SYNOPSIS: New York City architect Natalie (Rebel Wilson) works hard to get noticed at her job but is more likely to be asked to deliver coffee and bagels than to design the city’s next skyscraper. And if things weren’t bad enough, Natalie, a lifelong cynic when it comes to love, has an encounter with a mugger that renders her unconscious, waking to discover that her life has suddenly become her worst nightmare—a romantic comedy—and she is the leading lady.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Produced by and starring Rebel Wilson more well-known as Fat Amy from the Pitch Perfect series, Isn’t It Romantic satires and pokes fun at the romantic genre but fails to get away from it in the end. Kind of a missed opportunity to delve into something deeper. Still, it’s an enjoyable PG13 comedy if you yearn for a slightly different rom-com.
Being raised as someone who doesn’t believe in love and happy endings, Natalie (Wilson) leads a cynical life as an architect in New York City and stays in a disheveled tiny apartment with fellow colleague Josh (Adam DeVine) and assistant Whitney (Betty Gilpin) as her best friends. When a mugging incident in a subway station left her waking up in an alternate NYC whereby it smells liked lavender and everything works and looked like a romantic comedy, Natalie finds that a suave billionaire Blake (Liam Hemsworth) has fallen in love with her and her creepy neighbor, Donny (Brandon Scott Jones) has become her gay best friend.
Will Natalie be able to get back to the “real” world or chose to stay happily ever after in a perfect and nice NYC with Blake?
For the first hour or so, Isn’t It Romantic set off a series of fun jabs at all the rom-com tropes and clichés which audiences are familiar with. From the crazy makeover of her apartment and closet to Blake writing down his number on flower petals to Blake taking her for a cruise and dinner, treating her to dessert at an ice-cream parlour and kissing in the middle of the road. It’s often ticklish and witty all thanks to Wilson’s perfect comic timing and chemistry with fellow Aussie, Liam Hemsworth.
Then it starts to spiral down when Isn’t It Romantic begins to turn into the movies which it mercilessly pokes fun of for the past hour. You know the part when you realized your best friend is actually the one you should be with rather than the person he or she is just about to get marry to and a whole of other mumbo jumbo about loving yourself. At least director Todd Strauss-Schulson is smart enough to wrap up everything in less than 90 minutes before it gets worse and predictive.
Except for a theatrical release in the US and Canada, Isn’t It Romantic is strangely relegated to current streaming giant, Netflix in the rest of the world despite featuring both a handsome cast and production values. Overall, this is the kind of enjoyable romantic comedy that is good for at least a single watch with Wilson’s self-deprecating humor and a truckload full of cringy love songs to entertain your other half.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
|
MARVEL-LOUS'S GOTTA WAITPosted on 04 Mar 2019 |
Genre: Drama
Director: Choi Jeong-Yeol
Cast: Ma Dong-Seok, Park Jeong-Min, Jung Hae-In, Yum Jung-A, Choi Sung-Eun
RunTime: 1 hr 42 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Violence)
Released By: Clover Films and Cathay Cineplexes
Official Website:
Opening Day: 9 January 2020
Synopsis: Claiming he hates school and studying even more, ‘Taek-il’ (PARK Jeong-min) is fast to get hard spikes from his mother (YUM Jung-a). While his best friend ‘Sang-pil’ (JUNG Hae-in) says he wants to make money fast and gets a full-time job, ‘Taek-il’ runs away from home with no set plan. Later, Taek-il comes across Jangpoong Chinese Restaurant and meets ‘Geo-seok’ (MA Dong-seok), the chef with a mysterious appearance and aura. After their intense first meeting, ‘Geo-seok’ and ‘Taek-il’ become rivals in life. Taek-il, a teenager who has no fears, gets a taste of the real world with unimaginable people he meets at the restaurant.
Movie Review:
Start Up is the latest Korean comedy film based on a webcomic series, ‘Shidong’. The story centres on Taek-il, who has dropped out of school against his mother’s wish. He spends his days hanging out with his best friend, Sang-pil, who also does not have any set plan for the future. Taek-il often gets into arguments with his mother because it seems like he is not doing anything good for his own future. Desperate to break out of his circumstances, Taek-il bought a bus ticket with the little money he has to go away to the city, and ended up at Gunsan. He eventually lands a delivery job at a Chinese restaurant, which leads him to cross paths with people who are just like him.
The film opens with Taek-il, showing off his latest buy to Sang-pil. Taek-il displeased his mum again by misusing the money which was intended for his tuition. It quickly establishes the relationship between the three of them, with injections of the classic Korean slapstick humour. The story progresses as the two boys went on their separate ways to deal with their own lives. The movie’s side story arcs play quite an important role in the movie. It cleverly weaves their lives and circumstances together to reveal more than what meets the eye.
One of the anchoring characters in the movie is none other than Geo-seok (played by Ma Dong-seok). He rocked his look in the movie (kudos to the wardrobe team!) with the unique fashion sense for clothes and hair. While his physique is big and macho, he often breaks out in agile moves unexpectedly and that draws lots of laughter. In particular, watch out him dance to his favourite female idol group. The dance was copied to a tee and you’d be impressed by his agility and readiness! As the story progresses, he also showed another side of him that gives more depth to the story.
Here’s one other trivia about the cast: Taek-il and Sang-pil are set to be under 20 in the movie, but the actors are in reality both in their 30s! They actually looked and acted their onscreen ages, and nothing felt strange about it. There must be something right about Korean cosmetic and beauty products!
Overall, Start Up was an entertaining, light-hearted and easy watch. It was paced fairly nicely but there just weren’t any mind-blowing moments. While part of the movie might be exaggerated for entertainment purposes, it’s mostly not overly dramatic. All in all it’s about ordinary people finding ordinary ways to start again and lead ordinary lives.
Movie Rating:
(A feel-good movie about all of the characters seeking for new starts to lead ordinary lives)
Review by Tho Shu Ling
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: Sho Tsukikawa
Cast: Ryoma Takeuchi, Minami Hamabe, Taiki Sato, Rina Kawaei, Yua Shinkawa, Yuma Yamoto, Yuki Saso, Riko Fukumoto
RunTime: 1 hr 44 mins
Rating: PG13 (Brief Nudity)
Released By: mm2 Entertainment
Official Website:
Opening Day: 28 February 2019
Synopsis: Based on manga series "Sensei Kunshu" by Momoko Koda, high school student Ayuha Samaru falls for a handsome stranger who pays for her bill at a restaurant. The next day, she realises that this stranger is her new homeroom teacher Yoshitaka Hiromitsu! Convinced that he must be her destined lover, Ayuha Samaru goes all out to win his heart!
Movie Review:
If you do not already know, the Japanese have an insatiable appetite for teacher-student romance. Without even thinking hard, there are at least 5 movies/television dramas that have been released in the 3 years. My Teacher, My Love is yet another romance movie that falls into that league. However, unlike how some which came across as heavy-hearted, this is a fun and bubbly movie that follows high school student Ayuha (played by Hamabe Minami) and her blossoming romance with teacher, Yoshitaka (played by Takeuchi Ryoma).
Ayuha is a cheerful and energetic high school student who decided that she would like to fall in love. In the bid to achieve her goal of being in a relationship, she confesses to one boy to another, but nothing worked out despite her happy disposition. Just when she was going to pay for her meal while she was complaining and getting advice from her best friend, she realised she did not bring enough money. The snaking queue behind her was starting to get annoyed, and that’s when a knight in shining armour came to her rescue. It was love at first sight, and Ayuha became infatuated with a stranger.
The next day back at school, she recounted her fateful encounter to her best friend, getting all lovestruck. When the new relief teacher who will be taking over their class started introducing himself, it caught her by a big surprise as that was exactly the person who saved her from embarrassment the night before! Despite going through 7 rejections in a row, Ayuha is determined to make her teacher reciprocate her feelings...
As typical as it may be, My Teacher My Love is adapted from the manga of the same name, and follows the safe formula of having a youthful girl + charming dude combi, then sprinkle in some romance and humour. In fact the teacher, Yoshitaka, is a tsundere character (tsundere is a Japanese slang word composed of ‘tsun tsun’ [cold and curt attitude] and ‘dere dere’ [affectionate]; often used to describe a character, usually female, who is at first distant and cold, then becomes sweet and affectionate afterwards), who never fails to give surprises in his interactions with Ayuha.
Whilst the setup of the movie is fairly simple, what made the movie enjoyable was the cast. Hamabe Minami aced the role of Ayuha with ease, and makes people laugh with her comical and exaggerated feelings, fantasies and tactics to get her teacher’s attention.
The director of the movie, Tsukikawa Sho, has worked on many high school movies, including “My Little Monster (2018)”, “Let me eat your pancreas (2017)” and “Defying Kurosaki-kun (2016)”. He has perfected the ways of capturing the lead male character of the story to make the female audience skip a beat. There were certainly many flattering angles and great shots of Takeuchi Ryoma in the movie. If you consider yourself a fan, get yourself a serving of the fan service and fulfil your own fantasies as well!
Although My Teacher My Love hardly gave any surprise (especially with its rather predictable ending), it was overall a feel-good and cute movie. Coupled with a stellar cast, it’s hard not to leave the cinema with a smile!
Movie Rating:
(A feel-good and absolutely adorable rom-com you never knew you needed!)
Review by Tho Shu Ling
Genre: Action/Crime
Director: Renny Harlin
Cast: Nick Cheung, Richie Jen, Yang Zi, Clara Lee, Feng Jiayi, Carlos Chan, Ma Shuliang, Jin Au-Yeung, Kwok Chun On, Ron Ng, Sonija Kwok, Ming Peng
Runtime: 1 hr 33 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Violence and Drug Use)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures & Clover Films
Official Website:
Opening Day: 22 August 2019
Synopsis: A cat-and-mouse game unfolds over a single night when three armed criminals barge into a morgue, demanding the forensic doctor and his assistant to hand over a bullet lodged inside a corpse. While the criminals are in a desperate attempt to hide their true identities, the doctor finds himself sinking deeper and deeper into a quagmire as his past inadvertently catches up with him. Each explosive twist soon pushes the characters beyond their limits.
Movie Review:
We haven’t seen such an inventive Hong Kong crime thriller in a while. Granted that recent flicks like Line Walker 2: The Invisible Spy, The White Storm 2: Drug Lords and Chasing the Dragon II: Wild Wild Bunch are decent pieces of work, these sequels are set against the often seen urban backdrops of Hong Kong productions.
Much of this 93 minute movie takes place in a mortuary. Before you start thinking that it is a convenient way for the filmmakers to save on location budget, wait till you see how the story creatively uses the enclosed space to move the engaging story forward.
We see the story unfolding on a stormy Christmas Eve in Hong Kong, as three masked dudes (obviously bad guys, based on their portrayals) charge into a mortuary with the intention of retrieving a bullet from a dead woman’s body. The good guys are a seemingly mild mannered pathologist and his female assistant, who try their best to outsmart the baddies. Expect casualties along the way.
Although the movie is directed by Finnish director Renny Harlin (12 Rounds, Skiptrace), there is still a very strong Hong Kong flavour to it. Not only do the first and last shots of Hong Kong’s skyline serve as stark reminders of the current political situation, the plot twist is essentially a Hong Kongtale that we are familiar with.
Award winning actor Nick Cheung (Helios, The Trough) takes on the role of the pathologist who has to think on his feet to outwit the antagonists who have broken into his workplace. Expectedly, he manages to portray a character that you root for from beginning to end. Taiwanese singer and actor Richie Jen has come a long way since he starred in tear jerking romance flicks like Fly Me to Polaris (1999) and breezy comedies like Summer I Love You (2002). His efforts in highly lauded dramas like Life Without Principle (2011) and Trivisa (2015) have been well received. Jen may play a bad guy in his latest film project, but his empathetic portrayal will have you appreciating the actor’s hard work over the years. Yang Zi tries her best to stand out from her two male co leads, but can’t do much to make her character a memorable one.
There are also interesting supporting characters in the forms of a security guard who loves donuts, and a cleaner who has his headphones on all the time. Familiar TVB actors Kwok Chun On and Ron Ng also make cameo appearances.
The best thing about this movie is how it keeps the pace taut, so viewers won’t lose their interest and attention. There is something to be engaged by every moment. Where is the good guy hiding in the room full of zipped body bags? Are the bad guys turning against each other? How will the good guys escape the vicious baddies and not allow them to get their hands on the bullet? Although the finale is over the top (clue: there are computer generated explosions and fires), the enjoyable movie benefits from its ensemble cast’s good performances, tight pacing and inventive plot.
Movie Rating:
(A highly enjoyable and inventive Hong Kong crime thriller)
Review by John Li
Genre: Thriller
Director: Kim Nguyen
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Alexander Skarsgård, Salma Hayek, Michael Mando, Johan Heldenbergh, Ayisha Issa
RunTime: 1 hr 51 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website:
Opening Day: 21 March 2019
Synopsis: In this modern epic, Kim Nguyen exposes the ruthless edge of our increasingly digital world. Cousins from New York, Vincent (Academy Award nominee Jesse Eisenberg) and Anton (Alexander Skarsgård) are players in the high-stakes game of High-Frequency Trading, where winning is measured in milliseconds. Their dream? To build a straight fiber-optic cable line between Kansas and New Jersey, making them millions. But nothing is straightforward for this flawed pair. Anton is the brains, Vincent is the hustler, and together they push each other and everyone around them to the breaking point with their quixotic adventure. Constantly breathing down their necks is their old boss Eva Torres (Academy Award nominee Salma Hayek), a powerful, intoxicating and manipulative trader who will stop at nothing to come between them and beat them at their own game. No matter what the cost, Vincent and Anton are determined to cut through America, only to find redemption at the end of their line, not through money, but through family and reconnecting to the land.
Movie Review:
Jesse Eisenberg first caught our attention with his portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in David Fincher’s The Social Network (2010). The 35 year old actor has since taken on several roles of nerds, and he’s so good at playing them. Be it Now You See Me (2013) and its 2016 sequel, or American Ultra (2015), Eisenberg has aced the characters he plays. And who would have thought that Lex Luthor would be a socially inept tech nerd mogul?
Depending on how you see it, this typecasting may be a good or bad thing for the actor’s career. In this film, he plays an overconfident nerd who cooks up a brilliant business plan with his mathematical genius cousin. The two men bid farewell to their jobs and aim to build a fibre optic line between Kansas and New Jersey that promises high frequency trading. We aren’t experts in this area, but the imagery put forth by the film gives you an idea: where you win or lose in the game is largely dependent on a time frame of milliseconds, which is the time taken for a hummingbird to flap its wing.
With that in mind, our two protagonists are seen trying to convince investors and losing sleep over mathematical formulas in this 111 minute drama thriller. To director Kim Nguyen’s credit, the somewhat dry topic is well treated and you will be kept engaged as you become concerned over the characters’ fate. As most moralistic tales would tell you, trying to play dirty in the game of business won’t give you happy endings.
Eisenberg does what he does best, speed talking while showing signs of distress. You take your hats off someone who continues to pursue his dream despite being hit with stomach cancer. In one strangely heartbreaking scene, he walks into a massage parlour, asks whether it is a sex shop, and goes for a therapeutic massage to presumably offload the stress he has been faced with. As the masseuse’s hands rub through his shoulders, he breaks down and cries.
The other leading man is played by Alexander Skarsgård. Forget the hunk that you knew in TV’s True Blood and The Legend of Tarzan (2016) – the Swedish actor puts on a bald wig to portray a brainy man who is handling more than what his mental capacity can take. It is a role that shouts for attention, but the award winning actor doesn’t take it too far by being too showy. As a result, this is another flawed character that you will feel for.
Elsewhere, Michael Mondo (Spider Man: Homecoming) plays a contractor involved in the project and Salma Hayek (The Hitman’s Bodyguard) puts her menacing look and Mexican accent to good use by threateningly hissing at the two male leads.
As the film progresses, you see heavy construction destroying the peace and quiet in forests, while serene farmland owners are approached to give way to technology. The movie has a social message to convey, and amidst the decent performances, you think about the price we commoners have paid to be connected to the fast moving digital world.
Movie Rating:
(Jesse Eisenberg and Alexander Skarsgård are well cast in this movie which asks a familiar question: what have we given up for speed in the digital world?)
Review by John Li
SYNOPSIS: Make no mistake, this is not a military operation. See Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam, Garrett Hedlund and Pedro Pascal attempt to rob one of the world’s most violent cartels in Triple Frontier.
MOVIE REVIEW:
Dumped by Paramount and bought over by Netflix, Triple Frontier was a troubled production right from the start. Still it has no issues attracting a bunch of famous grizzly faces to come together and deliver a half-baked thinking’s man action movie in the end. So beware if you are expecting an easy-peasy Expendables sort of outing because this is not the case.
In a story co-written by Mark Boal of Zero Dark Thirty and director J.C. Chandor (A Most Violent Year), Oscar Isaac plays Pope, a private military contractor who decides to rope in his ex-special forces friends to rob an elusive drug lord, Lorea on the pretext of a legitimate reconnaissance mission. Even though their ex-Captain, Redfly (Ben Affleck) is hesitant at first, Pope manages to convince him along with Ironhead (Charlie Hunnam), his younger brother Ben (Garrett Hedlund) and pilot Catfish (Pedro Pascal).
The heist is simple enough. The guys will storm into Lorea’s heavily guarded house, kills him and take his money while his family members are out to church. But since Danny Ocean is not the one who planned it, things start to go downhill when they realised the loot is far more than they expected. In fact the walls are filled with money from Lorea and his partners. A happy problem you might say?
When greed overcomes Redfly who insist on taking all of the $250 million onboard the helicopter causing it to malfunction and crashes onto a village, that’s when the real issues and cracks start to appear. And that’s where Triple Frontier starts to fumble as well.
It’s admirable for Chandor to take his time to develop his characters showcasing the bonding, their current lives and why they desperately want the loot. Is it because of pure greed or is it because of the fact that they have been left behind by the country while spending the best times of their lives fighting for it? Redfly is divorced and stuck with a realtor job which he hates. Ironhead is reduced to giving endless pep talks to leaving army personnel. Ben is making a living as a MMA fighter, Catfish is grounded from flying as a result of a drug problem and Pope is hoping to retire for good after suffering countless injuries.
They are for sure a bunch of interesting troubled characters but somehow only Redfly has the most exposure while people liked Ben and Catfish is relegated to mere talking cardboards. So if you are going in for some solid action, you need to first sit through a talky first act though it really pays off with some brief but tense action bits later on especially some cool gunplay in the house. Whether it’s the rainy jungle terrain or the snowy mountains, the cinematography by Roman Vasyanov (Fury) looks gorgeous despite being made for the small screen.
Unfortunately, both Chandor and Boal seems to run out of steam during the third act. Triple Frontier turned out to be a movie that attempts to be a cool actioner with touches on human behaviour involving greed, morality and a whole lot of facial hair that it’s too unsatisfying by the time they played another Metallica song during the closing credits. Watch it for the stars.
MOVIE RATING:
Review by Linus Tee
Genre: Thriller
Director: Jordan Peele
Cast: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Anna Diop, Evan Alex, ShahadiWright Joseph, Madison Curry, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon
RunTime: 1 hr 56 mins
Rating: NC-16 (Violence and Coarse Language)
Released By: UIP
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/UsMovie/
Opening Day: 21 March 2019
Synopsis: Set in present day along the iconic Northern California coastline, Us, from Monkeypaw Productions, stars Oscar®winner Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson, a woman returning to her beachside childhood home with her husband, Gabe (Black Panther’s Winston Duke), and their two children (Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex) for an idyllic summer getaway. Haunted by an unexplainable and unresolved trauma from her past and compounded by a string of eerie coincidences, Adelaide feels her paranoia elevateto high-alert as she grows increasingly certain that something bad is going to befall her family. After spending a tense beach day with their friends, the Tylers (Emmywinner Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon), Adelaide and her family return to their vacation home. When darkness falls, the Wilsons discover the silhouette of four figures holding hands as they stand in the driveway. Us pits an endearing American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves.
Movie Review:
We may never know what Jordan Peele wants to say in his second feature film. But that’s exactly the beauty of this horror movie.
In the phenomenal Get Out (2017) penned and directed by Peele, the message beneath the horror flick is racism and how white people are supreme psychological terrorists. The smart satire won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. With a predominantly African American cast, one would think that Peele’s sophomore project will deal with race, but it seems to be more ambitious than that.
In the spotlight time are the Wilsons, a middle class African American family of four (Winston Duke, Lupita Nyong'o, Evan Alex and Shahadi Wright Joseph) who are on vacation at their beach house. One night, another family of four dressed in red suits shows up. What’s creepy is that these folks are doppelgangers of each member of the Wilsonfamily. A nightmare involving scissors, rabbits and a terrifying childhood incident ensues, and yes, there will be blood.
While the concept of doppelgangers isn't a new thing in movies, this 116 minute movie uses them to such great effect, the result is gleefully frightening. Spooky makeup isn’t required to create scary characters, and having the same actors play the mirror versions of themselves is a brilliant move. The beady eyes, soulless body language and weird groans may keep the timid wide awake at night.
Needless to say, the ensemble cast delivers memorable performances. Each of them gets to portray to personalities: Nyong'o (12 Years a Slave) is both a courageous mother and a vengeful monster, while her Black Panther co star Winston Duke is believable as wannabe cool Dad and a blockhead zombie. Wright Joseph plays their teenage daughter, and Alex takes on the challenging role of a socially awkward son. Elsewhere, Elisabeth Moss (The Old Man & the Gun) and Tim Heidecker (Ant Man and the Wasp) portray the family’s privileged white friends. Without giving away too much, the duo gets their share of fun as well.
Peele shows that he is not a one hit wonder with the thought provoking themes explored in this film. Class, religion and memories are some of some of the obvious ones that viewers will discuss after the movie ends. There are many things to decipher if you enjoy reading into a movie’s subtext – film students will have a field day unfolding the layers of social commentary, symbols and visual mise en scene. In one scene, a doppelganger grins with a smirk: “We’re Americans”. In another, someone asks whether they should escape to Mexico. And in a spectacular sequence, we see characters mimicking the 1986 Hands Across America charity campaign where about 6.5 million people held hands along a path across the country.
It is obvious that Peele had more budget to work with for this film. With that, he gives viewers more exciting action sequences and more entertaining exchanges. Hence, there’s no need to worry if you are not in the mood to appreciate dark and deep story themes, because there is enough entertainment to keep you at the edge of your seat.
Movie Rating:
(Jordan Peele’s sophomore effort is big, bold and creepily beautiful)
Review by John Li
Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: Chayanop Boonprakob
Cast: Naphat Siangsomboon, Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul, Jason Young, Benjamin Joseph Varney
Runtime: 1 hr 59 mins
Rating: PG13 (Some Mature Content)
Released By: Golden Village Pictures
Official Website:
Opening Day: 4 April 2019
Synopsis: In this world, there are many people who seem to be wandering along a relationship borderlining ‘friends’ and ‘lovers’. This borderline is also commonly known as the FRIEND ZONE. It is a special area for those who are stuck in the middle where they cannot really stay friends with their close friends, nor move forward to be their friends’ lovers. Palm (Naphat Siangsomboon) is one of those who has been stuck in the friend zone with his best friend, Gink (Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul), for 10 years. During high school, he tried to cross the line by confessing his feelings for her. But Gink simply rejected him, saying that “being friends is good enough.” Since then, Palm and Gink have grown closer as true best friends. Every time Palm breaks up with any of his countless girlfriends, Gink will tell him off, talking some sense into him. And every time Gink fights with her boyfriend, no matter where she happens to be in Myanmar, Malaysia, or Hong Kong. All she has to do is make a call to Palm, who uses his perks as a flight attendant to catch flights to be with her. Perhaps, it is because of his excessive kindness that also makes Gink has a problem with Ted (Jason Young) her boyfriend. One day, Gink asks Palm out of the blue, “have you wondered… what if we were an item?” Right then, sparks fly wildly inside Palm’s mind, knowing that this might be the only chance for him to cross the borderline. Although, Palm has no way of knowing if leaving the FRIEND ZONE this time will lead him to the beginning of his romantic love life or to the end of his friendship with Gink for good.
Movie Review:
Can a girl be best friends with a guy, and vice versa? Seeing how often that question is asked and debated, it is a wonder that there aren’t more rom-coms about such relationships. And yet how befitting it is that GDH, the studio behind crowd-pleasers as ‘One Day’, ‘A Gift’ and ‘Brother of the Year’, would turn that very subject into the premise for their latest movie, an altogether amusing, delightful and winning confectionery whose sheer charms make up for its lack of depth.
The couple in question here is Palm (Naphat Siangsomboon) and Gink (Pimchanok Luevisadpaibul), who have been stuck in ‘friend zone’ since their high school days. An inventive though slightly far-fetched sequence at the start shows the lengths to which Palm would go to for Gink, not only borrowing his family’s car so that they can commit truancy to check if Gink’s father was indeed having an affair, but also accompanying her all the way by flight to and from Chiang Mai. Just from how they react to news that the other has found a boyfriend/ girlfriend is proof to us that both Palm and Gink already had feelings for each other way back then in 2007, even if they refuse to acknowledge that simple fact.
The years between 2007 and 2017 are covered in a montage which shows how readily Palm is willing to come to Gink’s aid, whether is it for a listening ear or a helping hand, and how being so close to another girl ultimately dooms his relationship after relationship. On the other hand, it is not until 2016 that Gink would discover that her boyfriend of many years from high school was cheating on her, whereupon Palm would once again become a shoulder for her to lean on. Yet that occasion would once again reinforce why Palm had never dared to confess how he felt about Gink to her. What if she didn’t feel the same way? What if being honest only made things awkward between the both of them? What if it meant possibly losing even their close friendship?
With that context, the movie brings us to present day, which finds Gink in a new relationship with singer-songwriter Ted (Jason Young) whom she is also manager to. While holidaying with his current girlfriend in Myanmar, Gink receives an unexpected cry for emotional support from Palm, who happens to have fractured her leg and is cooped up in a hotel room in Malaysia. As you may expect, Palm immediately rushes to Kuala Lumpur to be next to Gink, and ends up accompanying her for an extended period of time while Ted flies off to several neighbouring countries (including Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia and Hong Kong) on a recording project for King Power.
That project sees Ted working with young female singers from these countries on the same ditty, and Ted’s friendliness with these attractive celebrities has Gink’s head in a spin. In part, Gink’s previous relationship fuels her current insecurity over Ted’s fidelity, so much so that she pulls Palm along to retrace Ted’s footsteps in Malaysia and follow Ted to Hong Kong without his knowledge, in order to check if he is cheating on her. In particular, the latter voyage will have Gink catching Ted lying to her, and concluding therefore that Ted has indeed been unfaithful. So begins an impromptu escapade to Krabi, where after some hiking and a hilarious encounter with an alpha monkey (that you see in the trailer), both Palm and Gink will be forced to confront the truth that they have had feelings for each other all along.
Will they or won’t they end up being a couple? The last half hour sees director and co-writer Chayanop ‘Mu’ Boonprakob inject some depth into the story that is otherwise conspicuously absent before. Oh yes, it is only quite late into the movie that the narrative settles into a more consequential exploration of the implications of such relationships. How far will each party go for the other, before the one who has feelings finds himself or herself giving disproportionately for the other? To what extent will the other take the former for granted? What happens if the former is honest and realises that his or her feelings are one-sided? Or if in fact the feelings are mutual, will both parties be willing to take the leap of faith, knowing that being a couple inadvertently imposes expectations on what was otherwise a relationship with no obligations?
Unsurprisingly, seeing as how late Palm and Gink come to grips with these dilemmas in their relationship, the movie doesn’t give more than superficial treatment to each of them; instead, for a significant part of the film, Boonprakob and his co-writers seem content to entertain their audience with a string of physical gags. There is nothing wrong with that per se, not least because most of these gags are staged with impeccable comic timing and performed with screwball flair by Siangsomboon and Luevisadpaibul. But equally, those expecting a more textured portrayal of such titular relationships will probably come off disappointed, especially since much of the time we see Palm and Gink onscreen is actually of them goofing around.
Indeed, we’d admit that we were hoping for more between Palm and Gink before that inevitable happily-ever-after, which is also supposedly meant as encouragement for those who find themselves trapped in similar circumstances; and yet, as we said earlier, there’s no denying that you’ll still find this an utterly charming affair from start to finish. Thanks to the infectious chemistry between our two lead stars, you’ll find yourself almost effortlessly rooting for Palm and Gink, and probably cheer when the movie finally rewards your patience with a endearing finish. This is a crowd-pleaser all right, much like GDH’s previous hits, and as long as you don’t expect more, ‘Friend Zone’ will definitely have you feeling in the zone.
Movie Rating:
(A crowd-pleaser through and through, 'Friend Zone' trades depth for easy laughs, and coasts agreeably on its stars' effortless charms)
Review by Gabriel Chong
Genre: Adventure/Fantasy
Director: Joe Cornish
Cast: Louis Ashbourne Serkis, Dean Chaumoo, Tom Taylor, Rhianna Dorris
RunTime: 2 hrs
Rating: PG (Some Violence)
Released By: Fox
Official Website: https://www.facebook.com/KidWhoWouldBeKing/
Opening Day: 21 March 2019
Synopsis: Old school magic meets the modern world in the epic adventure THE KID WHO WOULD BE KING. Alex (Ashbourne Serkis) thinks he's just another nobody, until he stumbles upon the mythical Sword in the Stone, Excalibur. Now, he must unite his friends and enemies into a band of knights and, together with the legendary wizard Merlin (Stewart), take on the wicked enchantress Morgana (Ferguson). With the future at stake, Alex must become the great leader he never dreamed he could be.
Movie Review:
‘The Kid Who Would Be King’ promises a contemporary twist on the classic King Arthur legend, but we’ll take the medieval version over this modern-day bore anytime.
As conceived by writer-director Joe Cornish, the movie imagines a 12-year-old boy Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis) stumbling upon a sword lodged deep in a block of concrete at an abandoned construction site. After pulling it out and bringing it back home, Alex is accosted by a goofy yet supremely confident high school student Mertin (Angus Imrie), who tells him of his destiny to defeat the evil sorceress Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson) and her army of undead demon knights.
It doesn’t take a genius to guess that the sword is in fact the famed Excalibur, or that the student Mertin is really the legendary Merlin in disguise. Neither for that matter would it be any surprise that Alex will come to embrace his destiny as king, and rally his best friend Bedders (Dean Chaumoo) to be one of his loyal knights. Same goes for the pair of older bullies at his school, Lance (Tom Taylor) and Kaye (Rhianna Dorris), whom Alex was running away from the night he finds Excalibur – they too will eventually be counted among his knights, and aid in Alex’s quest to save the world.
To inject urgency into the proceedings, Alex and his friends only have four days to get themselves ready, before an upcoming total solar eclipse will enable Morgana to emerge fully from the Earth’s crust into our world above. Each night offers an opportunity for practice, what with Morgana’s army emerging from the bowels of the Earth to try to snatch the sword from Alex’s grasp. Each day thereafter is training with Merlin, who conveniently cannot appear in human form in our realm after sundown. So the routine goes, thrice in a row, until of course the day of the eclipse itself, when Morgana shows herself in her full glory as a winged fire-breathing dragon.
Frankly, the proceedings are a lot less exciting than they read, coming off mostly bland, tame and unexciting. At no point do you get the sense that Alex and his friends are in any sort of real peril, and therefore that they display any compelling heroism; the latter is also owing to a lack of character development, which fails to adequately convey the emotional vacuum in Alex that his father’s absence for a good part of his childhood has caused. It certainly doesn’t help too that Serkis (son of mo-cap extraordinaire Andy Serkis) is simply too mild as a lead character, such that we never fully buy why Alex is meant to be the chosen one.
In all fairness to Cornish, his writing does have occasional flashes of wit. The Brexit-era context is a nice touch, with multiple references to how the kingdom on Earth is no longer as united as it once had been, and with a growing devotion to tyrants and strongmen. So too the riffs on classic Arthurian elements, such as how Alex summons the Lady of the Lake in a bathtub, or how Merlin’s elixir of beetle blood, beaver urine and ground animal bones happens to be the stuff of modern-day fast-food items like nuggets, soda and ice cream. Even so, these hardly compensate for an altogether dull narrative, which at close to two hours, will test the patience of even its target audience of teenagers and young kids.
This is also Cornish’s sophomore outing as director, and it shows. The CG fantasy sequences are lacklustre, and would clearly have benefitted from someone with a stronger sense of visual imagination. Ditto the action, which barely raises a pulse even at the so-called epic showdown where Alex enlists the help of the whole school to fight off Morgana’s assault. You wouldn’t have figured that the movie had a US$60 million budget, seeing as how the film as a whole comes off scrappy and amateurish.
It has been eight years since Cornish made a splash with his class-conscious science-fiction indie ‘Attack the Block’ that became a sleeper cult hit, but just as how we were ultimately underwhelmed by his debut, so too were we disappointed by his latest. In almost every respect, ‘The Kid Who Would Be King’ fails to live up to its promise, so much so that we wonder the point was of contemporising the King Arthur legend at all. There have been comparisons to classic 80s movies like ‘The Goonies’, which would have been fine if this movie had been released in that era; yet, in today’s day and age, its mix of fantasy and reality needs to be a lot more potent to count for something. As it is, not even the kids are likely to feel kingly sitting through it.
Movie Rating:
(Bland, tame and unexciting, this contemporary twist on the King Arthur legend will make you wish that they had stuck with the medieval tale instead)
Review by Gabriel Chong
| « Prev | 379 | 380 | 381 | 382 | 383 | 384 | 385 | 386 | 387 | 388 | 389 | Next » |
Most Viewed
No content.