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!

The Dark Knight Review

I went into the cinema with sky high expectations of this movie mainly due to all the great superhero flicks that came out this year. My expectations are so high that even one single "off" moment in the movie will disappoint me greatly. Two and a half hours later.... I was impressed. I was awed. I wanted more Batman. And I feel depressed that we can never see another performance by Heath Ledger as the Joker ever again.

The actors... all of them gave it their all as if they all wanted to be nominated for an Oscar. Heath Ledger is amazing. You can never get enough of him. If you think casting Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man is the best casting call ever in comic book adaptation history? Just go watch Heath Ledger as the Joker.

The pacing is flawless. They fully utilize all two and a half hours of screen time to show you as much character development, action and a little bit of humour they could humanly possible. Each twist to the plot is handle with care so that the audience would not be lost half-way watching and still manage to throw in a few great one liners to humour us.

The final verdict? A PERFECT 10. If there's any comic book adaptation that ever deserves an Oscar? Let this be the first one ever. It had also become my favourite movie of all time, relegating The Godfather to second place.

Thank you Mr. Ledger and Mr. Nolan for such a great movie.

Incredible Hulk Review

They call this movie a reboot for the title character. To me its more of a reformat because it had totally wipe clean of any memory I had of the dreadful 2003 Ang Lee soap opera. Just a few seconds into the opening sequence had me smiling from ear to ear. The reference to S.H.I.E.L.D (yes the government agency with the long ass name mentioned in the movie Iron Man), Nick Fury and Stark Industries which clearly shows the direction Marvel is going to take in the next few years leading to the Avengers movie.

A few minutes into the movie you already have this intense chase sequence, where Bruce Banne (the Hulk's puny human alter-ego) is chased by the US military. Chase sequences which always leads to Banner transforming into the Hulk are aplenty in this movie but they are never repetitive as it takes place in different environments and who on earth can get enough of the mayhem and destruction? Maybe Bruce Banner, but definitely not us.

The screenwriting is good as it tends to go into details of things. Not as good as Iron Man's but still good nonetheless. They had done a good job linking **comic geeks take note** a particular SERUM which is developed during WORLD WAR 2 to Bruce Banner's condition. They even try to explain on how Banner's pants never seem to tear despite his clothings and shoes always does when he is transform into the Hulk.

Casting wise there's no complains maybe except Liv Tyler. Talk about stereotype, how many times have we seen her in yet another love-interest-to-the-hero-which-rarely-does-anything-important? If you seen her in Armageddon, you had seen it all. But that.. of course is just a personal opinion.

Watch my movie puny Humans!!!!

What made me totally forget about the 2003 snore-fest is the mind blowing action sequences. All of it done in great detail. Watch how the parts from the cars fling all over the place when the Hulk uses it as a weapon or how each bullet that bounced off the Hulk's body is painstakingly shown. The final fight sequence had me smiling as soon as it started right until the end of it. Gamma clap? It's there. Hulk shouting "HULK SMASH" it is there and that two words alone is worth watching the movie alone (at least for comic book fans that is :-P).

The final verdict? A solid 8.8 out of 10. Solid comic book adaptation. Awesome action sequences, some great casting of Edward Norton as Bruce Banner and the best of all, erase all that painful memories you had watching the 2003 version. The bad news however, is that this movie might raise your expectations for The Dark Knight to some unreachable heights.... Oh yeah do look out for a certain superhero right before the credits....

Flash Point Review

I had never been a huge fan of Donnie Yen honest. I always deem him as an inferior martial arts actor compared to the likes of Jackie Chan, Yuen Biao, Yuen Wah and Jet Li whom I had grow up watching and idolizing. I never really liked him, not even in the excellent Wilson Yip directed SPL (a.k.a Sha Po Lang) in which IMHO is great because of Simon Yam, Sammo Hung and the then-HK-movie-industry-rookie Wu Jing in which he plays a cold blooded silent assasin for the triads which will even make Luca Brasi feels like a n00b.

Then came Dragon Tiger Gate, a flick which the trailers feels much more cooler than the movie itself. True, I must admit that the movie's redeeming point is none other but Donnie Yen himself but his GODMODE-ON in nearly all his scenes is a huge turnoff for me.

Fortunately for me, I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and decided to catch his latest flick which is currently showing in the cinemas now called Flash Point. Ok to be honest, its not really that benefit-of-the-doubt bullshit that got me buying tickets for this flick. Its the trailer of this movie that got me excited about this movie. Because in the trailer, there is zero dialogue, zero cliched-plot-revealing-flashing-words-on-the-screen and is very straight to the point by telling you this is a martial arts flick because all you ever see in the trailer other than the movies title are kicks, punches, armbars and a beautiful executed german suplex. And being the huge sucker for martial arts movie I did not seem to care about the lessons I learnt from Dragon Tiger Gate and just rush to get the tickets to the movie as soon as I have the free time to watch it once it is released.

Ok so now, on with the movie's review. Ok here's a brief synopsis of the plot. Donnie Yen plays a no-nonsense cop, just cop who is ruthless when it comes to catching criminals (which in other words is a 100% total opposite of Malaysian cops) and is trying hard to catch a band of villainous ruthless Vietnamese brothers. While Louis Khoo plays the undercover cop as the lackey of these villains. Well if you ask me, the plot is nothing but a build up to a huge one on one brawl towards the climax. The movie started at a slow pace for the first 45 minutes to 1 hour with time given for "plot development". After that it is a non-stop martial arts fest which is perhaps the most realistic looking fight choreography that I had ever seen in a movie. Instead of using traditional kicks and punches that is used in most martial arts movies, Flashpoint uses MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) which is much more rawer, intense and realistic.

In most martial arts film when guy A kick guy B to the floor, guy B will bounced back up almost immediately or guy A gives him enough time to do so. But not Flashpoint. A strike that takes down the opponent is usually followed up by more punches, kicks or even submission holds such as the deadly armbar. In other words the fight scenes is done very nicely in a very smooth uninterrupted flow of punches, kicks, throws and locks which I had never seen before in any martial arts flick and all these are directed by Donnie Yen himself.

Well despite its flawless fight scenes I do have a few major complaints about this movie though. Donnie Yen and Louis Khoo just doesn't have on screen chemistry. Both of them don't seem to "connect" with each other at all. Also Fan Bing Bing in the movie serves no purpose other than being a very sweet eyecandy. Not that I mind or anything, but she's being cast into the wrong role IMHO.

Overall Flashpoint is a must watch martial arts movie for all fans of this genre. I give it an 8 out of 10 stars.

P.S: To those who have no idea what MMA is, try searching for it on Youtube.

Transformers Review

Despite Transformers being perhaps the coolest movie event this year, which is mainly due to its great CGI effects, Michael Bay still deserves to be shot... maybe not as much as he should before.

Alright to be honest I have totally no expectations of this movie at all. Mainly its because it is directed by Michael Bay. Not that I really hate that man or anything but once you seen one of his movies you had seen it all. The way he does thing is similar, be it Armageddon or Bad Boys or even that dreaded crap called Pearl Harbour. Another reason is Megatron's new design. While others like Prime, Bumblebee, Barricade and Starscream is redesigned into a much cooler version of their cartoon-self, Megatron is a hundred steps backwards. Don't get me wrong, the Alien Jet movie version is fitting and cool but his Robot design is..... crap.

Ok enough about my expectations, here's my RM0.02 about the movie. Ok despite all the Michael Bay cliched camera works, badly done pacing and extensive use of explosions (well at least his over-explosions are very well done here), the movie is actually good but unfortunately, it had nothing to do with Bay. The only reason why this movie is so freaking cool is because of the robots themselves. How they were animated in so much detail like how Prime turn his face plate off while talking and turn it on while fighting. Their transformation sequence are also animated in great detail that had me drooling all over the place.

The voice acting is perhaps the best of them all. The voice acting is so good that even those cheesy cartoonish lines sounded perfectly. I mean with Peter Cullen reprising his role as Prime surely can never go wrong right? But what really surprises me is Megatron. I never expect Hugo Weaving a.k.a Agent Smith a.k.a Elrond to voiced Megatron so flawlessly and of course "badass-ly". And of course comparing Hugo Weaving with Peter Cullen is kinda unfair since one is Optimus Prime himself while the other is just a voice actor :P

The one thing that makes this movie far from perfect is that Bay tend to focus more on the soap opera that revolves around the humans rather than the robots and also the very anti-climatic ending which would leave you "WTF? Is that all?" after the end.

Overall this is a must watch movie. Despite the anti-climatic ending and the very Bay-ish cliched cameraworks and pacing, the robots itself is worth the price of the tickets ^_^.

Overall Score: 8 over 10.

P.S: Bay is still a bad director ^_^ and if you still haven't seen the Transformers Animated Movie (or do not even know of its existence) do go watch it.