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

YOUNG DETECTIVE DEE: RISE OF THE SEA DRAGON (狄仁杰之神都龙王)

This is a prequel to the earlier Detective Dee (狄仁杰) movie starring Andy Lau and Carina Lau. I read that it did very well at the box office in China.

In this movie on the younger Detective Dee directed by the famous Tsui Hark, the stars appear to be a slew of young male actors, instead of the female actresses. The three male leads Mark Zhao (赵又廷) from Taiwan as Detective Dee, Feng Shaofeng (冯绍峰) and Lin Genxing (林更新, better known as the fourteenth prince in the China TV production "步步惊心") from China helmed the movie together with the pan-asian looking Yang Ying (杨颖, better known as Angelababy) from China, Carina Lau (刘嘉玲) from Hong Kong and Kim Bum (金汎) from Korea.

I read in the chinese newspapers recently that Tsui Hark made a joke that the pay that Andy Lau commands is more than the pay of the three male leads added together and is enough to create the special effects of the sea dragon. It was notable that amongst the thespians, Carina Lau continued to enjoy the meaty role of playing the Empress Wu Zetian after acting the same role in the earlier movie. Never mind her humongous and outrageous headdress or crown, she still commanded a lot of respect and attention as a serious and formidable force to be reckoned with. 

The young Detective Dee first arrived in the Imperial Capital of Luoyang and soon found himself embroiled in a plot that involved extermination of the entire imperial family and officials. I will not give the story away but I definitely enjoyed the movie for its great martial arts action sequences and special effects. The cast was great and there was a lot of eye candy in the form of the actors themselves.

As I was watching the movie, I was thankful that such movies still exist today. In the light of modern technology and the space age, there are a lot of movies out there on aliens, superheroes etc and only China, Hong Kong and Taiwan make such period dramas. I wonder if a decade or two later, would we still be able to see such movies anymore? I certainly hope so because I have always been a fan of such and hope I don't have to wait too long to see the next sequel.

Mark Chao, Feng Shaofeng and Lin Genxing

Feng Shaofeng, unknown cast, Mark Chao and Lin Genxing

Mark Chao and Lin Genxing

Angelababy and Mark Chao

Carina Lau

Angelababy

Angelababy and Kim Bum

Kim Bum

TED

This was the next comedy that I watched. A movie with a soft toy usually appeals to a lot of people but not to me. Alright, I am starting to sound like a drone going on and on about the same thing.

I am not sure if I should classify this as an adult fairy tale? Starring Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis, it is a story about a boy who had no friends and made a wish on Christmas Eve to have a teddy bear that would be friends with him for life. His wish was somehow granted and the teddy bear, hence the name Ted, grew up with him into his adult years. They remained inseparable to the extent that it affected his relationship with a girl.

To me, the pot-smoking and womanizing teddy bear was hardly appealing. It was vulgar instead. Having said that, I was definitely more entertained by this movie than the previous one. 

The only truly funny moment for me was the few seconds cameo by Ryan Reynolds, in two scenes, who put up an amazing performance as one half of a gay couple. This man has real comic timing, as evident by the few comedies I watched with him in it. His early days in a TV comedic sitcom must have helped him tremendously.

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS & THE AVENGERS

Today's weather - sunny

I was hesitating whether to review the 2 movies I watched in a single post or I should split them but eventually decided to put them together in this very long post. We are getting an overdose of Chris Hemsworth but I am not really complaining. He appeared in the movies "The Cabin in the Woods", "The Avengers" and soon we will be seeing him again in "Snow White and the Huntsman" but that is going to be another subsequent post.


I must say I was very glad I didn't read any reviews on the movie "The Cabin in the Woods" before catching the movie. My sole intention was actually to watch Chris Hemsworth in both movies and make a comparison between the two. Coincidentally, both movies were produced by Joss Whedon, who produced one of my earlier favourite TV series "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Alyson Hannigan and so on.


Back to the movie review, little did I know this former movie was packed with a lot of surprises, albeit in a good way. Frankly, there are a lot of violence and gore which would not go down well with some, if not most, viewers. But the movie wasn't anything it seemed to be and panned out differently from what I expected. It started with two technicians in an unknown facility chatting away about their work to a group of college students going on a trip to a cabin in the woods. At first, I couldn't see the connection at all.


Then from the moment where I was enjoying an eagle soaring across the picturesque view of the forest to suddenly seeing it smashed into an invisible field before vaporizing into thin air and discovering a painting in the cabin revealed a one-sided mirror made me sat up. What appeared to be a slasher movie turned into a reality tv setting where everything and anything the students did were monitored by hidden cameras in the operative room occupied by the technicians. The surrounding settings and their actions were all manipulated by the technicians e.g. brightening up part of the forest, releasing pheremones into the air, to steer them towards a very certain outcome of death. It reminded me slightly of "The Hunger Games".


The technicians and all the staff in the secret facility made bets on the victims and had deadpan expressions, which hinted that they were all too familiar and desensitized with the process and outcome, when one student after another were killed by undead zombies that rose from the graves. It was confusing once again when I couldn't relate the reality tv part to the night creatures but it was apparent that the five were doomed to die to satisfy an unknown audience, which I initially thought to be the filthy rich strata of a decaying society. When Chris rode on a motorbike to try and cross the ravine in an attempt to seek rescue, I knew his fate would be the same as that of the eagle. When everyone in the facility were celebrating an unknown victory as the last victim and lead character Dana, played by Kristen Connolly, was shown on the multiple tv screens as being strangled and thrown around by the undead, I knew these people were already devoid of sympathy and emotions.


A phone call later created more chaos as the technicians realized with horror that things did not turn out the way it was supposed to and rushed to set things in motion to salvage the situation. The two survivors escaped death and managed to unknowingly sneak into the facility, which was all along in the vicinity, to finally learn the whole truth. What seemed like a crazy reality tv programme morphed further as an entire slew of horrors e.g. giant monsters, werewolves, vampires, ghosts, serial killers, were unleashed from transparent cuboidal trapped cages to kill anything and everything they encounter in the facility.


That was when Sigourney Weaver made a guest appearance as the Director of the facility to explain to the two victims that all the setup was part of an annual ritual to sacrifice 5 pre-selected young people to the ancient ones who were far more terrifying than those unleashed, known as giant evil gods, to appease them so that they would not destroy the entire world. Of course Sigourney was not successful and the two fought to the end, when the hand of the god of destruction rose from the ground to decimate whatever beings that remained. This last lava giant arm that reminded me of "Clash of the Titans" marked the end of this movie.


So I must admit that I enjoyed this B-grade movie was beyond my expectations and I give it credit for its originality and creativity. The storyline definitely wasn't as predictable as most of the movies out there and it was totally a typical Joss Whedon production from the Buffy series. Well, I believe there must be something that Chris Hemsworth saw in the script that made him accept the role. How entertaining and how much fun I had watching this movie.


Now, regarding the other blockbuster movie "The Avengers" based on the Marvel comics and starring Samuel Jackson, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johanson, which was coincidentally produced by Joss Whedon too, there is nothing much I am going to write about it. It was a superheroes movie that appealed to the general masses. The combined allure and forces of superheroes i.e. Hawkeye, Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, were too much for anyone to resist. I am sure if they were to make a movie on the Justice League, the outcome would be similar. For me, although the movie was entertaining, it was every bit as predictable as I thought it would be and nothing was out of line. The success of the individual movies on the different superheroes i.e. Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, definitely helped incite the viewers' interest to catch this movie that unites them all. What is better than a superhero movie other than a 5-superheroes movie right? Anyway, no clues for guessing who are my favourite superheroes in this movie. It was such a pleasant surprise to see Cobie Smulders, who was the tv reporter Robin in the tv comedy series "How I Met Your Mother", play a rather prominent role in this movie.


With that, I shall end this extremely long-winded post.

THE LOVELY BONES

I wanted to write about this movie that I watched on the plane to Australia but forgot completely about it until today.

This beautiful but sad movie featured a star-studded cast including Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz as the parents, Susan Sarandon as the grandma, Stanley Tucci as the rapist and Saoirse Ronan as the young girl.

Saoirse was Susie Salmon, the 17-yo girl who was reported missing on her way home. Mark and Rachel were her parents Jack and Abigail. Stanley was the freakish paedophile neighbour George who preyed on young girls.

Their acting was absolutely superb. The anguish, despair, desperation etc felt by Abigail was painful to watch. Jack's never give up attitude to find his missing daughter was admirable. George was indescribably scary in his portrayal of the scheming and elusive rapist. And Susie was just so pure and beautiful and her acting was credible. At just 16 yo in real life, I remember seeing her in the movie 'City of Ember' in 2008. She was younger then and is so much prettier and mature now.

Anyway, the story was set in 1973 in Pennyslvannia, a suburb of Philadelphia, when Susie took a shortcut home from school across a corn field and was never seen again. It was later revealed that she was likely raped and murdered when her hat and dismembered elbow was found by the local authorities.

This movie was unusual in that it explored the afterlife and depicted Susie's soul watching the events unfolded and how her family coped with her disappearance. In fact, she was the character that narrated the story throughout the movie. She was not in heaven because of what happened to her. Instead, she was trapped in purgatory for what seemed like eternity. The purgatory was like a fictional place that is left to the imagination with out of this world scenery. It was here where she met the other victims of George, who like her, were trapped in this state.

Anyway, unable to reconcile with her death and loss, her mom Abigail left Jack because it was too painful to live in the house. Jack, on the other hand, relentlessly carried out his own investigations when the police found no clues to her whereabouts. He never gave up and found his neighbour George to be a suspicious character, after the latter was found stalking Susie's young sister. His confrontation with George was futile and allowed him to escape, but not before disposing of the safe in a very deep excavated common refuse dump in the ground, used by all the townsfolk.

George stalked his potential victims, then hatched different ploys to lure the young girls to his lair, which he created from his own sketches, where he raped, murdered and dismembered their bodies before disposing of their bodies. He constructed an underground hideout in a field, with toys etc to lure Susie in, and once inside she knew she could not escape his clutches. He kept her remains in a locked safe in the basement of his house, where he would frequently sit on a chair looking at the safe and reminisced and enjoyed his memories of what he did to Susie. After he returned to Pennsylvannia years later, he tried to chat up another young girl, who rebuffed his advances. Minutes later, he lost his footing by accident and fell down a ravine to his death. From the audience's perspective, that was the best revenge exacted on the serial killer.

To me, there wasn't any closure to Susie's death, because no one ever found her remains or knew what happened to her in 1973. The only person who knew everything was the killer who took everything with him when he died a horrendous death.

The movie ended with Susie's narrative voice whispering "I wish you all a long and happy life." after her young sister gave birth to a newborn girl and a man who found her charm bracelet.