. That is because I always strongly believe that wrestling should be the only thing that this company should solely keep their hands on and nothing else. Don't believe me? Look what happen to the previous ventures of the then-WWF in the form of XFL (an American Football league that wants to compete with the NFL) or the World Bodybuilding Federation. Both of them went bust and the most of their movies sucked badly (with the exception of the Scorpion King which I think was pretty decent).

"I am gonna make 5 more movies!!!"

So enter 12 Rounds. When I first heard about it my first reaction was that it is so gonna suck as I thought that it will end up like The Marine (a movie which I sadly watched on the bus on my way to Mersing). As the release date of the movie draws near, something from the poster caught my eye. "From the director of Die Hard 2 and the producer of Speed" both of which happens to be two of my favourite action movies of all time (the 1st being Terminator 2, if you had to ask). So instantly my feelings towards this movie had transformed a 180 degrees from a no-fucking-way-I-am-gonna-watch-this-shit to a I-think-I-should-give-John-Cena-a-2nd-chance.

Thankfully, that initial feeling of avoiding this film was a wrong one....sort of. If there's anyone who knows how to make an action movie, that will be Renny Harlin. After all this guy made so many memorable action flicks but unfortunately, a great director can only do so much if the script suck... horribly. The whole movie is full of bad lines, bad one-liners and a bad story to build-up the action. The story seems to be ripped totally from Speed, Cliffhanger and Die Hard 3. Remember that great elevator scene from Speed? It's there. That "HOLD MY HAND!" scene at the beginning of Cliffhanger? It's there as well. And how about that whole "Simon says mind-games" plot that was the core of Die Hard 3? Sad to say it's the core of this movie as well.

My movie was ripped... Whoa~

Another aspect that this movie had totally neglect, is a need to cast a kickass villain to torment the hero. Instead of getting some kickass villain they have to opt for some unknown actor who can't say.... ACT! Listen WWE, the next time you can't find an awesome actor to play your villain, just grab one of the wrestlers from your roster. I can imagine HHH, Jericho, Randy Orton or heck even Edge could pass off as that villain anytime.

Despite the shitty script, the bad acting and the copy cat storylines there is still some good left in this movie. The action sequences are the only thing that kept this movie from sucking and that should be solely be credited to.. no not Cena, but the director himself. Most of the action sequences at the 2nd half of the movie are well nicely done with some of them being quite breathtaking which was enough from making this movie another crapfest I had the "honour" to watched for the nth time within these two months.

Any lesser director would had made 12 Rounds into this shit-fest

Final verdict? 6.5 out of 10. A decent enjoyable flick if you can totally ignore all that stupid lines spewed out from the characters and just watch the awesome action scenes. How about Cena's acting you ask? Still wooden as like he is cutting a promo in the ring after all he ain't no The Rock or Steve Austin.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Watchmen Review)

A long long time ago I came upon an article regarding the graphic novel a.k.a comics for adults called Watchmen. In that article, it sang praises after praises about this short series and how it was the only comic book to ever made it into the Times 100 list of best novels.

Curious as I were, I embark on an internet journey to obtain a copy of this series just to see how amazing this mini-series (12 books in total) of a comic book was. Upon reading the first book, I was hooked and within a day, I had finished the whole series and was totally swept away by the complexity and the awesomeness of the story. Coincidentally, a few days later, which happens to be right after the success of 300 by director Zack Snyder, the movie to Watchmen was announced. I was thrilled and worried at the same time. One part of me was thrilled that just shortly after completing my best comic book story of all time, a movie of it was announced! While the other part of me was very worried how a story so complex as Watchmen could ever translate into 2 to 3 hours of screen time? After 2 years of anticipating to finally watch the movie, fortunately my worries are unfounded.... almost.

I was glad that this movie do not deviate much from the comics. Which remains faithful for the most of 90% of the story. Heck, even the cinematography tends mimic nearly frame by frame of the comic book maybe save for the fight scenes which were way more awesome then the ones in the comics. If there's any Oscar for "Most Faithful Adaptation" category, Watchmen will certainly win the lifetime achievement of this category.

Unfortunately, despite the story being almost faithful to its source material, this movie is hampered by its inability to capture the feeling of most of the key moments of the comic book (see the SPOILERS section for a full list) and also care to explain in detail some important scenes.

So what's my final verdict of this movie? A solid 8.5 out of 10. Another solid comic book adaptation with some minor flaws here and there but still an overall highly watchable film.

P.S: The ending of this movie is quite "profound". Some people might not get it and it will ended up hating the movie. Another note is, if by the halfway mark of the movie and you still go asking "what is this guy's superpower?" to your friends, do yourself a favour and leave the cinema.





RANTS (SPOILERS ALERTS)
The attempted rape of the Silk Spectre I by the Comedian was one of the most iconic moments of the graphic novel unfortunately the film fails to capture this moment.

No details were fleshed out regarding the Keene Act which outlaws "costumed heroes" from fighting crimes.

How Ozymandias' pet which is a successful crossbreed of several felines were not mentioned but instead left the movie-goers confused on what the hell is that think.

Night Owl 2's impotence (sexually) and how he got his mood back is not described in detail.

Ozymandias is way to skinny and frail compared to his comic counterpart.

The plot which Ozymandias hatched to create a peaceful world was actually through a genetic engineered alien-looking gigantic squid to make people believes that it was an alien invasion but in the movie it was something that mimics Dr. Manhattan's power.

Unmasking of Rorschach which was one of the graphic novel's greatest moment happened just like that in the movie. No build-up whatsoever.

How Dr. Manhattan changed his mind to finally interfere into helping mankind was not well done.

Red Cliff Review (or How Romance of the Three Kingdoms was raped in front of my very eyes)

Friend: How was Red Cliff?
Me: To put it in simply. John Woo raped Romance of the Three Kingdoms... totally!

The above was the exact SMS conversation I had with a close friend of mine. If you are interested in reading the full and more graphic review of the 2 parts of this US$80m historical crapfest, read on.

Let me start of with the review of the 1st part of the movie. As expected from John Woo, the movie begins with some nice action sequence immediately after a short introductory of how Cao Cao started this war. All was looking good with Zhao Yun kicking ass until the scene where Zhang Fei asks Zhuge Liang to request for reinforcements from Liu Bei which was guarding the civilians fleeing the city which had just been occupied by Cao Cao. After Liu Bei's refusal to command his troops to abandon their position and help Zhang Fei, Zhuge Liang had an idea and left for Zhang Fei. Upon arriving Zhang Fei asks "Where's my reinforcement?" and instead of bringing an army, Guan Yu appears and start hacking and slashing ala Dynasty Warriors style at Cao Cao's army!!!! After that everything went downhill.

This Zhao Yun is way cooler and manlier than Andy Lau's version

Despite the Battle of Red Cliff being one of Chinese history's most decisive battles and also one of the most talked about among scholars, the battle in this movie is been horrendously dumbed down to make it more "acceptable" to the general viewing audience. There are totally no mentioning of strategies on how to overcome an overwhelming force of 800,000 against the 70,000 the proposed alliance would be having.

Instead, John Woo used up a large chunk of Part 1 A on how Sun Quan is struggling to accept an alliance with Liu Bei to ward off Cao Cao's army in one decisive battle and also some needless scenes involving the historical insignificant Xiao Qiao. All of her parts are added for the sake of adding Lin Zhiling in which includes a part where Xiao Qiao and her husband help a HORSE GIVING BIRTH TO A FUCKING PONY WITH THE HELP OF ZHUGE LIANG, a bandage wrapping scene and a needless sex scene.

The climatic battle towards the end of part I is perhaps the worse part in the movie. The fighting and battle sequence is beautifully done, with slow motions, graceful killings and also a scene which seems to be ripped off directly from Troy (the one where Brad Pitt made a beautiful leap while stabbing a giant at the back). However, the scene leading up to this battle is not. How a bunch of elite cavalry army could march stupidly into a trap while staring straight at it in such discipline fashion is really fucking dumb. Once inside the trap (which was made up of soldiers with shields), the cavalry was surrounded but did the alliance army just come full force and finish them off once and for all? NO! Instead they let 4 of the alliance generals (Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei, Guan Yu and a clone of Gan Ning named Gan Xing) to hack and slash the enemy soldiers Dynasty Warrior style while they look on and only started taking any action after a huge chunk of their enemies are dead. Some kind of brave soldiers they are huh?

With the alliance army winning the first encounter with Cao Cao's troop and the movie drawing to a close, Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu are discussing on how to fight the next wave of attack which would be a naval battle which Cao Cao greatly outnumber them, instead of hatching any semblance of a plan Zhou Yu replied that they will take things as it comes... this coming from one of the wisest man in Chinese history. After watching this crap of a movie, surely I won't catch Part 2 right? Well, no... instead I go ahead and watched the 2nd part as I was bored witless on Chinese New Year and Red Cliff is the only movie that seems less crap that is currently showing at our cinemas and also partly on my curiosity on how will John Woo continues to rape history even further.

For the 2nd part, shit picks up immediately where the 1st movie left off with the enemy playing football and the alliance still wondering how to outsmart their enemy in the final decisive naval battle. To avoid any spoilers of the 2nd movie I shall keep this review as brief as possible and also to tell you what crap you would expect. Like the first movie, all military strategy was hatch up last minute before any battle. Xiao Qiao plays a very important role in the outcome of the battle which rapes Chinese History even further. The final battle is a direct rip off from Saving Private Ryan's D-Day battle with troops laying siege while getting bombed by catapults. Also expect to see a scene which ripped off Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers, suicide bombing attack on a wall.

As for the climax, there's a bloody MEXICAN STANDOFF USING SWORDS which was a rip off any John Woo's previous films with GUNS! And also a scene from John Woo's "A Better Tomorrow" with Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhao Yun and Zhang Fei striking a cool pose while looking on. So what's my final verdict of this movie?

Example of a Mexican Standoff

From a big fan of the history of the three kingdoms era, I am not just disappointed but also disgusted by the treatment of Chinese History at the hands of John Woo. This itself deserves a 0 from me. But the cool cinematography, action sequence and some nice visual effects that rival Hollywood had raise my final verdict to a 4.5 out of 10. And my best advice is to watch the 1995 CCTV produced 84 episodes Romance of the Three Kingdoms which is still one of my favourite series ever.

If you don't know anything about Chinese History or have no interest in the Three Kingdoms era, then this movie should be enjoyable to you and should score around a 7.5 out of 10.




Victims of "Artistic Liberties" taken by John Woo:
Zhuge Liang - was horribly portrayed. This man is nearly God-like in Chinese History and yet in this movie he was like a playful kid with a great knowledge.

Huang Gai - One of the important figures in this battle with his muse being the turning point if the battle but instead was overshadowed by Xiao Qiao in this movie.

Guan Yu - Voice is way too feminine and his character is way to "cartoonish" for this Taoist "God of War".

Zhang Fei - He is turned into Gimli the 2nd in this movie. A bloody comic relief as a general with all brawns and no brains.

Liu Bei - In this movie he is portrayed as a non-charming idiot that is just lucky to have so many talented men under him.

Pang Tong - Despite his importance in this battle, John Woo decided to drop him entirely.

Cao Cao - A cunning man and a genius politician in the history books but is portrayed as a drunken, overconfident and lusty old man who would start a battle just for a woman ala plot from Troy.

All of Cao Cao's general that took part in this battle - All of them are missing in action.

Gan Ning - For having his named changed to Gan Xing itself is a great disrespect.


Some Notable Portrayal in this Movie:

Zhao Yun - Like in the books, this man is super cool in this movie eventhough his acts are a direct rip off from Legolas.

Zhou Yu - Tony Leung could act in any role and make it look good... nuff' said!