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

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

I waited 2 years for this Captain America sequel to be out. Starring Chris Evans (as Steve Rogers aka Captain America), Scarlett Johansson (as Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow), Samuel Jackson (as Nick Fury), Robert Redford (as Alexander Pierce), Sebastian Stan (as Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier), Anthony Mackie (as Sam Wilson aka Falcon), Frank Grillo (as Brock Rumlow), Cobie Smulders etc, this much anticipated 9th movie of the Marvel Comics cinematic universe was just alright for me.

What is interesting about the Avenger Marvel movies is that they all had embedded plots and characters that hinted at future movies and at the end of the movies, there were easter eggs that provided a glimpse of the movies to come.

In the movie, there was a conspiracy that sought to eliminate Nick Fury to bring down the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D.. Everything eventually led back to HYDRA, a terrorist organization, with its many secret agents such as Alexander Pierce, Brock Rumlow, and Winter Soldier, who was Steve Roger's buddy from his distant past. Who was Captain America supposed to trust when the agency he so trusted and worked with seemed to turn their back on him?

Stan Lee, as usual made a brief cameo as a security guard who lamented that he would lose his job when the Captain America suit in the museum he was guarding was stolen. Brock Rumlow, played by Frank Grillo whom I remembered from the TV series "The Gates", was carried away on a stretcher near the end of the movie. He was slated to play Crossbones, another villain, in the future movie.

Now back to the easter eggs. I saw only the first and left the cinema without knowing there was a second. In the first, it was intriguing to find the scepter that belonged to Loki from the Thor movies on display and the appearance of two new characters, imprisoned behind glass chambers. After some googling, it was revealed that they are Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, children of Magneto from the X-Men series. Well, the audience would have to wait for at least another year to be able to catch it on the screen. In the second segment that I missed, it was apparently about Bucky who found his way to the Captain America museum and saw a video or was it a photo of him and Steve Rogers together and memories of his past came flooding back.

Meanwhile, I can only look forward to the "Amazing Spider Man 2" and "X-Men: Days of Future Past" coming up soon.

In the real world, I don't think there are any superheroes. Otherwise, the plane MH370 and its passengers wouldn't have disappeared without a trace.

Captain America and Black Widow

Captain and Nicky Fury

Captain America and Falcon

Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes

the Winter Soldier

the evil Alexander Pierce and Captain America

Brock Rumlow who would be Crossbones in future sequels

Brock Rumlow

THOR: THE DARK WORLD

It was a while since the premier of the first Marvel movie on Thor. This is the second movie with the same cast Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Rene Russo and so on.

It follows the story of how Thor enlisted the help of his imprisoned half-brother Loki to combine their forces to fight the battle against the dark elf Malekith, who was woken up from a deep slumber in outer space by his secret weapon the Aether, whose sole purpose was to destroy the entire universe made up of the nine realms.

With his deep voice, Chris was as usual his hunky macho self as the Asgardian thunder god Thor who wielded the weapon Mjolnir. However, it was Tom who stole the thunder from him by putting up an excellent performance as his sneaky and untrustworthy brother Loki who stopped at nothing to betray his Asgardian race and heritage. There was a brief few seconds cameo by Stan Lee as a patient in a mental asylum and by Chris Evans as Captain America.

Overall, this movie didn't disappoint although I wasn't thrilled by the storyline or special effects. This could be attributed to the fact that I have watched too many such movies for it to have an impressionable impact on me. Anyway, I am so looking forward to the next Captain America movie which would premiere in April 2014.

IRON MAN 3

This is a post long due because I watched it at least 2 weeks back. This is another sequel and one of the parts of the Marvel Comics franchise, leading to the other upcoming movies such as Thor 2, Captain America 2, The Avengers etc.

I never used to like Robert Downey Jr. when he was acting in "Ally McBeal" because of his smug behaviour and substance abuse. But he has come clean for some time now and his character actually suits the character to a T. Similarly, I didn't use to like Gwyneth Palthrow but I am slowly having a change of heart towards her. She has been compared to Anne Hathaway in terms of their attraction of bad critics and reviews about them despite their very squeaky clean images and good behaviours. There is just something about them that you don't like even though they are so so nice.

Without giving the movie away, I think I enjoyed this more than "Iron Man 2". At the very, very end of the movie after all the credits is the easter egg sequence and viola the incredible hulk made a funny entrance. So he should be coming up soon, if not next. What a way for the producers to play with the minds of the movie-goers, making them anticipate the upcoming movies for at least a year or two.

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.

MAN ON A LEDGE

 Today's weather - sunny

After watching "Avatar", who doesn't know Sam Worthington? His latest movie "Man on a Ledge", stars Elizabeth Banks, Jamie Bell and Ed Harris etc.

Driven to desperation, a former police officer and now innocent fugitive Nick Cassidy on the run from the law decided to pick a crowded traffic junction in New York City to attempt suicide by jumping off a tall building. But things were not as simple as it seemed and cops were also involved in the crime.


The truth was, Nick didn't want to die. He staged this suicide attempt to draw media attention to his act, in a bid to clear his name, while his brother and girlfriend were across the street in a jewellery vault stealing a $40 million diamond, for the first time, from the businessman who framed him for stealing the diamond and landed him in jail for a crime he didn't commit. Well, the premise is if the diamond was reported as stolen, then he couldn't go to jail for stealing something that was supposedly missing.


It is not the blockbuster kind of movie and didn't pack in the crowds although I feel it is passable. At least I got to watch the trailer for the upcoming "Avengers" movie starring Captain America, Thor, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man and so on.

THOR

This movie is about Thor, the thunder god in Marvel Comics, who was banished to the realm of earth without his powers by his father, the King of Asgard. Starring the Australian actor Chris Hemsworth as the lead character Thor, Anthony Hopkins as King Odin and Natalie Portman as the astrologist Jane Foster who helped the powerless Thor overcome the odds to return to his heavenly realm, the movie boasts lots of special effects of the different realms.


Wielding the hammer weapon so befitting of the Thunder God, Chris displayed lots of charisma in the film and there were a few humorous scenes that elicited laughter from the audience. I shan't give the story away but at the end of the movie, there was the easter egg that hinted on the sequel or a related movie.


A link on this movie is attached below:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_(film)