Review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011)

2009, Guy Ritchie brought us a whole new Holmes. A major departure in terms of style and treatment of Sherlock Holmes live action adaptation. A new perspective to interpret the one of the most adapted fictional characters of all time. Victorian Sherlock Holmes with a post modernist twist. It was well received and loved. Robert Downey Jr gets another iconic role in another iconic franchise after Ironman, and Jude Law is not longer a pretty boy.

A sequel is fast tracked, and it still takes 2 years of wait.

If the first film’s major role is to reintroduce the characters to us, in second film, where all the character and the ‘universe’ of this Holmes has already established, it is just logical to add in more characters and reference to the books.

The film wasted no time to reintroduce the characters. It started of with Watson writing what he presumed the last adventure of Sherlock Holmes and provides enough exposition for the audience to join in the action.

If the first film focused on Holmes exploit in London, this film escalates into an international cat and mouse game. Although the role of cat and mouse shifted in between Holmes and Moriarty.

Speaking of Moriarty, this is perhaps the best Moriarty so far. Reason being, previous more faithful adaptation of Holmes will have Moriarty appear and killed of in one story – The Final Problem. The reason for this is obvious; the purpose of Moriarty creation is to have a foe to cause the death of Sherlock Holmes and that is the intention of Conan Doyle in The Final Problem. But the lack of appearance of Moriarty in the books also makes him such a legendary and mysterious figure. Many will think of imagine and Moriarty has more in his pocket that what Conan Doyle has written. The Moriarty in this film, played by Jared Harris, like Downey’s Holmes has given new breath to this character. No longer is he just a creepy senior citizen, but he does live up his reputation as the Napoleon of Crime.

Another pleasant addition is the great Stephen Fry as Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s smarter but lazy big brother. He has the physical build like Mycroft and also the sense of humor that is iconic in this franchise. He has limited screentime, but whenever he is present, he owns the scene.

In short, although I missed Holmes’s apartment, 221B Baker Street and the actions in London. Having Sherlock and John as action heroes with brain presented in such a unique style without the need to explain like the first film is just a great great pleasure.

This is never a review, for I almost forget how to write one…need to retrain myself on it.

Anyway, Sherlock adaptation is never bad, but this is just great.

Review: 風雲 II The Storm Warriors (2009)

The much anticipated sequel of The Storm Riders has finally arrived. To be exact, it is not exactly a sequel, since it is produced and made by different filmmakers, but it retain the same leads, and the story take place after the event of The Storm Riders. To distinguish this, and prevent any possible legal action, the new film is named The Storm Warriors instead of being The Storm Riders 2, since the English title was created by the previous company. Still, the Chinese title still retains 風雲 and the title is simply風雲 II.

Cloud is still played by Aaron Kwok while Ekin Cheng is still Wind, but the rest are new characters, except for Cho-cho楚楚 who was previously played by the Shu-qi but now replaced by a piece of wood.

The plot of the film is based on the Japanese Invasion arc in the comic, where a Japanese warrior is invading China. The film start at the end of the first step of the invasion, where the villain 絕無神 successfully drugged the best martial artists in China and have them capture in order to a) force them to serve him b) stripped of the most physical powerful peoples in China that will rise to fight his invasion. These martial artists however manage to escape and Wind and Cloud have to undergo special training to upgrade their power in order to fight絕無神. In the course of this training, Wind succumbs into the dark side. The second act of this film is the defeat of絕無神 which is rather anti-climatic, but we all know what will be the direction of this film when it choose to use Japanese Invasion arc for its plot. It is the fight between Cloud and the dark Wind at the final act. This is one of the best plots in the comic and it also serves as the conclusion of the first part of the comic.

The casting of the film is good, save for楚楚. The actress performance and presence is almost non-existence. While Shu-qi in the previous film provides a good contrast to Cloud, this楚楚 is almost as quiet and gloomy as Cloud. There is no on screen chemical for this couple, and I was quite happy that she died in the end, but sadly, her bad performance made us unable to identify with Cloud’s sorrow at the sight of her demise.

Getting Kenny Ho to play Nameless無名 is almost flawless. Kenny has previously played Hero華英雄 in ATV’s TV drama adaptation of 中華英雄, a comic by the author. Hero is actually used as the blueprint for Nameless in風雲. His loneliness, his costume, hair cut and looks, and even one of his servants, 鬼虎 are exactly the same as Hero. So although I personally will wish to have Andy Lau as Nameless, but having Kenny Ho is good enough. The only thing is his voice. I was looking forward to see the first big screen Nameless, and finally saw it, but the moment he start to speak…WTF? He sounds like a thin and sick guy! I thought maybe that is because at the beginning of the film Nameless was drugged, and thus having such weak voice, but apparently not. He sounds like that for the rest of the film. How sad. You know how shock I was? Try to think back the first time you heard David Beckham speak. This good-looking footballer looks manly enough, and you may expect he will at least sounds like Brad Pitt, but at the end, he is speaking as if Victoria is squeezing his balls all the time! The same apply to this Nameless.

Kenny Ho is ATV's 中華英雄 more than 20 years ago

Kenny Ho as Nameless

The best acting performance in the whole film perhaps is from a tertiary character, the Emperor, played by Patrick Tam. In just a few minutes of screen performance as the kidnapped Emperor who is force to make a choice between revealing China’s biggest secret or having his family murdered, Tam is able to show the elegance of a royal family, the dilemma his is facing and the heart-breaking sadness of witnessing his family being slaughtered. It’s rather ironic, the most successful emotional scene are not about the primary characters, but rather this little character that has little to do with the whole film.

As always, adapting a book is hard, but adapting a comic book is even harder, especially Chinese comic book. One arc usually takes a long time to end, and for most of the time, it has a lot of characters and the events are connected with events of other arcs. Thus, the plot of this film feels weak, and there is no one major focus. One third of the film focus on the fighting 絕無神 and the final act is Wind and Cloud fighting.

Characters chart

To have such fight as final act, the whole arc has to be compress, and the plotline showing the start of the invasion, how the martial artists get drugged and kidnapped, and character development for the villains, Nameless and other secondary character are omitted. Even there is little character development for Wind and Cloud. After we were left with the conflict reconciliation between Wind and Cloud in the previous film, now we hope to see more on how they interact as a team, partners and brothers. But all this are sacrificed for the sack of having a good and cool pose visually. The on screen development for them is important, for only then we can actually feel the impact and identify with the pain of Cloud having need to kill Wind once he is totally turn into an evil monster. This does not happen, and unless you read the comic and know the significant of the third act, basically you won’t give a damn on who is winning.

Wind turning evil

But the main star of this film is still the special effect. Like the previous film this is still a GCI porn. Ten years in between and we can see how advance we are. While the imaginative fight scenes and martial arts portrayals in the film is slightly different from the comic, it is still a marvelous job on interpreting lines and colors from page into realistic looking visual effects. The directors certainly have a good eyes and ears on the pacing, look and impact on how a comic book still fight should be. But still, there is still a lot of room for improvement, especially in creating a virtual set. The computer generated outdoor scene still can be easily recognized as CGI, but I don’t know if this is deliberate to give the film a fantasy feel. If they want to stay true to the comic, they should make it looks real. For the magic of the comic is, it has very conventional costume, set and scenery; only the fights and supernatural elements are presented with superb imagination. It is such contrast that makes it so engaging.

As a whole, this is a great interpretation of風雲, its success is due to its special effects and one of its flaws is also the special effects. The original comic has very good visual of scale. We need it. If it happens in a massive mountain, we need to feel that it is massive. The CGI work in here does show us literally a certain scene takes place in a huge area, but it does not feels so. The screen shows peoples fighting in a wide area, but we still felt like it takes place in a small soundstage.

Perhaps, and hopefully, in the coming sequel, the third film, the filmmakers will improve again. Although this film is a good take, but I also long to see scenes where the pages on the comic literally comes into life, a combination of authentic Chinese scenery, natural rays of sun, real grass, real mountain with imaginative special effects. Need not to get production and costume design to redesign the characters, the sets, just take the pages from the comic, and make it real. Then perhaps, the definitive風雲 adaptation will be born.

Review : Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince (2009)

And so we have the sixth Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, staring the usual and directed again by David Yates. Like the books, with every new installment, the franchise grew darker and so is the film.

If you play the first movie and the latest side by side, if you don't already know they are related, you will be surprise to find that they are of the same series. Gone is all those vibrant, warm color. The visual is grim and cold, regardless if it is in the muggle world, or wizard world. You'll see a lot of gray and green and you will like it.


The film starts with random attack by the Death Eaters to various spots in both the muggle and the wizard world to show the coming back of Voldermort and the destruction he is bringing. It waste no time showing how Harry suffers in his aunt's home again, but it go straight to the more important aspect of the story, Dumbledore using Harry to lure Slughorn into going back teaching in Hogwarts.


Like all HP films, a lot of plot has been omitted for pacing and somehow the story is simplified. But the filmmaker never forget what the fans want and like. The Weasley twins are shown briefly, in their newly open toy shop and we got to see another small part of the train's journey, a piece of wide plain not seen in previous film. Don't know what is the intention, but certainly something new and different.

Nothing much to say about the overall plot, but for me, it is kind of like a warm up show of what going to happen next in the next two films. Every single scene gives us information that we may or may not need in the current film, but certainly means something in the whole franchise or for the next two films. The sad thing is, the relation between Harry and the Half-Blood Prince has not much screen time. If one miss the revelation at the end, which is just a line of dialogue, one may not even know who the hell is Half-Blood Prince. The role and characteristic of the Prince is so well developed and written in the book that when the revelation came, I can't help but smack my head and "Of course....how dumb I am...".


Thus, although I like the film especially how it is craft to really have an artsy, abstract feel in it, which reminds me of most post modern European film, with nice blend of spookiness in a highly sophisticated way, I can't help but to think this is more like a collage of various important scene of the book. The filmmaker try to squeeze in as much as possible the elements in the book but end up each elements can only have a pathetic portion of screen time. For those who read the book before, following the story is not a problem, but for those who have not, they may not know the direction of the film, for the direction of the book has already been contaminated.


The book, I think serves largely to tell us about the rise of Voldermort. It is loaded with a lot of scene about flashback concerning Tom Riddle. If it is not talking about the past, the book will focus on the atmosphere in Hogwarts, Harry's suspicion on Malfroy and Harry's relation with the Half-Blood Prince. Sadly, throughout the film, there is no one single element or plot device that stand out that tell the audience what exactly the main purpose of episode six. It doesn't even show what is the effect for Snape to take over the role of teacher in Defence Against The Dark Art. Still, I like the film.


I like the film because the series is getting more and more matured. Harry has more confident now, he is more outspoken is no longer the shy sissy. Downside is he will be more activist and sometimes act without a proper dose of brain work. Ron has finally make it and become famous and welcome not because he is a friend of Harry but because he is a magnificent Quidditch player. It is good to see Hermoine not being the best in class and a teacher's favourite and it is such a fun side story about her relationship with Ron. Draco Malfroy has finally officially evil, though he is not totally evil, yet.


Somehow, this film gives more opportunity for the young actors to try on wider range. There are performances that not typically seen in previous HP movies. Harry's super confident persona after drinking the liquid luck, Hermoine's sadness and disappointment when Ron choose the other girl, Ron under the love potion's effect, Ginny being a girl who can take charge, with confident (I like her better than Harry and Hermoine) and yes, Malfroy complication, uncertain and fear that he experience after being assign with a task by Voldermort. Malfroy is in his coolest form in this movie, and I really happy there is a significant amount of screen time dedicated for him.


As usual the senior talents performs beautifully, Maggie Smith despite being ill of cancer, is still the strict but caring McGonagall, Gambon's Dumbledore is always my preference although I'm think his performance during the mind-altering liquid scene is a little lackluster.

Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange is always my favourite Death Eater and finally, the great Alan Rickman's Snape. Like all previous film, his screen time is not much, but steal every scene he is in.

One pleasant surprise is the performance of Hero Fiennes-Tiffin and Frank Dillane as Tom Riddle and 11 and teenage respectively. As the name suggest, Fiennes-Tiffin is the nephew of Ralph Fiennes who played the adult Voldermort. Fiennes-Tiffin's performance as the cold, cruel and moody Riddle perfectly and Dillane is superb as the teenage Tom with charm, wit and spookiness.


As a conclusion, Harry Potter and The Half-Blood Prince, is not the usual HP films with a lot of wand fight. Being a part of a series that already have an end, it will sure suffer a few cuts that cannibalize the source but still saving the basic vital elements that will in sync with the final films. Nevertheless, it is a solid entry with mature performance and film making. Although the film itself, has blurry direction, but we can see where the whole franchise is going, and it is good. I think, a recap of the previous 5 films and a brief scan through the books will prepare you better to enjoy this darkest HP film till date.

Review : Transformers - Revenge Of The Fallen (2009)

Simply one of the most anticipated movie for 2009, is Michael Bay's second take on Takara / Hasbro's Transformers toy line. The first movie more or less has introduce the concept of Cybertronian beings the Transformers (who doesn't know the origin anyway, but it is almost a must in live action movie to tell the origin) and thus, in second movie, we can all go straight into the action.

Optimus and Ironhide examining the corpse of Demolisher.

The first movie started of with a brief narration on what happen to Cybertron and the main McGuffin of the movie, after it the title screen and followed by the most jaw dropping first act - the attack of Blackout. What can top this? Haha ROTF can. The film starts with another Optimus narration on the relation between Cybertron and ancient human civilization, ends with the title screen and followed by yet another adrenaline pumping breath taking opening - the Shanghai fight between Decepticons and Autobots!

On the Decepticon side, we have the huge Demolisher and the sleek Sideways. For Autobots we have the motorcycle trio Arcee, another new comer Sideswipe, the annoying twins Skid and Mudflap plus the Ironhide, Ratchet and the great Optimus Prime. The sequence is later explain to be a joint venture operation between the Autobots and human military program called NEST. To know more about NEST and how they develop such a charming "brotherhood" between the soldiers and the robot, the movie prequel comic - Alliance will be a great help. This big fights end with Demolisher's dying words that The Fallen will be coming.

The Sides - Autobot Sideswipe easily cut Decepticons Sideways into half

After the exciting battle, we got to rest a bit where the films showing us the current activity of the Autobots, the Witwicky family, and also the Decepticons. So this pace is keep on repeating throughout the movie. Hyper kinetic action scene in a minute, and the next a moment to breath with some exposition and silly jokes (most works).

I think this film is more about growing up and taking responsibility. At least for the human lead - Sam. His refusal to confess and say the L word to his girl is a recurring gag or scene in the movie. He also getting into a new life - college life where he meet a few nerds which more or less reminds us of Sam before we meet Bumblebee and the Transformers. Somehow, it makes me think that what makes a nerd nerd is the immature and narrow world view, lazy, powerless and whiner. That was Sam before he get involve with the Cybertronian. That's maybe why same is less excited to meet all those nerds and to a certain extend rather sick of them. But still, he think he is still the same guy as before and want to go back to his previous life. Back to become a nerd, stay low profile, do things how people normally does and stuff. That's why he refuses to help Optimus Prime. He believes he is just a small potato, well he is, and he just want to have a normal life. But we all know that for any movie character that wants a normal life, most of the time they never get it! At the end, Sam does realize that whether he like it or not, everyone has his or her own responsibility and destiny, and some may not be in line with what is wanted.

Throughout the movie, this lady tries to make Sam says "I Love You" to her and Sam can resist doing it...can you?

Megatron returns, with a slight redesign that makes him look stronger. We also get to know that he report to an ugly robot known as Fallen. Their relationship and the whole energon harvest thing is explored in another prequel comic - Defiance. This two comics I really suggest and recommend to those who wants to enjoy the movie without needing too much attention to digest what is what and who is who and what all this hell is about. Of course as of any Michael Bay's movie, those question is not important, but to fully enjoy Transformers in this age, some knowledge on the continuity's mythology is always essential.

Megatron with his tank more. In the movie he also has a flying mode.

For all the fans, especially the G1 hardcore, we finally get to see more scene between Megatron and Starscream. We always like the exchange between this two, the insults as well as Megatron's physical abuse on Starscream. Starscream is slightly rewritten into less of a selfish incapable coward like in the G1 cartoon, but more calculative and realistic. Although the hypocrisy towards Megatron is still as fake and most annoying to Megatron. Somehow, this Starscream is way more charming than his G1 counterpart and further establish Starscream as one of the Decepticon evergreen favourite.

This Starscream looks cooler than in previous movie.

We also have Soundwave, not as a mass shifting radio but a alien satellite, still quite in line with the concept of his G1's alternate mode. Taking form of a communication device and spying, gathering information and relaying commands for the Decepticon. Although playing a major part in the plot, but he never set foot on Earth, which makes him so cool. He arranges everything but yet, he stay up there in the outer space banging one of Earth satellite. Best part is, he ejected Ravage - the robot panther!

Ravege, with missile launcher mounted on this back! Cool!

Other than this, we also have a variation of the Insecticons, the Pretender in the form of the spooky looking Alice, female Autobots, and the most attention grabbing, the combiners!!! Basically there is two types of combiner here, one is the old Consructicons that combine into one Devastator. Unlike in cartoon where combiner still retain humanoid figure, this "more realistic" approach make him a heavy weight and he can't stand up straight, but have to hunch and move like a gorilla. Another combiner is the new form Optimus gain temporarily with parts of Jetfire. Unlike Devastator where the combination of six robots will create a new consciousness, the combination of Optimus and Jetfire will retain Optimus Primes's consciousness. Reason being because Jetfire sacrifices his life to give Optimus energy and additional part. So at the end, for a few minutes, Optimus looks very anime like and can fly~!!!

Devastator, brutal looking, true to its name. Better if can do away with the reds.

For those who grow up watching Transformers, it really feels like meeting an old friend when concept such as Space Bridge, The Matrix of Leadership is mentioned, although how it is represented is a little different. Still, we can have everything is the cartoon and comic to just made into movie mode 100%. Some may works for cartoon and comic, but never achieve the same resonant if made live action.

It is a bit subtle, but this film also show us how war hardened the Autobots has become. Although their are noble and a loving kind, but years of wars has made them understand that mission comes first, and wasting time mourning over the lost is exactly not the thing the dead comrades wanted. When they need to fight, to survive, to execute a mission, do that first and mourn when they have the time and means to do so. If not all the sacrifice will mean nothing. This is something that we can explore only after a while of reflection on certain scene that sounds don't quite right to you. When you expected the next scene will be a silent moment where a senior member will say something meaningful and inspiring, it turns out to be another action sequence and that moment you expected never come. But after the film and you think about it, think about the Autobots and what have they done so far all these years, you will realize this rather sad, tragic but yet honorable thinking of theirs.

Optimus Prime has a cool sequence where he fight three Deceptions including Starscream and Megatron all on his own!

Sadly, although we got more time to explore on Sam who has become less annoying than the first film, time for Lennox and his team is relatively little. The partnership between NEST members is something rather fun to watch. The mum's gag in the college is just stupid and redundant. It should really be cut away. It is good and Simmons return, John Turturro's performance has made this initially irritating character more and more fun to watch and likable.

Two wise cracking character, Simmons and Sam. Simmons is way more likable in this film.

It will be better if we have more screen time for Autobots character development. Did Arcee even has a line? What and how is the relationship between the Bots? One of the most satisfying non-action Autobot scene is where Bumblebee throwing out the totally wtf Skid and Mudflap out of the Petra. If we remember Bumblebee from the G1 cartoon, he is always one of the younger adventurous immature Autobots that always gets into trouble with Spike. But now he is depicted as young but mature senior Autobots who can make firm decision and take the correct course of action when is needed.

Bumblebee, a young brat no more!

I hope Sam can do the same to Leo, but we get to see this sissy get zapped anyway and it is satisfying still. Human Leo along with Autobots Skid and Mudflap are the most irritating and god-I-wish-they-were-dropped-from-the-script characters in this film. I really cheering for Devastator when he swallowed Mudflap, but too bad he survive...KNN!

Bay, why can't you kill this two so they won't be in the third movie?

Overall, in first viewing, there is so much in the screen that sometimes our brain just freeze and can't process anything. Second and subsequent viewing will let us see better who is fighting who and how it is done better. Still, although it is lacking in the plot, and generally a male oriented movie (hot babes, shiny slick cars, gun, military vehicles and explosion in every act), but it is always a worthy experience. It is an ultimate popcorn movie and a good specimen of entertainment movie kind of movie. Wanna have a good time in a movie without all those head aching message and confusing story? Get Transformers : Revenge of The Fallen!

Review : Drag Me To Hell (2009)

Read the taglines in the poster, masterpiece!

Drag Me To Hell, or otherwise known as Sam Raimi's Return To Horror Street is the latest horror flick from this director who gave us the whole new Spiderman in the new millennium. As like any Raimi's horror film, the plot is super simple, with the theme of realistic person (realistic as in the character is neither a super good virgin baby sitter or morally correct, but flawed and selfish like any of us) dump in to a messy situation involving the dark forces and how he or she overcome (or attempted to) it.

This Ah-Ma got staples on her head, wears a delibrately awful looking made fake teeth and just fucking annoying.

The first half of the film in promising, with Alison Lohman as Christine Brown the out of farm loan officer trying to climb the career path and is willing to do whatever it take to get there. Well, pretty much like most of the office people here. She is forced into making a decision which I think is just, but the stubborn old gypsy lady think otherwise and end up cursing her and put her live in living hell before drag her into it.

You wake up in your sleep, try to get back to lala land and find that the one laying beside you is this Ah-Ma...more frighthening if you are a guy, I think.

So, the beginning part like always tells you how one gets into the shit, and from the on, we enjoy watching this girl in the shit. I watch Raimi's Evil Dead Trilogy in a DVD, so I have no idea how is the "shock" element in those, but somehow I was bored to know that Drag has a lot of such cheap trick of shocking the audience.

Hey, we are watching a Raimi's film, get us something gore and cheap and funny and bad ass!!! Well, we do actually get those, but not much.

Typical in Western supernatural film, handholding ceremony.

This film is a super crazy blend of shock and insane comedic moment, pretty much like Evil Dead series. One second we were shock to almost shitting, the next second it send us laughing our farts out. This is good in the sense it doesn't show that the villain or the dominant character in a scene to have cool control of everything. Even if you are a supercharged gypsy insane granny trying to kill an innocent girl, you will still somehow lose your balance and get (literally) all your teeth knocked out.

Coolest moment, dig your crave and shove something in your corpse's mouth. Try to top that punk!

And like his previous horror film, the climatic moment will be where the protagonist just let go of everything binding her before, political correct values, "good girl" mask, hypocrisy and just be a god damn bad ass Tom Dick and Harry fighting for survival. What is cooler than a scene of a nice looking lady digging out a dead granny to shove an item to the corpse mouth under the rain?! That is the only moment throughout the film that I enjoy 100%.

Overall, I still prefer Evil Dead. The FX pretty much are done by cheap CGI, maybe to maintain its campiness, but I still like those cheap physical effect they did in the 80s. Nothing can top that. To a certain extent, this is like Sam Raimi's horror film lite.

Review : Terminator Salvation (2009)

So, this is it, T4, Terminator Salvation, the one that brings the audience to the most talked about post Judgement Day war. The war that before this we can only catch glimpses of it in flash back scenes in the first and second films. Now, we are in it, the movie is about it, how the war is fight, and how all the key characters get together and how the legendary John Connor becomes the leader.

A major departure from the previous trilogy, T4 no longer has any time travel plot. It is not the dark and grim tech-noir as in The Terminator, it is not the strong female lead extravaganza like T2 but it certainly more likable than Rise of The Machine, thanks to its casting.

John Connor is played by Christian Bale, our hyper realistic Batman. I'm very excited with the notion that John is played by a serious actor, but somehow rather disappointed by Bale's performance in it. Maybe it is because the script has been heavily rewrite to fulfill his wish to play Connor instead of Marcus Wright. The original play has more emphasis on this tragic character. Still, Bale manage to give us an acceptable performance as Connor in the war. The extra playing the adult him in T2 has no line, Edward Furlong is a brat, the although the character is interesting written in T3, the actor sucks. T4's John Connor is the John Connor that has endured T2 and T3, so he has almost all the knowledge and anticipation of what will come and should come. He already the right mindset and emotion for the war even before it become full scale. But ironically, this has made him to become less objective and speculative, and most probably made him less likable especially during his first time confrontation with Marcus Wright.


Well, originally, in the initial development, John is Jesus and Marcus Wright is Ben Hur. It will be a movie about John Connor's rise to power but attention will mostly placed on Wright. Reason being, he is the good new Terminator in the film. The role was offered to Bale, who in turns prefer to play Connor(Batman and John Connor, maybe he'll wish to be Bond next), so the role falls to Sam Worthington, who plays it perfectly and stealing the show away from Connor and the special effects. The brutal condemned convict with an extraordinary right mind offered his body of scientific experiment which in turn falls into the hand of Skynet and made into the best Terminator so far. He is a Terminator with a (literally) heart, who has emotion and will of its own, although the will is subconsciously affected by it's mission's programming. Never in the course of Terminator franchise that we can actually feel and identify with the cyborg, and Wright is the first who give us this feeling. From the title of this film, we know that it is about him. Salvation, it is about how this ex-criminal get his salvation, his second chance, to do something really good, to redeem to his past sins. One should say he pretty much died at the end, but I do hope he turn up again in the next movie, played by the same actor.


Then we get John's father Kyle Reese, play by "Wictor Wictor" the Russian crew in the new Star Trek, Anton Yelchin. With two iconic franchise in his resume, I think the future is rather bright for Yelchin. Unlike, Connor, which we saw him previously is mostly non-speaking or not-adult or not yet in the war mode, the only Reese we know is from the first movie, and he is a character we loved so much, the way he talks, the way he moves, he fights, thinks etc. Yelchin pull it off quite well that we can see it is the same character, but with younger mind and less experience. Yelchin did not impersonate the old Reese, but incorporated the characteristic defined by the previous actors into his own performance.

Unlike, T2, the female characters in T4 is completely ignorable. Who can replace Linda Hamilton anyway? The focus in on the intervening relationship between this three male figure. And sadly none of the female characters is memorable.

For fans of Terminator mode T-101, it never shown until near the third act, and we got some scene with it in Arnold's "body suit". The body is double by a body builder cum actor and the face is superimposed digitally using Arnold's scanned faced. No wonder he looks younger and more convincing that in T3. But the scene with his look is brief and sort of to connect some possible loose ends as well as nod to all the fans.

In T1 to T3, although the villains on screen are the Terminators of different model, but the boss is Skynet. All the while, Skynet is not represented by anything, since it is a computer network, like our Internet. There is not even a human commander or evil mad scientist present, since it is machine and computer codes. Skynet is not even represented by a physical manifestation like a chief cyborg or something like that. In T4, although it is not the boss, but there is at least some sort of representative of Skynet in the form of digital generated look of Dr Serena Kogan played by the gorgeous Helena Bonham Carter (OK, there is one memorable female character, she is). Although the real Dr Kogan is dead by the time Skynet revealing some truth to Wright, but the Skynet representative program choose Kogan's look because Wright know her. That I think is the only instance Skynet communicate to other character and speak.

Since this is a Terminator movie, there are a few convention that the past movies had and also present in this, like the line "Come with me if you want to leave" or its variation, "I'll be back" or its variation, a good Terminator, good Terminator with part of the flesh destroyed revealing the metal skeleton inside, constantly changing future and of course a final fight in a factory looking establishment.

Overall, nothing can top The Terminator and T2, but I think it is better than T3. Still a satisfying movie for the fans, but new audience might be a little lost - who is Reese? Why Reese is John's father? Why John's mother leave him some tape recording? What so big about T-101? etc. But sadly, the film hardly stay in your mind after the viewing.

P/S: The scene where the resistance taming down the hydro-bot what ever; the centipede like robot looks remarkably alike with the scene in Transformers where the soldiers are studying the tail of Scorponok. Even the ending of the scene where the leader (Connor for T4 and Lennox for Transformers) gives a command for his team to do something. Wonder why is it?

Trailer : 風雲II (2009)

Another trailer of The Storm Warriors. Rather obvious a lot of visual is inspired by 300. Hope that it will have more surprises.

Review - Angels & Demons (2009)

Angels and Demons is the first Dan Brown novel featuring Robert Langdon as the lead, but in the movie adaptation, it is made as a sequel to The Da Vinci Code. Like the previous movie, it is about conspiracy theory related to religion and some extremist.

Tom Hanks and who's that girl again?

For those already read the book, the movie has little to offer other than the location and the art work involve, regardless if it is a replica or the real thing. What that was only described in the book, now we can see it for real.

Robert Langdon is again played by Tom Hanks, this time with better hair, but the female lead, unlike in the previous film, is totally forgettable. Maybe that's because the previous female lead is a part of the McGuffin. As a matter of fact, the way the movie is written, the female lead can actually be written out. But then this will make is an all guy film...

Even if it was a book, Angels and Demons is full or inaccuracies and plot hole. The film can somehow made a few adjustment to make some not so logic plot into a more logical one, but in the same time also created a number of goof on its own.

Remember when was the last major Hollywood film with Vatican City plays a huge role?

In the book, it has mention more about the Illuminati, about the mastermind of the bombing and killing known as Janus. It successfully lead us to think that there is an external force attacking the church, but in the film, most viewer are fast to come to a conclusion that maybe the mastermind is within the church. Thing is, most who haven't read the book before will be mislead into believing the red herring as the main villain, pretty much like the friend I watch this movie with.

For me, it's Godfather Part III, where the conclave also plays a part in it.

Overall, this is a vast improvement over The Da Vinci Code. The former is more like a run, stand and lecture kind of thriller, a lot of static moment, but Angels and Demons reduced this, and most of the exposition take place when the characters is on the run or travelling. And, as Dr House said, walk and talk scene will give an impression that the story is moving. One thing rather disappointing is, the ambigrams moment is very brief, on screen, the burn mark is so messy and most viewer will not realize it is a stylized word that reads the same upside down. Curiously, why the hell the last mark is not the ambigram diamond made up of four elements' ambigram combined?

Still, being a Dan Brown novel, the plot still employs the same trick - two parallel story, one of the protagonist and one of the assassin's movement, coded message and a twist at the end. All four of this novel (two of them are non-Langdon stories) has the same formula, and the code is more or less of the same type. Heard that his new Langdon novel is coming this year, hope it bring us some new surprise.

I was initially a big fan of his work after reading all this work, but when I have read The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell & Dustin Thomason and Umberto Eco's Foucalt's Pendulum, Dan Brown's stories are sort of kid stuff...haha~!

Review - X-Men Origins : Wolverine (2009)

So now Wolverine, the most popular X-men get his own movie. Hmmm...apart from Hugh Jackman reprise his role and a brief cameo of Patrick Steward as Professor X, other faces are new, even for the guy playing Sabertooth.


Nothing much to say about this film. Although it is a spin-off, but it still has to be consistent with the flashback scenes presented in X-men and X-2. So, somehow it is rather limited what they can do. That is the reason why in this movie Wolverine's memory was not lost right after the experiment, but very much later.

This is because this movie need to explain how he get the cool metal skeleton and how eventually he lost his memory. Plot wise, nothing new and is rather weak, compare to the rich and layered plot presented by Bryan Singer in the first and second X-men films.

We are rewarded by a few glimpse of the popular X-men before they are recruited like Cyclops, Storm, Emma Frost and Gambit to name a few. The Deadpool character created some fuss but at the end is a rather lackluster treatment. It suppose to have a lot of potential and should be a fun anti hero to watch.

Overall, a decent superhero origin movie, but nothing to compare with the original first two X-men movie and certainly way below The Dark Knight.

Review - Star Trek (2009)

Star Trek, the decades old TV and movie series get a makeover~! Unlike other movie franchise, Star Trek is the one where we can easily decide that most of the movies are below par and only a few are good. The old movies mostly made up of a better looking set and slightly larger special effect. Some the stories are so pointless it look more like a two-parter of the TV series episodes.

But it is not the case with the latest entry to the franchise. Simply named Star Trek directed by J. J. Abrams, it follows the recent trend in movie franchise of rebooting the series, but in a way that only science fiction or fantasy film can do.

James Bond and Batman simply choose to ignore all previous movies in the franchise, but not Star Trek. Although the film is about young Kirk, young Spock in their first mission in Enterprise, and how Kirk got to be the Captain, the film take place in an alternate reality. This means than all those previous adventure by William Shatner's version of Kirk may still be part of the canon. This can be achieved by simply adding time travel in the plot.

The calm Spock and the cocky Kirk (thank god there is no fatty Shatner)

So far, this film has one of the best, engaging and emotional pre-credit sequence. It is the introduction of our film's villain, the Romulan, the death of Kirk's father and the birth of James T Kirk. The acting is good and despite just a few minutes screen time, we can feel the dedication and connect with the character. For other films, this sequence usually consist of rather poor and wooden acting, but in Star Trek, it is just nice.

For the special effects, nothing to shout about, since mostly CGI and we hardly will be amazed anymore with the usual outer space stuff. But the production design is just really nice. It depicts the future as a very clean and nice place to live in, unlike Blade Runner or Equilibrium. The internal of the Enterprise is just awesome, like an ultra futuristic high tech Apple / Mac -like computer shop, clean, while and stunning user interface.

The Enterprise has never look nicer.

Plot wise, still rather typical Star Trek stories, but nowadays it is rather hard to come up with a new idea for science fiction story. So, it all depends on the execution, and Star Trek has done it nicely it is fun to watch and make us want for more.

Bad guy - the Romulans

I think it will be a far more enjoyable experience if the viewer has some prior knowledge of Star Trek universe. You will get to see how those main characters been rewritten and introduced. The main bonus is there is no William Shatner, but Leonard Nimoy returns as the older Spock and serves as the McGuffin of the story. But even if one have no prior knowledge, it is still an enjoyable journey, just miss a few Easter egg here and there, but it has nothing to do with the main plot anyway.

We can never have enough of Nimoy, it is just fun to see him as the wise Spock again.

Bond, Batman and Star Trek; three rather important movie franchise has now successfully being brought back to life. Hope that future filmmaker won't kill them again. Now just hope that Bryan Singer can give us a Wrath of Khan for the next Superman film.