MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

I watched this movie weeks ago and I seriously don't remember the Mel Gibson and Tina Turner version, so I couldn't do any comparison.

Starring Tom Hardy, whom I knew would go far after the 'Inception' movie and he did in 'The Dark Knight Rises', as well as Charlize Theron, this genre of movies of a post-apocalyptic world in a desert wasteland has little appeal on me. However, I like both leads as Max and Furiosa respectively, and was pleasantly surprised to see Nicholas Hoult, who was still strangely cute as the war boy Nux.

Furiosa drove five mistresses of the Immortan Joe to escape from the Citadel where they were held captive as breeders to produce offspring for the tyrant leader. With the aid of Max, Nux and few surviving members of her clan, they escaped further into the desert just to make a turn back to confront Joe and his legion of warriors, before defeating them and returning back to the Citadel.

If given better movie choices, I wouldn't pick to watch this movie though.

Max

Max held captive

a war born and raised boy Nux

who can resist the frowned expression of Nux?

Hugh Keays-Byrne as Immortan Joe

Zoe Kravitz (extreme left) seemed to be appearing in a number of recent movies

WARM BODIES

This is the second movie in a row that I just watched that is narrated by the protagonist. Starring Nicholas Hoult, who was recently seen in "Jack The Giant Slayer", and Teresa Palmer, it is a most unusual romantic zombie movie. The other stars include Robert Corddry and Dave Franco.

Thus far, all the zombies in movies are portrayed as the undead, living dead or simply dead people with no hope of ever recovering from the condition. On the other hand, this movie showed Nicholas as the zombie "R" who still retained some human consciousness but "lived" or wandered through the airport with nary a collection of his actual name or past.

His existence was as aimless and meaningless as any dead people. That was, until he met a living female in the form of Teresa as Julie, who remotely reminded me of Kristen Stewart. A group of youngsters, which included Julie, from an isolated group of remaining survivors hiding within the confines of a walled area in the city was out salvaging medical supplies and encountered the pack of zombies who attacked them. R killed Julie's boyfriend Perry, ate his brain and absorbed some of his thoughts and memories, further strengthening his attraction towards Julie. Perry was played by Dave Franco, who is James Franco's younger brother, and who reminded me of the Taiwanese eurasian actor Rhydian Vaughan. 

Therein begins the most unusual relationship between a living person and an undead, where R went all out to protect Julie from being harmed by other zombies and his strong attraction towards her brought on a reversion of his condition. His heart gradually started to beat, pumping blood that coursed through his body as he slowly reverted to being a living person once again as he escorted her back to her father who is the leader of the survivors. The attraction was contagious or infectious, and his zombie friend "M" too was converted together with many other zombies who witnessed R and Julie holding hands.

As with all movies, there are always the good and bad characters. In this light-hearted movie, the bad characters were in the form of skeletal zombies, who were at a more advanced stage of zombie infection and were really beyond reversion since they already peeled off their human skin. These zombies were more aggressive and actively attacked and ate the living with a vengeance. They detected the changes in the human zombies and actively pursued the pair of lovers in an attempt to prevent the infectious reversion of the human zombies back to the living. The outcome of the battle between the groups was rather predictable as good triumphed over evil.

Nicholas as the affable and charmingly likable zombie R played the character with much aplomb and such ease. The chemistry between R and Julie was also convincingly believable and the pair was quite a couple. If anyone wants a different ending to a zombie movie, this is definitely the movie not to be missed.

JACK THE GIANT SLAYER

Another movie adapted from a fairy tale, this movie got my attention when I noticed Nicholas Hoult as the male lead. I remember him as the young Beast from "X-Men - First Class". In addition, he is starring in another upcoming movie on zombies "Warm Bodies".

Nicholas isn't exactly the handsome male lead type but he is definitely likable with a great smile and have beautiful eyes as blue as the sea. It is always interesting to see how Hollywood interprets their materials, especially simple fairy tales like this. Fe-fy-fo-fam, I smelt a good storyline here and remember the story of Jack and the Beanstalk which would serve as the spine of this movie.

The other cast include one of my favourite actors Ewan McGreggor and Eleanor Tomlinson. I will not give the storyline away but I must admit just when I thought the movie had come to an end, the story unfolded further. It was like eating a cake just to find that there was another underlying layer. To me, this almost seemed like two stories rolled into one.

Having said that, I am looking forward to watch "Warm Bodies".