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Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Steve Barker
Cast: Dougray Scott, Jessica De Gouw, Martin McCann, Jassa Ahluwalia, Elen Rhys, Claire Goose
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Rating: M18 (Violence and Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw
Official Website:

Opening Day: 30 June 2016

Synopsis: Following a near apocalyptic zombie outbreak, humans now have the upper hand and life has returned to relative normality with only an occasional reminder or mention of recent horrific events. Most people wouldn’t even blink at seeing a zombie now. They know how to handle them. It’s no big deal because humans fought and won the battle and are in control again. The latest craze in this post zombie-outbreak world is the Zombie Safari: it is the newest and coolest thing in adventure holidays - a chance to go out and shoot the undead in the wild. The ultimate test in action and adventure, the ultimate blood sport and, to many, the ultimate in therapeutic revenge. But unbeknownst to most that go on Zafari, the park is a highly controlled and monitored environment; a maze of concealed security cameras, restraints and barriers. The eyes and ears of trained security personnel are on the guests - and the zombies 24/7, always ensuring a safe shooting distance between the living and the undead. Nothing is left to chance. Nothing is unplanned. So far…

Movie Review:

If you haven’t had enough of a zombie fix after AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’ and ‘Fear The Walking Dead’, then you may want to consider satiating your appetite with ‘The Rezort’s’ dish of reheated leftovers. Oh yes, the idea of a post-apocalyptic safari where the humans who survive go and hunt the undead for sport may seem novel, but if you recall how a certain movie named ‘Jurassic Park’ did pretty much the same with dinosaurs, you won’t find this ‘rezort’ (or ‘resort’ with a ‘z’, get it?) quite so ingenious. And sure enough, beyond its somewhat inspired riff of a concept, there is little that distinguishes it from a B-grade survival thriller made and shot on the cheap.

Among its list of thinly developed – and therefore largely forgettable characters – is Melanie (Jessica De Gouw of ‘Arrow’ fame), who books a visit to the island paradise with her boyfriend Lewis (Martin McCann) in the hope of overcoming her PTSD from losing her family to the plague. Melanie is as much as we know about any of the zombie fodder here, which includes the roguish Archer (Dougray Scott), a self-righteous zombie activist Sadie (Elen Rhys) and a pair of teenage gamers (Jassa Ahluwalia and Jamie Ward) with the hots for Sadie. It is also Sadie who inadvertently triggers a shutdown of the park’s security systems when attempting to steal some data from the mainframe, freeing the once-shackled and caged zombies and turning the adventure into a real hunt.

To add urgency to the proceedings, the emergency has led to the initiation of the Brimstone Protocol, which will leave the entire island decimated within hours. It therefore becomes a race against time for our motley crew of survivors to get off the island before it is blown into smithereens. Within that timeframe are a couple of decently thrilling setpieces that ‘Outpost’ director Steve Barker crafts to satisfy his audience for zombie mayhem and gore, such as one in and around an abandoned two-storey building below a cellular tower where the group find themselves outnumbered by separate hordes of swift-moving zombies – and yes, if you’re wondering, the zombies here are more akin to that from ‘World War Z’ than ‘The Walking Dead’ in terms of movement and speed.

Because Barker and his writer Paul Gerstenberger never quite bother to invest their audience in their characters, there is little that we actually care about their predicament, or for that matter, when any one meets a sudden and untimely death. That is certainly not lost on Barker, who opts to keep the action moving at a fast and sometimes frenetic clip once the zombies are unleashed at the half-hour mark. And on that account, the movie largely accomplishes its unassuming ambition – purely as a thrill ride premised on the survival of a few against masses of flesh-eaters, it has enough close shaves and jump scares to keep you on edge. Yet, like we said earlier, that alone hardly makes it anything more than a well-made B-action thriller.

As much as it tries to re-assert its relevance of being something more at the end by drawing reference to the current refugee crisis across Europe, ‘The Rezort’ ultimately is no more than an adrenaline shot with competent action and some vicarious sweet kills. No matter that it had aspirations of casting the undead as half-dead worthy of better respect than just sport, this by-the-numbers zombie flick is content to appeal to genre fans as no more than filler in between the next ‘Walking Dead’ episode. If you’re that much of a junkie, then go ahead and check in; otherwise, you’re better off with the Robert Kirkman series.

Movie Rating:

(A three-star by-the-numbers 'ReZort' that offers enough thrills for hardcore genre fans but little else more)

Review by Gabriel Chong

ADAPTED FROM THE POPULAR TAIWANESE TEENAGE NOVEL, AT CAFE 6 OPENS IN SINGAPORE ON 14TH JULY!

Posted on 21 Jun 2016

Adapted from the popular Taiwanese teenage novel, AT CAFÉ 6 is hitting the big screens in Singapore, day-and-date with Taiwan, on 14th July 2016! Leading actresses Cherry Ngan from Hong Kong and Ouyang Nini from Taiwan, together with Director Neal Wu a.k.a. Hiyawu will be in town on 10th July 2016 to promote this high school romance comedy! Neal Wu, who also penned the popular novel, ...

FINDING DORY Makes a Splash in the Singapore Box Office

Posted on 23 Jun 2016

Disney/Pixar’s Finding Dory made it to the number one position on box office chart, setting the record as the biggest Disney and Pixar opening weekend in Singapore. Finding Dory surpassed its prequel’s opening weekend box office figure by 124%, with a cumulative box office of SGD$2.3 million as of 22nd June, Wednesday. The film has also made splashing records globally, landing i ...

Genre: Thriller
Director: Denise Di Novi
Cast: Katherine Heigl, Rosario Dawson, Geoff Stults, Cheryl Ladd, Whitney Cummings
Runtime: 1 hr 40 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scenes)
Released By: Warner Bros
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/UnforgettableTheMovie/

Opening Day: 4 May 2017

Synopsis: Heigl stars as Tessa Connover, who is barely coping with the end of her marriage when her ex-husband, David (Stults), becomes happily engaged to Julia Banks (Dawson) — not only bringing Julia into the home they once shared but also into the life of their daughter, Lilly (Isabella Rice). Trying to settle into her new role as a wife and a stepmother, Julia believes she has finally met the man of her dreams, the man who can help her put her own troubled past behind her. But Tessa’s jealousy soon takes a pathological turn until she will stop at nothing to turn Julia’s dream into her ultimate nightmare.

Movie Review:

‘Unforgettable’ begins with a bruised, traumatised Julia (Rosario Dawson) interrogated by the police for the murder of her ex, Michael Vargas (Simon Kassianides), an aggressive bully whom she had obtained a restraining order against some two years ago. She says that he showed up at her fiancee’s place to taunt her, but the police are sceptical. How to explain the photos that she has been sending him over Facebook, the intimate IM chats they’ve been exchanging and the pair of her panties found in his car? Like a classic noir, the plot unfolds six months earlier, with Julia packing up for Southern California to be with her new fiancé David (Geoff Stults) and his daughter Lily (Isabella Rice).

If you’ve seen any of the trailers for longtime producer Denise Di Novi’s directorial debut, you’ll know that the person responsible for the mess she will eventually find herself in is none other than David’s ex and Lily’s mother, Tessa (Katherine Heigl), who can barely contain her contempt for Julia and goes predictably bonkers when she happens to find out that David and Julia are engaged to be married. Just to be sure, the feud is as simple as it gets – consumed by jealousy, Tessa concocts a diabolical plan to foil Julia’s happily-ever-after with David, one which primarily revolves around creating a Facebook account for Julia (who just happens to shun any social media presence) and contacting Michael under the guise of wanting to re-connect with him.

That is about all there is to this ‘crazy-ex’ revenge thriller, which spends its time building up to the inevitable catfight between Julia and Tessa – but boy, does it really feel like an eternity. We watch Tessa play the Stepford-esque ex-wife to the hilt, a Type-A ‘psycho Barbie’ wound so tightly she threatens to pop a screw anytime. We see Lily end up as a pawn in their deadly game, as Tessa uses her to try to prove to David how ill-prepared, irresponsible and ultimately ill-fitting a step-mother Julia will be. We are even introduced to Tessa’s passive-aggressive mother (Cheryl Ladd), whom we are led to suspect is the reason why Tessa turned up this way. Along the way, we’ll learn just why David and Tessa got married in the first place (gasp: Lily was Tessa’s pawn even then!) and why he eventually decided to divorce her (well no spoilers here, but nothing too surprising as well).

Like we said, it is pretty much predictable all the way through – and although it may have seemed that Tessa was going to be more than the archetypal villain at the start, neither Hodson nor Di Novi eventually make good on reducing the caricatured-ness of her role. Then again, maybe that was the intention in the first place, seeing how much Heigl seems to relish playing against type here and admittedly exceling at it. Next to her, Dawson’s damsel-in-distress act comes off much blander, though that is more a fault of a script that lacks a compelling character arc for her – one moment she’s determined to wrest her life back from Tessa, the other she is wilting under the anonymous phone calls she thinks are from Michael. Whilst most of the time is spent pitting Julia and Tessa against each other, the movie itself fails to become more by neglecting to elaborate how Julia was like with David (such that the latter seems utterly nonplussed at Tessa being a constant presence in his new relationship) as well as how Tessa could have started unravelling at a much younger age under the demands of her mother.

As much as some commentators have deemed this a return to the ‘erotic thriller’ canon that classics like ‘Sleeping with the Enemy’ and ‘Fatal Attraction’ were known for in the 90s, ‘Unforgettable’ really doesn’t belong in that category. For one, there is only one substantial scene of simulated sex, which takes place within the toilet for the disabled at a nice restaurant; other than that, there is little display of skin here, nor for that matter much eroticism going on.

Still, this female-centric movie is better off not resorting to such clichés at the end of the day. Pity then that because of how straightforward the plotting is, much of it becomes a waiting game that never quite pays off by simply letting Julia and Tessa let up their pent-up enmity at each other at the end. At the risk of sounding cliched, it is hardly unforgettable, and not even a terrific atypical performance by Heigl makes it any more memorable.

Movie Rating:

(Katherine Heigl plays the jealous ex with twisted delight, but a wholly predictable plot and underdeveloped character relationships ultimately doom this domestic thriller to mediocrity)

Review by Gabriel Chong

Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: Sharon Maguire
Cast: Renée Zellweger, Patrick Dempsey, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson, Shirley Henderson, Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones, Sally Phillips, Sarah Solemani
Runtime: 2 hrs 3 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Coarse Language and Nudity)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: http://www.bridgetjonesmovie.com/?redirect=off

Opening Day: 15 September 2016

Synopsis: Oscar® winners Renée Zellweger and Colin Firth are joined by Patrick Dempsey for the next chapter of the world’s favorite singleton in Bridget Jones’s Baby. Directed by Sharon Maguire (Bridget Jones’s Diary), the new film in the beloved comedy series based on creator Helen Fielding’s heroine finds Bridget unexpectedly expecting. After breaking up with Mark Darcy (Firth), Bridget Jones’s (Zellweger) “happily ever after” hasn’t quite gone according to plan. Fortysomething and single again, she decides to focus on her job as top news producer and surround herself with old friends and new. For once, Bridget has everything completely under control. What could possibly go wrong? Then her love life takes a turn and Bridget meets a dashing American named Jack (Dempsey), the suitor who is everything Mr. Darcy is not. In an unlikely twist she finds herself pregnant, but with one hitch...she can only be fifty percent sure of the identity of her baby’s father.

Movie Review:

12 years after the previous movie, Bridget Jones (portrayed by Renée Zellweger) is single (again) and celebrating her 43rd birthday alone. To make things worse, in comes a hipster boss at work who seems set on firing everyone who is not a poser. So what better way to turn Jones’ love life around, and coincidentally, try to become a hipster, than to attend an alcohol-fuelled hippie music festival? That said, alcohol and desperation doth not make good decisions, as Jones falls into bed (quite literally) with Jack Quant (Patrick Dempsey) and later, old flame Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), resulting in her getting pregnant without knowing who the father is.

Despite the rather clichéd premise, Bridget Jones’ Baby is rather enjoyable. Or so the theatre audience, mostly made up of twenty-, thirty- and forty-something women, thought anyway, if their bouts of laughter were anything to go by. And it was not hard to understand why – Bridget Jones, representing the moderately successful everyday working woman, vied for by two insanely good-looking and wealthy men who seem genuinely interested in her – vicarious living anyone?

Storyline-wise, although the movie did not offer many surprises (or at all), it was entertaining enough to see how Jones grappled with her pregnancy, while trying to break the news to her family and going for pre-parenting classes with the two potential fathers of her child. Ironically, the only sub-plot that was possibly inserted to provide a break from the main story was the weakest. The parts on Jones’ new boss from hell neither contributed much towards the plot nor character development, and probably should have not be included in the first place. Afterall, there was only so much whining and making fun of workplace hipsters that can be done before it gets old.

What lifted the movie from being entirely forgettable was Renée Zellweger’s portrayal of the titular character. Reprising her role after 12 years, Zellweger slipped back into Bridget Jones’ shoes with ease, easily garnering much sympathy and support with her forever alone, indecisive and inappropriate self. With such a protagonist, needless to say the two supporting male characters paled in comparison, playing their roles of free-spirited and charming technopreneur, and spiffy upper-class lawyer to a T, but nothing more. The only other standout role would be Emma Thompson’s Dr Rawling – Jones’ sarcastic but kind gynaecologist. In fact, Dr Rawling felt like the only sane character in the entire movie, and providing much-needed breaks from Jones’ ridiculous antics.

Much like Bridget, the movie was occasionally awkward and funny, and this made the protagonist endearing and sprawned the third movie of the series, I guess. While the movie might not be the most memorable one out there, it was enjoyable and funny enough to be a good weekend time filler.

Movie Rating:

(Mostly funny and sometimes awkward, the movie is watchable even if you are not a Bridget Jones fan)

Review by Goh Yan Hui

Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Director: Ron Howard
Cast: Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Ben Foster, Irrfan Khan, Omar Sy, Sidse Babett Knudsen
Runtime: 2 hrs 1 min
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language And Violence)
Released By: Sony Pictures Singapore
Official Website:

Opening Day: 13 October 2016

Synopsis: Academy Award® winner Ron Howard returns to direct the latest bestseller in Dan Brown’s ("Da Vinci Code") billion-dollar Robert Langdon series, Inferno, which finds the famous symbologist (again played by Tom Hanks) on a trail of clues tied to the great Dante himself. When Langdon wakes up in an Italian hospital with amnesia, he teams up with Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones), a doctor he hopes will help him recover his memories. Together, they race across Europe and against the clock to foil a deadly global plot.

Movie Review:

After committing papal heresy in ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angels and Demons’, renowned Harvard University symbiologist Robert Langdon is in arguably less controversial territory with ‘Inferno’, which sees him pitted against a crazed billionaire geneticist who has invented the titular doomsday virus to wipe out half of the world’s population. To be sure, Langdon will not come face to face with the madman named Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) – not only does a pre-credits sequence establish Zobrist’s obsession with humanity’s imminent demise through overpopulation, it also shows the man pursued along the streets of Florence, Italy, and finally throwing himself off a bell tower. Instead, Langdon finds himself plunged into the world of 14^th century Italian poet Dante Alighieri’s ‘The Divine Comedy’ with a series of apocalyptic visions that accompany his apparent head trauma from a gunshot wound, which also causes him to suffer from mild retrograde amnesia.

Or so his doe-eyed helpmeet doctor Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) claims, who after saving him from a female carabineri Vayentha (Ana Ularu) in hospital, seems all too willing to be his sidekick sleuth in uncovering a series of clues that will lead them to the virus, beginning with a ‘Faraday pointer’ containing an altered image of Botticelli's ‘Map of Hell’ illustration. The trail will lead them across exotic locations in Florence – from the Boboli Gardens to the Palazzo Vecchio to the Florence Baptistry – and Venice before finally culminating in Istanbul’s Hagia Sofia. To make things more exciting of course, Langdon finds himself the target of multiple competing parties, including the World Health Organization director-general Elizabeth Sinskey (Sidse Babett Knudsen), her possibly rogue gang of heavily-armed operatives led by Christoph (Omar Sy), and last but not least the ace fixer Harry Sims (Irrfan Khan) of a shadowy consortium.

As much as the chase does lend itself to some big-screen cinematic thrills, Dan Brown’s Langdon series were probably more suited for the page, seeing as how lengthy chunks of exposition were devoted to educating its readers on the myriad historical references that served as an intricate web of clues for its protagonist. To screenwriter David Koepp’s (returning from 2009’s ‘Angels and Demons) credit, he has effectively streamlined Brown’s novel into an effective race-against-time mystery thriller that stays true to the essence of its source. Fans of the book will no doubt draw their comparisons (and let’s just say that there are some significant deviations, most prominently the bleak ending which probably would come across too nihilistic for a mainstream audience), but the distillation – complete with reversals, flashbacks and a midway twist – has enabled Ron Howard (who also directed the earlier two adaptations) to produce his most pacey instalment yet of the three-quel.

Oh yes, ‘Inferno’ is probably the least faithful of them, though arguably for the better. Unlike the plodding ‘Da Vinci Code’, the first hour moves at an almost breathless pace as Langdon and Sienna go from gallery to gallery tracing Zobrist’s steps as well as figuring out the allegiance of the assorted figures that seem bent on acquiring the virus. Howard also injects a stronger stylistic audacity to ‘Inferno’ than his 2006 and 2009 predecessors, in particular in his imagining of the hellish visions that Langdon is plagued with – that of white-eyed lepers kneeling by the roads, sorcerers with their heads twisted around, and streets covered in rivers of blood. Perhaps the only time his film comes up for air is just before the explosive finale set in a red subterranean Turkish bath, with a romantic subplot between Langdon and Sinskey expertly played by two accomplished actors for all that it is worth. Howard also gives some room for the consortium’s enigmatic Provost to impress with his wryness and spryness in the latter half, which Khan reciprocates with a ripe but fun performance.

Because ‘Inferno’ was never made or meant to be character-driven, it rests squarely yet again on Hanks’ shoulders to make his character appealing. Indeed, Langdon was never an immediately likeable person; in fact, his self-aware intellect quite often turns into self-absorbed pomposity. Yet the ultra-genial Hanks downplays these characteristics for a down-to-earth, sometimes even self-deprecating, portrayal that makes Langdon amiable companion over the film’s two hours. Truth be told, the popularity of Dan Brown’s super-tourist semiology thrillers with their initially refreshing high-minded emphasis on art and culture has somewhat faded in the decade since, but ‘Inferno’ is still a sufficiently exciting mystery thriller in its own right, thanks to Howard’s sure-handed direction and Hanks’ ever-reliable presence. If, as its tagline suggests, ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angels and Demons’ were just the beginning, then you’d be glad to know that this third Ron Howard adaptation of the Dan Brown series is certainly bigger and better.

Movie Rating:

(The best of Ron Howard’s Dan Brown adaptations, ‘Inferno’ is a sure-footed mystery thriller that isn’t afraid to deviate from its source material for better cinematic impact)

Review by Gabriel Chong

So here’s another compilation of songs packaged as a soundtrack album. There aren’t many reasons to own this CD if you did not particularly love the movie (the Thea Sharrock directed film based on Jojo Moyes’ novel drew some flak from the disabled community for advocating suicide so their loved ones can “live boldly”), or aren’t fans of the artistes represented on the nine track album.

We’re glad to report that the collection of songs on this soundtrack makes for a very great playlist on its own, especially if you’re in the mood to feel emotional about the various facades of life. Of course, it will help if you love music from singers like Imagine Dragons, Ed Sheeran, X Ambassadors and Max Jury.

For those who watched the surprisingly charming romantic movie, this is a good opportunity to relive the film’s key moments, and realise how music can elevate the story to an entirely new level.

Kicking off the album is Max Jury’s soulful “Numb” and indie pop duo Holychild’s outlandishly infectious “Happy With Me” – not bad for successfully transiting the two very different moods. Next up, X Ambassadors performs a new track “Unsteady (Erich Lee Gravity Remix)”, a cue that boasts of grandeur, courtesy of a 30 piece orchestra.

Jessie Ware’s moving “Till The End” (also a new track), The 1975’s trippy “The Sound” and Jack Garratt’s hypnotic “Surprise Yourself” form the second section of the soundtrack. Up to this point, the music has been easy on the ears, making this album a breeze to listen to. Cloves’ affecting “Forget About Me” and Ed Sheeran’s radio friendly “Photograph” come on before the CD closes with Imagine Dragons’ “Not Today”, a tune with lyrics written to impress girls.

This is the kind of soundtrack that you’d want to play on a romantic date. Things can’t go wrong with songs as agreeable as these.

ALBUM RATING:

Recommended Track: (3) Unsteady (Erich Lee Gravity Remix) - X Ambassadors

Review by John Li