After watching this video, I knew I had to write a quick post on this movie which I caught few days ago. WATCH THIS!

QoS is, to me, a good movie. I’m not really a Bond fan. I never watched the earlier films fully. I’ve never read a single Ian Fleming book. And I’ve only known about James Bond properly since its reintroduction by Pierce Brosnan.

But the latest reboot, with Daniel Craig, is simply the best. The first movie, Casino Royale, proves that Craig’s Bond is up there with the best of the Bond actors, and QoS just confirms that his depiction of James Bond IS the best.

The action is way more intense than the first, in that Bond finds himself caught in chase scene after chase scene. The fight scenes were really raw, sort of unrehearsed. That could be a good thing, or a bad thing. Good, because it looks really brutal and fierce. Bad, because the shaky camerawork makes you dizzy.

James Bond is the first of its kind. Spy movies. Its been around since the early 60s with Sean Connery playing the role, if I’m not wrong. After that, so many spy movie/series came about. Some are really good, like Mission Impossible ONE, and Bourne Identity, but nothing beats the original. Although its been rebooted more times than any other movie character, the personality of James Bond is still unique.

In Quantum of Solace, you’ll see Bond to be one of the coolest badass characters EVER. All the moves he makes, all the lines he said, all freakin’ cool. Gives you the wow effect on every single thing he did on the movie. From his awesome fights, down to the hard cold stare he gives. All cool.

The only thing I couldn’t really follow is the storyline. Yes, it IS the most important thing in the movie, but, I realise that not fully understanding the story does not make the movie a shitty one. Sometimes the audience couldn’t catch it the first time round. Take Mission Impossible ONE for example. I had to watch it twice to fully understand it. First time round, I only took in the awesomeness. I know all sorts of shit and backstabbing is going on but I dunno what or who is doing them. Only after watching the second time, do I fully realise the awesomeness of the movie. Likewise with Quantum of Solace. I basically follow the story, but I have questions about a lot of the details.

Then there’s Olga Kurylenko! Yay for her for keeping her clothes on this time. Yup, she took em down in Hitman, and almost every movie before that, I think. Even did it in Max Payne, except you don’t see anything. The role is pretty similar to Hitman, except she’s of some use in this movie.

Whoever says the movie sucks because the story isn’t clear, maybe its you who can’t grasp a slightly more complicated movie plot. You can go back to watching super simple storyline movies like umm… Max Payne.

I’m gonna watch it again. Most probably not in the theaters though.

An alternate title to this post would be:

The shit of a movie that is Max Payne.

It is an extremely boring movie. I think we can classify boring movies as the worst type of movie ever.
Because, for a movie that is super shitty bad, there’s at least some entertainment value from laughing our asses off at the stupidity of the writer, director, actors, or whoever’s involved in the production. But for the incredibly boring movie, you have to sit through a dreaded 1 and a half hours. Even a time that short felt like 3 hours.

Why is Max Payne an extremely boring movie?

It revolves around a typical hero who’s faced a great injustice. In this case, his whole family got murdered. That made Payne a brooding detective bent on getting revenge on whoever’s responsible. Usually, when this happens, the protagonist becomes all superpowered (or at least supermotivated) and goes on a kick ass rampage. That would at least be decent enough for me.

But not for Max Payne… the movie is slow in trying to discover who the bad guy really is. Revelations aren’t at all dramatic. The effects, while cool, are totally spent unecessarily and at pointless occasions.

If I’d remember correctly, the Max Payne game is one of the pioneers of in-game bullet time.

But here in the movie, the only bullet time action we get is a cheap crappy shot of him doing some sort of back flip and shooting the bad guy in the most unrealistic way. Or that’s the only one I can remember from the super boring movie.

I’ve been warned not to waste my money on this movie. And I’ve read almost in every trusted website that the movie sucks. But I had to see it for myself, didn’t I? Oh well.

Olga Kurylenko and Milla Kunis. Two reasons that might list Max Payne as a watchable movie. But then again, it’s too boring to be watchable.

If it weren’t for the Natasha character, one might consider putting a gun to his head and blowing his brains off halfway through he dreaded movie. She’s the one from Hitman, and will appear again in James Bond’s new film. Pretty much the same character throughout these movies. Who knows what she’ll play in Quantum of Solace.

Then there’s her in-movie sister, played by Mila Kunis. I thought she looked familiar. I watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall quite recently, and it’s the same actress. And then I realised she was that irritating girl from 70s show. Also, she played Meg in family guy. Why did she suddenly get hot? The answer is plastic surgery. Yup.

Even so, the characters are so weak, and pointless. Including Payne’s own character. Poor Marky Mark, first the Happening. Now Max Pain.

Don’t watch it. Save your money for something else.

FINALLY!

I watched the movie yesterday night, after weeks of wanting to watch it. Hmm, I really don’t know where to begin with this awesomeness of a movie.

Ok, from the start then.

Beowulf was a legendary poem written by some guy. I only found out this fact after watching the movie, and my friend told me about it. That must be why it has such a fantastic storyline. Superb in every sense.

I haven’t seen a good ‘hero’ movie, set in medieval times, for a very long time. I couldn’t even remember the last good one. Troy, perhaps? But Beowulf is a ‘hero’ movie different from all others. It really captures how events turn to stories and then to legend. Like all legends from all over the world, they’re probably exaggerated a little to add a little flair. The movie’s witty dialogs and style will get you thinking about it way after the credits roll.

Beowulf was a viking warrior who seeks glory in slaying monsters. He travels with a small brigand of soldiers who call themselves Beowulf’s Army (simple enough, no?). In this movie, he travels to Middle Ages’ Denmark, where the city is under constant attack from a troll-like monster. I actually pitied the monster Grendal, and you’ll see why, if you watch the movie.

Ok, that’s as far as I can go without spoiling anything for ya. Coz, any further into the movie, you’ll encounter all the great elements that make Beowulf such a good movie.

I came in wanting to see its animation, rendering etc… but I ended up being fully immersed in the story, as if I’m in the heart of the action itself. The actors, voices, environments, monsters, everything… they’re just beautiful.

Beowulf was played by Ray Winstone, not really a popular actor, but he pulled off the voice with great majesty. Actually, when he first appeared in the movie, I thought he looked a lot like Sean Bean, who played Boromir from Lord of the Rings.

Then there was the old king, played by Anthony Hopkins. How the character emulates the actual actor is simply uncanny, unfathomable, unbelievable. I often find myself thinking if it IS real life. Beowulf’s loyal friend was played by the guy from Braveheart. William Wallace’s childhood friend, remember him? He looked damn familiar and again, the resemblance is uncanny.

John Malkovich’s character was also nailed to perfection. Even the style and trademarks of the actors were captured. All the way down to Anthony Hopkins slightly tilted head while acting, and John Malkovich’s weird style of talking. Oh, and who can forget Angelina Jolie… only, this time, she’s super-fine! Way better than the real one. Everything… and I mean, everything… is enhanced to perfection. She plays the sorceress/witch, by the way.

I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about the movie except that I wished it had gone on longer, maybe a trilogy? Like Lord of the Rings? Coz really, it’s of the same stature as LOTR, I think.

And to those people who still say that this is just a cartoon …. …. …. wake up. This is the future, and you people must be stuck in the stone age. I don’t care to argue with them anymore. Suit yourself and don’t watch it. Go ahead and miss out on one of the best movies of the year.

I give Beowulf 9.5/10. The 0.5 is due to the irritating exit light in my line of sight, and the fact that I couldn’t get nachos before going in, coz of some problems with the booking system. Other than that, Beowulf scores full marks on my watch.

Milla J returns as Alice in the third and supposed final installment of this video game movie adaptation. As compared to the first two movies, I think this one pretty much sucks.

I was skeptical originally when I saw the trailers and pictures of Extinction few months back. I thought it was gonna be an all desert, all action, no story, movie. I was right.

Unlike Resident Evil and Resident Evil Apocalypse, this movie pretty much abandons whatever storyline it’s built up and went on a pointless and rather boring journey of zombie killing.

And somewhere towards the end, the producers must’ve realised that they don’t have a proper villian to fight Alice with, and so they made a cheesy villian out of the ’scientist’ guy. The whole thing was pretty lame.

As for Milla’s performance, she’s looking a bit hotter than her Resident Evil 2 self, which I think was her worst looking role. Maybe she’s overshadowed by the hot Jill Valentine (which sadly, didn’t appear, and wasn’t even mentioned, in this movie). Milla J’s Alice in Resident Evil 1 is still the best performance for me.

Ali Larter (the crazy psycho duo-personality girl from Heroes) was also disappointing. She carried a totally secondary supporting role. And the only actor which was carried over from the 2nd one, the military guy, was also insignificant. The reason is all the characters are pretty much the same. No difference in personality. Even the black funny guy from Apocalypse wasn’t as funny. I didn’t even realise it was the same guy

.

Alice in Resident Evil 1

Alice in Resident Evil Apocalypse. Worst looking. Jill Valentine was introduced, and she rocked.

Alice in Resident Evil Extinction. Better looking than part 2, but the worst movie of the three.

All in all, I wouldn’t recommend Resident Evil Extinction. You’d be better off knowing what you know about the Resident Evil story. This ending is not something you wanna seal the story with.

Should’ve watched Superbad instead.

Related Post:
Resident Evil Extinction

There are two parts to this movie. They weren’t kidding when they said Two movies for the price of One. But I heard Singapore showed them separately.

The first one I saw was Death Proof. Kurt Russel plays Stuntman Mike, who is really really psychotic. I mean he’s way off in his head. But that’s the cool thing. He looked like some loser stunt man trying to make it big. But when he gets to what he does, you don’t wanna mess with him… unless you’re part of a group of even more psychotic girls bent on destruction.

Too much conversation in this one, I think.

But the gem of the Grindhouse duo-movie is… PLANET TERROR!

This here, is Rose McGowan. She’s some stripper who just quit her job to become a stand up comedian. Then, a series of events involving Bruce Willis as an army commander, a bio scientist who cuts off men’s balls, and plenty of zombies got Cherry’s (her name) right leg amputated. Bizarre huh. Then she made a joke of how she WAS going to be a STAND up comedian.

Then later on, when Zombies with gross, disgusting, pus loaded bodies became rampant in the town, some hero guy, with a team of a BBQ chef and a sheriff went on to try to save the world. In the process, Quentin Tarantino tried to rape a one legged chick, who later got herself a new leg made of an automatic machine gun with flamethrower and grenade launcher built in!

Amazing story isn’t it?! You gotta watch it! It’s BLOODY awesome! Literally!

Who could resist a biker chick with one leg made of GUN and a pillion who’s another psycho crazy nurse?

It’s a winning formula!

It’s a good show. I give it 8 out of 10. I’ve always liked movies with a more epic sense, but for a movie like this, you know, set in Africa and all that, it’s rather good.

There are some things I do like about the movie, such as Leonardo’s interesting change from doing prettyboy movies to a hardened mercenary. His accent is cool too. Me and the Bogaman has been talking that way since the movie eh? Ya ya.

Then the next thing, which quite puzzles me, is the degree of hotness of Jennifer Connelly. I know she could be hot, coz’ she was, in Hulk and mm, I dunno what else she starred in. But in Blood Diamond, I was really puzzled.

Scenes from the same movie. Weird and puzzling is what it is.

Storyline wise, it’s quite alright. Not that predictable and keeps you on the edge of your seat. So like I said, 8/10. Not bad at all.

I’m addicted… I can’t believe it. But I am. I never thought I’d be addicted to a… drama series! Not just any drama series, it’s a really sad and emotional Japanese drama series. Been watching the show at work, part of the ‘incentives’ of my new ‘vocation’. Life’s good.

Let me think of why I’ve fallen into the trap of addiction…

Is it the extremely cute and irresistably sympathetic girl Ikeuchi Aya, played by Erika Sawajiri?

Is it the immersive acting, dialogue and plot?

Hmm, how come I couldn’t think of anything else?
Well, it must be the cute and ’sad-fate-descended-upon-her’ girl.
Tsk tsk tsk… 15 years old, and the light of her future has just been switched off.
How sad. If somehow you could get your hands on this series, watch it.

Oh, correction. And I always get this wrong. The title is “1 Litre of Tears”
Check out it’s synopsis here.

The babe movie.
Except for that super ugly shinobi master girl creature.

I feel that someone should censor her face everytime she comes on screen. I cringe everytime she comes on screen. She’s ok as a supporting actress in movies like 2Fast 2Furious. But no main roles please. Ugly.

I mean, this is what she’s supposed to look like.
I don’t even want to put her image here. Ugly.

But then again, the other 3 babes are extremely Hot. Holly Valance, Jamie Pressly and that other girl who was in Smallville… they’re all hot. Especially Holly Valance.
Last I saw her, she was in some music video, dancing naked, with only lights covering her assets. Hmmm, not much difference here.
I’m just glad I didn’t miss the first part of the movie.

Ok, on to other aspects of the show…
Bad plot, crap storyline, bad dialogue, average fight scenes.

But don’t let those deter you from watching! Get to a theatre near you, and catch DOA! (without your girlfriends)