EDGE OF TOMORROW

Based on a Japanese novel, this science fiction movie starring Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt is about an alien invasion and how Major William Cage played by Tom Cruise repeatedly died more than a hundred times before he and Sergeant Rita Rose played by Emily Blunt managed to defeat the alien race.

The movie has quite an interesting storyline where a public relations Major William was knocked out and sent to the battlefield with a squad to fight the invading aliens known as Mimics when he opposed the General's orders. Unknown to them, the aliens behaved like the central nervous system when they were controlled by a central intelligence known as the Omega. William killed an attacking Alpha with a mine before he died, but not before the Alpha's blood spilled onto him, granting him the ability to temporarily take over the Omega's unique ability to reset time back repeatedly to a specific time frame. From a clumsy Major who never ventured to the battlefield to one who managed to gradually anticipate each and every move made by the aliens and avoided their attack until he was killed over and over again, he was able to reset the time loop every single time he died. He met the Angel of Verdun Sergeant Rita Rose in the process and learnt that she possessed the same ability until she lost it through a blood transfusion after getting injured in battle.

With their combined wits, they eventually realized that the Omega set a trap for them instead to reclaim its ability and sacrificed their lives to exterminate the Omega in one final attempt after William too lost his unique ability after he received a blood transfusion. Fortunately, the Omega exploded and spilled all its contents, including its blood, in the water and infused William once again before he died. The time line was reset once again to an earlier time frame when William and Rita were alive but this time with the aliens exterminated permanently. 

ARISTOLOCHIA GRANDIFLORA

I am so glad I planted this weird yet spectacular alien-looking flowering plant at the Web of Life. I think I said it before that the fully opened flower, which is as large as a face, has a intensely black center that reminds me of a black hole in space. It emits a rotten smell that attracts flies which are the pollinators of this amazing climber. I always imagine that if one peers too closely at the flower, it would engulf the face of the observer like the young face-clasping aliens from the Aliens movies. 

ENDER'S GAME

"Ender's Game" is just the first of a series of science fiction books by the author Orson Scott Card. Starring Harrison Ford, Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, Hailee Steinfeld and others, it is a story set in a future time where the gaming kids were tested, handpicked for their potential and trained by the Military to fight and defend Earth against an alien insect race which attacked Earth once before.

Ender was the brightest among a group of computer kids and through his wits, courage and strategies, led his team of precocious kids like him to exterminate the alien bugs and destroyed their planet through computer games training, but not before he realized the truth that the final test wasn't a computer simulated programme after all and that they were playing in real time and killed every single living bug on their planet. Horrified by his own deed, he felt betrayed by the Military for lying to him and responsible for the death of an entire bug species which he tried to understand and communicate with in an attempt to prevent a war. With deep remorse, he discovered that the aliens were not out to launch another attack against Earth but were making preparations to defend themselves against the impending attack by the humans.

Anyway, with his connection with the Queen bug, he also found out that the remaining Queen on Earth was trying to communicate with him through his dreams before the final attack. His conscious bugged him, pun unintended, and he went on to find a remaining bug egg, that was to be the future Queen, on Earth and eventually set off to search for a planet that would allow the egg to hatch to continue the bug species lineage.

It was an entertaining movie and was actually quite strange to find the young pre-teenage skinny and scrawny Asa took control and commanded a team of cadets and soldiers to do his bidding in the battle against the bugs. Anyway, the acting by the entire cast was quite credible and I look forward to more future installments of the series. 

AFTER EARTH

I watched this science fiction movie two weeks ago. Starring the father and son team Will Smith and Jaden Smith, it bombed at the box office. M. Night Shyamalan has repeatedly made movie flops after his famous supernatural movie 'The Sixth Sense' in 1999. He has clearly lost his magic and failed to pull in the crowds despite all the attempts to inject creative plots into the storyline.

I guess this movie was a failure because of the slow pace and sleepy performances of the pair. It was literally a movie made for father and son. Set in the future about a thousand years later, humanity abandoned earth after a series of environmental catastrophes. A spaceship carrying a team of ranger corps headed by General Cypher Raige acted by Will Smith and his son crashed onto earth. All on board perished except the father and son team. Thereafter the movie went downhill as Will Smith was stuck to his seat in the spaceship throughout the rest of the movie looking drugged and drowsy. His expressionless face almost put me to sleep as well. On the other hand, Jaden Smith tried very hard to carry off the rest of the movie but sadly, the one person performance failed to lift the enthusiasm of the audience as he leapt down a ravine, battled baboons, survived after being bitten by a poisonous leech, escaped from a pack of hunting tigers and a giant condor before finally killing the alien Ursa and saving his dad.

These days, I enjoy watching the beautiful scenic view in such movies and if I didn't enjoy the movie, at least this much fascinates me. 

THE HOST

It was movie week for me and I caught this sci-fi movie starring one of my favourite actress Saoirse Ronan, Max Irons, Jake Abel and William Hurt.

Set in the future where an alien "amoeba-like" parasite known as souls came to earth to inhabit the bodies of humans. When that happens, the human host usually loses its self-consciousness and gets taken over by the identity of the inhabitant, which is able to tap into the memories of the former. In some rare cases, the human host is strong, resilient and possesses a consciousness to resist the soul. Saoirse as Melanie Stryder, is one such case. 

Taken away from her younger brother Jamie by a group of possessed humans and implanted with a soul known as "wanderer", her love and desperation to find her brother gave her the will to co-exist with the wanderer in a single body. On the other hand, the kind and compassionate wanderer which live thousands of years and traveled across the intergalaxy was moved by Melanie's personality and love for her brother and boyfriend Jared that it helped her escape to seek out her uncle in the desert. Hot on her heels is her alien pursuer known as the Seeker, who was relentlessly obsessive with converting Melanie into one of their kind.

Melanie was rescued by her uncle, found her brother and boyfriend while at the same time, the wanderer fell for one of the humans Ian. Conflicted with the feelings of two minds in a single body with two separate lovers, Melanie has to race against time to maintain her sanity to save herself, the wanderer, her brother and the rest of the human survivors.

Saoirse gets prettier by the day, since I last saw her in "The Lovely Bones" and earns my respect that she's one of the best younger actresses, with a squeaky clean image, of today. Max Irons, who is Jeremy Irons son, and Jake Abel delivered credible performances in the movie as skeptics who initially doubted Melanie's continued existence with an alien soul in her body but turned protective towards the two separate identities in the latter part of the movie.

I don't think this movie did well at the box office because there was hardly anyone in the cinema. I guess it may appear very strange to viewers to see two minds conversing with each other throughout the movie but I enjoyed it nevertheless.

KHOO TECK PUAT HOSPITAL

These are some fauna sighted or found at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital. 

The Red-Eared Slider terrapin commonly found in our ponds is a alien species and its abundance is due to the release of these animals by pet owners who lost interest in keeping them after they outgrew their adorable sizes.

The posters on birds and fishes have also been updated and are almost full now.

PROMETHEUS

So is "Prometheus" the prequel to the 1979 movie "Alien" by the same Director Ridley Scott? I think so.

Starring Noomi Rapace, the original actress in the movie "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo",  Michael Fassbender of "X-Men First Class" fame, Guy Pearce, Logan Marshall-Green and Charlize Theron, who was most recently seen in "Snow White and the Huntsman", it was a controversial movie that explored the origin of man and appeared to bridge the missing links to the alien movie. I feel a movie is just a movie and should not be taken too seriously since it is usually made more for entertainment than anything else.


At the start, it probably showed how mankind was created from the DNA of a humanoid alien. Fast forward to a futuristic 2089 when archaeological digs at various continents unearthed similar star maps pointing to a series of planets. Four years later in 2093, a team of 17 members on board a spaceship were gathered together to explore a distant planet which points to the origin of everything. The expedition was fraught with lots of unknown e.g. row of gigantic structures in a clearing, cylinders with a black oozing substance, decapitated alien corpse, as two crew members succumbed to violent deaths inflicted on them by the alien beings. They referred to the aliens as engineers because of their supposed creation of mankind.


The movie was kind of slow at first as the team was formed and picked up pace about one hour into it. Noomi was the lead protagonist Dr Elizabeth Shaw and her foetal abortion by caesarian was actually quite gross. Michael as the android was cold, calculated and brilliantly mechanical in his movements. I was disappointed with the role that Charlize played because it was sadly insignificant. She is so talented and her acting ability was all wasted here.


Subsequently, a surviving alien was revived by the team and it turned on them, killing most of the members. The remaining survivors discovered that the aliens were bent on destroying their creation and despatched their spaceship to go to Earth to decimate the human race. To prevent the impending war, some of them sacrificed their lives to prevent the alien spaceship from taking off into the sky. 


Of course in the end, the brutal engineer was killed but In the process, a new alien form, similar to the one in the "alien" movies was created. The only survivor, on board the Prometheus, Dr Elizabeth Shaw recorded a message log as she escaped from the planet in one of the alien's spaceship. In fact, this message sounded familiar as if I have heard it before in one of the alien movies. That is probably the connection between this latest movie and the earlier ones.                                                                                                                        

BATTLESHIP

Today's weather - fine

This is yet another one of those alien movies. Starring Taylor Kitsch from the recent movie "John Carter", Alexander Skarsgard from the TV series "True Blood", Rihanna and Liam Neeson, this movie did not give me any pleasant surprises. After watching a zillion alien movies, it really has to be ultra special and original before I can be shaken from the seat. At one point, I even fell asleep at the chair. I can't even imagine how that can happen with all the loud sounds coming from the screen but it happened.

THE DARKEST HOUR

I have been waiting anxiously to watch this movie and I finally caught it even though I do know this is not made to be blockbuster or sleeper hit. I think I was right when I saw the cinema rather empty of people. Starring a cast of unknowns, at least to me, it centers around an alien invasion.


Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby, Max Minghella and Rachel Taylor are two pairs of long time friends who met in Moscow whilst on holiday separately and encountered invisible aliens. What is disturbing is how these electrically charged aliens sent out current-like talons to capture the humans and pulverized them in a split second.


While trying to reach the US submarine, dispatched to rescue survivors, to return to their homeland, Emile and Olivia lost their two closest friends to the aliens and helplessly watched them being reduced to nothing right under their very noses. I think the film tried to show the huge loss and thus shock they experienced when they lost their closed ones, but it stopped short of that. Indeed, if one is in those shoes, it is rather unbelievable and traumatic to lose a loved one under those circumstances.


Anyway, while it seems like a small cast and perhaps low budget movie, I kind of enjoyed the movie. If one watches it without much expectations, then I guess it wouldn't be a huge disappointment.

ALREADY FAMOUS 《一泡而红》

 Today's weather - sunny

This is Michelle Chong's movie directing debut. Starring herself as the lead actress and Taiwan's singer Alien Huang (better known as 黄鸿升 or 小鬼) as the male lead, with guest appearances by various local artistes such as David Gan, Patricia Mok, Cynthia Koh, Irene Ang, Kumar, Chua Enlai,Li Teng, Pornsak, Nat Ho, Romeo Tan and Sylvester Sim to lend their support, the movie is actually quite entertaining for a local production although the pace could have been better.


The simple kampung girl from Yong Peng came to Singapore in pursuit of her dreams of becoming the next big tv actress, but her journey was not smooth-sailing and was fraught with lots of obstacles and discouragement. In the process, she met and found solace and encouragement in the neighbourhood coffee shop boy who finally became her hubby.


The movie is interesting in that most local chinese would be able to identify with the local dialect, singlish and slang and there were some rather catchy parts, like the song. I heard that Michelle sold her condominium to finance this movie and most artistes in the entertainment industry and locals turn out in droves to support her film. Frankly, I seldom watch local production movies because I find them very slapstick but I watched this and enjoyed it. This film is also screening in as far as Taiwan and Hong Kong but in comparison to the recent Taiwanese movie "You Are the Apple of My Eye" which I watched, there is still a lot of catching up to do. But for a start, I think it is good enough!


Two trailers of the movie are attached below:

INVASION

There is evidence of more alien invasion. Just look at these black faceless creatures with gold headpieces. When did they invade our shopping centre? Are they shape shifters, I wonder? They live amongst us.

SKYLINE

This is yet another alien invasion movie. Produced by the Brothers Strause, I thought this was a once-off kind of movie until I read the review that it was only the first of a series. The movie was full of special effects that compensated for its less than exemplary cast of lesser known actors and actresses such as Scottie Thompson, Eric Balfour and Donald Faison etc, who cameoed or acted in small parts in other television series or movies.

The premise of alien invasion and abduction is so cliche but I immediately fell in love with the lights streaming through the rooms, just like the other humans were drawn by the mysterious blue lights in the dawn of the early morning and were vacuumed into the spaceships. But it wasn't just pure simple abduction. It was a case of brain harvesting, which only became apparent towards the later half of the show.

So the rest of the movie was about how they all tried to escape from the aliens, until in the end it seemed that all was lost when all the protagonists were killed, except for the final scene when Elaine (Scottie Thompson) was protected by her dead boyfriend Jarrod (Eric Balfour), whose brain was removed and inserted into the alien's body. It ended with some still images of the alien "Jarrod" trying to protect the pregnant Elaine from other attacking aliens.

The ending was kind of abrupt and anti-climax for me, but now that I know it is only part of a series, I hope the other parts to be released would be good. I am so looking forward to see the complete story.