Lucy (2014)

Luc Besson, best know for his works Léon: The Professional (1994) & The Fifth Element (1997) had gone on the record that he has another sci-fi movie in his mind that is so big and mind blowing, that it will blow The Fifth Elements out of the water!!!

And ladies, and gentlemen, I believe he meant, this movie Lucy (2014).

Allow an old uncle to elaborate, the oldest "human" fossil discovered by anthropologist to date is an almost complete skeleton of an upright female ape, which scientist believe is our ancestor. This skeleton is named Lucy.

Does, this have anything to do with this movie? In a roundabout way yes. I might elaborate more on this. Keyword being, might.

Luc Besson likes his woman leads..., lacking a better term, butch. He likes them so much so that he married Milla Jovovich, and put her in two of his movies, namely, The Fifth Element (1997) and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999).

So, with the title in mind, Scarlett Johansson heads this Action/Sci-Fi, as Lucy.

From a concept point of view, this movie is a little "non-hollywood".

Alot of inspiration is drawn from Asian cinema, namely Chan-wook Park's work, Oldboy!!?!

So inspired in fact, he got Min-sik Choi to be the BIG BAD in this movie!!

Movies starts out well enough.

Min-sik Choi can play a real S.O.B.!!

Things progress along and Morgan Freeman is introduced, where is narrates the plot of the movie.

And we then get the very weird incarceration scene of Scarlett Johansson and then the action starts!!

Somewhere in that, something happened, I really do not root for Scarlett Johansson character and the movie not longer have me hook line and sinker...

Then the worst thing happened
This movie with a little twigging would have be a GREAT movie, and I am not sure if no one around Luc Besson pointed that out to him, and it is a shame, because this movie is actually very well product and has amazing production quality.

Don't get me wrong, you will be entertained.

I just don't know if it would remain memorable, a shame really.

My Two Sen

This post has been edited by Mov_freak: Sep 1 2014, 11:24 PM

Sex Drive (2008) - So crazy and funny.
42 (2013) - very good movie, you should watch it..
Notebook (2004) - Too good, can't stop .... so touching, it a classic love story... beautiful...
Trouble with the Curve (2012) - It kind of slow it the beginning, later on the title of the this movie slowly emerge..

This post has been edited by Mickey C: Sep 1 2014, 05:24 PM

As Above So Below

Ah, the typical shaky cam horror flick.

Do yourself a favor and dont go watch this movie. The pacing is horrible, the acting is weird, the plot is bland, the scares r little.

1/5

Life of Crime – This is not a prequel to Jackie Brown

Some argue “Jackie Brown” was Tarantino best movie, personally I just dug “Reservoir Dogs” a little better. Nevertheless if someone gonna do another adaptation of Elmore Leonard’s tale of Ordell and Louis, it’s worth a look. It’s best to view the movie as standalone without treating it as a prequel to Jackie Brown. No matter how you cut it, it’s vastly a much smaller movie to Quentin’s film in terms of scope. Or the source material being the first novel about the criminal partnership that has yet to progress to what they are in “Jackie Brown”. Overall the movie takes the middle-ground between best movies based on the author’s work like “Out of Sight” and the heavily Hollywood processed “Get Shorty” and “Be Cool”. Occasionally you get one or two chuckles from the colorful characters, but somehow it did not manage to be more compelling. Tim Robbin is the douchey husband to an unhappy wife portrayed by Anniston, while Mos Def and John Hawkes cook a simple kidnapping scheme. Then the twist and turn comes to play in Leonard-esque fashion.
It’s an ok watch, but nothing memorable about it.

No Tears For The Dead - Hmmm....not quite the next "The Man From Nowhere"

One of the biggest problems with Korean action flicks will always one step away from greatness. Usually they got the action and production quality right, but falter badly on plotline. Herald as the most anticipated movie to come from the director of "The Man From Nowhere", the story does reminded me of the classic Tsui Hark's "Time and Tide". Reluctant ace hitman goes against his gang to save an innocent victim route. The action sequences are above what Hollywood can muster. Only wish the director did not attempt to inject convoluted plots as profound storytelling.
Engaging watch for gun carnage but will be forgotten tomorrow because of dull story.

i so going 2 watch this

The Face Reader -2013's korean box office champ

A pretty awesome periodic movie led by the always reliable Song Kang Ho. It does bring me back to those Tsui Hark’s yesteryears hits like Peking Opera Blue etc.… where small character being put into a larger story context with each bits of events building up to a bigger story it wanted to tell. A sorta underdog story of a country bum who got himself embroiled into a deadly “Korean” game of thrones. There are fair bit of charming chuckles from the likable face reader who gets courted to provide his special skill in the government. As charming and capable he is, unbeknownst to him, he is just a pawn in the grander scheme of power plays between players eyeing the throne. The first hour has fantastic build up where all the colourful characters coming into pictures. Although the second half is rather predictable and a little serious, you are already invested in the ensemble cast to see how events play out. A pretty well oiled film where each cast were given enough screen time to showcase the ability. The evil prince and mamasan were the standout for me as Song Kang Ho does his usual awesome performance.

Into the Storm (2014)

I am not sure if many people here remember the movie, Twister (1996), I do and I like that movie very much.

Saw the trailers to this and thought, looks like Twister on Steroids and and decided to give it a try.

Good news and bad news.

The Good
The tornado scenes are fantastic.

The Bad
No Character development, so in short you really do not care about any of the characters here.

The Ugly
Do the writers even read a science book?? Really!!!?!

My Two Sen

The Internship (2013)

I don't like Vince Vaughn. I just don't!!

Having said that, I was actually surprise I like this.

In this bad economic times and with jobs getting scarce what happened to Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson is occurring more and more often.

What I like most about this movie is the can do attitude of Vince Vaughn's character, even when the chips are down.

An entertaining comedy, with actually really good life learn.

Watch it if you haven't

My Two Sen

Hungry Ghost Ritual 盂蘭神功 (2014)

Nick Cheung directorial debut and... he chose a ghost story??

First Simon Yap now him?...

Do they really think that horror movies are easy to make??

The interesting thing was it was actually filmed in Malaysia (Why do Hong Kies thinks that Malaysia's spooky??). The thing that shocked me most was... seeing a Proton Waja in one of the scenes!!

Movie revolves around an Cantonese Opera Troupe.

There is a twist at the end, and I think there lies the issue...

Nick Cheung in his directorial debut, tried to pull an M Knight Shamalyan!!!

Did not quite work.. At least not to me.

I do have to add, that the very last frame of the movie is actually... poetic!!

Not the best horror movie by far, Nick Cheung needs to attend film school....

I'm mean, I know.

My Two Sen.

This post has been edited by Mov_freak: Sep 21 2014, 09:00 PM

Get Smart (2008)

If any of you have seen the 60's spy spoof comedy sitcom on TV then you will be familiar with the premise. The series features a bumbling secret agent called Maxwell Smart that somehow solves cases through dumb luck.

This movie however is more like a refresh or update to the series. It features Maxwell Smart (Steve Carrell) as a modern day CONTROL (the spy agency) analyst dreaming of becoming a field agent.

He gets his chance when CONTROL is attacked by its nemesis organisation KAOS, and all of the existing agents are compromised. So Max becomes Agent 86 and teams up with Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) to solve the case.

The movie plays more like the old fashioned Bond movies but with a comedic touch. Agents with some fancy gadgets and old fashioned fisticuffs. There's quite a number of callback to the old TV series but if you haven't seen the TV series, you would miss much of them.

I remembered well the scene where Max needs to get through numerous security doors just to get to the entrance to the CONTROL headquarters. Then there is the Bill Murray cameo. Ah, yes. Brings back memories.

All in all, Get Smart is an enjoyable movie that reminds me of a time when movies does not have to have a chock full of special effects to be smart and cool. I quite like the pacing, the way Max stumbles through but shines in his own way and Max's chemistry with Agent 99. Steve Carrell performs very well as Maxwell Smart and Anne is always a joy to watch.

If you're a fan of the TV series, you should not miss this.

Rating : 3 out of 5 stars.

You left out the brilliant TANGO scene!!

Sin City 2 : A dame to kill for - A dame too lame.
Frank Miller's Sin City was groundbreaking back in the days for a breath of fresh air. Comic books need not about super beings in cape and cowl. Nowadays we have better writers dabbing in the funny book medium with really high quality tales that out pace the golden era of Frank Miller. Mark Millar does his high concept blockbuster pitch, Ed Brubaker with his "noirish" complex writing, Brian K.Vaughan keen sense of sci-fi genre, Joe Hill the son of Stephen King for his smart horror genre, Andy Diggle does his hollywood-esque action movie tales, etc...
For what it's worth, I really like the first Sin City movie. It compiles the 3 seminal story arcs from Sin City series. The sequel adapts ADTKF which was the earlier arcs that started the whole Sin City books and 2 new story arcs. Man this movie suck balls to the core with lazy filmmaking that does not innovate upon source material and all those corny action sequences is off putting to say the least. The dialogs became self-parody and there's no compelling reason for the 3 stories to interweave with each other. Saving grace again is on Eva Green but then the script is a total train wreck.

The Treatment/De Behandeling - The most FUBAR film this year.

It’s one of the more emotional draining movie that confront a heavy subject. It echoes a similar treatment like the excellent HBO’s True Detective. Then can’t help but wonder how much of True Detective was influenced by the book of this film based on. This Belgium made psychology thriller was more succinct and satisfying. It does not rely on cheap exploitation like “cough”8mm“cough” to make case for the antagonist. All the unflinching stuffs happen off camera, but smart writing and execution made in more devastating than having to present it on screen. It’s the endless toying of our emotional button that will have your blood pressure worked up. I’m glad I went in blind without knowing any details of the movie. European cinema again at the forefront of churning potent dark thrillers. If you are a fan of Let me in, The Hunt, TGWDT, Bullhead, etc… a must watch.

This post has been edited by 6so: Sep 30 2014, 01:30 PM

Eh....I was wondering where u watch this movie?

Singapore's GVs are/were showing. Almost went to watch it during a trip there last few weeks but the show was around 1am+ in the morning.

Oh... I see. Unfortunately it didn't get a release date in malaysia, but I checked imdb it saids the release date was fall on Oct 16, don't know whether is true or not...

Even it got screen locally,expect it to be heavily butcher because of nudity and violent kills.

Ya... indeed. Apparently I have to waiting for a blu-ray release

The Best Man Holidays

For those who likes light satire and a little bit on the soup drama this will be the number that you should watch.

Lots of alluring and suggestive act for sassy scenes but its actually safe for below 18 . I might think .




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