CINDERELLA

This is the latest fairy tale that came to the big screen.

Starring Lily James as Cinderella (Ella), Cate Blanchett as the wicked Stepmother (Lady Tremaine), Richard Madden as Prince Charming (Kit) and Helena Bonham Carter as the Fairy Godmother. This 2 hours long movie followed true to the storyline, unlike the many such as "Into the Woods" which were screened of late.

To me, the best part of the movie wasn't the romance between Prince Kit and Ella, which was saccharine sweet, but the fantastic portrayal by Cate as the stepmother. She proved to be my screen goddess once again. Every role she steps into, she does it so naturally and convincingly. In this movie, she was every bit the much hated and wicked Stepmother everybody will grow to loathe.

Oh, I am beginning to see a trend in society where every young girl wants to become a princess. Who would eventually emerge as the real princess(es) where courage and kindness triumph all the hardships?

Ella's first encounter with Kit, the "apprentice"

Cinderella going to the ball in her pumpkin carriage

Helena Bonham Carter as the strange Fairy Godmother

Lady Tremaine and her two loathsome and shallow daughters

if only looks could kill, Cinderella would definitely be dead

a side profile of the two leads

Nonso as the Prince's aide

THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES

The last of "The Hobbit" series, this movie directed by Peter Jackson stars Martin Freeman as Bilbo the Hobbit, Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey, Richard Armitage as King Thorin Oakenshield, Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman, Cate Blanchett as Galadriel the royal elf, Christopher Lee as Saruman the White, Orlando Bloom as Legolas Greenleaf, Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel, Dean O' Gorman as Fili, Aidan Turner as Kili and many others.

It took off where it ended last December with Smaug the dragon which was awoken from his slumber and wreaked havoc on Laketown. Bard, who eventually killed Smaug with the black arrow, led the survivors to the Lonely Mountain, as news of the death of Smaug spread to the rest of Middle Earth. Meanwhile at Dol Guldur, an imprisoned Gandalf was rescued by Galadriel, which brought on a brief battle between Sauron aided by his Ringwraiths and Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman. A corrupted Galadriel managed to cast Sauron and the Ringwraiths from the fortress before collapsing.

Back at Erebor, tension mounted among Thorin and his dwarves as he was afflicted by Smaug's dragon sickness to find the Arkenstone. He ended up distrusting Bilbo and his dwarves and refused Bard's negotiation for peace. A battle was ensuing between Thorin and his dwarves, Thranduil and his army of Elves and Bard and the townsfolk before two other armies comprising Thorin's cousin Dain who led another dwarf army and Azog the defiler and his Orc army all converged together to fight the titular battle. The dwarf brothers Fili and Kili were unfortunately killed by Azog's son and Orc chieftain Bolg during battle. Legolas slayed Bolg to rescue a grieving Tauriel who had a relationship with Kili just as Azog and Thorin killed each other, but not before Thorin mended his relationship with Bilbo before his death.

Peace was restored after the Orc army was defeated and Bilbo, still in possession of the ring, left the dwarves to return home and Legolas took Thranduil's advice and departed in search of the Dunedain Ranger. The movie ended with a 111 years old Bilbo sixty years later, who was reminiscing his past adventures in his abode, receiving a visit from his old friend Gandalf. That marked the start of the other movie series "The Lord of the Rings" that preceded "The Hobbit".

I read that some audiences were disappointed with this movie but I wasn't. I did find it kind of entertaining, I must admit.

Smaug destroying Laketown

the menacing Smaug

Galadriel after rescuing Gandalf

Gandalf and Bard the Bowman

Bard face-to-face with the Elven army

the ensuing battle of the dwarfs, elves and Laketown's folks

Kili

the dwarf contingent

Bilbo and Thorin

Legolas and Tauriel

Azog, leader of the Orcs

THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG

The story continues where it left off a year ago in the "An Unexpected Journey". Directed by Peter Jackson, the ending to the trilogy should be shown by end of 2014 to complete J.R.R. Tolkien's novel on the adventures of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins as a prelude to "The Lord of the Rings" novels.

Starring Ian McKellen as the white wizard Gandalf, Martin Freeman as Bilbo, Richard Armitage as the dwarf King Thorin, Orlando Bloom as the Woodland elf Prince Legolas, Evangeline Lilly as the female Woodland elf warrior Tauriel, Luke Evans as Bard the Bowman, Aidan Turner as the dwarf Kili and so on, this is one movie not to be missed if you caught the first installment and crave some a continuation of adventures through the enchanted forests.

There is also the English-speaking dragon Smaug which seemed kind of strange and out of place to me. Well, the story is long so I won't attempt to write about it. One thing to note though was Tauriel's character and the budding romance between her and the elf Kili were never in the books and were created in this story to introduce a female character to the male dominated story.

Bilbo

Thorin

Bard and Legolas

Tauriel

King of wood elves Thranduil

Kili

Smaug the fire breathing dragon

THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

This is another trilogy that precedes "The Lord of the Rings". Starring Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Richard Armitage, Cate Blanchett, Andy Serkis etc, it tells the story of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins, at a time before chaos and darkness set upon the Middle Earth.

The wizard Gandalf tricked Bilbo to go on an adventurous journey to help a remaining team of thirteen dwarves, who were from a prosperous kingdom of dwarves from the Lonely Mountain until Smaug the dragon stole their treasure and drove them out and indirectly caused the downfall of the kingdom of dwarves after a battle with the Orcs. Along the journey, they encountered stone giants, goblins, elves, Gollum and met the white council comprising Lord Elrond, Galadriel and Saruman.

As expected, Cate Blanchett was so mysteriously and charmingly beautiful as the mightiest and fairest royal elf from Middle Earth. Andy Serkis had a much larger part as the Gollum in this movie, compared to the earlier "Lord of the Rings". I don't know which part of Gollum's face is real and which is fake but I must say Andy Serkis was brilliant as before as the ghoulish and emaciated creature who was once a hobbit until he was corrupted by the infamous ring. In real life, Richard Armitage is not a dwarf but as the courageous King of the dwarves, he has a charismatic and commanding presence.

It was a long draggy movie but in order to watch the entire trilogy, I guess it is essential to endure this unexpectedly arduous journey of ups and downs.

THE LIFE OF PI

This much raved about movie is not the usual movie that one would read about or watch. Based on a novel of the same title, this movie was directed by the famous Lee Ang.

It is only after watching it that one realizes how strange or unique the story is about. It tells the tale of a middle aged man recounting his story to a writer about an indian boy's adventures after being stranded at sea when the ship his whole family were on shipwrecked in a thunderstorm. I didn't read the novel so everything I saw was first hand and I couldn't compare how true to the novel the movie was.

The boy was named after a swimming pool in France and shortened his name to Pi to avoid being ridiculed by his classmates. His family opened a zoo and he lived in the company of all the interesting and even strange animals, including a Bengal tiger named "Richard Parker". That is, until one fine day when his father announced that the family will be moving to Canada, where he intended to sell away the zoo animals, to seek out a better future. Pi was a strange boy, much unlike any other. He was raised as a Hindu, discovered and embraced Christianity followed by Islam and felt that everything that happened to him were signs from God himself.

Unfortunately, the thunderstorm took everything and he was the only human survivor aboard a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orang utan and the untamed Richard Parker. That was when the adventure for the 16 year old began when after the hyena killed the zebra and orang utan, Richard Parker pounced onto and killed the hyena and he had to fend himself against the increasingly hungry tiger. He resorted to all sorts of methods to hunt and stay alive, to feed himself and the tiger. The constant need to be alert to prevent Richard Parker from eating him was the only motivation that kept him alive although he managed to somewhat tame Richard Parker.

From there on, all the mysterious and sinister things happened. From the luminous thousands of jellyfishes in the ocean, to the giant glowing whale that fed and leapt out of the water, to the thousands of deep sea creatures, to the thousands of flying fishes gliding through the air, to the floating island with thousands of meerkats, the images sent chills down my spine. I have never been fond of the deep dark ocean and vowed never to die or to have my ashes scattered at sea. When I take flights, I am more worried of the plane crashing into the ocean than of the plane crash itself. I cannot imagine myself lying for eternity at the bottom of the ocean where light doesn't reach and where weird and ugly creatures are the only company I may have. I know I would be dead by then but I feel my soul would never be at peace if it does happen. Then, there were the strange, black hollow-eyed and sinister-looking meerkats staring at Pi. They may look cute but their collective gaze is more unsettling than anything.

Eventually, Pi and the tiger reached the coast of Mexico after more than 200 days at sea. What upset and disappointed Pi most before he lost consciousness was when he saw Richard Parker gazing at the forest before him and disappeared into it without turning back to glance at him one last time. At the present time, Pi was married and left the writer with his amazing tale of god's will and his adventures.

Lee Ang was fantastic in the story telling, entranced me with the many CGI computer effects and evoked my deepest and darkest irrational fear of the unknown. Even monster, alien and ghost movies don't do that to me anymore but this movie did. That was as sinister as it could get for me. I was both amazed and deeply disturbed at the same time.

THE DINOSAUR PROJECT

The British movie starring Richard Dillane started with the screening of unseen video footage of a missing team of British Crytozoological Society explorers, cameramen and a local guide who went on an expedition to the Congo to investigate the sighting of a creature similar to the legendary Loch Ness monster. Following the discovery of this, a second rescue team was sent to unravel the mystery of what happened to the first team of explorers.

Most of the movie was shown through the video camera of Luke, who is the son of the leader Johnathan of the first explorer team and who secretly sneaked onto the helicopter carrying the crew. Needless to say, deep in the african jungle existed prehistoric creatures e.g. pterosaur, never before seen or documented by man. Through the shaky video footage, we saw how the team encountered predatory creatures which picked on the team one by one until a sole survivor remained. I will not give way the identity of this survivor here.

The movie ended with the discovery of the whereabouts of the survivor. None of the faces were familiar to me but I think this movie is kind of entertaining although it is not made out to be a blockbuster.