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

THE LEGEND OF HERCULES

I was a fan of Kellan Lutz since The Twilight saga movies and I still am. However, I was quite sure his movie "The Legend of Hercules" would not propel him to the same league as Robert Pattinson and true enough, this movie wasn't a hit and I think it fared poorly at the box office.

Starring Kellan Lutz as Alcides, otherwise known as Hercules, Gaia Weiss, Scott Adkins and so on, the story was slightly different from the ones that I know of. Kellan often played minor forgettable roles in other movies such as "The Twilight" saga, "Immortals" and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and this is one of few movies where he played the lead role. Sadly, with his bulky built-up body with ripped muscles, he wasn't charismatic enough and wasn't able to draw the audience with his acting. I can't explain why but I guess it is one of those either you can make it or you don't scenarios.

On a personal level, I didn't think the movie was bad and I did enjoy it although if one was comparing it to the Twilight saga, then it wouldn't be good enough.

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.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 2

This is the finale of the Twilight romantic fantasy movie series that premiered in the year 2008, gave vampire movies a new twist and made household names out of the 3 young leads Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner.

This last installment finally saw Bella transformed into a powerful vampire with amazing abilities. It also spawned the child of Bella and Edward, Renesmee who is a half human and half immortal. The movie has a strong cast comprising MacKenzie Foy, Ashley Greene, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning, Kellan Lutz and Maggie Grace, amongst many others.

I am not a good storyteller and do not know how to embellish a tale, but I was really happy with how the story panned out and the ending. Frankly, there are many things about this finale that I love.

For a start, I love how they alternated the colours red and white at the beginning of the movie to introduce the production crew and ended the movie by showing the entire cast from the first movie until the last. I think it is unprecedented and although I couldn't remember all the characters but it was a good way to wrap up the saga after 5 years.

Then, I love the beginning part of the movie where they showed fantastic views of the beautiful forest conifers and animals when Bella displayed her newfound abilities to hunt. Once again, it was as if I was looking at an enchanted forest with mystical creatures. I was already sold after watching this initial but brief introduction before the story unfolded its dark side. 

The showdown between the vampires, werewolves and Volturi on the snow-covered open field was the climax and I was shocked and saddened by the sudden and quick deaths of the Carlisle Cullen and Jasper, during the brutal battle, who appeared and played important roles in the Cullen family from the first movie until now. Their deaths enraged the Cullen family and their vampire friends and gave them strength to fight and hold their own against the powerful and corrupted royalty Aro, Jane, Alec and others of the Volturi coven, whose demise was both sweet and uplifting for those who rooted for the Cullens. 

The battle ended brilliantly, and gave a well-deserved ending to this epic tale of vampires and werewolves. Of all the movies in this series as shown below, this is my personal favourite.

• Twilight (2008)
• The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)
• The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 1 (2011)
• The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 2 (2012)

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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.

SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS

I didn't watch the first Sherlock Holmes at the movies because I don't like Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law although I vaguely remember watching it on TV, I think. In fact, I have never like both actors.

Anyway, I went to watch the above recently and it was exactly what I expected it to be. Directed by Guy Ritchie, this recent series on the famous detective gave it a completely different twist from the books. Whilst the Sherlock Holmes I read about and remember is a prim, proper and decent detective from Scotland Yard, this one here is an unorthodox, flippant, outrageous and I would say, mad, detective with the ability to Sherlock Holmes is alive, he would flip in his grave, figuratively speaking.


Then again, this is also the success formula for these two action-packed movies, I think. I must admit Robert Downey Jr. played this character very well. His intelligence, sense of humour and humanity is without a doubt what make this character very charismatic and well-received. And when there is Sherlock Holmes, there will always be the more down to earth Dr Watson, played by Jude Law, who really played second fiddle in the two movies. Rachel McAdams had a small part to play and was killed off within minutes into the show.


Like the first movie, the movie was quite long at more than two hours but one would not be too pre-occupied with it because of the fast pace. I may not dislike this movie but then again, it would never make it to my list of favourite movies either.

NEW YEAR'S EVE

 Today's weather - sunny

This movie has a strong star-studded cast including (not in alphabetical or appearance order) Halle Berry, Ashton Kutcher, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Katherine Heigl, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Hilary Swank, Josh Duhamel, Robert De Niro, Lea Michele, Zac Efron, Alyssa Milano and Ryan Seacrest, amongst others.


I love this feel good, light-hearted, romantic comedy following last year's "Valentine's Day", which I sorely missed,which is rolled out at this time of the year to capitalize on the festive occasion of Christmas and New Year's Day. Basically, it kind of trails the events for these characters as time approaches the ball drop countdown event at New York City's Times Square. I guess the message is regardless of how bad the past, or rather current, year is, we should forego the unpleasant events and things that we cannot change but should instead appreciate the good things that happened and look forward for a better upcoming year. We all live in hope.


I particularly like the public speech, shown below, made by Hilary Swank's character Claire Morgan, Vice-President of Times Squares Alliance, when there was a technical glitch during the ball drop event. How splendid and awe-inspiring!

"It's suspended there to remind us before we pop the champagne and celebrate the new year, to stop and reflect on the year that has gone by. To remember both our triumphs and our missteps, our promises made and broken. The times we opened ourselves up to great adventures or closed ourselves down for fear of getting hurt coz that is what new year is all about - getting another chance. A chance to forgive, to do better, to do more, to give more, to love more. And stop worrying about what if and start embracing what would be. So when that ball drops at midnight and it will drop, let's remember to be nice to each other, kind to each other. And not just tonight but all year long."