SYNOPSIS: When an epic party goes hilariously wrong, Nick and Jacob fire up the hot tub in order to save Lou. After unexpectedly landing in the year 2025, they meet Adam Jr and team up on a "hysterically funny and completely insane" mission to fix the present. 

MOVIE REVIEW:

You can practically smell a steaming pile of turd miles away. In the case of Hot Tub Time Machine 2, ten minutes into it, you know why this is a dud.

Five years after they stumbled into a mysterious hot tub time machine in a ski resort, buddies Lou Dorchen (Rob Corddry), his son Jacob (Clark Duke) and Nick Webber (Craig Robinson) are now stinking rich and famous, a far cry from their past miserable lives. When Lou is shot in the dick at his party, the trio decides to go back in the time hoping to stop Lou’s killer. But the mysterious time machine has a plan of its own and the trio is sent to the future instead. 

Though both original helmer Steve Pink and writer Josh Heald are back for a second outing, the premise is so scattershot and silly that it’s a hot mess from start to finish. The first instalment was about four guys getting back to the past to make things right. No doubt it was often gross and crude, it has a lot of heart to it. In part 2, it’s simply one homophonic joke one after another courtesy of Rob Corddry’s character, a douchebag/bastard/nincompoop that no one probably cares. At least John Cusack’s Adam balances out the raunchy material in the original. But we heard his paycheck was a little too big for MGM/Paramount to foot though it doesn’t stop the filmmakers to come up with a crap excuse why Adam is missing.  

Instead we have Adam’s son, Adam Yates (Adam Scott) joining the gang in search of Lou’s killer. Yates instantly becomes the butt of all the gags including a VR anal sex sequence and a swollen scrotum as a result of a drug overdose. You got to pity Scott for taking on this absolutely miserable role and we hope at least he gotten a decent paycheck for his time. Craig Robinson’s Nick Webber actually has a far more worthy tale to tell but he is often overshadowed by the irritable Lou Dorchen. The mystical time machine baron played by Chevy Chase returned for a few unnecessary minutes of screentime if you must know.

Making the viewing experience even more miserable is how cheap the entire production looks. Hot Tub Time Machine wasn’t that all polished still it looks way way better than part 2. The production team tries to pass off Smart car as smart cars. Wow, how genius is that? Hot Tub Time Machine 2 in short is a cash grab attempt gone wrong. Made on a modest US$14 million budget, it only managed to earn back US$12 million. Dump this turd.  

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Lasting 5 minutes, The Making of Hot Tub Time Machine 2 feature the filmmakers and main cast members talking about making the movie. The Future as Seen from the Tub! brings us more details about the silly technologies seen in the movie. Lastly, 4 Deleted Scenes/Extended Scenes and 8 minutes of rather unfunny Bloopers and General F%#! Ups by the Cast round up the DVD extras. 

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Imaging and detailing looks presentable though you can’t shake off the feeling that the entire movie looks cheap. At least the visual is never compromise. The DVD features a Dolby Digital 5.1 allowing occasional surround ambient effects and sonic soundtrack. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee

SYNOPSIS: When millionaire hedge fund manager James King (Will Ferrell) is nailed for fraud and bound for a stretch in San Quentin, the judge gives him 30 days to get his affairs in order. Desperate, he turns to Darnell Lewis (Kevin Hart) to prep him for a life behind bars.

MOVIE REVIEW:

Ferrell’s brand of comedy has gone from fresh to formulaic over the years and seriously its time he revamp himself. Get Hard marks the first collaboration between funnyman Will Ferrell and the up-and-coming Kevin Hart known for his stand-up comedy and alongside Ice-Cube in Ride Along.   

It’s a new pairing all right but does it qualifies for a funny good time?

Ferrell plays a naïve millionaire fund manager, James King. He lives in a big house in Beverly Hills and is about to marry a hot woman, the daughter (Alison Brie) of his boss (Craig T. Nelson) to be exact. Darnell Lewis (Hart) on the hand is the exact opposite of King. He runs a small carwash business and hopes to earn enough to move his family out of the ghetto for the sake of his young daughter. When King is being framed for embezzlement later on, he hire Darnell hoping that the latter can toughen him up for his time in prison not knowing that Darnell has never even been to prison.

On paper, Get Hard looks like godsend comedy material. And knowing that it’s being written and helmed by Etan Cohen (a screenwriter behind Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill, Tropic Thunder), you expect something more or should I add, clever. Unfortunately, there’s very little going on, a constant repetition of prison rape jokes, homophobic references and an uncomfortable fellatio scene are the highlights. We can’t help laughing out loud at how Kevin Hart’s character describing how’s its liked being butt raped to an innocent James King. However this is not a 10 minutes skit on SNL, this is a full-length feature. We need more laughs and gags other than Darnell drilling King to get hard.

Race is also a major component in the movie with constant jabbing at stereotypes. If not done right, racial jokes can be offensive and in this case the movie makes fun of everyone not any race in particular. White is dubbed Mayo and Black is Chocolat. It’s mostly silly and ridiculous. Rapper Tip “T.I.” Harris (Ant-Man) even makes an appearance as Darnell’s badass cousin, Russell.

There’s nothing wrong with Ferrell and Hart’s chemistry. Ferrell is pretty restrained right here though he did flashed his pasty white butt in the beginning and Hart is at his usual perky high self. Get Hard apparently lacks the challenge both comedians need. It’s simply a lazy attempt with the gags wearing out its welcome even before the credits rolled. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Just 3 minutes of Gag Reel. 

AUDIO/VISUAL:

Colours and skintones are natural. The surround audio track is engaging and packs a wallop when the action on screen gets rowdy. Other than that, dialogue is clear and solid. 

MOVIE RATING:

DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee
 

Genre: Drama
Director: David O. Russell
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Ladd, Virginia Madsen
Runtime: 2 hrs 4 mins
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language)
Released By: 20th Century Fox 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 7 January 2016

Synopsis: JOY is the wild story of a family across four generations centered on the girl who becomes the woman who founds a business dynasty and becomes a matriarch in her own right. Betrayal, treachery, the loss of innocence and the scars of love, pave the road in this intense emotional and human comedy about becoming a true boss of family and enterprise facing a world of unforgiving commerce. Allies become adversaries and adversaries become allies, both inside and outside the family, as Joy’s inner life and fierce imagination carry her through the storm she faces. Jennifer Lawrence stars, with Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Edgar Ramirez, Isabella Rossellini, Diane Ladd, and Virginia Madsen. Like David O. Russell’s previous films, Joy defies genre to tell a story of family, loyalty, and love

Movie Review:

Were it not in fact true, Joy Mangano’s rags-to-riches story would probably be dismissed as make-believe.

For the uninitiated, Joy was a harried pink-collar single-mom from Long Island who invented the self-wringing Miracle Mop, hawked it to great success on the pioneer home-shopping network QVC, and went on to build a business empire based on her talent for thinking up and spotting useful products.

Hers is a fascinating story of resilience and self-belief, one that in itself is worth the telling, but writer/ director David O’ Russell isn’t one to tell a tale straight. Oh no, even with this most interesting profile of the pursuit of the American Dream, Russell is compelled to embellish Joy’s story with that of other remarkable women he'd known, so much so that ‘Joy’ doesn’t even associate its titular character or her key invention to their respective real-life inspirations.  

Instead, Russell takes a page out of his own playbook – the ‘Silver Linings Playbook’, that is – by setting up a dysfunctional family comedy that sees Joy struggling to find happiness amidst a large, demanding family.

As with ‘Playbook’ therefore, Robert De Niro is once again playing the well-meaning but hapless paterfamilias, this time running a semi-successful car-repair business that happens to be managed by his older daughter and Joy’s half-sister, the officious and ceaselessly competitive Peggy (Elisabeth Rohm).

Rudy (De Niro) moves back in after being dumped by his second wife, and Joy puts him up in the basement with her ex-husband (Edgar Ramirez) and father of her two kids, the latter a Venezuelan musician still searching for that big break in his singing career. On the other hand, her mother (Virginia Madsen) lays in bed all day watching soap operas (which Russell has cast with real-life stars Susan Lucci and Laura Wright), moping over (pun intended) how sad her life has become since her divorce from Rudy.

The only people in Joy’s corner are her (nice) grandmother (Diane Ladd), her childhood friend Jackie (Dascha Polanco) and her young daughter (played by twins Aundrea and Gia Gadsby), and given how she pretty much is the one person holding it all together and getting stuff done, it is no wonder really why she is barely solvent and struggling to keep her sanity.

There is hardly any doubt that within these messy dynamics is the same zany, freewheeling energy found in ‘Silver Linings’ and ‘American Hustle’, but whereas there was genuine zing in the dialogue and the characters in these earlier films, the individuals here are not just flagrantly unreal and monotonously shrill, they pretty much talk for the sake of talking.

Worse still, Russell cannot quite find the right tone and pacing even from this first act, going from screwball to sentimentality in abrupt and jarring shifts from present to past that is less stimulating than enervating.

Just as you start to wonder when Russell would get on with his titular character’s ‘Eureka’ moment, Joy finds herself – thanks to her father Rudy’s new girlfriend Trudy (Isabelle Rossellini) – on a yacht having to clean up a spill involving red wine and broken glass, that moment of sheer frustration spurring her to come up with the design for a new-fangled, easy-wringing mop using her daughter’s crayons. Not only does it allow its user to wring it dry without having to reach down and touch the disgusting mop-head, the latter can also be easily removed, thrown in the wash, and reattached, ready to clean anew. 

Thanks to some start-up cash from Trudy, Joy gets to produce her custom-manufactured mops, though she quickly finds that no store is willing to take a chance on the unfamiliar product that is also priced higher than any other equivalent on the market. She gets a lucky break when Tony introduces her to QVC executive Neil Walker (Bradley Cooper), and from that point on, Russell’s film becomes a much more conventional biopic that was probably what ‘Bridesmaids’ scribe Annie Mumolo (who shares story credit with Russell) had in mind.

There is a genuine sense of elation watching Joy overcoming her terror of appearing on live TV and, speaking as the proud inventor of her product, explain its unique features to all the other homemakers out there. It is also in these scenes that we get to re-live the sparkling chemistry between Lawrence and Cooper from Russell’s earlier two films, the reunion injecting some much-needed life, interest and energy into this film.

Alas that joy is short-lived as Joy has to further contend with patent fraud, dishonest parts manufacturers and passive-aggressive attempts at sabotage by members of her family. That our working-class heroine’s fight to reclaim her dreams will have a happily-ever-after ending is a foreordained conclusion, but that doesn’t stop Russell from charting a trajectory for Joy that zigzags from obstacle to obstacle on its way to inevitable success. It is as frustrating for Joy as it is for her audience, especially because Russell seems intent only on exploiting them for one seriocomic setup after another without ever achieving any real pathos.

The only reason why we keep watching is Lawrence, who delivers a tough, engaging performance that makes us believe in Joy and care about her. This is her third collaboration with Russell, and Lawrence portrays with absolute clarity and perfection her character’s struggle amid chaos, grit amid adversity, and humility amid humiliation. Despite being surrounded by an all-star ensemble, Lawrence is without any doubt the star of the show, though Russell’s failure to explore any of the onscreen relationships satisfyingly deprives Lawrence of the type of luminous connections with her co-stars in ‘Hustle’ and ‘Playbook’. 

Beginning with ‘The Fighter’, Russell has enjoyed a successful streak as an A-list director of Oscar-bait prestige pictures and his last two films in particular have been truly joyous affairs thanks to the charm and style of two of the most charismatic movie stars of the moment – Lawrence and Cooper. It is perfectly understandable that Russell is trying to replicate those same successes here, but these trademark Russellian elements unfortunately result in a haphazardly plotted film with little dramatic purpose, direction or gravity.

Contrary to its title therefore, the movie never quite puts you in that buoyant mood, and it is telling when we feel relieved than delighted at the final image of Joy striding triumphantly down the street after besting a sneaky corporate rival. After all, how joyous can it be to watch scene after scene of the same rowdy squabbling bunch of family members yelling at each other? 

Movie Rating:

(Less joyous than grating, this fact-inspired-fiction of one working-class heroine's pursuit of the American dream is good only for Jennifer Lawrence's tremendously sympathetic performance)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: Richie Jen & Andy Luo
Cast: Richie Jen, Shu Qi, Ti Lung, Lego Lee, Lu Kung Wei
Runtime: 1 hr 42 mins
Rating: PG
Released By: Cathay-Keris Films and Clover Films 
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 3 September 2015

Synopsis: This summer, get ready for a lighthearted romance between the wealthy Chinese travel blogger Fenfen (Shu Qi) and the modest Taiwanese B&B owner Awu (Richie Jen). The story is set in the middle of the beautiful Pescadores Islands, where Fenfen leaves her protective home in China in search of the place that inspired the song that captured the heart of her late mother. Expecting the luxurious accommodations she reserved on the Internet, Fenfen is flabbergasted to find a crummy B&B kept by passionate Awu. Feeling duped, she demands to leave the B&B the next morning, only to lose her passport and belongings in the sea in the process. Forced to stay with Awu and his daughter and father, Fenfen has to test her boundaries in all aspects and eventually finds true love in the least expected place.

Movie Review:

‘All You Need is Love’ is one of those movies where you hope to get out exactly what you went in for.

Is it meant to be any surprise that Ritchie Jen’s simple-minded but loyal B&B owner Awu will fall in love with Shu Qi’s snooty travel blogger Fenfen whom he at first regards with equal contempt?

Is it any surprise too that Fenfen will fall in love with Awu?

And last but not least, is it any wonder that, despite their incompabilities at the start and many other disagreements along the way, Awu and Fenfen will eventually find true love in each other?

Yet the fact that we expect how things will turn out for our leading couple doesn’t mean we are automatically disengaged in their romantic journey; in fact, we want a happy ending for them, and we’d be much displeased if somehow that was robbed from us.

Thankfully, Jen, who assumes multi-hyphenate duties writing and directing this breezy (pardon the pun) rom-com, knows exactly just what his audience wants out of such a film and delivers just that.

Complemented by his sparkling chemistry with Shu Qi, Jen’s Awu and Fenfen are lively opposites at the start, bickering over the lack of frills of Awu’s humble B&B as well as his crude but earnest service.

That slowly gives way in the middle act to several ‘aw-shucks’ moments, as Awu introduces Fenfen to the islander way of life that is much simpler, honest and carefree than the city life Fenfen is used to, with the couple slowly bonding over food, picturesque scenery and other quirky local cultures such as a 'Mosquito' song.

Then just before that anticipated happily-ever-after, Fenfen’s guardians come knocking and inject a little dramatic tension by bringing her fiancee in tow, which though obvious is nonetheless effective in getting us to want a blissful resolution for her and Awu even more.

To underscore the emotional payoff, Jen has Fenfen fall over his boat with her luggage while at sea earlier on, in order that Awu may personally undertake a dangerous dive in the middle of a storm to retrieve her belongings of deep significance, in particular a box containing the only items she has to remember her late parents by. It is manipulative all right, but if you’re not here precisely to have your heart-strings tugged in a specific way, then you shouldn’t even bother in the first place.

There is even a model of true love thrown in for good measure, in the form of veteran Hong Kong actor Ti Lung’s Old Captain – otherwise known as Awu’s father – who dances on occasion with a portrait of his late wife in the shed next to the B&B. Admittedly, this subplot could have been better developed, but Ti Lung brings an understated dignity to the role that saves his character from being frivolous.

Not quite so for two narrative detours which could easily have been trimmed – the first concerning a scam that Awu’s naïve younger brother (Lego Lee) falls for that leaves the fate of the B&B in question, and the second concerning a reality dating show that Awu is persuaded to participate in with three other fellow male islanders to compete for the affections of four buxomy Mainlander girls. The latter strains too hard for slapstick laughs, while the former is over and done with so conveniently that it is pretty much pointless.

Still, there is no denying that there is a winsome, charming and even delightful romance at the heart of ‘All You Need is Love’. Ritchie Jen and Shu Qi are extremely likeable, and it doesn’t hurt that their onscreen coupling unfolds against one of the most beautiful natural landscapes of Taiwan, i.e. the Pescadores Islands. For a first-time director, Jen doesn’t offer up anything particularly distinctive, but at least he doesn’t overdo the laughs nor the melodrama; instead, he plays it safe, offering ‘rom-com’ comfort food that he knows most of his audience will probably be looking for.

And on most counts, this agreeable rom-com gets it right, so if you’re looking for a movie for a date or just to indulge vicariously in a fictional love story, this might just be what you need. 

Movie Rating:

(If you're looking for some 'rom-com' comfort food, this winsome, charming, and even delightful romance boosted by Ritchie Jen and Shu Qi's sparkling chemistry and some truly picturesque locations may indeed be just what you need)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Thriller
Director: Paul McGuigan
Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, James McAvoy, Jessica Brown Findlay, Andrew Scott, Freddie Fox
Runtime: 1 hr 50 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence and Disturbing Scenes)
Released By: 20th Century Fox
Official Website:

Opening Day: 26 November 2015

Synopsis: During a time when anything seems possible, when science, technology, and religion are converging to re-write the rules that govern life and death, radical scientist Dr. Victor Frankenstein and his protégé Igor Strausman share a vision that will change the world. But when Victor’s plans spiral out of control with horrifying consequences, only Igor can save him from himself and his monstrous creation. Starring James McAvoy and Daniel Radcliffe, Victor Frankenstein is the thrilling untold story of the man behind the legendary monster.

Movie Review:

“You know this story. A crack of lightning. A mad genius. An unholy creation,” intones Daniel Radcliffe’s Igor Strausman, who warns us at the start not to expect a literal re-telling of Mary Shelley’s beloved horror classic. Instead, as imagined by writer Max Landis, this latest spin focuses on the relationship between the titular mad genius – played by James McAvoy – and his trusty associate Igor who becomes instrumental to his dream of re-animating the dead. Yes, though Victor first meets Igor as a nameless hunchback at the circus, the latter is in fact a gifted physician whose knowledge of the human anatomy makes him invaluable to Victor’s plan of assembling various organs into an outer shell and introducing life into it.

But even before that, Victor recognises something special in the filthy clown with the rat’s nest of a hair who rushes to the aid of a trapeze artist Lorelei (Jessica Brown Findlay) following a near-fatal fall during a show and manipulates her bones in order to save her life. So Victor decides to give the destitute sad-sack a new lease of life by first busting him out of the circus, where at his cavernous home cum laboratory, he proceeds to drain the fluid from the young man’s massive abscess, fit him with a back brace, and give him the name of his absent flatmate Igor whom Victor says is a morphine addict who has not been seen for months. Igor is indebted to Victor, and so without much question, assists his ‘saviour’ in his experiment to bring life to a homunculus stitched from animal-part discards from the local zoo.

If you’re waiting for the iconic hulking man-monster to appear, let us warn you that you’ll have to wait until the very finale, which takes place on a very stormy evening in a remote Scottish castle right next to the sea. Indeed, this is less a movie about Victor actually creating his monster and what happens afterward than about the process leading up to that pivotal moment, which its director Paul McGuigan centres on a debate between theology and technology as well as an emotional complement in the bond between Victor and Igor. To introduce the former into the narrative, McGuigan interrupts the scientific proceedings with the entry of a moralistic Scotland Yard detective (Andrew Scott), whose past has not only made him a man of unwavering faith but also obsessed with stopping Victor’s experiments he perceives as Satanic.

It is also this said inspector who causes Igor to question Victor’s research, especially in the wake of Victor’s Royal College of Medicine presentation of his first hodgepodge Prometheus which unsurprisingly does not end well. Not unsurprising too is how Victor is constructed as both the emotional and moral centre of the film – though he starts off subservient to Victor, Igor struggles with the ethical implications of using science to achieve immortality, which ultimately leaves him conflicted with the dilemma of sticking by the person who had rescued him from eternal ignominy or following his own conscience. Igor also finds his heart with Lorelei, who makes a somewhat amazing recovery to help Igor find his centre of being.

Though the romance is contrived, McAvoy and Radcliffe are actors with charm and gravitas, and they make good use of both qualities to keep us engaged in their bromance. McAvoy overdoes the mad-genius bit on more than one occasion, but is on the whole appropriately brash and obsessed to play the brilliant, extroverted yet socially bizarre Victor. At least Radcliffe complements his partner with a nicely understated performance, which expresses his character’s anguished, good-hearted and conflicted nature at various points. Next to Victor, Igor is a much more straightforward persona, but Radcliffe does what he can to make us empathise with the latter’s plight.

On his part, McGuigan keeps a tight balance between horror, drama, romance and even a few spots of comedy, while ensuring that the pace doesn’t sag. No stranger to Victorian-era London from directing several episodes of ‘Sherlock’, he forgoes more handsome evocations for a more grimy and downbeat vision of 19^th-century London that is more befitting of the grotesqueness of Victor’s creations. Oh yes, despite the rating, you’d do well to note that some images are absolutely not for the squeamish, in particular because the film does not shy away from displaying the various organs of the body which Victor uses to assemble his unhuman work of science.

As an origin story, you could do much, much worse than ‘Victor Frankenstein’, which is loud and messy all right, but has a quieter, more grounded centre on its arguments of faith versus science as well as a compelling relationship between its two lead characters. That’s provided of course that you’re willing to accept a revisionist take in the first place, with Frankenstein played as a soulless hulk that is prone to violence but nothing more and relegated almost to an afterthought right at the end. Like we said, this isn’t about the monster as we typically know it, but the journey leading up to its creation, one that is undeniably intriguing in itself. 

Movie Rating:

(Better than it has any right to be, this revisionist spin on the classic Mary Shelley creation finds its heart in the men behind the monster and the eternal debate of the ethical limits of science)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Thriller
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Kathyn Hahn, Deanna Dunagan, Peter McRobbie, Ed Oxenbould, Olivia DeJonge
Runtime: 1 hr 34 mins
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language and Some Disturbing Scenes)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: http://www.stayinyourroom.com/intl/index.php

Opening Day: 17 September 2015

Synopsis: Writer/director/producer M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs, Unbreakable) and producer Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity, The Purge and Insidious series) welcome you to Universal Pictures’ The Visit. Shyamalan returns to his roots with the terrifying story of a brother and sister who are sent to their grandparents’ remote Pennsylvania farm for a weeklong trip. Once the children discover that the elderly couple is involved in something deeply disturbing, they see their chances of getting back home are growing smaller every day.

Movie Review:

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a decent M. Night Shyamalan film. Sure, we’ve heard some fans defend ‘Lady in the Water’, ‘The Happening’, ‘The Last Airbender’ and ‘After Earth’, but the vast majority of critics and audiences alike agree that they all suck. Even though Shyamalan has regained some measure of credibility with his Fox-produced TV series ‘Wayward Pines’, that hardly counts as comeback for a director who was once dubbed by Newsweek as “the next Spielberg”. And so, notwithstanding its billing as his shot at redemption, it is with much apprehension that we approached his latest low-budget thriller produced by no less than micro-budget genre master Jason Blum.

The good news is that ‘The Visit’ doesn’t suck, and indeed is probably his finest work in years. Mixing mirth and malice, Shyamalan writes and directs this cheeky horror about two kids - 15-year-old Becca (Olivia DeJonge) and 8-year-old Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) – who travel up to their grandparents’ rural Pennsylvania farm to spend a week with them. The kids have never met their grandparents, the result of a falling out with their mother (Kathryn Hahn) before they were born over their do-no-gooder father who has since walked out of their lives. Mom is however not prepared to make peace with Nana (Deanna Dunagan) and Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie) just yet, which explains why they are making the trip up on their own.

It isn’t just coincidence that Becca is an aspiring filmmaker; rather, Shyamalan uses the conceit of her shooting a documentary about her mother’s childhood home to justify the found-footage format in which he has chosen to tell his story. Shyamalan’s choice of technique may come as somewhat of a surprise to those familiar with his works, which have always been visually compelling thanks to the lensing of veterans like Tak Fujimoto, Roger Deakins and even Christopher Doyle. And yet, despite being increasingly overused, the device mostly works here, in large part because Shyamalan overcomes the constraints of the format with two handheld cameras and one laptop camera to capture the happenings (pun intended).

A game of hide-and-seek under the grandparents’ farmhouse is nicely filmed from both Becca and Tyler’s points of view at the same time. Besides what is directly outside the door, the additional camera allows Becca to record Nana’s nocturnal activities within the confines of the living room. And with the laptop camera, the kids are not just able to stay in touch with Mom via Skype, but also to pull off a neat twist late into the film that, while isn’t as earth-shattering as ‘The Sixth Sense’, is still effective enough to send shivers down your spine and restore some of the faith which he has all but lost with misfire after another. Getting to that point also proves to be a nice exercise in build-up, with a balance of both the weird and the wacky for good measure.

To be frank, the weird isn’t all that surprising, and consists primarily of Nana wandering around the spooky old farmhouse after 9:30 at night clawing at doors and going around on all fours, sometimes completely naked. If you’re looking for a particularly scary image, you probably won’t find any one that especially stands out. What is more unexpected is Shyamalan’s sense of humour, with Becca echoing the filmmaker’s gentle pokes at himself and other filmmakers through jargon such as “visual tension” and “ironic scoring” and Tyler expressing his bratty self through rap and an amusing habit of substituting the names of female singers like Katy Perry for expletives. Whether that is a good thing is probably subjective, but the truth remains that at least the first two acts is less terrifying than entertaining.

That credit belongs as well to DeJonge and Oxenbould, who recall the casting of Haley Joel Osment in Shyamalan’s breakout hit. Just as he did then, Shyamalan displays a keen eye for choosing kids, with Oxenbould displaying just the right blend of bravura and sweetness and DeJonge bringing emotional heft in later scenes that mull on forgiveness, reconciliation and the passage of time. Both Tony Award winner Dunagan and Scottish actor McRobbie are also well-casted in their grandparent roles, striking just the right note in campiness and eeriness as the movie progresses. Hahn brings the film to a touching close, and it probably wouldn’t have hurt to have her in the movie more.

As convenient as it may be to say that Shyamalan has simply retreated to familiar territory to make his comeback, ‘The Visit’ does show the once feted filmmaker try to do something different by loading the thriller with a generous helping of humour and attempt a creative spin on the tired faux-doc format. The fact that it hasn’t turned out ground-breaking may be disappointing alone for some, but there is no denying that ‘The Visit’ is engaging enough to stand on its own as a nice little comedy/ horror. Hey, it does boast a trademark twist better than ‘Signs’ or ‘The Village’, so if you’re willing to put aside his baggage of the past, you’ll find a quietly confident Shyamalan making a small but sure step towards his glory days. 

Movie Rating:

(A solid return to form for M. Night Shyamalan, this unsettling horror laced with a generous dose of humour is no ‘Sixth Sense’ but will be good enough for some Saturday night fun)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Action
Director: Camille Delamarre
Cast: Ed Skrein, Ray Stevenson, Loan Chabanol, Lenn Kudrjawizki, Gabriella Wright, Radivoje Bukvic, Anatole Taubman, Tatiana Pajkovic
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Some Sexual References and Violence)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website: http://www.thetransporterrefueled.com

Opening Day: 10 September 2015

Synopsis: The producers of 'Lucy' and the 'Taken' trilogy bring you the next adrenaline-fueled installment of The Transporter series, THE TRANSPORTER REFUELED, starring newcomer Ed Skrein as Frank Martin, the most highly-skilled transporter money can buy. The stakes are greater and technology better, but the same three simple rules apply: never change the deal, no names and never open the package.

Movie Review:

No, Jason Statham doesn’t return for this latest instalment of Luc Besson’s ‘Transporter’ franchise, which by virtue of its title, is meant to be a reboot rather than a continuation of the modestly successful trilogy which ran from 2002 to 2008. Instead, it is ‘Game of Thrones’ alum Ed Skrein who steps into the titular role of Frank Martin, a driver-for-hire with strict rules against questions asked, names and deal changes and the promise of delivering any package on time. As Statham also showed, Frank doesn’t simply rely on his excellent driving skills to play delivery man; he also has a nasty set of martial arts skills to boot, which come in handy considering just how often he tends to run into bad company.

In ‘Refuelled’, Frank has been contracted by a seductive blond-wigged femme fatale named Anna (Loan Chabanol) to pick up a 140 kg cargo in front of a bank. The cargo turns out to be two identically dressed, blond-wigged ladies (Gabriella Wright and Wenxia Yu), whom a prologue informs us were enslaved by Russian crime lord Karasov’s (Radivoje Bukvic) to work as prostitutes fifteen years ago. Realising that he has been hired to be their getaway driver in a revenge plot against the men who have been exploiting them for years, Frank refuses; and so, to compel him, Anna has also had a fourth compatriot (Tatiana Pajkovic) kidnap his former British spy dad (Ray Stevenson).

Shortly after a hair-raising escape from the police along the streets of Monte Carlo, Anna blackmails both Frank Sr and Frank Jr to help them out again in yet another heist in a nightclub and then on board a plane about to take off (which smacks too much of ‘Taken 3’). It doesn’t take a genius to guess Anna’s ruse or that both father and son as well as the girls will find themselves up against Karasov, who happens to have a long time grudge against Frank Jr. Besson’s EuropaCorp B-grade action movies have never been high on plot, or character for that matter, and this bare-bones script co-written by Besson is pretty much a straight road without any twists or turns. That isn’t a bad thing in and of itself – certainly, the earlier ‘Transporter’ films didn’t get by with narrative zing too.

Alas, what made its predecessors stand out is sadly missing in this one. Taking over the reins from ‘Taken 3’ director Olivier Megaton is Camille Delamarre, a former editor from the EuropaCorp stable who made his directorial debut on another Besson scripted picture ‘Brick Mansions’, and Delamarre fares even worse than Megaton does in preserving the original’s deliriously fun Hong Kong action choreography first established by Corey Yuen. Like Megaton, Delamarre is prone to ‘helicopter’ shots and quick-cut editing, but lacks the former’s derring-do when it comes to staging vehicular crashes that are a hallmark of the franchise. In fact, the action scenes reek of familiarity, borrowed not only from previous ‘Transporter’ entries but also of the ‘Taken’ series.

The one sequence that does stand out is a bit of Jackie Chan which Frank pulls by using an array of bank vault drawers to dispatch his pursuers, but that alone isn’t enough to save the rest of the movie from plain tedium. That also has to do with the fact that Skrein is a poor substitute for Statham, who shares the latter’s Cockney accent but is lacking in everything else. Statham wasn’t yet the star he was today, but he brought a veritable blend of self-awareness, raw charisma and impressive moves to make Frank an engagingly mysterious character. Skein doesn’t possess any of these facets, and his dead seriousness makes for a relentlessly monotonous delivery that is flat out boring – mind you, that is even with the slinky babes that Delamarre has surrounded him with.

Unlike what its title suggests, this entry is pretty much running on fumes, missing what made the earlier movies acceptably diverting low-rent action thrillers. Audi might be happy with the exposure that they are getting, but not even the most undemanding viewer will find much excitement in the forgettable setpieces and an utterly inconsequential climax. And oh boy, how we miss Statham, who has since moved on to better stuff with ‘Spy’ and ‘Fast and Furious 7’ and without which the ‘Transporter’ franchise is as good as dead. 

Movie Rating:

(Sorely missing Jason Statham’s presence, this reboot of the low-rent ‘Transporter’ franchise from Luc Besson’s B-grade action thriller factory EuropaCorp is as good as Eurotrash)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Yup, it’s been 20 years since a certain pullstring cowboy doll named Woody and an astronaut action figure named Buzz Lightyear made millions of fans around the world lapping up the phrase “You’ve Got A Friend In Me”. Since June last year, Walt Disney Records has been releasing a series of soundtracks to mark the anniversaries of beloved Disney films. Here we have the two disc album coinciding with the 20^th anniversary of Pixar’s first animated feature film, a buddy comedy movie which propelled the animation studio to fame.

This soundtrack is a must own for any self respecting Disney/ Pixar fan. It contains the movie’s complete original soundtrack, four demo recordings and three instrumental versions of the three songs played in the film.

On Disc One, a very generous 67 minutes of music await you. For those who have purchased the original release will be glad to hear the music score playing from start to finish, with the songs in the right places. Hearing “Opening” (the cue that plays during Pixar’s version of the Walt Disney Pictures logo) almost brought tears to this reviewer’s eyes. Soon after, listeners will be brought onto a journey with the anthropomorphic toys who pretend to be lifeless whenever humans are around, and spring to life when they have their owner’s bedroom to themselves.

Be it Woody summoning his fellow toys in “Staff Meeting Everybody!”, the Green Army Men showing comradeship in “A Good Soldier Never Leaves a Man Behind”, the exhilaration in seeing a soaring spaceman in “Buzz Flies”, the ominous dread in “Sid” or the wondrous awe in “The Claw”, the cues sure bring back some fond memories of the film. Never released before tracks like “Pizza Planet Rock” and “Buzz Lightyear Commercial” will make you sit up and listen, with the electronic sounds infused in the compositions.

Of course, it’s always welcoming to hear the triumphant “RC to the Rescue” and “To Infinity and Beyond”, tracks that remind fans how the friendship was sealed between Woody and Buzz.

You’ll get to hear the discarded “Plastic Spaceman” and “The Fool” on Disc Two, which runs at a duration of 21 minutes. Hearing composer Randy Newman “Thanking the Orchestra”  is an apt way to close the soundtrack.   

Another reason why you should get a copy of this soundtrack are the original artworks and illustrations featured in the exquisite booklet. There are also liner notes from director John Lasseter and Newman, giving fans further insights on how the music brought the film to life.

You have to admit, just seeing the album cover (courtesy of Walt Disney Animation Studios’ artist Lorelay Bove) does make you want to own a copy pf this commemorative soundtrack straightaway. 

ALBUM RATING:

Recommended Track: (50) You've Got a Friend in Me (Lyle Lovett and Randy Newman) – Disc One

Review by John Li

Genre: Drama
Director: Max Joseph
Cast: Zac Efron, Emily Ratajkowski, Shiloh Fernandez, Wes Bentley, Alicia Coppola, Jon Abrahams, Jonny Weston, Jon Bernthal, Jacqui Holland, Rebecca Forsythe
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Rating: M18 (Coarse Language and Nudity)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website: http://wayf-movie.com

Opening Day: 24 September 2015

Synopsis: “We Are Your Friends” is about what it takes to find your voice. Set in the world of electronic music and Hollywood nightlife, an aspiring 23-year-old DJ named Cole (Efron) spends his days scheming with his childhood friends and his nights working on the one track that will set the world on fire. All of this changes when he meets a charismatic but damaged older DJ named James (Bentley), who takes him under his wing. Things get complicated, however, when Cole starts falling for James’ much younger girlfriend, Sophie (Ratajkowski). With Cole’s forbidden relationship intensifying and his friendships unraveling, he must choose between love, loyalty, and the future he is destined for.

Movie Review:

Zac Efron stars as Cole, an aspiring DJ trying to find the one song that would be his ticket to fame and success in Hollywood. He has three other good-for-nothing friends – Mason (Johnny Weston), Squirrel (Alex Shaffer), and Ollie (Shiloh Fernandez), who are all about the young-Hollywood lifestyle, i.e. sex, money and drugs. They live in the “San Fernando Valley”, the ghetto of California and have grandiose dreams about making it big with as little effort as possible. They make their living out of promoting club nights where Cole spins and selling drugs to college kids looking for an escape. In his daily dealings, Cole meets popular local DJ James Reed (Wes Bentley) who epitomizes everything Cole aspires to be. James eventually takes Cole under his wing and helps him understand what individuality is in Electronic Dance Music (EDM) and why it is important for Cole to find his own distinct sound. Everything is fine and dandy till Cole falls in love with James’ assistant/girlfriend Sophie (Emily Ratajkowski) and he’s left to make a tough decision between what his heart wants and his career aspirations. This movie has all the right (albeit cliché) ingredients to be the perfect end-of-summer flick for the over-20-under-30 crowd. It examines the popular EDM culture and almost manages to hit all the right notes to deliver a vibrant, feel-good film.

Let’s talk plot. The story for We Are Your Friends is pretty straightforward and very, very predictable. But it is delivered with such charm that you almost don’t mind it. Cole is often stuck facing the dilemma that many young adults face and making mistakes that alter his grand plans for life. For one, Cole struggles to find his own voice in his music and among his friends. He often follows the crowd (his friends), until he meets James. And even with James, he never asserts himself as an individual, often enamored by James’ abilities and advice that he never realizes that James himself is a fraud in many ways. Cole also struggles between choosing the comfortable, luxurious life and the morally right thing to do. This struggle is not only apparent in his personal life (choosing his mentor or his chance at love), but also in his professional life.

The movie tries to condense these layers of young adult angst and confusion to make it palatable and enjoyable for the audience. Sometimes, this resulted in the movie feeling a little truncated in places. The plot points could have been better illustrated. There were other inconsistencies too – I wasn’t very clear whether Cole was into Sophie out of pure lust, since her character was one dimensional and she didn’t have much of a personality or a story. I’m still unsure if it was Emily Ratajkowski’s bad acting or if it was newbie director Max Joseph’s call to dull Sophie’s presence in the film. Instead, Joseph chooses to focus a lot more on the aesthetics – bold text and “fun info-graphics” to explain the background of each character and a good looking cast against the beautiful backdrop of California. The cinematography by Brett Pawlak was also excellent and a lot of effort went into trying to get the visuals to complement the vibrant soundtrack of the film. A particularly interesting and visually stunning scene was in the middle of the film where Cole tried to explain the “science” of music and how it moves the body and the heart. Overall, it was a creative marriage between Pawlak and Joseph that worked in favour of the film. While the treatment of visual accessories could have been more consistent and less “try-hard”, creative risks were taken. It compensated for the predictable plot and provided for many memorable moments. Joseph’s observations about the EDM culture were also incredibly astute.

However, there really isn’t much to say about the acting in this film, probably because there wasn’t a lot of acting required. The lifestyle portrayed in the film is probably something these young Hollywood twenty-something actors are more than familiar with. None of them looked out of place. Beyond that, the plot didn’t really have many emotional moments for the cast to show off their acting prowess, so there were no standout moments. Both Zac Efron and Wes Bentley had the most acting to do and committed to their roles fairly well. Emily Ratajkowski felt uncomfortable to watch in most scenes and would have probably done better if she had fewer lines to remember.

All in all, I felt that We Are Your Friends is still a better young-adult indie film than Sophie Coppola’s Spring Breakers.  This is probably not a popular opinion but I’ll say it anyway. It had just the right amount of goofiness, cliché, grit and colour to round off this year’s summer film releases.

Movie Rating:

(This one probably only appeals to a niche crowd. To the twenty-somethings out there, let go of your inhibitions, judgment and just enjoy the film)

Review by Aishwarya Kumar

Director Peyton Reed’s offering for 2015’s summer blockbuster season proved that big surprises came in little packages. Who would have known that this little known (and little in the physical sense) superhero from Marvel Comics would receive tons of positive reviews and gross over $367 million worldwide to date?

Today, no one likes their superheroes too self righteous and heavy hearted. Enter Ant Man, a movie that is actually fun and affecting at the same time. Composer Christophe Beck (Muppets Most Wanted, Edge of Tomorrow) re teams with Reed (the two worked together on 2000’s delightful cheerleader comedy Bring It On) to bring what he has to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Setting the mood right is the 65 minute album’s first track “Theme from Ant Man”, a spirited composition that catches your attention immediately. Following that, there are several standout tracks: “Ant 247” is dripping with a vintage feel of classic spy movies, “San Francisco, 1987” is emotionally heartfelt, “I’ll Call Him Antony” is stylistically punchy, and “First Mission” fills you with adrenaline rush as if you’re flying in mid air on the back of an ant (fans may spot the themes from Alan Silvestri’s The Avengers and Henry Jackman’s Captain America: Winter Soldier).

The Canadian composer was a replacement for Steven Price. After Edgar Wright departed from the initially troubled project, Beck took on the role of scoring the movie. Like the film, the music is thrilling and enjoyable. There is a bombastic catchy main theme, which works its way into the sweeping score brought to life by grand symphonic orchestrations.

“Scott Surfs on Ants” is one standout cue that you can imagine a orchestra playing in a concert hall, with every player swinging to the rhythm. “Cross Tech Break In” creates an old school suspense, while “Into the Hornet’s Nest” ups the notch for action. “A Center for Ants!” accentuates the big band sound, while “Small Sacrifice” is a soaring piece that plays before “About Damn Time” and “Tales to Astonish!” gleefully round up the score section of the soundtrack.

The CD album also includes four very varied non score tracks, ranging from the  Latin flavoured “Borombon” by Camilo Azuquita and the funk filled “Escape” by Roy Ayers. to the soulful “I’m Ready’ by Commodores and the party hit “Pink Gorilla” by HLM.

While this soundtrack isn’t an epic boasting emotionally heavy music, it is what Ant Man is about – compact, effective and fun. 

ALBUM RATING:

Recommended Track: (9) First Mission

Review by John Li