AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

Time flies, it seemed not long ago that they showed the last movie and here the ensemble of Avengers were gathered to look for Loki's scepter, which contained one of six infinity stones that held strong powers that were capable of destroying earth.

The stellar cast of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel Jackson continued to play the key superhero roles and the new cast included James Spader as Vision, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Quicksilver and Elizabeth Olsen as Scarlet Witch. I must say that Joss Whedon continued their usual Marvel directing and production standards and brought to the big screen an action-packed blockbuster movie of superheroes versus a legion of artificial intelligence beings but somehow, I felt that everything is the same other than the storyline. Everything is predictable in that none of them would die and regardless of how bad the situation was, all of them would eventually overcome all odds to emerge the final victors. Like my ex-boss used to say, same story different day. This seems more like a fairy tale with happy endings. So there is nothing too unexpected and even the death of the new character Quicksilver made no difference as the audience has not warmed up to him yet.

However, I am glad that Scarlet Witch is the latest addition to the ensemble of predominantly male superheroes because I really dislike Scarlett Johansson. I am going to incur the ire of many more people when I say this but I also do not like Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Ruffalo. The tension and budding romance between the Black Widow and the Incredible Hulk was completely unbelievable and unbearable to me.

The very brief easter egg segment was also boring and completely non-revealing about the next movie, which I will still look forward to despite the lack of pleasant plot surprises. 

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver joined the cast of superheroes

Captain America and Thor

Ultron was bent of eradicating humans to save earth

GODZILLA

They have made the Godzilla movie a number of times and I must say I was kind of bored throughout the movie.

Godzilla did not appear in the movie until more than an hour later and even then, it's role seemed more supporting than lead. The main cast includes Bryan Cranston as Joe Brody, Juliette Binoche as Sandra Brody, Aaron Taylor-Johnson as Ford Brody, Elizabeth Olsen as Elle Brody and Ken Watanabe as Dr. Ishiro Serizawa.

In short, two radiation-feeding moth-like monsters were unearthed from the ground through construction activities and were coming together in an attempt to breed and Godzilla was the only thing that could stopped them. Period.

Alright, the movie started off in 1999 with the discovery of some mysterious pods in Philippines which was followed by a radiation leak and an explosion in Janjira Nuclear Plant where Joe and Sandra were working. Sandra was killed, leaving behind Joe and his son Ford. 15 years later, Ford was an explosive disposal lieutenant living in San Francisco with his wife Elle and son when he received a call that Joe was detained after entering a quarantine zone in Japan.

Ford flew over to bail his father, just to realize that Joe has never given up on finding the truth behind the nuclear plant's radiation leak and accident that killed Sandra. He reluctantly accompanied Joe back to their old house in the quarantine zone and history repeated itself all over again in the form of a giant-sized winged alien-liked monster known as the Muto that hatched after feeding off radiation from a nuclear plant. Apparently, this was only one of two Mutos that were calling to each other and tried to unite together in San Francisco to breed their next generation. Their calls awakened Godzilla, which was nature's answer to restore balance in the ecosystem. The special forces were mobilized to put an end to these creatures but their efforts were futile against the monsters until Godzilla put up a strong hard fight against the two creatures and eventually defeated them. Strangely, I saw red lanterns in several scenes where the Mutos were striking mayhem during the battles and wondered if there was any significance to this.

The storyline was just very thin and the acting non-memorable although I like the following quote from the movie:

"The arrogance of men is thinking nature is in their control and not the other way round." by Dr. Ishiro Serizawa.

Joe Brody

Joe and Ford at their old house in Japan

Sandra

Dr Ishiro Serizawa wore this worried expression throughout the movie

the Muto

red lanterns were shown several times

THE MONKEY KING

I eagerly waited for this movie for a year and when I saw a poster of it in KL in Dec 13, my hopes were high when I knew it would be screened soon.

Starring the big threes of Hong Kong entertainment industry Chow Yun Fatt, Aaron Kwok, Donnie Yen and others such as Peter Ho, Gigi Leung, the movie was more CGI effects than anything else. There wasn't much real acting and many real actors. Everything was flying here and there in heaven and chaos was literally everywhere.

It was such a huge letdown that I won't even begin to list them here although I must grumble that the budget was undoubtedly big on special effects and the storyline was so, so weak. Like a friend said, they had no money left to hire more real actors after the extravagant expenditure on special effects. I must say that even though I found the earlier Stephen Chow takes "A Chinese Odyssey - Part One (Pandora's Box) and Part Two (Cinderella)" in 1995 starring Stephen Chow himself, Athena Chu, Ng Man-Tat, Law Kar-Ying, Karen Mok etc on the same subject lame, they were at least entertaining and memorable to this very day. This remake in comparison, was just a big time disappointment.

I, FRANKENSTEIN

First, I must say this movie didn't receive rave reviews from the critics but I think it is not bad at all. I am not a movie critic but I do like the storyline, acting and special effects.

With a cast including Aaron Eckhart as the lead character or monster without a soul created by Frankenstein, Bill Nighy, Yvonne Strahovski, Miranda Otto, Socratis Otto, Jai Courtney etc, the movie was reminiscent of the "Underworld" movies from the same producer where war between two opposing legions i.e. vampires and werewolves in Underworld, angels and demons in this movie. All these beings and creatures lived amongst the humans and threatened the existence of mankind but their battles took place for centuries right under our noses unbeknownst to all humans, except the lucky or unlucky few who were drawn into the battles.

Before I comment any further, I must say I enjoyed a number of Aaron Eckhart's past movies where he wasn't the lead protagonist and played good guys. I started to sit up and noticed the change in him when he appeared as Two-Face in the "The Dark Knight". With this movie, I didn't actually see it coming for him to be the lead and took up the challenge of playing such a dark character. Not that he wasn't capable of doing it. It was more of seeing the friendly guy-next-door suddenly becoming a totally different person kind of strange feeling. For one, I think Aaron made the right move in coming out of his comfort zone playing good guys and took on more and more interesting roles to challenge himself. At least in this movie, he was the lead and his acting was good, I must add. Who knew he had such a good bod too? Hollywood must certainly pay notice to a new leading man if this movie performs well at the box office.

It is also interesting that Bill Nighy, who played an evil elder vampire in the "Underworld" movies, took on the role of Prince Nebarius, the leader of demons in this movie. Be careful Bill, before you are typecast forever to play characters from the dark side.

I shan't give the rest of the story away but we all know and believe that good will always triumph evil in the end in such movies.