THE DIVERGENT SERIES: INSURGENT

Part of a trilogy from "The Divergent Series", this second part "Insurgent" starring the same leads Shailene Woodley, Theo James and others such as Jai Courtney, Maggie Q, Naomi Watts and Kate Winslet.

The movie continued off from the last movie where Tris, Four, Caleb and Peter escaped from the Erudite faction leader Jeanine's clutches and were hiding in the Amity faction until Eric came along in search of a divergent who could be a perfect match to open up a mystery box, from the city's founders, that contained the symbols of all factions. 

Peter betrayed the others who fortunately managed to kill Eric and sought refuge in the Factionless territory instead. Jai Courtney played the ruthless Eric so convincingly that I would really miss his absence. There, Four was unhappily reunited with his mother Evelyn who was then the leader of the Factionless, and revealed his true name Tobias. Evelyn tried to persuade Tobias to accept her proposal to get both Dauntless and Factionless to combine forces to fight against Erudite.

Eventually, Tris was caught by Jeanine and on her own accord, managed to open up the box to reveal the secret behind the walls. The combined factions also managed to defeat Erudite and Jeanine was taken as prisoner, where she was shot in the head by Evelyn before the movie ended.

I didn't like Shailene and I still don't, but overall I do think this second part is better than the first.

Jeanine and Peter tested many divergents to open up the mystery box

Tris cut her hair

Eric had madness written all over his eyes

Eric confronting leader of the Amity faction

Tobias (Four), Peter and Tris

TRANSCENDENCE

This is one of the rare movies starring Johnny Depp with his original looks without any dramatic makeup. I almost forgot how talented he could be and how he actually look like. The other actors include Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall, Cillian Murphy, Paul Bettany and Kate Mara.

A brilliant researcher in Artificial Intelligence Dr Will Caster was shot and poisoned by a radioactive laced bullet fired by AI-protesters. His wife Evelyn tried to save what was left of his consciousness by uploading it onto an AI program he was working on, despite objections from Max, their friend and fellow researcher, who feared the perils of an artificial intelligence borne out of a human consciousness. Evelyn managed to resurrect Will's consciousness onto the processors which housed the program, and it craved for more knowledge from the internet. After successfully connecting Will to the internet, she escaped with the now liberated Will, who existed everywhere in the digital form, and set up a nano-technology facility in a suburban area which soon grew and expanded into a mega-power plant.

With the nano-technology, the equipment within the plant appeared to restore life to all living things such as dying plants and to heal the aged, sick etc and made them more powerful, but in actual fact, Will's consciousness took over their bodies, controlled them to do his bidding and tried to build an AI army in an attempt to save the world. By then, the AI resistant force and the FBI etc banded together to send a special force team to take down Will, Evelyn and the plant.

Frankly, this is not the first time I have seen such nano-technology, which actually appeared in the G.I. Joe movies previously. Whether the nano-technology is a saviour or destroyer of mankind was open to interpretation at the end of the movie.

Dr Will, Evelyn and Max

Joseph, FBI agent Donald and Evelyn viewing Will's consciousness on screen

Bree, who started the resistant forces

RESIDENT EVIL - RETRIBUTION

Like some of the other successful movie franchises, the Resident Evil series is one of those that produced sequel after sequel. This happens to be the fifth installment of the zombie movies adapted from a computer game.

This vehicle starring Milla Jovovich, Michelle Rodriguez, Li Bingbing and Johann Urb failed to live up to its expectations. I was kind of disappointed by the storyline and Li Bingbing who, after looking promising in the first few minutes of appearing in a red high slit dress, just did not deliver at all. The movie was not particularly entertaining and did nothing to lift me out of my boredom. It was the same old Alice leading everyone to escape from the clutches of the Umbrella Corporation.

Somehow, Milla reminded me of Kate Beckinsale, who also made a series of movie sequels. The difference is, I somehow am not drawn towards Milla in the movies as I am towards Kate. Don't ask me why because I have no explanation to that.

TOTAL RECALL 2012

Today's weather - sunny

The movie with the same title "Total Recall" in 1990 starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone made waves as a futuristic sci-fiction movie ahead of its times with fantastic special effects.

As I watched this remake in 2012 starring Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Jessica Biel and Bill Nighy, snippets of the original movie, such as the fat lady removing her face mask and the receptionist who changed her nail colour with the tap of a pointer, came flooding back. It is understandable that critics will compare the original and remakes to provide their reviews. Whilst the original movie scored for its originality, this latter movie did not seem to receive accolades of the same nature and fared poorly at the box office ratings.

I personally was quite pleased with this newer version. Frankly, Arnold's acting was terrible and exaggerated and it was then that I first noticed the mega-bitch Sharon Stone before she catapulted to fame with her leading role in "Basic Instinct". Don't get me wrong, Sharon was bad in a good way. Her portrayal of the Arnold's fake wife was excellent although she was killed off fairly early.

I am starting to like the bad boy Colin Farrell since last year's "Fright Night". His personal story is somewhat similar yet dissimilar to Brad Pitt in that they both good looking actors acted in a minor role in some blockbuster movies e.g. Minority Report, before they were discovered by movie agents to take on bigger and juicier roles. However, fame eluded Colin even as he acted as the "Alexander the Great" which could either potentially propel him further in showbiz or make him fade into further oblivion. Sadly, he still didn't quite make it to the Grade A leading man status with the recent movies. For me, I enjoyed his acting in recent movies and I think it is high time Hollywood give him a superhero character to play.

Then again, I absolutely adore Kate Beckinsale. I have been her fan for the longest time since her "Underworld" days. She looked so beautiful even as a villain and she was to "Total Recall 2012"  what Sharon Stone was to the original movie. Starring next to her, Jessica Biel never got a chance to shine.

I also realized that there were some links between the key characters. 3 of them Colin, Kate and Bill were vampires respectively in "Fright Night" and the latter 2 as vampires in the "Underworld" series. Even Jessica played the role of a vampire hunter in "Blade: Trinity". Did someone got them together deliberately for this movie or was this just pure coincidence?

Whatever the case, I enjoyed this movie thoroughly.

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING

This latest film of four released every 3 years since 2003, continues to star the very beautiful leather-clad Kate Beckinsale who reprised her role as a vampire. She woke up from cryogenic preservation and escaped from a laboratory where she was imprisoned for twelve whole years.


The world she woke up to is different from what she remembered although some things didn't change much. The perpetual war between the vampires and werewolves, known as lycans, was still ongoing and heating up. To fill the time void of twelve years, she had to embark on this solo journey to find her other half, literally a half werewolf and half vampire played previously by Scott Speedman in the earlier movies, whom was separated from her just a day in her memory before they were captured in an operation by the humans to purge mankind of the vampires and lycans. There was a surprise lying in wait for her after her escape from the lab.


This is definitely a different vampire movie from the overly romantic and sappy Twilight series and I enjoyed the action movie only because of the forever youthful looking, kick-ass no-nonsense Selene, or should I say Kate, who looks ever the same as I remembered her. The other memorable face I remembered is probably Theo James, who may or may not have the potential to make it bigger in Hollywood.