Genre: Comedy
Director: Wilson Chin
Cast: Wong Cho Lam, Chapman To, Kimmy Tong, Jim Chim, Susan Shaw, Benz Hui, Bob Lam, Evergreen Mak, Oscar Leung
RunTime: 1 hr 38 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Some Sexual References And Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw & Scorpio East Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 3 April 2014
Synopsis: Detective Johnny Du (Wong Cho Lam) was smart and agile but his short height has hindered him from joining the G4 protection detail for the HK Chief Executive. His sassy girlfriend bullied him all the time, leaving him depressed at work and at home. His helplessness attracted Vincent, the devil Prince (Chapman To) and Jim, the Angel to fight for his soul…
Movie Review:
Just when you thought Wong Jing has gotten back his comedic mojo, along comes a certain movie called ‘Black Comedy’ to convince you otherwise. To be sure, the multi-hyphenate isn’t in the directing seat this time round; instead, he is responsible for producing and scripting this nonsense, and has instead handed the reins over to ‘Lan Kwai Fong’ director Wilson Chin to make sense of this farce.
If you’ve seen the trailer, or read the synopsis, you probably already know the story from start to finish. Yes, it is that shallow. Essentially, TVB star Wong Cho-Nam plays a police officer named Johnny Du or To Kei-Fung (whose Chinese name basically sounds and reads the name as that of famed Hong Kong director Johnnie To) that dreams of joining the G4 protection detail for the Chief Executive. His height however is his Achilles’ heel, and it doesn’t help that his boss (Benz Hui) and girlfriend Angel (Kimmy Tong) are not as supportive as they could be.
Enter Chapman To’s devil Prince, who has been assigned by his mother (Siu Yam Yam) to procure more souls for the netherworld. Prince offers Johnny Du three wishes in exchange for his soul, which owing to the latter’s depressed state of mind, he readily accepts. What does Johnny use his three wishes for? One, he wishes that his sassy girlfriend would be sweet, demure and innocent; two, he wishes that he could be a rich man; and three, he wishes that he could indeed be part of the security detail for the Chief Executive.
Oh wait, have we just ruined the movie for you? Not quite, like we said, if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve pretty much seen the entire movie. And the best part? You wouldn’t need to waste 98 minutes of your precious life sitting through extended versions of gags that are even more painfully unfunny than in their abbreviated forms. Yes, if Wong Jing seems to have written the script on auto-pilot, then Wilson Chin seems to have directed the movie with his eyes closed, so much so that what is supposed to pass off as amusing comes off as anything but.
We kid you not - for a movie that is clearly meant to be a comedy, there is hardly anything to laugh at. And in case you’re thinking that the title could mean that there is some subversive humour that we are not getting, well let us reassure you that Wong Jing doesn’t have the capacity for such subtleties. To make matters worse, the movie drags… and drags… and drags, lurching from one humourless scene to another with neither purpose nor direction, leading up to a predictable showdown between Prince and Angel (Jim Chim) for Johnny’s soul.
Saddled with such terrible material, it is no wonder that neither Wong Cho-Lam or Chapman To manage to rise above the fore. It’s certainly unfortunate that his first outing headlining a feature length film after cutting his teeth through many TVB serials and variety shows has turned out to be in an utterly dull film, and though Wong tries his best to use his trademark over-acting to inject some laughs, the result is pretty much like flogging a dead horse. On the other hand, To hardly even tries, the pair hardly sharing any chemistry here worthy of the kind of team-up which the movie promises.
There’s hardly any doubt that ‘Black Comedy’ is bad comedy, or for that matter, hardly any comedy in the first place. It is quite simply Wong Jing’s worst script in some years, made worse by a tone-deaf director whose ‘Lan Kwai Fong’ movies have only betrayed his clunky execution on full display here. If you’re a Wong Cho Lam or Chapman To fan, we urge you to steer clear, for there surely has to be something more worthwhile of both their talents combined or individually. This just simply isn’t it.
Movie Rating:
(Not even two of Hong Kong’s best comedians can redeem this painfully unfunny turd of nonsense from producer-scripter Wong Jing and director Wilson Chin)
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300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE breaks record for Highest Industry Opening Day for an M18 film!Posted on 07 Mar 2014 |
Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Mac Carter
Cast: Jacki Weaver, Liana Liberato, Danielle Chuchran, Harrison Gilbertson
RunTime: 1 hr 26 mins
Rating: PG13 (Horror)
Released By: InnoForm Media & Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website: http://www.ifccenter.com/films/haunt/
Opening Day: 3 April 2014
Synopsis: A family of five moves into a beautiful, sprawling dream home. One problem: it's cursed, having caused the deaths of the previous family to occupy it, leaving only one survivor (Jacki Weaver). The family's moody 18-year-old son and his mysterious new neighbor inadvertently awaken something in the house while also violently shaking the many skeletons in the many closets. Mac Carter's debut feature is a frightening and powerful character-driven haunted-house film that isn't afraid to take theaction outside.
Movie Review:
There are haunted house movies, and then there are haunted house movies. Some like ‘Insidious’ and ‘Paranormal Activity’ belong to one category, and forever change the way we look at shadows at night or creaking furniture at any time of the day. There are also those like ‘Haunt’, which frankly do just the opposite of what the title of this movie implies it does. Yes, these are the ones that make you wonder just what they had intended to accomplish in the first place; after all, it doesn’t take long before another one of their kind comes along to replace them.
If it isn’t quite apparent enough yet, ‘Haunt’ is an utterly forgettable haunted house horror thriller from director Mac Carter and screenwriter Andrew Barrer. Like countless others of its ilk, this one begins with an unsuspecting family moving into a house with a history. Turns out that its previous inhabitants had all lost their lives, save for a ghoulish-voiced, hollow-eyed matriarch played by Jacki Weaver, who narrates the opening voiceover and turns up here and there to warn its new tenants to stay out of the foreboding attic which her teenage son used to occupy.
Save for a couple of scenes, it seems that the haunting primarily afflicts the middle child of the Asher family, Evan (Harrison Gilbertson), as well as his newfound friend, Sam (Liana Liberato). Evan meets the latter while taking a walk through the wintry woods one night, and his chivalric instincts are immediately awakened by this local girl crying on her own after being abused by her father. Like the rest of Evan’s family members though, her physical abuse is treated almost like an afterthought, so poorly and dimly sketched you wonder why the filmmakers even bothered in the first place.
What should have been an increasingly tense collection of creepy goings-on however fizzles out in the middle, as first-time feature filmmaker Carter sacrifices the horror for some moody adolescent coupling. Evan becomes increasingly obsessed with Sam, and things only step up a notch when the latter convinces the former to use an old radio to communicate with the dead, unleashing the spirit which in the opening scene is seen terrorising a grieving father trying to use the same device to make contact with his deceased children.
Unfortunately, even at this late stage into the film, you’ll hardly find the scares memorable. For one, there are no compelling characteristics to the ghostly apparitions which Evan and Sam run into. For another, there is an overreliance on jump scares to get a jolt from its audience, an oft-used technique which ends up being frustrating more than anything. And before you know it, the film’s underwhelming climax is over, never quite explaining or building up to any sort of meaningful end the use of the old radio to fully awaken the spirits in the house, nor for that matter giving any clue just why the meanest of them lurking spirits would want to terrorise Evan or Sam in the first place.
It isn’t just the story that is lacking; indeed, for what has been billed a character-driven horror, the characterisation is simply wanting. There is no backstory to either Evan or Sam, nor any chemistry that sparks between them despite the fact that Sam comes over to bunk in Evan’s bed most of the time; short of adolescent lust (confirmed in a brief love-making scene between the pair), there is no other explanation why Evan takes to Sam the way that he does, which calls into serious question just why he would risk joining her in some spirit-raising in the first place.
The fault lies hardly with our two teenage stars; rather, whether in the scripting or the directing, there is little clue whether ‘Haunt’ intends to be a creepy thriller the way ‘Insidious’ or ‘The Conjuring’ was or an adolescent drama built on emotional disaffection. The result is a movie that ends up neither scary nor affecting in any manner. Yes, it barely lives up to its name, and like we said at the start, belongs to that category of haunted house movies which are forgotten as soon as the lights in the cinema come on.
Movie Rating:
(Unless jump scares are your thing, there is nothing Haunt-ing about this subpar haunted house horror that tries but fails to be a quiet and affecting adolescent drama)
Review by Gabriel Chong
SYNOPSIS: Lam Kwok Kuen, nearing retirement and raising a mentally challenged son by himself, is a police officer whose sole requirement on the job is oversee the department fleet. Despite this, he remains active in the front line of police service, putting his life on the line for the sake of others, his heroism bettering even the most seasoned professionals. He fights the bad guys, putting criminals behind bars, upholding the law at any cost, for as his adage proclaims, to live a day surmounts to pursuing justice relentlessly, whether life or death proceeds in its aftermath.
MOVIE REVIEW:
While megastar Jackie Chan has slowed down in the action department, veteran actor Simon Yam just a year younger than the latter seems eager to step into his shoes in this Dennis S.Y. Law directed The Constable.
Yam plays Kuen, a police vehicle commander working in the EU unit. He is an all-rounder, dedicated cop and a single parent to his mentally challenged son. With rising costs on the island, Kuen moves to nearby Shenzhen and hires Yen (Niu Mengmeng), a young lady who helms from a village to be the babysitter. Yen has a boyfriend, a crook by the name of Chow (Sam Lee) who is later roped in by a local thug (Ken Lo) to commit a robbery in HK.
Thus what is exactly Dennis Law brewing this time? A cop drama with a twist? A prolonged police recruitment reel? We have no idea. But the good thing is Law constantly puts Yam’s character in action. From the opening where a girl nearly gets sexually assaulted by a group of men dressed in whites to a gang fight in a public toilet to a case of counterfeit money to a hostage case in a restaurant and lastly the attempted bank robbery. Wow, Keung is like a supercop and he keeps bumping into crimes on the streets mostly while he is off-duty. To add to it, he eats cereal for breakfast and is good at cutting leeks and carrots too.
Scripting and directing are not Law’s stronger areas (we heard he is good in real estate though) and The Constable is filled with so much coincidences and mundane happenings that we gave up analyzing what’s exactly wrong with it. The action choreography by Nicky Li looks slipshod and the editing seriously needs more work. Still, Yam manages to keep everything going together with people liked Maggie Siu, Lam Suet and Nick NY as his subordinate.
Director Dennis Law actually belonged to a peculiar breed of filmmakers in Hong Kong. He finances, directs and mostly writes his own movies. The downside of things is his outputs are consistently awful. The Constable ends with a thoughtful note:
“To live a day surmounts to pursuing a purposeful life whether life or death proceeds in its aftermath”
Again, we can’t tell if Law has managed to spread his message across but The Constable is not as bad as his previous outings. For a Dennis Law movie, that amounts to a lot.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Just a Trailer.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The DVD comes with dual languages and just look visually cheap and serviceable for the small screen.
MOVIE RATING:
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DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: Ray Breslin (Sylvester Stallone), the world's foremost authority on structural security, agrees to take on one last job: breaking out of an ultra-secret, high-tech facility called "The Tomb." When he realizes he's been the victim of a trick and has been wrongly imprisoned, he recruits fellow inmate Emil Rottmayer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) to help devise a daring, nearly impossible plan to escape from the most protected and fortified prison ever built.
MOVIE REVIEW:
“Better late than never” is best used to describe Escape Plan. Two of Hollywood’s most famous action icons team up for the first time in this action thriller helmed by Swedish Mikael Håfström.
The action quotient is surprisingly dialed back despite the upsize Sly/Arnold combo. I suspect something called age got to do with it even though I can’t deny it’s still fun to see Arnold delivering some wisecracks while Sly lands some tough punches to his opponents.
Originally named The Tomb, Sly plays Ray Breslin, an expert in jailbreak, not jailbreaking an iPad but a real cell or maximum-security premise for that matter. When Ray is tricked into testing a top-secret prison, he finds himself struggling to stay alive under the charge of a sadistic prison warden, Hobbes (Jim Caviezel). In order to plan his escape, he must team up with a resourceful fellow inmate, Rottmayer (Schwarzengger) or risk spending his entire life in the escape-proof prison.
It’s never boring watching Sly and Arnold onscreen together. The Expendables don’t really count though. The duo exudes sizzling chemistry and clearly game on putting on a good show. The premise is interesting enough but comparing to the stuff they did during their heydays, Escape Plan suffers from a low budget and it clearly shows for the bulk of the movie. The script attempts to distract the audience by showcasing Breslin’s wits and Rottmayer’s humour to make up for the prolonged running time. Yet it somehow backfires when they are simply too many scenes featuring Breslin and Rottmayer’s hush-hush discussion over lunch.
Fortunately, Håfström and his two leading men brought in some need be old school action in the third act successfully dispelling audience’s disgruntledness and satisfying everyone’s anticipation. When you are watching a movie featuring Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, there’s a strong feeling you won’t be keen on people like Caviezel and Vinnie Jones playing psychotic wardens, Vincent D’Onofrio as Breslin’s scheming partner, 50 Cent as a computer expert or Sam Neil appearing as the prison doctor.
To conclude, the wrinkles might be showing, the muscles sagging. Still, Escape Plan is an easy to watch action flick especially when it contains two huge marquee names strong enough to drown you with suffocating levels of testosterone.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The extras include Executing the Plan, a 22 minutes segment that interviewed the main cast & crew and some behind the scene footages. There also 11 Deleted Scenes.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The DVD boasts strong detailing and colours while the Dolby Digital 5.1 delivers clear dialogue and the occasional surround activity.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Drama/Romance
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
Cast: Léa Seydoux, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Salim Kechiouche
RunTime: 2 hrs 52 mins
Rating: R21 (Homosexual Content)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/BlueIsTheWarmestColour
Opening Day: 1 May 2014
Synopsis: A 15-year-old girl named Adèle is approaching adulthood and dreams of experiencing her first love. A handsome male classmate falls for her hard, but an unsettling erotic reverie upsets the romance before it begins. Adèle imagines that the mysterious, blue-haired girl she encountered in the street slips into her bed and possesses her with an overwhelming pleasure. That blue-haired girl is a confident, older art student named Emma, who will soon enter Adèle's life for real.
Movie Review:
The French romance drama ‘Blue is the Warmest Color’ arrives on a wave of both hype and controversy- the former for being both the winner of Cannes’s top prize, the Palme d’Or, and the international critics prize at the same festival; and the latter for the explicit lesbian love-making scenes within as well as criticism focusing on the director’s indulgence and supposed predatory eye - but in order to fully appreciate the raw emotional power of this extraordinary film, we’d advise you to set aside any preconceptions you may have about it nor perhaps your own bias about homosexual relationships if any.
Tunisian-French director Abdellatif Kechiche co-adapted this story of sexual awakening and real love from a graphic novel by Julie Maroh, but he and his fellow screenwriter Ghalya Lacroix have substantially altered the story from its original source material. No matter, for say what you may about Kechiche and his methods, but there is no denying that he has crafted an extraordinarily moving film about young love. This certainly isn’t the first time that a filmmaker has tried to portray it on the big screen, but there is something truly exquisite about the way which Kechiche does it, including coaxing some of the best performances you’ll seen this year from a pair of actresses.
From death, the focus here is now on education, and those familiar with Kechiche’s work should not be surprised. Again interweaving sexuality and literature, Kechiche’s opening frame begins with an academic dissection of ‘The Life of Marianne’, Pierre Marivaux's prescient 18th-century novel on what women want, and the discussion stops aptly at the point when Marianne realises that there is something missing in her life. And that is before we meet the first of our key protagonists, Adele (Adèle Exarchopoulos), a 15-year-old high-school student on the cusp of maturity. What that means for her however is to be seen.
Pursued by the seemingly perfect guy, Adele nonetheless finds herself feeling empty and flat; instead, she can’t get out of her mind off the young woman with the blue-streaked boyish haircut whom she passed on the street. A chance meeting at a lesbian bar seals the introduction between Adele and the fourth-year fine arts student Emma (Léa Seydoux), sparking off a connection that is as intense emotionally as it develops physically. The urgency of first love, its romanticism, the physical attraction, the desperation, the ecstasy, its indelible nature even on later life, the heartbreak and the pain - Kechiche captures that with almost effortless ease, portrayed with a clarity and honesty that will transcend your personal views about sexuality, or to be more precise, homosexuality.
Given the attention it has received, it makes sense at this juncture to discuss the bedroom scenes between Adele and Emma. There’s no reconciling the divisive views on Kechiche’s extremely graphic and intimate couplings between his two key leads, but the purpose for these erotic interludes to us is always clear - sex and love are sometimes just two sides of the same coin, and in an attraction that intense and consuming, it isn’t quite possible to separate one from the other. Regardless of whether you feel that Kechiche depicts too much of the sex, the effect of watching that intimacy is undeniable, informing and enhancing the depth of their desire for each other that no words or sweet gestures can ever take the place of.
Especially so when you have such dedicated performances as that of Exarchopoulos’ and Seydoux’s - indeed, there is good reason why this is the first film ever to have the Palme d'Or awarded not just to both the director but also to its two lead actresses. Seydoux brings poise and elegance to Emma, and Exarchopoulos complements that with rawness and edge in an utterly spellbinding turn as Adele. At only 19 years old, Exarchopoulos throws herself so completely into the role to express both the ecstasy and agony of a first relationship as well as the aura and sensibility of an adult woman when her character ages into her mid-20s. Together, they are simply magnetic, and the scene where Emma confronts Adele’s infidelity is one played with such passion by both actresses that it will leave you floored.
Amid the love story, Kechiche too draws attention to the class differences between Adele and Emma. The former’s working class background is held in sharp contrast against the latter’s upper class upbringing especially in the two family dinner scenes. It is these differences that will lead to their eventual breakup, and Kechiche uses their disparate social circumstances to explain their drifting apart. More than an exploration of gender and sexual identity, Kechiche uses his film to examine issues of social belonging, backed by frequent talk about student politics, music, art history and philosophy.
And yet even if you can’t quite grasp the nuances, ‘Blue’ is still mesmerising in its emotional candour, a truly passionate and poignant exploration of love and loss. There will always be naysayers who claim that the film glamourises lesbian relationships, and those who feel that it portrays such a relationship in hetero patterns, but to get mired in that sort of criticism is simply missing the point. This is love in its truest and most elemental, a love that straight or gay we all hope to experience at some point in life, which has been translated into film with an accuracy and precision that few others have ever managed to - and that in itself is reason to make sure that you do not miss out on one of the very best films of the year.
Movie Rating:
(A tour de force in its honesty, poignancy and raw emotional power, this much-hyped portrayal of first love is a must-see no matter your sexual orientation)
Review by Gabriel Chong
SYNOPSIS: Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney). But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving Stone and Kowalsky completely alone—tethered to nothing but each other and spiraling out into the blackness. The deafening silence tells them they have lost any link to Earth... and any chance for rescue. As fear turns to panic, every gulp of air eats away at what little oxygen is left. But the only way home may be to go further out into the terrifying expanse of space.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Sweeping seven Academy Awards including Best Director, Gravity is one exhilarating space movie that doesn’t feature any lightsaber or ‘beam us up’ technology.
Gravity comes close to a documentary about astronauts and the outer space in which this reviewer caught at the Omni-Theatre when he was young. This movie written by director Alfonso Cuaron and his son, Jonas is not much into plotting and character development, similar to a documentary, it throws audiences into a nail-biting journey experienced by two astronauts and never lets go till the credits roll after 90 minutes.
Filmed digitally on Alexa cameras and featuring groundbreaking visual effects work by Framestone, it’s a technological achievement for vfx since every single detail is recreated faithfully (and flawlessly) onscreen including the two principle actors, Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Cuaron is no stranger in using long takes (check out his Children of Men for one such scene) and right here, the opening is another deliberate continuous 17-minute shot that easily surpassed the former.
The amusing comic duo, Tina Fey and Amy Poeher has earlier poked fun at Clooney’s character at the Golden Globes and they weren’t exactly wrong. Clooney’s veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski appears for only one third of the movie though it was essentially thought to be a two-actor stage play. But anyway the talented actor brought much comic relief to ease the incredible tension. Hearing his trademark silky voice alone (he is covered in astronaut outfit throughout the duration) is worth the admission.
Sandra Bullock is the main star here and her performance as Dr. Ryan Stone is a combination of grace and sheer brilliance. Her character is one tortured soul with a dark past. It’s just unfortunate she has to encounter a terrible incident on her maiden journey to space. Even there’s little material to work with, Bullock manages to successfully convey the fear, despair of trapping in space as she fumbles from one space station to another.
It took four painstaking years to bring Gravity to screen. In the end, Gravity is a not-to-be-missed, tour-de-force by Alfonso Cuaron and his team.
Mayday, Mayday, I’m still gasping for breath!
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Believe it or not, space is filled with debris. This documentary Collision Point: The Race to Clean Up Space narrated by Ed Harris (who also provide the voice of mission control in the movie) is about the danger of that. Informative stuff.
Aningaaq – A Short Film by Jonas Cuaron is a companion short feature that focuses on the wrong contact made by the despaired Dr. Stone aboard the capsule. A brief introduction by the father and son filmmakers is also included.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The DVD comes with a perfect 5.1 soundtrack that never compromises the little sound effects such as heavy breathing, vibrations etc. Detailing is fantastic, colors undeniable solid.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: Determined to get engaged before her youngest sister's wedding, flight attendant Montana Moore (Paula Patton) finds herself with only 30 days to find Mr. Right. Using her airline connections to "accidentally" meet up with eligible ex-boyfriends and scour for potential candidates, she racks up more than 30,000 miles and countless comedic encounters, all the while searching for the perfect guy.
MOVIE REVIEW:
The recently separated Paula Patton (Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, 2 Guns) stars as flight attendant Montana, a beautiful lady who just couldn’t find the right man to settle down. To avoid attending her younger sis’s engagement party alone, she has 30 days to find a partner and her two overzealous colleagues, Gail (Jill Scott) and Sam (Adam Brody) hatched a crazy plan to make it happen.
Baggage Claim based on director David E. Talbert’s own book is a downright silly romantic sitcom to begin with. Even with Talbert’s best effort to assemble every African American actor and actresses in the flick, the material simply falls flat. Imagine the plan is to have Montana accidentally bump into many of his exes to sieve through who is actually the perfect one for her. Call it ridiculous, one glance and you can see why Montana left them in the first place. It doesn’t help that Talbert has already placed the perfect man for Montana right in the beginning of the movie. William, Montana’s childhood friend and neighbor who has no qualms lending his ear and shoulder.
It’s downright predictable and to the extent of lame, almost unbearable to see the usually reliable Patton acting so hopelessly stupid. Talbert’s idea of comedy is putting Montana in a garbage bin, under the rain stuck at a fire escape and running across countries just to meet up with her ex-boyfriends. Pathetically, there’s nothing romantic or funny about it. Occasionally, there’s the sex-starved Gill and the cliché gay confidant Sam to provide some tickles. Otherwise, there’s Djimon Hounsou, Taye Diggs, Trey Songz and Boris Kodjoe in supporting roles.
For an African-American oriented comedy, Baggage Claim failed miserably and not because of it’s talented cast. There’s plenty of eye candy for sure but little mileage by the end of it. When a movie relied on not one but two long-winded speeches about love plus an airport rush thrown in to conclude, you know you can throw this baggage out.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Fly Girls focused on interviews with the numerous female cast while Wing Men interviewed the men. The last feature, The Story has director David E. Talbert talking about his movie which in turn is based on his own decade old novel.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The DVD offers a sharp nice viewing experience. The Dolby Digital 5.1 is on the soft side though expected with this kind of genre. Dialogue is absolutely clear.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: Small-time pot dealer David Clark (Jason Sudeikis) must become a big-time drug smuggler, and devises a foolproof plan. He convinces his neighbours - stripper Rose (Jennifer Aniston), loser Kenny (Will Poulter) and runaway Casey (Emma Roberts) - to create a fake family. With one huge RV and a ton of laughs, the Millers head south of the border for a Fourth of July weekend that is sure to end with a bang.
MOVIE REVIEW:
A small time pot dealer David Clark (Jason Sudeikis) is forced by his douchebag boss Brad Gurdlinger (Ed Helms from The Hangover) to smuggle marijuana from Mexico to repay his debts. In order not to arouse suspicious at the custom, Clark decides to rope in his neighbor, stripper Rose (Jennifer Aniston), loser Kenny (Will Poulter) and runaway, Casey (Emma Roberts). Together they form the all American family, The Millers. Disguising as tourists and travelling in a huge RV, the Millers find themselves on the run not from the cops but merciless drug lords and a DEA agent.
We’re The Millers continues the formula, which madeHorrible Bosses so successful. Coincidentally, both titles star Sudeikis and Aniston and also a Warner Bros release. The formula is simple. Throw a couple of familiar faces (preferable ex-SNL members) into a ridiculous situation, let them simmer and hopefully we get a funny movie that actually works. Lucky for Warner Bros, they hit the jackpot once again.
For a raunchy road trip movie, it sits somewhere between the first Hangover and definitely way better than the Downey, Jr. and Galifianakis’ Due Date. It’s full of laughs, offensive gags and genuinely fun to follow. Sudeikis has never been funnier since he got his first major big screen role opposite Owen Wilson in Hall Pass. This guy proved he could hold his own without the presence of another male co-star. Aniston scored another home run after her crazy, seductive dentist role in Horrible Bosses. The 44 year old confidently tackles the role of a stripper here. That body of hers is pure gold so to speak.
Some of the gags involve the innocent Kenny and the most memorable of all is none other than the tarantula bite. The supporting cast is round up by Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation) and Kathryn Hahn (Crossing Jordan) who pairs up as the quirky Fitzgeralds whom befriend the Millers when their RV broke down. Although it’s pretty funny thanks to the bunch of talented comedic cast, the movie can be easily shaved by 30 minutes without you feeling the pinch. It does get a bit tiring towards the end with all the hoo-ha with the Mexican drug dealers yet you just can’t let go of all the silliness.
Despite a few little nitpicks, We’re The Millers ends up as one of the best comedies of 2013. At least the entire movie is as funny as the outtakes.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The DVD comes with both the Theatrical Cut that runs 110 minutes and the Extended Cut, which lasts 9 minutes more.
Check out the bunch of talented actors who improvise a lot in Millers Unleashed: Outtakes Overload.
Behind The Scenes: Stories from the Road is separated into seven short segments and takes a look into the costume design, the actual RV used in the movie and other fun trivial stuff.
A detailed look into the crazy world of Ed Helms' Brad Gurdlingerin Behind The Scenes: Livin' It Up With Brad
Does the set contain real marijuana? The answer lies in Behind the Scenes: When Paranoia Sets In.
16 minutes of 8 Extended/Deleted Scenes, some of the scenes even have several variations of it.
3 minutes of Gags & More Outtakes conclude the extra features.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The DVD boasts excellent colors and images while music and dialogue are consistently clear. It’s a comedy so don’t go expecting anything more.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
SYNOPSIS: In the frenetic underbelly of Los Angeles, Agent Maxwell closes in on an international cocaine smuggling operation run by criminal mastermind Vincent Camastra. When Agent Beverly Royce goes undercover with the drug dealers and finds herself deeper than she can handle - the case becomes personal for Maxwell who has to combat ruthless killers and dirty cops in an all-out action filled finale to bring the criminals to justice.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Dolph Lundgren and Randy Couture from the Expendables franchise stars and produce this straight-to-DVD effort, Ambushed. Even though their faces together with Vinnie Jones are plastered on the DVD cover, these three actors unfortunately account for less than one third of the running time, a common cheap ploy by film companies to market their movies to unsuspecting audiences.
The story written by someone named Agustin is about two buddies, a fast-talking Irish lad Eddie (Gianni Capaldi) and Frank (Daniel Bonjour). They operate a strip club at night and dream of getting themselves into the drug business for the money. Without any detailed proceedings, Frank went on to kill the middleman and deals direct with ruthless mobster, Vincent Camastra (Vinnie Jones). When a dirty corrupted cop named Jack Reiley (Randy Couture) starts to meddle with their dealings, Frank realizes his plans of starting a normal life with his girlfriend, Ashley need a Plan C.
Ultimately, this is a crime story about Eddie and Frank. Two disgusting low-life that you wish they are dead the minute they appear onscreen. I doubt you wish to see them on the screen for the entire 93 minutes running time. But here they are on the screen with their boring drug dealings, sex with wild hookers, Eddie’s childish drunk antics at a bar, Frank’s romance with his 'pure' girlfriend and even more dreaded conversations between themselves.
I have yet mention the involvement of Dolph Lundgren because he plays a DEA agent, Evan Maxwell that never really appears a lot except in the finale where he gets to fight against Randy Couture, a brief kiddish brawl in a car park. Then there is also Maxwell’s girlfriend, Beverly (Carly Pope) as an undercover agent who infiltrates into Eddie’s company. Ambushed is filled with so much inconsequential characters and events that it’s a drag to watch. Even Vincent the mobster is conveniently forgotten in the end.
The occasional shootouts are spiritless, the cinematography, acting and editing is absolutely amateurish. I seriously can’t find anything that is redeemable or recommended here.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
NIL
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The visual looks poorly shot in digital and the Dolby Digital 2.0 hardly makes a dent in the sound department.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
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