Movie Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

* Yoda warns, here might movie spoilers be, yes.

"Wow. Koo-koo-ka-choo got screwed," Logan smirked teasingly.

"Kuekuatsheu," the lovely brunette corrected. "Means the Wolverine."

From the brief glance I got as I was scanning the Web for that particular line from the movie, I gathered that many were unsatisfied with the latest movie, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Well, personally, I thought it was just nice, not too much, not too little.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="249" caption="Wolverine's new claws (from wearemoviegeeks.com)"][/caption]

Being around X-Men fans in my earlier days, I do know most of the storylines for the main characters but I never did read about the beginning of Wolverine, so I thought the filmmakers did quite well in explaining and compiling what made Logan turn into Wolverine. I left the cinema content in having all my questions answered. 1) Why is Wolverine so suspicious of people? - Answered. 2) How come Wolverine can't remember anything from his earlier life? - Answered. 3) How did William Stryker cross path with Wolverine? - Answered. 4) How did Logan come up with the name Wolverine? - Answered. If I were to list every single question I had on Wolverine, my post would just be a major Q&A. 8-)

But...I do realize that I'm not exactly gushing over the movie like I did with the movie Australia. Perhaps it is a movie that is nice to watch but not exactly memorable.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="This is how Gambit is supposed to look like (from comicmix.com)"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1461" align="alignright" width="182" caption="But this is the Gambit that I got instead"][/caption]

There was one thing I was looking forward to but got extremely disappointed; Gambit a.k.a Remy LeBeau. Gambit is my all-time favourite among the X-Men. It's not just his playboy and cocky behaviour, it's the way he looks, the way he carries himself about, the way he talks with that slang of his. Well, you can kind of guess that I expected ALOT from whoever is playing Gambit, and sad to say, Taylor Kitsch is getting the short end of my stick. Taylor simply wasn't...Gambit enough. I felt he did the role half-heartedly, like he didn't study how Gambit moves and talks in the comics and in the cartoon version. In short, he was maybe, mmmm, 35% Gambit-like, not enough for a hardcore fan like me. And the first scene he appeared in, that hair of his combined with that silky purple shirt reminded me of Johnny Depp in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. Not exactly the first impression I wanted from my hero. :-(

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="164" caption="Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth (from daemonsmovies.com)"][/caption]

Back to the main character. You cannot deny that Hugh Jackman took the role of Wolverine to heart. Bad-tempered, foul-mouthed and always gearing for a fight, it is hard to imagine anyone else playing that role. He brought every emotion to life, from pure rage to sad acceptance, but still maintained that toughness that is uniquely Wolverine. Oooh, of course, who can forget the second-best actor in the movie, Liev Schreiber who played Sabretooth. I know most people expected a huge monster-like man but I think Liev carried the role quite splendidly.

You'll see some other X-Men villains and heroes in this movie, but if you don't know who they are, well, prepared to be flabbergasted with thoughts of "Who's that? Who's this?" The Blob, Bolt, Deadpool, Silver Fox, Emma Frost and even a young Scott Summers a.k.a Cyclops all made an appearance along with many others who we just can't recognize because their screen time was too short. Keep an eye out too for Professor Xavier. ;-)

Perhaps because the movie is new, or maybe the filmmakers did too good a job, there are not that many goofs. However, there is a goof in a scene where Wolverine was battling Agent Zero and a few army vehicles. When his adamantium claws come out, you can only see the bottom half of it, where else the sharpened part are totally gone, as though the motion graphic department and the script people weren't in sync with each other.

Another goof is the long-anticipated fight between Logan and Sabretooth. Just as the fight was getting good, Gambit came flying into the scene with his ever-ready long stick, creating quite a blast. The thing is...Gambit was punched out of commission by Logan before the fight and he was slumped in the same alley where the fight was. So how come Gambit came flying into the fight from the top of a nearby roof? ?:-)

So, is it a movie worth watching? Yes, definitely, go watch it in the cinema, even if it's just to satisfy your curiosity about one of the most popular X-Men characters. Maybe because I'm not one of those hardcore X-Men comic fans, I find the movie acceptable and within the high standards set by the first 3 X-Men movies,  but my brother and cousin, the extreme X-Men maniacs, might disagree.

William Stryker: You were sentenced to death for decapitating a Senior Officer. Your sentence was carried out by a firing squad at ten hundred hours. How'd that go?
Logan: It tickled.

Movie Review: Fast & Furious 4

*Ye be warned, ther' be spoilers ahead.

As I was writing the first draft of this post, I could hear the roaring engines of souped-up, modified and sports cars as they zoomed pass on the nearby highway, and I realized.....there was an increase of speeding cars and screeching tires ever since the opening of the speed-o-rama Fast & Furious. It was past midnight and I had already heard four rounds of engines being pushed to the limit. Then again, it could be the after-effect of the F1 race we just had at Sepang. :?

Anyway, back to the movie at hand.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="194" caption="Fast & Furious"][/caption]

The scene is set 5 years after The Fast & The Furious where we last saw Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) 'escaping' from undercover agent, Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker) and just before the start of The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift. Well, the duo are back in this latest installment rejoined by fellow actresses, Michelle Rodriquez (resuming the role of Dom's lover, Letty) and Jordana Brewster (resuming the part of Mia Toretto, Dom's sister).

I remember watching the first 5 minutes of the film, transfixed in my chair, as the opening scene pumped up my adrenaline with a high-speed chase and theft of a valuable commodity to all speedsters everywhere; a liquid gold called petrol. Trying to visually track the cars in the following hour-and-a-half scenes of mind-boggling and highly impossible car chases and races as they zoomed throughout the cinema screen proved too much for my eyes. Instead I ended up contenting myself with glimpses of flashing lights and shiny metal bodies followed, of course, by the cursing honks of innocent drivers.

However, I have to say that unlike Tokyo Drift, whereby I can relate tons of scenes at the drop of a hat from my first viewing, I have to think extra hard to remember Fast & Furious. At this moment, the foremost scene at the top of my head is at the beginning when the truck driver jumped out from his soon-to-be-doomed petrol carrier but not before saving his pet lizard. :| Of course, the car chases are always the best parts but other than that? It seems that the filmmakers just wanted to stretch whatever they could out of the first 3 movies, such as patching the plot hole of how Han (played by Sung Kang in Tokyo Drift) met up with Dom and simply continuing the story of what Dom was up to after he 'escaped'.

Although the film wasn't the best of the four, you have to give credit to the filmmakers for their ingenuity in adding new flavour to the races; by way of GPS. Yep, you guessed it, instead of using it to find your way when you're lost, Fast & Furious used it to outline the race course, through the busy city streets and facing oncoming traffic.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Brian O'Conner's choice of 'weapon'"][/caption]

Is it worth watching? Hell, yes, but only one time. :) I would only watch it again in the near future just to see Han's face and maybe in the further future just to refresh my memory of the storyline. In my opinion, it's not a must-watch-over-and-over-until-I-die film like I did with Tokyo Drift. For the men, this film is a non-stop orgasm of fast cars and skimpily-dressed women. Drool over the lovingly-constructed engine by Letty, and look on in jealousy as Brian O'Conner picked not one but three compounded speedsters just for his mission (and wince in agony as he inevitably wreck them). For the women, we~ll, unless you like cars and speed or an action-packed movie, the only thing that might keep you going is the male actors. *shrug*

It is in my opinion as a former media studies student that the filmmakers did one major mistake in this movie; they killed off someone. No, I won't mention the name but I still think it created a sort of standstill in making future installments of the movie. Perhaps the filmmakers thought that it would help add some spice or help to push the movie in another direction if there will ever be a Fast & Furious 5.

For my fellow Malaysians, there are not much scenes that require censorship so watching it in the cinema is A-OK.

So, as usual, here are the list of goofs courtesy of the Internet Movie Database. Truth be told, I didn't notice any goofs so they must have worked hard to edit in as much action scenes as they could to make any mistakes unnoticeable, ahhaha.

Best quote from the movie:

Brian O'Conner: This is where my jurisdiction ends.
Dominic Toretto: And this is where mine begins.

Movie Review: Punisher:WarZone

* Warning: Movie spoilers alert.

The first thing I simply must say about Punisher: War Zone is.....something has gone totally wrong!!!

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="193" caption="Punisher: War Zone"][/caption]

Thomas Jane, the former Punisher, is replaced by Ray Stevenson in the continuation of Frank Castle's reign of punishment upon the evil. While gunning down the crimelords and their family one by one, Frank Castle unfortunately killed an undercover FBI agent and seriously mutilated what is possibly the vainest and meanest villain, Jigsaw (played by Dominic West). Driven to regret by the agent's death at his hands, Frank was about to hang up his Punisher belt when Jigsaw starts terrorizing the city with his demented brother, Looney Bin Jim (Doug Hutchison). Encouraged by his friends, the Punisher decided to make Jigsaw his last 'disciplinary problem'. As the Punisher say, "Let me put you out of my misery."

The problem with this sequeal to 2004's Punisher is the inconsistency of details. Anyone who have watched the previous Punisher would know how Frank Castle's family died (in a total wipe-out at his family reunion) and that he had only one child, a son. When this new Punisher flashbacked the death of his family, they visually described it as a family picnic gone wrong when they witnessed a crime, and they portrayed one son and one daughter. :? Hello?? Can we get the story straight here please?

The plot of Punisher: War Zone was not one that pries any deeper into Frank Castle's life. To me, it seems like Hollywood just needed to make a sequel of yet another comic hero and introduce one of the hero's biggest villains. However, the movie meshed nicely but the movement was erratic; up, down, left, up, down, right. Every movie has a certain movement, enabling the audience to foresee when's the climax, when's the ending, but the new Punisher was unreadable. You didn't know what could be coming next.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="259" caption="No revenge, just punishment"][/caption]

Sorry to say but Ray Stevenson was not very memorable in the movie. Instead, my attention was snatched away by the forever-meth-high jumper Maginty (T.J. Storm) and the silent brooding gun-buyer Carlos (Carlos Gonzalez-vlo). There's something about them that captures your attention away from the other stars and extras.

All in all, the movie was just a good show to watch and is perfect for those who love gore and violence. For my fellow Malaysians, though, I probably should warn you that our beloved censorship board has wiped out most of the goriest scenes, like the body of Micro's mom (Punisher's gun supplier) and the execution of the first crimelord. Also, the censor of the foul language was somewhat weird, as 'shit' was often left intact, and while they tried to delete 'f*ck' from the dialogue, they ended up deleting every else BUT 'f*ck'. If you want to watch the undisturbed movie, I think it's better if you catch it on 'DVD' (when I say this, my fellow Malaysians know what I mean ;) ) than watching it in our local cinemas.

The Punisher may be set on punishing evil-doers, but at times he seem so set on his goal that he didn't realize the goofs (very minimal) he and others made in the movie. Be sure to refresh your memory with the original Punisher movie, though, just to get the feel of how he became the dark judge-jury-and-executioner.

Best quote from Punisher: War Zone : "If I see you anywhere near Hell, I'll kick your ass out."

Review: Yes Man

*Warning: Spoilers alert.

Imagine, if you will, a life where every time a question is asked of you and whenever an opportunity presents itself, your answer is 'Yes' and only 'Yes'. No 'Maybe', no 'Perhaps', definitely no 'No', just a simple 'Yes' or an 'Ok'.

"Would you like to learn to play the guitar?" - Yes

"Do you want to learn to fly a plane?" - Yes

"Can you approve my business loan to sell fertilizer?" - YES

"How would you like to find your true love on Persianwife.com?" - YES

"Do you want to join me for a 6 a.m. jog and photo session?" - YES

"Are you coming to my 'Harry Potter' costume party?" - YES

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="180" caption="Jim Carrey in 'Yes Man'"][/caption]

Well, that's the life of Carl Allen, played by Jim Carrey, in his newest comedy, Yes Man. A lonely and dejected man, Carl says no to almost everything and anything that comes his way, not even able to generate any enthusiasm or energy to meet up with his best friends. One day, an old friend introduced Carl to the 'Yes' program and after a very realistic albeit funny/crazy nightmare, Carl finally got off his butt to attend the seminar and, to quote Carl, 'The era of "yes" has begun.'

It's been a while since I laughed so much watching a movie and it's also been a while since Jim Carrey made a really good comedy (the last funny one that I remember is 'Fun with Dick and Jane' but I didn't laugh as much as I did with this new film). Roughly an hour and 40 minutes long, the film flows effortlessly from beginning to end with only a few minor scenes being boring or uneventful. You'll get caught up in the many situations the character finds himself in and you'll be surprised at how everything he has done with 'Yes' comes back to help him later on, from saving a suicidal man with his recently-learnt guitar playing to engaging the help of a rude saleswoman with his raw Korean. It just goes to show that you'll never know which skills you learn and which people you meet will prove useful in life.

As usual, a comedy movie of life filled with so much ups and downs should include a woman and Carl is no exception, meeting up with an interesting girl as soon as he started saying 'Yes' to everything. However, saying 'yes' all the time to everything doesn't keep one out of trouble as Carl soon found out. Held under arrest, accused of being a terrorist, losing his new love interest and ending up in a hospital, Carl discovered that one should say 'yes' even when one doesn't want to, but one should also use common sense in when to say 'yes'.

For Malaysian viewers, let me warn you now that there are some censored scenes, not much, not major, but there are some. The most obvious, and one that would definitely be missed for those who don't get it, is the motorcycle action scene near the end of the movie. The scene that was cut was just a short one showing Jim Carrey's butt. It's not essential to the plot but it's a funny one. :-D Another noticeable thing about this movie is the many references to popular films, such as '300', 'Transformers', 'Saw' and 'Harry Potter'. I'm unsure as to why the editors paid so much screen time to other movies (perhaps they were made by the same production company or something?) but you'll definitely notice it.

Yes Man is truly an enjoyable movie and I recommend you to watch it with your friends and family, not just with your spouse or girlfriend/boyfriend. It's just what you need to cheer you up or to relax you after a hard day's work. I was so engrossed with the plot that I hardly noticed the numerous goofs in the film (shame on this screen studies student). Oh, before I forget, do bring a bottle of water; the amount of laughter you'll be doing will definitely have you coughing and in need of liquid for your parched yet happy throat. Enjoy!! :-D