Sunday, February 23, 2014

Ilo Ilo

Ratings: 6.2/10
Film Class:
Genre: Drama

Ilo IIo is about a dysfunctional Singaporean family in the late 90s during the financial downturn. It's a film about the relationship of a Filipino maid and an obnoxious boy and the journey of how she became a part of the family. 

What I'm most disgruntled about is that there's no explanation as to what the title even means. You'll have to google to find out that it actually refers to an island in Philippines, where the maid supposedly comes from. It's such an important aspect that I don't even recall any movie committing such a fundamental fault. 

For all inferences sake, Ilo Ilo could mean her son's name, for one who is not versed in the language. I'm not sure what the intention of the director was, but at least Jack Neo bothers to even put better thought in his titles (and I generally don't like Jack Neo's movies). 

Ilo Ilo can be considered a climax-less film, a soap opera of some sort which brings back few memories of what it was like in Singapore decades ago. 

Was it a true reflection of how life in Singapore was like? Maybe so, well my family never had a maid so I wouldn't know. Was the storyline credible? *major spoilers ahead* Especially the part about the 4D numbers? Not very likely since the timeline doesn't stretch long enough. 

But I have to give props to the cast, acting was credible and thanks to them, I was drawn into this dreary movie. However, if you were to ask me whether Yeo Yann Yann, the mother, deserve to win the best best supporting actress Golden Horse award, the answer would be no. I'm not saying her acting was bad, but it wasn't fantastic. Not sure why she won, probably because of the publicity about her being really pregnant and still having to act, and I don't want to sound unsympathetic but even for that one important scene which featured her breaking down, the shot was so far away from her bed frame that there's no way to really "assess" her acting pro-ness. 

Perhaps I'm being too harsh, but deep down inside, I know it's an overhyped film. I don't want to be hypocritical here and say that I'm proud of the film, that it makes me proud to be a Singaporean, all I can say is that I'm impressed it managed to bag so many awards considering it's not outstanding. It came no where near Eric Khoo's 2005 film Be With Me which till this very day, haunts my library of local films. 

I guess no true-blue movie buff can resist the urge and curiosity of catching Singapore's very first glory movie, it's even nominated as one of the Best Foreign Film Award for the upcoming Oscar's. I wish it the best, even though ironically I don't think it deserves to win, I'll be happy if it does. And that's the Singapore spirit for you, conflicted patriotism.  

That Girl in Pinofore

Ratings: 5.4/10
Film Class: C
Genre: Comedy Musical

A teenager works to build up his parents music pub after failing his exams and was dropped out of school. Together with his best buds, he joins a music competition, meets a group of girls and falls in love with one of them. However, she's from a higher status family, and suffers from a heart disease that threatens to strain their relationship. 

I felt this to be a poor imitation of Jay Chou's movie-musical Rooftop, a retro comedy musical. Even that said, I found Rooftop too cheesy for my liking. Songs were quite catchy in this film, rather localized, rather personalized. However, other than the eye-candy lead actress Julie Tan, there was nothing worth cheering or tearing for. 

It's such a "juvenile" teenage film that it made me lose interest 30 mins into it. It might appeal to you, but it sure repelled me. One of the bad DVD buys but for all that its worth, at least my curiosity was satisfied. 

A sure fire miss for most. 

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Lone Survivor

Ratings: 7.0/10
Film Class: C
Genre: Action Drama

The title kinda gives the plot away... and to make matters worst, I came across a summarised version of this true account while reading Bear Gryll's True Grit. If you don't already know, this movie is based on a true story, and follows a team of 4 navy seals into Afghanistan's territory, where they let free a group of local herders only to end up being hunted down by tons of Taliban soldiers. And so began their battle for survivor... 

*spoilers ahead* It was hard to watch. Painfully depressing, I was cringing up inside cos of that one "mistake" they made (who am I to judge though) and seeing them desperately jumping off cliffs after cliffs, stumbling down hard rock accompanied by crackling thudding sound effects, it hits with such an emotionally disturbing level that I thought I had just sat through a gory film. 

It makes one lose faith in humanity, and brings the faith back at the end, but it was close to a much-ado-about-nothing film. The moral of the story: War sucks... why can't we all be friends? 

I totally respect the true heroes' decision to let the supposed innocents go, and will forever hold their bravery in highest esteem. I too learnt that not all Afghanistans are bad (the media "skewfully" portrays otherwise) and that deep down inside there's a goodness in each and everyone of us, guess that's what makes us humans. 

The human spirit, our survivor instincts will always astound us when pushed beyond its limits, and while most of us might think we don't have it in ourselves to go through something as treacherous as what was portrayed right before our very eyes, I believe each one of us have it "hidden" somewhere inside. As the saying goes "Heroes are ordinary men doing extraordinary things in extraordinary times." Salute.

Monday, February 10, 2014

The Lego Movie

Ratings: 6.2/10
Film Class: B
Genre: Family Animation

*sings* "Everything is awesomeeeeee"... Catchy theme song, but maybe not so for the movie. Too many cut scenes, rough transitions, kinda felt like a one-liner standup comedy glued together.

It's funny, yeah, at times, but mostly not, and it's way too "forced" for me. Think slapstick animation, and you'll get there. The first for me though, never knew such a genre exists. It's a bit of a copy from Spongebob Squarepants Movie, if you have watched the former, you'll know what I mean, a scene which makes Spongebob different from the rest of the animations. 

The Lego Movie is about your average Joe, or Emmet (the main lead's name in the movie) who's an ordinary construction guy (minifig to be exact) mistaken to be a master builder destined to change the Lego World. The evil villain Lord Business wants to use the "Kraken" on all minifigs... For whatever reason I don't quite understand. In fact, I shut off during the movie, not necessarily a bad thing, but which meant I only managed to get the gist of the story, not the details... Like why this why that, the logical aspect of things that is... 

*spoilers ahead* It's quite touching at the end, with an unexpected moral of the story to be told (the family-bonding part, not the everyone-is-special part), but it kept missing my "hot button"... As how batman tried to hit it in the movie which he eventually did, but not for me. 

The movie leaned towards the lame side for me (the "KuKu Land nailed it"), sorry to be such a wet brick-et for Lego fans out there, and sorry for not appreciating it, as sorry as I am for myself for having to sit through the movie thinking it would have glued me to my seats. 

Bringing in special guests such as Superman, Wonderwoman, Green Lantern, Abraham Lincoln, the Star Wars Gang, even Shaquille O' Neal totally added no value to the plot, while the obvious intention is to excite its audience, the excitement was shortlived. So instead, it was such an overload of cameos it diminished the wow factor which cameos normally help enhance.

Perhaps I was expecting too much, rainbows, spaceships, nebula black holes, pirate ships... Wait a min, there were all in the movie! It was off the charts disjointed, but wasn't that surprising taking into account the background of the cameos.

If I were to sum it up, like Morgan Freeman says it best at the start of the movie... "Oh my eyessss!!"

Thursday, February 6, 2014

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones

Ratings: 7.7/10
Film Class: B+
Genre: Fantasy Action

I kinda thought this movie would be yet another chick-flick fantasy movie, with eye-candies who can't act dominating the film and making you hate yourself for having to sit through a wasted 2 hours of your life. So why did I end up watching it? Curiosity. 

I was actually rather impressed by how it turned out despite a couple of illogical scenarios *major spoilers ahead*, like the discrepancy in the power meter of Clary's mother at the start even though she's one of the pioneers of the demon hunters. And before I continue, perhaps it's best to give a short sypnosis right now. 

Clary (Lily Collins) is a demon hunter who is kept in the dark about her identity until now (when the movie starts). She starts seeing demons that normal humans can't, as well as demon hunters out for blood. That's when she meets a demon hunter Jace, and they gradually form a friendship which not surprisingly eventually turning into romance, all this while while searching for her kidnapped mother. 

She starts to uncover truths about her own identity and the twist in the storyline at the very end was extremely disturbing. "Thanks" to the great choice of one particular actor, it hinted how the story would unravel. *hint, the name goes by Hodge, yet another pioneer of the demon hunters* At one point, it even got freakishly scary, it was like exorcist meets werewolves. Oh, and there's also vampires, werewolves, warlocks etc. Quite the exotic supernatural world if you ask me. 

I liked the concept, but I didn't like the twist. Too disturbing for my liking. 

But there's 2 things I remember most, Lily Collin's great acting, and this super handsome-looking Asian guy who is somewhat like a medic warlock. Hmm... actually the latter makes me sound gay, but I guess it isn't really that taboo in the context of this novel-adapted movie, opps, and if you think that's bad, wait till you find out the truth about love. Double opps, major major spoilers... behind? 

Olympus Has Fallen

Ratings: 7.5/10
Film Class: B+
Genre: Action

Action-packed, for a reason, unlike Red 2, Olympus Has Fallen has a better, more balanced storyline which seems plausible. Mike Banning, acted by Gerard Butler, is one of the US's presential guards who was forced to relinquish his role and assume deskbound duties of a secret service agent after a mishap. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise, just what USA needs when they suddenly come under siege of a terrorist attack by North Korea. The President and his important "knights of the round table" are held hostage, and are forced to activate one of the deadliest weapon the world has seen... not if the ex-300-spartacus-king can stop it. 

I had to mention the previous description because the storyline is predictable. Gerard Butler is once again a close-to-invincible character and it doesn't take a movie buff to know where the story is headed. Still, the action and CG was awesome, and kept me at the edge of my seats at all times. We all know Gerard Butler is going to kick ass, but it's a question of how he's going to do it. He's a "stealth warrior" in this movie, slowly wiping out the badasses one by one... and when he finally does so for the ultimate villain, you'd wish it never ends. 

Kick-ass explosive movie that genuinely leaves your mind satisfied after a hard day's work. 

Red 2

Ratings: 6.8/10
Film Class: A
Genre: Action Comedy

A little too cheesy for me. It was pretty cool at the start, but it plummeted gradually. Despite the star studded cast comprising of Bruce Willis, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren, Anthony Hopkins, Catherine Zeta Jones and Byung-hun Lee, part 1 was still better. 

Retired elite CIA agent Frank Moses (Bruce Willis) must bring his disbanded team together once again to hunt down a terrorist group who have engaged top killers to track the whereabouts of a portable nuclear weapon. In fact Frank Moses is the one being hunted down because Wikileaks disclosed false information that he knows the whereabouts of it, and so is forced to strike while the iron is hot... hunt or be hunted. 

I feel that the director "overplayed" the action and the acting. Cast had to inject out-of-place forced humor randomly and it kinda cheapened the entire feel of the movie. It became less/worst than a no-brainer after a while. It does make a decent destresser movie, but other than that, it'll leave you so destressed that you won't remember a thing... Well, I don't. End of review. Period. (Actually I do remember 2 things, Byung-hun Lee assasinating someone, and a slight twist in the storyline - the villain.)

The Croods

Ratings: 8.4/10
Film Class: A
Genre: Family Action

The Croods just makes me wanna blog... I've been procrastinating a bit for the past few weeks, have watched quite a number of movies but The Croods is different. It made my heart tingle, and rekindled the movie-blogging fire that had been gradually fading away... 

Heart warming, touching and absolutely fun to watch. It's entertaining and laughing-out-loud funny at times. I wasn't very drawn towards it initially, cos' the caveman thing isn't exactly appealing. But wrong I was because underneath its seemingly simple story, is a deep concept about survival, about adaptation, about ideas. 

I rank this as an animation gem, similar to Meet The Robinsons, despite its failing publicity, the movie delivered more than impressive CG and great entertainment value, it delivered a hard-to-come-by movie experience. 

What really impressed me is that every character in the movie steals a balanced bit of fondness from the audience, with their unique personalities, it's hard not to like every single one of them. At the same time, the focus is kept on the 3 main characters, the father, the daughter, and the new guy. 

The Croods is a family of cavemen who were forced to explore the world after their cave is destroyed by what seemed to be signs of the end of the world. That's when their rebellious daughter meets this new guy who "leads" them the way, to find the light...

*spoilers ahead* Just a quick spoiler, one of the impressive points about the movie is how "inventions" seem to seamlessly tie in with the plot (or perhaps the other way round)... and I loved the "hug", "taking photo", and "caveman drawings" parts the most (assuming the concept of "mosts" comes in threes, an idea worth mentioning). There's even a slight twist at the end, and the "extended ending" just made my day. 

A great family movie that's definitely going to be a part of my kids life in future. Couldn't recommend it more.