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

INTO THE WOODS

This is a Broadway musical adapted into a movie, so there were lots of singing and dancing other than the rather exaggerated acting.

This collection of fairy tales brought together a number of characters and told some of the familiar stories that all happened in the enchanted woods in a different way from what we know of.

Meryl Streep played the Witch for the first time in her movie career, James Corden and Emily Blunt were the Baker and his wife, Anna Kendrick was Cinderella, Chris Pine was Prince Charming, Johnny Depp was the Wolf, Lilla Crawford was Little Red Riding Hood and Daniel Huttlestone was Jack and MacKenzie Mauzy was Rapunzel.

Personally, I didn't enjoy this movie at all and found all the singing grating and non-catchy or -memorable although some of the humour was entertaining.  

Meryl Streep as the Witch

the Baker and his wife, who had a brief dalliance with Prince Charming

the Cinderella who professed to enjoy house cleaning

the Prince who was raised to be Charming not sincere

the same old Wolf

the Little Red Riding Hood

Jack and his beanstalks

Rapunzel

SEVENTH SON

I was thinking I should post about this today because I would be extremely tied up for the next two weeks.

Starring Ben Barnes as the titular character the seventh son of the seventh son Thomas Ward, Jeff Bridges as Gregory the Spook, one of my favourite actresses Julianne Moore as the evil witch and dragon Mother Malkin, Alicia Vikander as Alice, Kit Harington (lead actor of last year's movie Pompeii) with a brief role as the apprentice Billy Bradley and Olivia Williams as Tom's mother Mam who is a good witch, the simple storyline was a letdown to me.

Thomas, the son of a good witch and human, was sort of destined to be an apprentice to help the supernatural master the Spook to kill a dark witch, who was once Gregory's ex-lover. What is a movie like this without a love relationship, hence the character Alice, who was the daughter of another witch and human, and Thomas fell in love with each other. Anyway, that was besides the point and I hardly think it was a pivotal part of the movie.

Interestingly, Kit Harington had a small part to play at the beginning of the movie and died shortly after being killed by the dragon. This was another recent movie of Julianne Moore's but I wasn't quite impressed with her character and role. Ben Barnes was just there to look good. I did find Mam quite an interesting character though.

Anyway, I don't think this is excellent box office material, which kind of explains why it wasn't released in December 14 with the bigger blockbusters.

Billy ensnared by the dragon's tail.

the witch in human form

Thomas and Gregory

Alice and Thomas

Mam who sacrificed herself to save the village

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES

You know how long I have neglected this blog when the last post is about 3 weeks ago. I watched this movie a couple of weeks ago but had no time to post about it.

Following the success of and end to the Twilight franchise, Hollywood produced an entirely new movie series with the hope to replicate the success story  of the former. This time round, the movie is not about vampires but focuses on witches instead.

Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Alice Englert as the newly paired lovers, Jeremy Irons, Emma Thompson and Viola Davis as the supporting cast, this movie tells the tale of how a newcomer Lena in town was shunned by all others but found love in her classmate Ethan. Touted as the most powerful witch in her family, her true nature will be revealed on her 16th birthday where she will either join the light or dark forces. Before that happens, opposing members of her family were trying their best to convince her to be on their sides.

Judging from the crowd, or rather lack of, at the cinema, I don't think the movie is doing too well. Alden first came across as being whinny when he opened his mouth but eventually was kind of charming. Alice wasn't charismatic and I failed to understand the deep attraction that Ethan had for Lena. Their pairing was rather weird and unconvincing to me, unlike the made-in-heaven Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart pairing. And I felt Emma Thompson's portrayal of the possessed Sarafine seemed too much over the top to me.

I can't wait to see how the subsequent installments will do at the box office.

HANSEL AND GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS

I watched this movie a few weeks back and this is yet one of those movies adapted from a fairy tale. It stars Jeremy Renner, the sorely missed Gemma Arterton and Famke Janssen, and tells the tale of two children who escaped from the claws of a witch who lived in a candy house as kids to grow up as witch hunters.

Little did they know that they weren't really abandoned by their parents when they were kids. This was far from the truth. Instead, their mother was a powerful good white witch who refused to use her powers to harm the villagers who hanged her husband to death and burnt her to death. She sent the children away in a bid to protect them from being persecuted. In their hunt to exterminate an entire group of dark witches, the adult siblings chanced upon the truth about their parentage.

After Hansel lost his new found love in another good white witch in the battle with the dark witches, they managed to eradicate all of them and continue to live on as witch hunters.

DARK SHADOWS

I have nothing against him but I am officially sick of Johnny Depp's antics. Whilst he breathed life and comedic acting to some of the characters he played, I just find the recent roles and his acting so lame and non-funny anymore.


This unusual movie is about vampires and witches but it is not the typical type of movies on this genre. I am unimpressed, so I am not even going to attempt to write anything meaningful about it other than it has a huge cast comprising Johnny Depp, Michelle Pfeiffer, Helena Boham Carter, Johnny Lee Miller, Eva Green, Chloe Grace Moretz.


Michelle Pfeiffer was quite funny though and after the movie "Let the Right One In", this is the second movie I watched that stars Chloe Grace Moretz and I still find her refreshingly interesting.

THE GATES

Is it just me who enjoyed this tv series 'The Gates'? The series ended its run on our tv recently and I am sad that there would not be season 2 of it due to poor ratings.


Starring a cast of unknowns, or at least I do not know them except Rhona Mitra whom I recall from the former tv series 'The Practice', the plot tells of a community of residents who seek refuge within the safety of a walled up place inside the gates. However, all is not what it seems on the surface. A cop with a dark past and his family moved to this place to start life afresh just to discover to their horror that this place has a deep dark secret far worse than the crimes that occur outside the gates.


Unknown to the outside world, clans of vampires, werewolves, witches and succubus etc reside and exist in conflict and harmony with each other until an incident occurred that threatened to disrupt the peace and quiet of this entire community. Once they are in, it is impossible to get out.


It may be too much to digest having so many different characters in a show but I actually enjoy it very much. How often do we get a series with vampires, werewolves etc all rolled into one? See if you can tell which character each of the following actor and actress plays in the show.