SYNOPSIS: From the director of Chicago and the producer of Wicked comes a modern twist on the beloved fairy tales you thought you knew. Meryl Streep stars in this epic musical saga about daring to venture Into The Woods. Iconic characters such as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk and Rapunzel find their fates intertwined with a humble baker and his wife whose longing to have a child sends them on a quest to reverse a witch's curse. With an all-star cast, this spell-binding adventure is everything you could ever wish for!
MOVIE REVIEW:
After helming Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Academy Award winning director Rob Marshall is back doing what he does best – turning a Broadway musical into a feature film.
The star studded Into The Woods is a terrific mix of satire and charming storytelling involving familiar fairy tales. A childless baker (James Corden) and his wife (Emily Blunt) spearhead this inventive magical story. In order to have the witch (Meryl Streep) lift their dreadful curse, the couple has to help her search for four items. Along the way into the woods, they met numerous characters such as Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Rapunzel (MacKenzie Mauzy), the Prince (Chris Pine), little Red Riding Hood (Lilla Crawford), Jack (Daniel Huttlestone) and the wolf (Johnny Depp), each and everyone has a story to tell and songs to serenade.
In order to make the adaptation as children-friendly as possible, Marshall with the blessings of original writers Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine sacrificed violence and sexual intones for a far more approving watching experience. Still, the movie speaks much of its original messages about lust, insecurity and abandonment. I’m pretty sure the mature audience will get the meanings while the slightly younger ones will lap up the songs, which are often made up of clever wordplay and simplistic usage of the English language.
Act 1 and Act 2 is enormously entertaining as the material moves at a frenetic pace intertwining the fate of the various characters. The dialog flows naturally with the songs. The costume, cinematography and production design is uncompromising. Unfortunately, the adaptation is letdown by the last act which in short, is a clumsy assembling of questionable motives and actions after an attack by the wife of a Giant. There’s nothing more disappointing than to see a wondrous magical story dissolving into a long-draggy contemplative ending.
It’s for sure contemporary high-tech music editing has a hand in this but the actors on the whole did a fantastic job showcasing their vocal talents. Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and of course, the pitch-perfect Anna Kendrick serve as the highlights while Chris Pine as the charming yet insincere Prince is a surprise turn. It would be nice to see someone else besides Depp as the wolf but then who can substitute for the same wacky star wattage as him.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
The Magic of the Woods has the main cast and filmmakers talking about bringing the musical to life.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
Despite a mostly dark palette, Into the Woods looks gorgeously beautiful and sharp. The 5.1 surround track offers a clear mix of dialog and singing with strong rear speaker activity.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Drama/Romance
Director: Lee Toland Krieger
Cast: Blake Lively, Harrison Ford, Michiel Huisman. Amanda Crew, Kathy Baker, Ellen Burstyn
Runtime: 1 hr 59 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films
Official Website:
Opening Day: 30 April 2015
Synopsis: ADALINE is about a vibrant, captivating woman who, after experiencing a near-fatal car crash, learns that she is fated to stay forever young. Time is no longer an enemy. Those around her will age and pass away, the world will change, her spirited young daughter will evolve into a woman in her 80s - yet Adaline remains in her prime. Her great gift is also her greatest curse. Keeping her secret means Adaline has to maintain a highly restricted life. She must change her name and abandon her friends every decade to avoid suspicion. She can never allow herself to fall in love. At the heart of things, she always stays alone. Then, a chance encounter changes everything. Ellis is handsome and kind, fully Adaline’s match in terms of wit and sophistication. With inventive persistence, Ellis breaks down her barriers. Mutual attraction is powerful, but even more powerful is his ability to make her laugh. Adaline falls hard for him, risking exposure, breaking all her rules.
Movie Review:
What does it mean to never grow old? What does it mean to be able to live forever? That fantasy becomes a reality for 29-year-old Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively), a woman born at the turn of the 20th century who miraculously survives a terrible car accident at that age sometime in the late 1930s and then simply stops ageing (which we are informed by the narration in a cheeky self-aware tone is a phenomenon that won’t be discovered until the year 2035). In other words, Adaline gets to remain in her late 20s, even as the world advances around her.
While that may be for some people a blessing to die for, Adaline clearly does not share the same sentiments. The present-day Adaline and the one we first meet goes by the name of Jennifer Lawson or Jenny for short, works at the San Francisco city archive, and keeps only to herself with the exception of a blind pianist friend (Lynda Boyd) and her now-octogenarian daughter Flemming (Ellen Burtsyn). While both of them urge her to find a guy and fall in love, Adaline politely declines the advances of each and every one who approaches her at the New Year Eve’s party she is attending.
There is however one persistent individual whom she ends up falling in love with – a hunky Bay-area app millionaire named Ellis (Game of Thrones’ Michiel Huisman). Though she leaves the party without leaving her name or contact, he tracks her down, makes a generous donation to the archive in order to get her out for a date, and they end up bonding over baseball lore as a well as a mutual love of civic history. Nevertheless, Adaline stops short of saying that she loves him, or for that matter, committing herself to him. After all, how would she explain that she has a condition which makes growing old together impossible?
Yet, despite her initial reservations, she agrees to spend a weekend with his parents – William (Harrison Ford) and Kathy (Kathy Baker) – at their cottage up in the woods, an encounter that makes for a delicious twist of fate, and without giving away the surprise, let’s just say it isn’t the first time that Adaline has met William. Their reunion is skilfully written, a perfect complement to the relationship between Ellis and Adaline for reasons that are best fathomed on your own. This much we will say though – it also works magnificently to bring closure to Adaline’s unique circumstance, culminating in a beautiful tragedy that makes for one of the most bittersweet and yet satisfying endings we’ve seen in a while.
Indeed, while the intriguing premise of a woman who is through a twist of fate gifted with agelessness could have been spun in many different ways, the script concocted by J. Mills Goodloe and Salvador Paskowitz explores the downsides of eternal youth in the context of a romance. Afraid that she will become some specimen, Adaline has consigned herself to changing her identity and residence every few years, just so she can avoid obvious suspicion from friends and acquaintances. But the greater toll here is on her love life – not only is she afraid of getting close to anyone, she quickly disappears when she senses that she has, which has only left her with a string of heartbreaks over the years.
Under the sensitive direction of Lee Toland Krieger, Adaline’s tale of love and loss acquires both elegance and confidence. Krieger doesn’t overplay the fantastical aspects of his story, nor does he overplay the melodramatic bits; instead, he strikes just the right tone from beginning to finish, and even throws in some measure of good humour. That is also credit to his actors, who bring warmth and earnestness to their characters. Lively has had her fair share of detractors for sure, but no matter what others may have said about her acting, she handles the potentially tricky titular role with just the right balance of nuance and emotion. It doesn’t hurt that she and Huisman have good chemistry, which makes it easy to buy into her character’s star-crossed love with Ellis. Veterans Burstyn and Ford also lend excellent support; and despite the ostensible age differences between the actors, it is pleasantly surprising how one never questions the authenticity of their onscreen relationships.
Perhaps the best compliment one can pay ‘The Age of Adaline’ is that it knows exactly what it wants to be and it sets out to be just that. This is a modern-day romantic fantasy, one that alludes to love, or the lack of it, as a cosmic alignment or misalignment, and recognises how these constellations in the sky can exert cruel irony on the people we want to choose to love. And the greatest irony which ‘Adaline’ so aptly embodies is this – that eternal beauty is no guarantee of eternal love; quite the contrary in fact, it is in being able to age together with the one we love that we gain the ability to love in the very first place.
Movie Rating:
(Sensitive, funny, warm and poignant, this tale of an ageless woman seeking love is a beautiful modern-day romantic fantasy)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Comedy/Romance
Director: Justin Reardon
Cast: Chris Evans, Michelle Monaghan, Iaon Gruffudd, Anthony Mackie, Topher Grace, Aubrey Plaza, Ashley Tisdale, Luke Wilson
Runtime: 1 hr 35 mins
Rating: M18 (Some Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website:
Opening Day: 7 May 2015
Synopsis: The narrator (Evans) is a writer and wants to write action but his publisher Bryan (Mackie) wants him to write about romance first. The problem is, the narrator doesn't believe in love. But when he meets Her (Monaghan), he falls for her, only to find out that she is already engaged to Stuffy (Gruffudd).
Movie Review:
Sometimes, a superhero simply needs to take a break from saving the world and indulge in some romantic liaisons; you know the usual mundane boy-meets-girl stuff.
Captain America aka Chris Evans co-produces and stars in this indie flick about a Hollywood screenwriter, who is being tasked by his agent played by Anthony Mackie aka Falcon to help finish a rom-com script for Ashley Tisdale and Matthew Morrison. The tricky part is that Chris Evans' character never believes in love and has never been in love since the day his mum abandoned him. As a result, he suffers from a serious case of writer’s block until he meets a girl (played by Michelle Monaghan from True Detective) at a charity event and falls for her.
Playing It Cool attempts to play it smart by constantly taking potshots at romantic clichés and typical rom-com proceedings. Maybe you will think that’s the whole point of the movie, which is scribed by first-time writers, Chris Shafer and Paul Vicknair. But as it turns out, the results are fairly annoying when the entire affair ends up to be an exact replica of its intended message. Boy meets girl who is already attached to someone else, they try to remain platonic, they have sex, girl going to get marry to boring boyfriend (Ioan Gruffudd) blah blah blah so on and so forth.
Even without Evan’s constant rambling voiceover, you could probably tell what’s going to happen next as the plot offers no surprising twists or a fresh spin to already stale material. Even the friends of Chris Evans' character are a bunch of clichéd personalities liked the gay best friend, Scott (Topher Grace), a slacker (Martin Starr), a bored married guy (Luke Wilson) and a tomboy (Aubrey Plaza). Probably Evans’ grandpa (Philip Baker Hall) is the only one that appears to be genuinely believable.
That being said, the rom-com does have its whimsical moments. Whenever they are flashbacks or fantastical stories told by the people, Evans and Monaghan always manage to ham things up like dressing up in traditional costumes mimicking a Korean drama or Evans resorting to cross-dressing. It’s borderline funny but half a loaf is better than none right? In addition, there is a handsomely done brief animation segment that recalls grandpa’s time in World War II. Sweet, I would watch a full-length feature of it.
There are simply not enough reasons to catch Playing It Cool despite the presence of the ever so charming Chris Evans and the gorgeously beautiful Monaghan. You can’t deny the duo has tremendous chemistry onscreen, it’s just that watching the suave Evans playing a flawed guy in a rom-com is a bit dull comparing to him saving the world from Ultron. He seriously needs a shield in real-life to ward off the bad scripts.
Movie Rating:
(Cool doesn’t apply here more like bland)
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Action/Thriller
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Cast: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson (II), Simon Pegg, Alec Baldwin, Jeremy Renner, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris, Simon McBurney, Zhang Jingchu
Runtime: 2 hrs 12 mins
Rating: PG13 (Violence and Brief Nudity)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: http://www.missionimpossible.com
Opening Day: 30 July 2015
Synopsis: With the IMF disbanded, and Ethan (Tom Cruise) out in the cold, the team now faces off against a network of highly skilled special agents, the Syndicate. These highly trained operatives are hellbent on creating a new world order through an escalating series of terrorist attacks. Ethan gathers his team and joins forces with disavowed British agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson), who may or may not be a member ofthis rogue nation, as the group faces their most impossible mission yet.
Movie Review:
“Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation” starts off with its most talked about stunt performed without any CGI by Tom Cruise himself. In order to retrieve a cache of nerve-gas missiles on board a military cargo plane piloted by a band of Chechen separatist fighters, Cruise’s IMF agent Ethan Hunt hangs on for dear life from the side door of the plane, waiting for his trusty tech genius associate Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) to work his way remotely through the plane’s computer to get it open. It must take some gall for writer-director Christopher McQuarrie to choose to open his movie with what others would reserve for a nail-biting climax, but thankfully that bit of derring-do isn’t just a red herring.
Instead, McQuarrie’s maiden attempt at the 19-year-old spy franchise builds on Brad Bird’s franchise-reviving entry to deliver a genuinely gripping tale of espionage along with the requisite jaw-dropping action for arguably the best ‘Mission Impossible” yet – and that is no small feat, considering that the alums of the series include no less than Brian De Palma, John Woo and JJ Abrams. In ‘Rogue Nation’, Hunt meets his most formidable nemesis yet in a shadowy “anti-IMF” terrorist organisation nicknamed “The Syndicate”, made up of former intelligence operatives from all over the world who have since been presumed dead. Led by former Special Forces operative Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), the organisation’s aim is to destabilise the current global order, and are now taking their ambition to the next level by targeting world leaders for assassination.
Unfortunately for Ethan, the Syndicate are so good at what they do that no one outside the IMF believes in their existence, a fact which CIA director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) exploits to justify the IMF’s obsolescence. After a Congressional hearing agrees with Alan’s assessment that the IMF should be held responsible for the wanton damage wrought in ‘Ghost Protocol’, Benji and Brandt (Jeremy Renner) are both assigned to work at CIA Headquarters, leaving Ethan to his own devices. But rather than turn this into a one-man show, McQuarrie shrewdly introduces a skilled MI6 agent by the name of Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) to play off Ethan when his boys are away, and Ilsa turns out to be a satisfyingly intriguing complement of questionable allegiance to the stoically loyal Ethan.
In classic spy-thriller fashion, Ilsa saves his life when he is abducted by the Syndicate and strung up for interrogation by someone called the Bone Doctor (Jens Hulten) who specialises in such torture, but hoodwinks him to steal a much sought-after file supposedly containing a ledger of the Syndicate’s members. Knowing McQuarrie, one expects Ilsa to be more than just the equivalent of a Bond girl, and true enough, she proves to be his equal not just in wit but also in agility, such that their ensuing romantic tension is well-earned. But it isn’t just their dynamic that is rooted in the tropes of the best spy thrillers; indeed, McQuarrie’s twisty plot involves lies, deception, subterfuge, and double/ triple-crosses, and the fact that this boasts the strongest Blighty connection of any entry of the series also lends it a distinctly English-style cloak-and-dagger feel.
Yet the language of the ‘Mission Impossible’ films has always been action, and so rather than bog his picture down in exposition, McQuarrie roots the twists and turns in a succession of glorious action set-pieces. An early sequence has Hunt attempting to stop the assassination of a key European leader in the middle of a performance of Turandot, which is itself a masterwork of suspense building and clockwork timing leading up to a vertiginous fistfight up in the rafters of the Vienna State Opera House. Before we can catch our breath Hunt is infiltrating a highly pressurised underwater cavern housing a critical server bank, which is followed as soon as it is over by a vehicular chase through the narrow alleys of Casablanca and a high-speed motorbike dash along its highways and winding mountain roads.
Rather than trying to top itself at every turn, the final act however slows down to build emphasis on character and intellect, including a brilliant sequence of duplicity involving Hunt, Brandt, an unwitting Hunley, the British Prime Minister and his MI6 director as well as a cat-and-mouse chase through the darker streets of London which culminates in a most satisfying game of wits between Hunt and Lane. Even more so than in ‘Ghost Protocol’, the team dynamics between Hunt, Benji, Brandt and Luther Stickwell (Ving Rhames) are a delight in themselves, so even though Ethan is often the one putting himself in the line of fire, there is no doubt how much of an asset his other team members are. In part, that is also credit to the strength of the supporting ensemble – Pegg the trusty sidekick cum comic relief, Renner the super-ego to Cruise’s id and Luther the trustworthy ally since his first ‘MI’ days.
There is no forgetting however this entry’s most prized addition – the Swedish actress Ferguson, who brings an athletic beauty and a sexy, enigmatic air of mystery to her character. She is easily the series’ strongest female character ever, and it doesn’t hurt that she and Cruise have sizzling chemistry. And at 53 years old, Cruise continues to be the defining face of this consistently excellent franchise, not least for the fact that, despite his age, he maintains performing each and every one of the audacious stunts live. But in ‘Rogue Nation’, there is even less of the self-consciousness or vanity that his detractors have often accused him of, not only in the way that Cruise plays underdog in order to let the other performers have their individual moments at various points in the movie but also in how he is willing to let McQuarrie insert a self-conscious commentary on how his character personifies destiny or concede on his real height in the up-in-the rafters fisticuff.
It is no overstatement that the ‘Mission Impossible’ franchise is at a new peak with the relentlessly thrilling ‘Rogue Nation’, and more than just a triptych of spectacular action sequences, this entry boasts a smart gripping tale of old-school spy intrigue that will keep you guessing. Like we said at the start, it says a lot when a summer blockbuster kicks off with its most publicised stunt, but McQuarrie has wisely established this entry not on trying to top the CIA vault break-in from the first ‘Mission Impossible’ or the Burj Khalifa climb in ‘Ghost Protocol’ but rather on a winning combination of wit, character chemistry and skulduggery. Going rogue has never been this exhilarating, nor this immensely satisfying.
Movie Rating:
(The best 'Mission Impossible' yet, thanks to Tom Cruise's usual practical stuntwork and a smart, gripping script that emphasises plot and character chemistry over empty visual spectacle)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Action/Sci-Fi
Director: Shinji Higuchi
Cast: Haruma Miura, Hiroki Hasegawa, Kiko Mizuhara, Kanata Hongo, Takahiro Miura, Nanami Sakuraba, Satomi Ishihara
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence)
Released By: Encore Films and Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 13 August 2015
Synopsis: 100 years ago, titans suddenly appeared on Earth. Soon, human civilization veered on collapse due to the titans. Humans then built a giant wall to defend themselves. Within the giant walls, humans lived in peace, but, 100 years later, the giant wall is broken. Mankind is under the terror of titans, a beast in which feast on human flesh. Eren Yeager, a young boy determined to make change when he himself could transform into one. He is humanity’s last hope. As the story progresses, the truth behind the origin of the Titans arises and the story shifts to one about political subterfuge.
Movie Review:
It is probably best to treat the Attack on Titan live-action movie as a standalone piece rather than as an adaptation of the highly successful and popular Attack on Titan manga/anime series. With the mangaka (manga author)’s blessing to do whatever they want with the movie, the movie production team has taken liberty with the source material and completely re-imagined Attack on Titan as a kaiju (a genre of Japanese special effects monster movies that usually involves monsters attacking each other or a city) movie.
To their credit, they have created a pretty entertaining and gripping movie that stands on its own. Once you get past the unnecessarily long-winded and somewhat meaningless expository opening scene (aka the part before you see the first Titan) of the movie, it becomes one roller coaster ride full of heart-lurching moments. What makes the Titans eerie is their resemblance to human beings except these giant humanoids only display barely contained crazed expressions of delight when going after puny humans and gobbling them up. Rather than an action or sci-fi movie, Attack on Titan would fit better as a horror movie.
The special effects team did a fantastic job in creating Titans that stir up a sense of unease and fear in the audience. It is a pity that the director Shinji Higuchi marred what would have been a spectacular horror movie with illogical context and character behaviour.
While fans of the anime/manga may cringe at how the post-apocalyptic world of Attack on Titan now consists only of Japan and the two main male characters, Eren and Armin, now look totally Japanese, I was puzzled by why these two characters still had non-Japanese names while the main character with a Japanese first name, Mikasa, is instead played by an actress who is obviously of mixed ethnicity and doesn’t look all that Japanese. Just aspuzzling how Eren, who could only helplessly watch the love of his life get eaten by a Titan as he was paralysed by fear, could suddenly gain superhuman determination and courage to hoist himself into the mouth of a Titan and take Armin’s place as Titan snack although Eren was badly injured and missing a leg. Perhaps brotherly love triumphs all other kind of love… The director also takes the incompetency of the Survey Corps squad, that Eren and Armin are attached to, to new heights. Despite being told about the Titans’ sensitivity to noise and that they should be quiet if they encounter one, most of the time, they scream or shout when they see one, thereby attracting the Titans. The insertion of a sexual scene just before the pesky Titans attack the squad also does not seem to add much to the plot.
Unfortunately, these inconsistencies and generally weird developments make it difficult for the viewer to feel attached to the characters and any heartache when they get eaten by Titans. As a viewer, I did feel shivers down my spine when the Titans attacked and went on an eating/killing spree but that horror stemmed from the knowledge of the foreseeable grotesque acts of seeing a fellow human being die a gruesome and painful death and not because I knew a beloved character may be meeting his doom.
The only two characters that had somewhat even treatment were Armin and the newly created Sannagi. Armin is consistently kind and saintly, making him kind of plain vanilla. Still, you find yourself rooting for him because out of the entire motley crew, he is one of the most innocent and clearly doesn’t deserve to die. Sannagi, in his limited screen time, displays love for his siblings and great determination to do his best for his teammates which makes you want to root for him.
While entertaining as a horror-kaiju movie of sorts, Attack on Titan would be able to fulfil its potential as a classic kaiju movie if the production team could sort out and rectify all these inconsistencies in the second part of the movie. Perhaps that’s what the director has in mind for I find myself wanting to want the second part just to see if Attack on Titan lives up to its potential.
Movie Rating:
(As a standalone piece, Attack on Titan (Part 1) makes for an entertaining horror movie masquerading as a sci-fi/action movie; however, if you are a fan of the original anime/manga series, do go in with very lowered expectations of how faithful the movie is to the series to save yourself some grief)
Review by Katrina Tee
Genre: Sci-Fi/Adventure
Director: Takashi Yamazaki
Cast: Shota Sometani, Eri Fukatsu, Sadao Abe, Ai Hashimoto, Nao Omori, Tadanobu Asano
Runtime: 1 hr 58 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence and Sexual Scene)
Released By: Encore Films
Official Website:
Opening Day: 21 May 2015
Synopsis: Parasyte baby is born. The parasytes have evolved into formidably scary forms and can attack in ways mere bullets can’t stop. Shinichi and Migi have no choice but to hurl themselves into the fight against the complex attack of the Parasytes. What if, instead of devouring and dominating humanity, some of the parasites wanted coexistence? The final showdown begins..
Movie Review:
Parasyte Part 1 ended off with a compelling cliff hanger, and has set the stage for Parasyte Part 2. As the Parasytes keep up with their disguises and permeate into different segments of the human society, does this spell doom for the human race?
To appreciate Parasyte Part 2 better, it is important to know the two key characters’ background from Part 1. First it’s Shininchi, the protagonist, who is the only human who escaped the fate of having his brain eaten up by a parasyte despite it entering his body. The parasyte, later named Migi, gained control of only his right hand. Another character is teacher Tamiya, a parasyte who is obsessed with experiments. In fact she was pregnant and gave birth to a human child, just so she could understand and learn the mysteries of motherhood. She also appears to be the mastermind in organizing the parasyte community, lobbying co-existence with human beings.
Parasyte Part 1gave a really great backdropand set high expectations on Part 2. However, Parasyte Part 2 has failed to pull through and deliver. Much of the human drama was overly sensationalized, which resulted in a narrative that rather lacked focus. First there was action, the showdown between Shinichi and the formidable parasyte Miki. Then there was the sappy part about Tamiya sacrificing herself in order to protect the human child she gave birth to. Then there’s the deliberation on the fragility of the parasytes. And then later it suddenly evolved to a sex scene between Shinichi and his sweetheart which was totally unnecessary.Too many happenings and an attempt to put everything together only spell haphazardness in the entire story telling.
Actions was the only part which lived up to expectations and got further enhanced by outstanding CG. The final showdown between Shinichi and Miki at a nuclear waste disposal facility is a definite to-watch-out-for. Even so, all the other strengths in its predecessor seemed to have disappeared, which is indeed a great pity.
Previously, this reviewer did mention about a fitting creative adaptation of the manga which Parasyte Part 1 excelled in. However, the same cannot be said for Parasyte Part 2. This movie attempted to condense too many other sub-stories in one seating and caused a dilution of what is supposed to be the ‘essence’. Even the part where a human was wrongly identified as a parasyte gave no room for the viewers to ‘feel’ or to be able to process the gravity of that folly judgment.
The conclusion was also one that was overly cheesy and clichéd. A very deliberate comparison between the deed of a serial killer and the humane side of the parasyte was not the best way to bring out the same meaning. This only leaves the viewers with the last impressions that the movie is one which is preachy and didactic.
Movie Rating:
(The Parasyte series sure had a strong start, however Parasyte Part 2 lacked in both rigor and robustness)
Review by Tho Shu Ling
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ANDREW LESNIE (1956 - 2015)Posted on 28 Apr 2015 |
SYNOPSIS: Witness the founder of Apple like never before. Steve Jobs paints an intimate portrait of the brilliant man at the epicenter of the digital revolution, backstage in the final minutes before three iconic product launches.
MOVIE REVIEW:
With talents liked David Fincher, Christian Bale, Leonardo DiCaprio and Sony departing the project over the years, it seems liked Steve Jobs the movie is unlikely to materialized for a while. But with Universal and Legendary acquiring the project, Oscar winning director Danny Boyle and Michael Fassbender were roped in to push the production forward.
When it was finally released in December 2015 to critical acclaims, no one bother to buy a ticket to see the story of Apple’s most famous co-founder. Is it the fault of Aaron Sorkin’s (The Social Network) treatment of the script or was it because of the earlier dismal Ashton Kutcher version that deterred moviegoers?
Nevertheless, Steve Jobs boasts a terrific cast and best of all, it has a brilliant script by Sorkin. It doesn’t even have a proper traditional story structure in the first place. Narratively, Steve Jobs is split into three acts liked a stage play. Every single event happened at the backstage or makeup room before a product launch, the 1984 Macintosh launch, the 1988 NeXT computer and in 1998 when Jobs made his comeback at Apple with the iMac. It’s through these various events, audiences get a glimpse of this visionary man, his characterization, his temper, his infamous reality distortion field, his dealing with Apple co-founder and best friend Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen) and his estranged relationship with his daughter, Lisa.
Sorkin has acknowledged that most of the happenings actually happened just not before the product launches. And even though it’s based on the best-selling biography by Walter Isaacson, Sorkin and Boyle never treat the entire movie liked a conventional biopic. For a movie subject about a tech giant, there’s hardly a moment about technology (forget about the iPod and iPhone), Steve Jobs is a frank portrait of a very complicated man. A man not easily understood by his once best friend and CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) or peers liked Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlberg) who worked with him on the very first Mac with one exception, Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), Apple’s marketing executive the only person who can tolerate his temper and coerce him into taking her advice.
Besides Birdman and Before Sunrise, this is honestly one of the very few movies in the universe that feature a lot of walking and talking simultaneously. With occasional flashbacks, there’s hardly a change of backdrop and if you have a fetish for hallways, you know this is the right movie to look for. Fassbender gives an outstanding performance as Steve Jobs though we were at first skeptical about him not looking the part. It’s a pity he has too many strong opponents in the Oscar race. Credit also goes to Danny Boyle for creating an electric viewing experience out of a talky script. Simply, Steve Jobs is an intellectual movie that features great acting and sleek execution, don’t miss it!
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Inside Jobs: The Making of Steve Jobs is a three part making-of feature that talks primarily about the story, music, set design, intense rehearsals and feature interviews with writer Aaron Sorkin, director Danny Boyle and the main cast members, Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet and Jeff Daniels.
Listening to the Audio Commentary by Director Danny Boyle is an entertaining experience. Boyle is able to capture your attention with his enthusiastic tone and attention to filming details which makes this a must listen track.
Audio Commentary by Writer Aaron Sorkin and Editor Elliot Graham is paler by comparison, it has plenty of quiet spots though it still offer a reasonable amount of information such as the writing and editing process.
AUDIO/VISUAL:
The movie is shot in 16mm, 35mm and digital. With the exception of Act 1 and Act 2 being slightly grainy, there’s no major discomfort because you know it’s all intended by the filmmakers to portray the different eras and I think it’s a lauded decision after all. For a script that is over 200 pages long, dialogue is of utmost important. It’s clear and precise and the electronic music by Daniel Pemberton is edgy in a good way.
MOVIE RATING:
DVD RATING :
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: CG Animation
Director: Steve Martino
Cast: Noah Schnapp, Mariel Sheets, Bill Melendez, Venus Schultheis, Francesca Capaldi, Hadley Belle Miller, Madisyn Shipman, Noah Johnston, Rebecca Bloom, A.J. Tecce, William Wunsch, Alexander Garfin, Anastasia Bredikhina
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Rating: G
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Official Website: http://www.peanutsmovie.com
Opening Day: 10 December 2015
Synopsis: Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the beloved “Peanuts” gang make their big-screen debut, like they’ve never been seen before, in state of the art 3D animation. Snoopy, the world’s most lovable beagle – and flying ace – embarks upon his greatest mission as he takes to the skies to pursue his arch-nemesis The Red Baron, while his best pal, Charlie Brown, begins his own epic quest. From the imagination of Charles M. Schulz and the creators of the ICE AGE films, THE PEANUTS MOVIE will prove that every underdog has his day.
Movie Review:
It may be a very different world in the 65 years since Charles M. Schultz first published a Charlie Brown comic strip, but there is warm comfort knowing that the gang of Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt, Linus, Peppermint Patty, Schroeder, Franklin, Snoopy and all the rest remain the same. Oh yes, for those nervous to find out what Blue Sky Studios would do with a computer-animated, 3-D version of Schultz’s vision of small-town America, rest assured that this fifth feature-length ‘Peanuts’ outing is delightfully earnest to the spirit of the original characters as well as their beloved holiday television specials, no small part thanks to a script written in part by the son and grandson of its creator.
Good ol’ Charlie Brown, as neurotic and insecure as ever, is still trying to fly a kite while thwarting the kite-eating tree, failing to kick his football, and making a fool out of himself in school. Oh, he is also trying to get the Little Red-Haired Girl to notice him, and much of the film focuses on his battle with his own self-doubt, which is also responsible for his many self-defeating attempts to woo his eternal object of affection. Meanwhile, Snoopy continues to be Charlie Brown’s foil, projecting an aura of confidence and competence as he imagines himself a World War I flying ace with his avian sidekick Woodstock, fighting the Red Baron and pursuing a beautiful fellow flying dog named Fifi.
That extended flight of imagination comes as Snoopy acquires a typewriter – not a MacBook, mind you – yet again another example of how the filmmakers stick with tradition and not modernity. Linus still grips his blanket. Schroeder still plays Beethoven on his toy piano. Lucy still retains her temper, her psychiatric stand, and yes her five cents charge for advice. It isn’t just these touchstones that director Steve Martino and his team of animators have lovingly preserved – from the characters’ hand-drawn expressions such as Charlie’s sighs, Sally’s smiles and even Lucy’s exasperated yells, to their poses, it is evident that great care has been taken to make sure that this big-screen journey is one that feels familiar.
Yet, in keeping to the spirit of the characters as well as the tone of Schultz’s source material, ‘The Peanuts Movie’ ultimately forces its viewer to settle in to a somewhat different aesthetic than say the ‘Ice Age’ movies or even the ‘Cosmic Scrat-trasosphe’ short that precedes it. Here, the humour is quaint, so rather than laugh-out-loud moments of zany hilarity, be prepared to settle in for something much more measured in its amusement. In choosing nostalgia over novelty, one must also be prepared that the story is nothing amazing or even complex, but instead a simple one founded on the small anxieties that a real child might experience on a daily basis; in fact, it is more than happy to meander, weaving character vignettes, childhood wisdom and Snoopy’s hallucinations around a loose plot of Charlie Brown’s hard-luck quest for love and friendship.
Simplicity was always part of its charm, and the filmmakers here have by and large stuck faithfully to that philosophy. Yes, it says something when the most familiar bits – made up of Snoopy’s imaginary aerial pursuits of the Red Baron – from modern-day feature animations come off jarring and quite out of place in a movie that otherwise deliberately chooses to offer much more low-key and old-fashioned entertainment and seemingly well-known themes of youthful angst, love, and embarrassment. And in keeping with this (as the producers did for ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’, ‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown’ and ‘A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving’), the characters here are all voiced by actual kids, rather than name actors or adults with childlike voices.
Most of ‘The Peanuts Movie’ plays like a love letter to Schultz, that finds at its heart an sweet, syrupy combination of humour and tenderness. That’s not to say that it simply rests on old laurels; indeed, there is ingenuity in how its makers have managed to weave it all together, even to the use of thought bubbles to revisit old gags such as Lucy infamously pulling the football away from Charlie Brown before he can kick it. Oh yes, the Blue Sky team have chosen to honour the ‘Peanuts’ legacy in ways both big and small, while introducing a whole new generation of audiences to the classic characters that will feel as comforting as Linus’ blanket to their parents and grandparents. Like its predecessors, ‘The Peanuts Movie’ is destined to be a holiday classic, and we mean that in the best possible way.
Movie Rating:
(A familiar but no less delightful blend of humour and tenderness, ‘The Peanuts Movie’ will in its deliberately old-fashioned aesthetics strike a sweet, warm and comforting chord with its beloved fans)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Drama/Comedy
Director: Christopher Sun
Cast: Justin Cheung, Gregory Wong, Deon Chung, Coffee Lam, Wong Kwong Leung, Anita Chui, Ho Kar Kui, Lam Suet, Ken Lo, Han Jin, Elvis Tsui, Patrick Keung, Liu Kai Chi, Tony Ho
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website:
Opening Day: 28 May 2015
Synopsis: This is a story in jail. A story about learning a ‘new life’. Richard Yu, a typical fop, hits a passer-by when drink-driving and is sentenced to one year in jail. Contrary to what the outside world believes, life behind bars is not full of atrocity. Much to his surprise, it is a secluded world of its kind. This world has its own rules….
Movie Review:
Because the only thing we knew before going into ‘Imprisoned: Survival Guide for Rich and Prodigal’ was that the creative team of ‘3D Sex and Zen’ and ‘Due West’ were behind it, we went in with just about the lowest of expectations. No offence to its lead actors Gregory Wong and Justin Cheung or its director Christopher Sun, but neither of those films were anything more than trashy, so you can’t quite blame us for thinking the same of their prison comedy-drama. True enough, their latest under producer Stephen Shiu Jr’s China 3D Entertainment amounts to little more than trash, but at least it is entertaining while it lasts.
Scripted by Sun, Mark Wu (of the trashy ‘Lan Kwai Fong’ franchise) and Shum Shek Yin, it portrays prison life from the perspective of a greenhorn named Nelson (Gregory Wong), who is sentenced to a year and a half after he runs over an elderly woman while drunk driving. Nelson isn’t just some random twenty-something year-old, but a pampered ‘富二代’whose mother (Candice Yu) dotes him with all the cash that he wants and the most costly defense lawyer that money can buy, so this is also really his coming-of-age story much as how National Service is for our Ah Boys to Men.
As we already know from Ringo Lam’s classic ‘Prison on Fire’ and its sequel, there is a whole microcosm behind prison walls, and for the benefit of us neophytes, Nelson gives us the full rundown just how it works. Beginning with the full body scan which used to be performed by hand but is now done by X-ray (though that machine has to break down just as Nelson steps through it), Nelson greets with wide-eyed horror the initiation for a fellow new inmate charged (though acquitted) of rape, sieving through soiled underpants while on laundry duty, and the terrible meals served by an unsympathetic cook (Lam Suet). Naturally, there is some degree of exaggeration in the ‘culture shock’ Nelson experiences, but hey Sun isn’t exactly aiming for authenticity here.
Instead of cash, cigarettes are the currency in prison, and a fair bit of the first half is spent detailing just how privileges are bought and bartered with cigarettes. It is through this trade that Nelson gets acquainted with his cell leader (and we don’t mean this in a religious context) Seatto (Wong Kwong Leung) and the latter’s trusty right-hand man Coyote (Philip Keung). It is also through that trade that he finds a buddy in Wu (Babyjohn Choi), a meek and subservient cellmate who walks with a limp and is often ridiculed by everyone else with the derogatory nickname ‘Cockroach’. And so, even though it isn’t like before, Nelson settles in rather comfortably within this world with its own set of rules and operatives.
That balance is however disrupted with the incarceration of Jack (Cheung), another ‘富二代’who is not just pampered but bastardly. A prologue establishes the enmity between them after Nelson ‘f**ks’ Jack’s girlfriend at a party in the latter’s house. Unlike Nelson however, Jack’s triad connections on the outside – his uncle is played by no less than Ng Chi-hung – help him secure ‘bodyguards’ on the inside, so that even behind bars, he gets to be an arrogant tyrant. Their mutual conflict however threatens to disrupt the entire social order of the place, but it is also through this baptism of fire that Nelson finds a father figure in Uncle Dat (Liu Kai Chi) and realises the folly of his past wilful hedonistic ways.
It is as predictable as it gets yes, and quite frankly, not as poignant as it makes itself out to be. In the first instance, it is hard to sympathetic with a caddish man-child who still lives off his mother and loses his girlfriend after mixing up the two letters he had asked a fellow cellmate to write for her and his other plaything, so we aren’t quite taken when he finally has a change of heart. Indeed, it is telling when we end up feeling much more for Uncle Dat when he relates just why he ended up in prison than we ever do at any point for Nelson. Truth be told, while this is Nelson’s story of imprisonment, it is his fellow prison mates who steal the show.
Besides Liu, Sun has assembled a veritable cast of veterans to join Gregory Wong. Those who recall ‘Prison on Fire’ will surely recognise Wong Kwong Leung as well as the recently deceased William Ho Ka-Kui, the latter in a bit role as a lackey whom Jack’s uncle asks to look after his nephew in prison. Other notable faces include Ken Lo Wai-Kwong as a prison warden, Elvis Tsui as his supervisor, Vincent Wan and Tony Ho as inmates tasked to insert ball bearings up Nelson’s penis after he loses a bet with Jack, and Yuen Qiu as a politician who pays a surprise visit to the prison but is subsequently humiliated by one of the inmates. This is through and through a Hong Kong film in terms of casting, and a true ensemble at that.
Thanks to the supporting cast of notables, ‘Imprisoned’ feels like a sequel of sorts to ‘Prison on Fire’, though a much poorer cousin of course. In spirit, it is a nice throwback to the prison dramas of the 80s and 90s, notwithstanding that Gregory Wong is no Chow Yun-Fat. And while it never presents itself anywhere near as compelling, there is still trashy fun to be had inside this microcosm of prison life, which also moves at a brisk clip despite its almost two-hour runtime. Like we said at the start, we weren’t expecting much to begin with, and perhaps that’s key to appreciating the cruder pleasures that ‘Imprisoned’ affords. It won’t be a classic anytime soon, but by giving a reverential nod to the classic Ringo Lam film right at the start, it’s got its heart in the right place.
Movie Rating:
(It's no 'Prison on Fire', but this earnest throwback to the prison dramas of the 80s and 90s is trashily entertaining for what it is worth)
Review by Gabriel Chong
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