Review | Prometheus

Pretty great but keep your hopes low. There are some major spoilers in this review but don't worry I actually obscured them, so it's safe to read. 

Let's go apeshit! - Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Super 8 is super 8!

B+ (8.1)

JJ Abrams has to be the God of geeks today. He was the co-creator of the TV show Lost, earning a widespread fanbase through its first seasons but then when the ratings trumped the series finale renewed interest and debate. Abrams also earned respect from the Trekkies for rebooting Star Trek, a deeper and solid prequel counting the first days of the original TV series. Now his latest film Super 8 may well be a love letter to his longtime hero and influential filmmaker Steven Spielberg whose still stuck in producing movies now.

It's 1979 and has been four months since Joe Lamb (Joey Courtney) lost his mother in a car accident and is now living with his widowed father (Kyle Chandler) who's the Sheriff of a rural town. Joe set to help out his best friend Charles (Riley Griffiths) to make his zombie movie as an entry for a nearby film festival. The film also involves Alice (Elle Fanning) acting in his film. In spectacular fashion, a freight train derailed while the kids were in the middle of shooting a scene. Following the aftermath of the event, the military are all around the town, dogs evacuate since they know better such and residents suddenly disappear. I've told half of the plot summary because I don't want to place spoilers in particular 'The Thing'.

In a summer filled with a lack of originality, following sequels, prequels, remakes and movies based on comic books, Super 8 is the exception to that rule. It's almost the most original summer blockbuster since Inception. But saying that it's original is like saying a photograph had been taken but it's literally filled with tens of people you've previously took before. Super 8 is a collection of nostagia paying homage to Spielberg's greatest material from the past, directed and produced focusing on the themes, characters and the style Spielberg put into his films. These include Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, E.T., Jaws, The Goonies and even Saving Private Ryan (if you know what I mean). But it also pay tribute to Abram's previous film (he produced) Cloverfield, the monster movie which not a lot of people enjoyed.

Though the homages was executed well, for me, it somehow doesn't feel inventive or fresh as much as Inception was and it may have been a rehash as there's too much. If it had been directed by Spielberg himself, he would've gone back to his roots that had made him the greatest contempory filmmaker ever. Having said that, this is not the first time Spielberg's work was referenced so much. Earlier this year, we had Paul, the E.T. parody starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost also a love letter but to the science fiction genre cleverly satirising it.

Abrams' direction is visceral as he brings not only a high level of imagination and concept that will make this film a crowd-pleaser, but also bringing in an emotional poignancy to its heart. The cinematography is crisp as well as the production design capturing the year of 1979. The soundtrack from Michael Giannchano mesmerises you to the adventures.

As already mentioned, the heart of Super 8 is brought to an emotional rise that doesn't contain a bit of sediment. The heart of the film are the kids paralleling the characters of The Goonies and E.T. The casting of the children are perfect for this film and they are revelations. Joe Courtney who plays Joey reminds me of the boy from E.T. who experiences loss from his parents and the romance between him and Alice (a star-maker for Elle Fanning) to move away from these feelings seems equate to the relationship between E.T. and the boy. Riley Griffith who plays Joe's best friend and amateur filmmaker steals the show playing the role of comic relief in this film with his swearing and profanity. It's the first time I've seen a cast of kids do so well because of the realistic and witty dialogue from Abrams that is not dumbed down to a certain point. Kyle Chandler is fine as Joe's single father.

Where the film comes to the last 15 minutes, the film's final moments make it felt downright corny and tries too hard on Spielberg by copying his endings which feels so inconsistent to his films when Super 8 became immensely good. But if you have time to leave at the start of the end credits, don't. There's a special treat during that help pick up the film's tone.

Overall Super 8 is a crowd pleaser, whether you're a Spielberg afficionado bringing in the intense, sometimes scary, and emotionally compromised material he used to do. This may not be going for any Oscars, but it's the best blockbuster of the summer and may land a spot at my end-of-year best list

Battle: LA - I should thank Ebert for warning me.

D- (0.9)


Battle Los Angeles is a bad movie. Not just bad, but sickening to the stomach and to the ears. Battle LA is almost bad for almost every reason that can be made about a bad movie you see.

If there is any movie coming out and there is one movie you want to see to avoid the ridiculous trend of Twilight copycats, you'll find Battle LA on the list. Battle Los Angeles doesn't help at all and is almost the brain-slaughtering adult male equivalent to those copycats.

Battle LA currently stands down to as one of the "greatest films reviewed" by Roger Ebert who called this film stupid and it is.

There is no bit of a plot that you could comprehend, however from the trailer and the movie itself there is an outline: a meteor shower hits Los Angeles revealed as these aliens and a military unit led by a retiring seargeant (Aaron Eckhart) is sent to the area to bring them down.

I must admit that I had expectations for this film. And after spending two hours of gobble gobble, first-player shooter styled scenes and being emotionally manipulated of close ups to several cast members, I just watched the film for nothing.

Director Jonathon Liesbesman had came out with this idea and having to become "inspired" from other war and sci-fi movies to this film, he then said this is mostly original. Why does this director whose resume included The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and many other slasher flicks hired himself to make this piece of crap.

Liesbesman takes the hand-held camera to the most excruciating and sickening extreme. I usually don't care about how the camera usually moves in a movie, but while watching, I had to get out of the theatre three times because I thought I would be puking my head off. It's lazily edited (to be fair, there was no such thing as an editor in here) and every technical quality including sound, special effects, art direction and cinematography is lame. I mean there is nothing visually stimulating or redeeming about this film.

Performances from the cast are either uninspiring or unconvincing as many of the actors go running around like a scared-to-shit civillian. This includes Aaron Eckhart, who by all means, a good actor but what can he do with this kind of script that puts him into a stereotype that is overly used. I had seen one of the most sentimental acting from kids where their role is to scream and cry. Come on. It's just pure exploitation of these young ones.

The screenplay goes on around many cliches to cliches where a soldier commands his overused commands like 'Let's go' and 'get down' along with a dying soldier's last words. There's retiring seargeant, soldier with preganant fiance, wimpy soldier, and such stereotypes to be found.

Personally, I love science fiction. It's one my all time favourite movie genre and I really love to watch an alien invasion movie. I like it more as the average geek. But Battle backstabs the genre by doing two things.

1) It rips off so many alien invasion movies like Cloverfield, District 9, Independence Day, Children Of Men, Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan (both of which are only war films).

2) As a science fiction flick and like almost every film, it should have at least one concept in its mind. This doesn't know what it is and when it is known, the film leaves it all behind.

As film fans, every film should know what's the genre intended, what it wants to be and most importantly how much deep imagination does it have.

Had the movie been in 3D as planned, this movie would have gave out my first F. Sony is planning a lawsuit against the makers of Skyline for ripping off their movie. Skyline may have been so bad, but it may add to that quote with "it's good".

This review serves a warning to 16 year olds who want to serve their cinematic appetite: Battle's junk food. And like all kinds of junk foods, they're unhealthy and rot your brain.

I almost want to walk out of this film very much. But I didn't. Battle Los Angeles is an awful film that absolutely made me felt cheated. It may be one of the countless contenders for worst movie of 2011.

The Best Cityscapes in Science Fiction cinema

If there was anything about science fiction that I would wish to experience in real life it would be the location. Science fiction wouldn't be just aliens, laser guns and evil empires if it were boosted with reality and imagination. The thing that builds imagination in the genre is the art direction. It makes everything about the movie look good and inspiring, that we want to live in these places on our day off. IT can be anything. It can be futuristic with skyscrapers or a city on a floating block of a distant planet.

Given that Skyline and Repo Men had f*@ked the setting of science fiction. So here are the best ever architectures/art directions in science fiction history

Inception (2010)

Name Of City:
Unknown

Setting:

Paris, France

Type of Cityscape:

Dreamscape/virtual reality

Significance:

After Repo Men and before Skyline, there was two memorable scenes [in Inception] where part of Paris begins folding and where Leonardo Dicaprio and Ellen Page can actually stand on the folded area sideways. And then the markets explode when Ellen Page couldn't control the dream on her first time. Besides Page is the architect of this great city that she could actually create any kind of city for a person's dream.

Blade Runner (1984)

Name of City:
Los Angeles

Setting shot:

Los Angeles, USA

Type Of Cityscape:

Futuristic

Significance:

If this was it in nineteen years time, then I would be happy living there. Flying cars rising buildings and skyscrapers almost fill our imaginations of this magnificent science fiction film noir. It is almost a modern landscape filled with globalisastion, slavery and big chunks of product placements and advertising. One thing great about LA in Blade Runner is that the city relies heavily on industry, it totally ignored about the danger of our green environment. Didn't I mention that there is a huge migration of Asians?

The Matrix (1999)

Name of City:
MegaCity

Setting shot:

Sydney, Australia

Type of Cityscape:

Virtual Reality

Significance:

Like Inception, The Matrix goes into a parallel universe that does not interfere with reality. Unlike Inception however, the city for the Matrix stays the same. The Matrix's architecture has a purpose and that purpose is to keep humanity stuck by our brainwashed minds of alien machines. If there was any deeper meaning about The Matrix, it's just that urban life is sick.

Dark City (1998)

Setting shot:
Sydney, Australia

Type of Cityscape:
Futuristic

Significance:
Well it seems so realistic to the current state of every city, but now it's more darker. The main message of this city that it's a cause for living in a deranged state of mind. The cityscape had inspired the landscape for Inception and what else. It condescends into every character's psychological moments. It also opens up and revived the sci fi noir.

Back To The Future II (1987)

Name of city:

Hill Valley

Type Of Cityscape:

Futuristic

Significance:

Hill Valley had prospered back from 1985 and had shown greater use of technology we wish we would want to see. Hoverboards, automatic shoes and jackets, flying cars, hologram ads, a small round dough turned into a huge pizza and uh... Michael Jackson as a waiter? That's a bit odd.

Well these are the best cityscapes in science fiction around. I want to live in one of them for peace and quiets but there are many cityscapes that I would've put in the list. Any suggestions? Please comment.

Back To The Future Review

10.0 (A+)


Warning... may contain spoilers!


It's been 25 years since Back To The Future's been a big spender for Generation X, but to many critics, time travelling wannabes and generation X itself, Back to The Future is a modern classic. It launches the career of Michael J Fox in movies, seen a new concept in time travel, had seen Steven Spielberg produced some blockbusters, recognised Robert Zemekis as one of the finest directors in the industry and making Christopher Lloyd's voice second most iconic behind Morgan Freeman.

In Back To The Future, Marty McFly (Michael J Fox) is your average high school slacker with a girlfriend in hand and a really stressful family. He meets up with a mad scientist named Doc (Christopher Lloyd) who would demonstrate time travel to him at midnight near Hill Valley Mall. But when terrorists from Libya murdered Doc after stealing plutonium from them (plutonium was the main source for time travel), Marty escapes from the terrorists and entered the year 1955 where he end up having a sexual encounter with his mom and tries to help his dad to defend himselves from bully Biff Tannen and to make both fall in love but he has to come back to 1985 without creating a hitch in the year.

Back To The Future is a modern classic and people would have fun with this movie because of the clever humour and interesting focus on time travel.

the soundtrack is awesome, the performances are really sublime. Michael J Fox had much fun in this movie out of the whole cast as well as Christopher Lloyd. Much of the time explored in the 50s was almost accurate in a way (there are milk bars around the town, the costumes almost matches what people worn.)

I honestly enjoyed this movie and almost reflect to the movie it's A Wonderful Life where it had the same deal about changing and turning back time.

The whole story is almost a whole climax because you have to know that in Back To The Future there are risks involved into suddenly changing characters. Like never get involved with your mother or don't get involved with the school bully. But every character change prosperously in the end while the main bad guys get their last laugh.

However you should get through all of the movies to really know how the whole trilogy end.

Back To The Future is not just science fiction material, it's a character study of a guy who like Amelie unintendedly try to keep time constant and his parent's relationship more stabilised. It's a comedy. It's almost screwball comedy if Fox had accidently screw up his parents' lives for the worse. It's almost everything that a fanboy would ultimately fantazise.

It's Ronald Reagan's favourite movie and where "there are no roads...", we're going back to the future where everything would be ruined by globalisation, idiotic music and culture and the total hypocrisy of our world where everything we wish we would have would be...

You know what. Never Mind.

Children Of Men

Children Of Men


8.4


At first when I saw the title Children Of Men, I thought it was just a typical horror flick. But then when I heard how good it was ( It was 2nd ranked by Peter Travers of Rolling Stone as one of the best movies of the last decade) I thought 'Yeah I should give it a try. Let's see how it is'.

Children Of Men takes place in 2027 and it has been 18 years since the last child was born. Now he then got killed and London bureaucrat Theo (Clive Owen) seems to cared since he used to be an activist for an unknown cause. Now, England is being controlled by British police and the government turns totalitarian with its policies on illegal immigrants. The immigrants also known as Fugees come in great numbers to England. Not only that, all of the world women's are infertile so there were no kids born between 2009 and the year the film is set.

Theo is asked by his ex-girlfriend Julian (Julianne Moore), the leader of The Fishes, an anti government organisation with a set of beliefs on human rights, to help an African refugee Kee to escape from England to the Human Project so she can be able to look after her unborn baby. Julian is killed afterwards and when Theo discovers that the Fishes' were responsible for Julian's death, he decided to bring Kee along with Fishes member Miriam themselves to a boat.

Children Of Men looks similar, in a way, to District 9 released last year. They're both set in the future and it's kinda has the same concept. Both have issues with immigration and racism. Even though District 9 focused on aliens, Children Of Men focused on humans and it is anything apart from science fiction.

The movie's cinematography and direction from Alfonso Cuaron (he directed Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkerban) is so gritty with an idealistic screenplay from Timothy J Sexton.

Clive Owen brings in subtlety towards his character. You would want to care for him as well as the pregnant Kee. Julianne Moore puts in a nice performance as well as Michael Caine who suprisingly plays a hippie with his posh accent.

Interestingly, Cuaron has the camera around in one take making it one scene held for a long time while things are still happening. This takes the film into and around the edge even when the film is put as an experiment. But unless you can handle it while watching, you're more likely to get sick because many scenes are shot hand held.

Cuaron takes the plot into more ideas as we predict of facing a crisis on illegal immigrants and infertility. One thing is that when Kee gave birth, the baby is a symbolism of hope during one scene where the Fishes and the British military are in conflict. This also takes up rebellion, as the Fishes show how violent activists are when are taking on the government over issues affecting them.

When Australia is facing a problem with our overpopulation, and just recently a Chinese dissentant who is a human rights activist is awarded the Nobel Peace Price, Children Of Men's main focus is human rights. Whenever you look in the background you see guards treating migrants as dirt and mostly putting them to death and it promotes this awareness through the mass media as you'll see slogans such as 'Report Illegal Immigrants' everywhere.

So is Children Of Men is as perfect as it should be? Quite not. I think it would have been better if Julianne Moore (I have to admit, I never seen her in film before) and Michael Caine had more screen time instead of just dying. That would have been character development had their characters never been killed

Children of Men is a futuristic movie with a difference. It is all about to keep the survival of a person holding the key of the endangered human race. To say that a science fiction needs ideas to keep us entertained can be an exagerration, but Children Of Men is one of those movies in the genres that has many ideas that will keep us in grips.