Review: Snow White and The Huntsman

You know what kind of movie that I love? A dark twist to old fairy tales. For example, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. A great dark twist to our beloved childhood fairy tale. It is, still until today, one of my favorite movie. But how Snow White and The Huntsman  stack up? Well what’s a review is for right?

Snow White and The Huntsman tells a tale of the evil queen, Ravenna who possessed this power to take beautiful girls youth, and keep her from getting old, and of course, fuglier. After being married to the king, which is Snow White father of course, she killed her, take over the kingdom and imprisoned Snow White until she’s 18 or so.

Still with me? Okay. Well during that time, the evil queen have this mirror ya, the mirror mirror on the wall, you know, keeps telling her she is the fairest of ’em all. That is, until Snow White grew up, and she is then put second best. She was like, NOOOOOOO!!!! and the mirror was like ‘Yeah girl, that’s why you can’t keep being young, and keep getting fuglier everyday. You need to like, kill her, take her heart than you can stop using that Soul Botox forever girl!’. Well, that’s now how the mirror said actually.

So she ordered her brother to take Snow White so she could kill him. Too late. Snow White go all parkour over the castle and escape. Chased by the Huntsman, the Huntsman don’t wanna kill her, take her to the rebels castle, lead a war towards the evil queen and wins. Yes, that’s a major spoiler for you. Now onto the review!

Concept

As I said before, I love a dark twist with old fairy tales. And Snow White and The Huntsman is a no exception. Instead of talking like a princess, or in fact, acting like one, she became more, you know, mature and rebellious, brave and stuff. Unlike the original fairy tales, Snow White has always been kind, soft and mushy mushy but this time around, she is a bad ass!

And another twist, which you should already expects from the trailer and probably the big poster at your cinema is that SPOILER instead of waking up from the kiss of the charming prince, she woke up from the huntsman kiss. Hurm, her true love maybe SPOILER END. And of course, instead of using the ugly wicked witch of the west, they opt to use that OMG hot hot hot Charlize Theron as the Evil Queen. Now who says to be evil witch, you have to be old and fugly right?

All in all, I know I actually stray off from talking about the concept, and actually talking about the story again. Haha. Well here’s a simplified version. The dark twist of the original story, the characters, plots and ambiance is astonishing, but yet, it still holds true to the old fairy tales. And because of that, its a 4/5 for me.

Plot

I actually told most of the stories above so let me get to the chase. The plot is alright. Is stray so far from the original, yet it actually not that far off. The beginning of the movie starts with how everything goes haywire. Though the narrative does sounds a bit dull, but hearing Chris Hemsworth as the disembodied voice makes it okay.

And the movie itself doesn’t stop too long before the next action scenes come. There’s not a time when you’re not at the edge of your seat. The balance between slow time and action is perfect. I, for once, did not find any part that I would say boring. It is great. Almost no drag at all with the plot. All I can say is,  for me, the pacing is just great. A total 5/5 from me.

Cinematography

I love it. It totally shows how the kingdom fall apart and what happens when the Evil Queen took over the land. The Dark Forest is creepy. Full of surprises in every corner and Sanctuary looks beautiful and full of magic.

I can’t say much since I don’t really know how cinematography works, but it is great. A 4/5 from me.

Visual Effects

Now this is where the movie shine. The effects blends well with the world. Probably the best I saw since Battleship. For example, a scene in the Dark Woods where Snow White and The Huntsman encounter a troll. The troll looks as real as it could be. Blends well with the environment and the character itself that for a moment, I even thought they actually exist.

And you should have seen the dwarfs. At first I thought they use real, you know, small people to take the role. But then I saw Nick Frost, which is of course, one of my favorite British actor and I was like WHAAAAAAAT????? Superb job with the dwarfs. And I heard that the do use real dwarfs people, but that is only for the landscape shot, and not the close up. The rest you should see yourself. For me, it surpassed Battleship in any way so great, it gets another 5/5.

The Casts

I gotta be honest here. I am not Kristen Stewart biggest fan. I kinda like, hated her since Twilight, where she got this expressionless face and so much lip biting that I thought of cutting those lips off. Yep. But I actually find her interesting in this movie. Perfect for the role of Snow White to be exact. Sure she still got that expressionless face but she actually pull this off and I’m starting to like her since this movie. Okay, a paragraph dedicated to Kristen Stewart how about that huh?

How about the Huntsman, Chris Hemsworth? As usual, did a fine job. His acting  is superb. I like how he actually convinces me how suffered he was after losing his wife, and how she actually cared for Snow White. I only know Chris Hemsworth from The Avengers and Thor movies but I can tell you, he’s one awesome actor.

Charlize Theron. One word, Hot! That is, when she looks young and not old and fugly. As the Evil Queen? She is evil alright. But too much yelling that I find her unappealing sometimes. But she is a triple A’s actor so like Kristen Stewart and Chris Hemsworth, does an awesome job. 4/5.

Conclusion

If you love a fantasy driven movie, then this is for you. But if you just want movies with lots of explosive set pieces, well probably you won’t find this appealing. Again, if you’re the kind of person who loves dark twist to any fairy tales, you will love how awesome Rupert Sanders directs this movie.

Yes from the above reviews, you can see I’m in love with this movie. But that doesn’t mean that it has no downside. There is.

As much as I love this movie, it doesn’t have much memorable scenes. No scenes makes me think, hey, if I could, I wanna watch it for the second time right now!

The ending battle is too short, and un-epic. With a cliche ending but the kind of cliche I like. Still, its a movie that I prefer you to watch it now. A good watch since this is the only good movie for this month, before The Amazing Spider-Man and The Dark Knight Rises comes. My rating? 5/5 with the rating meter goes about

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Blergh!                         Okay                               Awesome!

images are from Rotten Tomatoes unless otherwise stated

The Amazing Spider-Man looks, well, AMAZING!

I never read any of Spider-Man’s comics. I only watch some of it cartoon series. But I do watch all of Spider-Man movies. From the awesome Spider-Man 1, the okay Spider-Man 2 and the horribly terrible Spider-Man 3.

My Movies Line Up For May 2012

So during this whole months of having practically nothing to do, I might as well watch and make some reviews of the movies that I’ve planned to see. Its not much though, but hey, these are the movies that I am waiting to see.

REVIEW+ : The Avengers

So last night was a bit terrible review. I kinda rush it in just because it was 2 in the morning, my head is getting heavy but yet, I still want to finish the review. So I know I didn’t give to much about the plot because like I said, not much memorable moments to actually, well, remember.

But I will make it up today with the focus on the plot and pacing.

REVIEW: The Avengers

SOME. ASSEMBLY. REQUIRED!

Here’s what I have to say about The Avengers. It is mind blowing fun! I do have high hope for this film. It doesn’t actually exceeded my expectation, but it surely met them. Though I know, I’m late 1 week to the party but hey, at least the party is still there.

How we should kick this review off? With the poster of course!

And then the trailer!

Okay. Now lets start with the review. I don’t bother giving you guy the synopsis because mankind have created this remarkable thing, where you just type in what your looking for and the poof! You got thousands or even millions of pages to choose from. Its call GOOGLE.

Back to the review let me break it down just like my review of Battleship.

CONCEPT

We want to rule you all, humans! Yup, that’s basically the main plot that I know. Though the concept is cliche, I mean come on, having all heroes, or should I say, Marvel Heroes together saving the world from destruction is cliche. But its a good cliche. It just barely hit that sweet spot of sweet and awesome. But of course, when you say alien invasion, on have to say NEW YORK! BURN NEW YORK TO HELL! Sigh. Can’t for once these aliens find some other places to burn. I hear Japan is short on destruction since Godzilla time. Why don’t you guys invade them? I heard they also one advance nation. Plus they got sushi! Aliens loves sushi.

But oh my god the aliens, or they call it Chautari(?) looks so damn ugly and unoriginal. It doesn’t look interesting at all for me because these are the types of aliens you probably saw in every sci fi movie. Yep. Nothing special there. But hey, nice cliche concept, still loving it, I gave it a 4/5.

PLOT

Like I said before, cliche plot but in a good way. I gave away the plot in the above statement. And I don’t wanna give anything away so let me just say its a 4/5 from me.

THE CASTS

Who’s there to see The Avengers so that they can watch Tony Stark be a super fun, cocky ass son of a bitch? ME! Robert Downey Jr. practically stole the spotlight from all of them. In fact, SPOILER ALERT he became the real hero SPOILER ENDS. Chris Evans as the Captain America also did a good job, along with Chris Hemsworth as Thor BUT he kinda lost his Thor-ness in this movie. No more I AM THE KING OF ASGARD BLA BLA BLA. Instead its like this really humble and nice Thor. Which is not to my liking.

But The Hulk, oh god seriously. When I heard that this time, The Hulk.Bruce Banner will be played by Mark Rufallo, honestly I said ‘Dammit! He’s totally gonna ruin it!’. By the end of the night, I bite my own tongue. I got to admit, he’s actually the best Hulk/Bruce Banner since Edward Norton. The best that IF they make another Hulk movie, please let him take the role. The rest is just fine. The casts have this great chemistry between them all. I gave it a 5/5.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

I like the it. Like every other Marvel movies, you don’t need a lot of shaky cams when there’s chaos. So The scale of destruction is also great. I actually applaud Joss Whedon for his amazing work in this movie.

The explosion is not too excessive and its not eye soaring to see boom there and there. Not much to say, a 4/5 from me.

VISUAL EFFECTS

Not the best I’ve seen this year. Battleship still hold the top spot for me. Though the alien designs is great, some of the just looks fake and unappealing. Like this one time when Loki is on a flying bike thingy, it really looks unrealistic to see the background moves and stuff.

But when it comes to Iron Man and The Hulk, they both look amazing and super real. Thumbs up! 4/5.

CONCLUSION

I know you guys must be a bit confuse with my review tonight but hey, its a great movie for me. But its not the kind of movie that make you want to go for a second round, like The Hungers Games and Chronicle. The Avengers have this great comedic timing and at the same time gave a good punch in the face with their spectacular action scenes. Then again, it doesn’t have the iconic moment that makes you want to see it again.

Oh and on the side not, I suggest you to not watch the 3D version. Its not worth your money. Seriously, I can recall only one scenes that actually make use of the 3D. The rest, well, if your cinema suggests a 2D version (not the normal one), I say go for that. 3D IS NOT WORTH IT AT ALL.

So what rating will I give The Avengers? An awesome 4/5 or should I say 4 awesomely looking Tony Stark out of five.

   

And bringing my not permanent movie rating meter in:

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Blergh!                         Okay                               Awesome!

All images are from The Avengers Official Facebook page unless stated

MANTERA: That Made In Malaysia Transfomers (Well, not exactly)

If you’ve been reading this blog since forever, which I doubt, you would already know how much I hate my own country film industry. The same love+comedy, action+comedy, horror+comedy films, heck, I think this country just love too much on comedy, that I felt like every single words we said, came straight from movies.

Review: Battleship

I know, I’m late to the party but hey, its not my fault that I have a really busy week, with projects and reports, test and stuff. I barely even have my own time. So today I finally got it, and I said to myself ‘Hey, why don’t I watch that Battleship movie. Seems like fun’. Yup, that was my expectation for the movie. But does it live up to it? Well, read through and you’ll get my answer.

So, Battleship. Anyone played this game before? I don’t. But I do know about the game, I saw it a bunch of times when I was a kid. And I know how that game plays. But here’s the amazing part, never did I thought that that board game, could turn into a movie. Want to know it is based on what kind of game? Its this one:

forbes.com

I won’t talk about it okay. Just google it and find out for yourself. Now, back to the movie. We will start with the Concept first.

Concept

Well, the fact that the concept comes from a guessing board game is pretty amazing to me. That is some creative thinking they got there. The settings are also nice, Hawaii. I mean, all this time, if there’s any Alien invasion movie, it will always be New York, every, goddamn, time. So its nice to see a change.

The second thing that I saw as a nice touch is the aliens. God they look so good. For me, by far the best looking alien, well, in a suit anyway. They remind me a lot about Halo. You know, the Xbox game. The alien ships are great, the visuals are stunning too. So for concept, they get a 5/5 from me.

PLOT

Now the plot.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! 

Its an okay for me. Nothing too fancy. You know, that guy who almost got kick out, but in the end, he’s the one who saves the world. Got a hot girlfriend, an asshole but then turns to be a humble person in the end. Yup, just okay. Oh forgot, contacting aliens, they come to earth instead of ‘We come in piece’ they we’re like ‘We come to cut you into pieces’. Predictable yes. I can sense what’s gonna come next. But what I don’t expect, is how much they really take the concept from the board game. They hack into the Tsunami detection buoyant, set up grids and play just like the board game. Man that is damn smart.

But, they action is a bit too dragging. Yes I like action, but a never ending 10 minutes of boom is not good too. Its a 3.5/5 from me.

THE CASTS

Liam Neeson is awsome as always. Taylor Kitsch did a good job in the movie. Brooklyn Decker is hot as hell and Rihanna is a worst actress. I know I hate her, but I look at her as an actress, not a singer. And yes, not a good job BUT, I do see potential.

But in the end, even though Taylor is the main character, but Liam Neeson, even though only got like 15-20 minutes of screen time, still the best actor. 3/5 from me.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

I’ll be short and simple. It is great. It really shows you the scale of the alien invading Hawaii. Just the first scene where Alex Hooper (Taylor Kitsch) got a closer look at the Alien structure, you could see how big that shit is. Really. And the Alien Battleship looks big and powerful.

The camera works id great too. Many director would’ve choose to go full on shaky cam with this movie, but not for Peter Berg. Throughout the movie, not once did I ever felt throwing up or got major headache. Yes there’s still shakiness, but it is so balance, that I tend to like it more. This one, get a 4/5 rating from me.

VISUAL EFFECTS

Great. Nothing too fancy. The CGI’s are damn awesome, although during the bridge collapsed, it wasn’t that convincing. And yes, that’s my only complain. I gave it a 4/5 rating.

CONCLUSION

Battleship is an ordinary aliens invading earth movie. But, it does have a great concept which I love. The aliens are great looking, along with the CGI of course. The action is great, though sometimes it can be a little dragging. With an average plot, I say this movie is above average. Meaning that if you watch it,  its not a waste of your time, but if you didn’t watch it, you’re not missing anything special or extraordinary.

With that, I gave Battleship and average 4/5 rating. Or in this case,

     

4 SCREAMING RIHANNA OUT OF FIVE!

*all photos are from Rotten Tomatoes unless stated

Review: Chronicle

if 2011 have Rise of The Planet of the Apes as my ‘Best Movie of The Year’, then on 2012, so far, Chronicle is on my top list for that. Why’s that? Well, let me make some review for that. Man, its been a long time since I’ve made a review for anything.

Lets start with the poster!

Cool. Digging the poster though.

So let me get to the story first. Its a story about 3 boys, Andrew, Steve and Matt, who found this creepy crystal like thing underground from a hole. Which, they also found after Steve and Matt went into the woods, and asks Andrew to come and record it. After exploring and stuff, they got like, I don’t know, blast from the crystal thing and end up having this telekinesis power. They can move objects and stuff without touching it. And also, they can fly, WHICH IS SO FREAKIN’ DAMN COOL!. And of course, boys will be boys and yes, shits happens. I won’t spoil it though, so just watch it. Think Anakin Skywalker. Yep, that’s a spoiler for you.

So, go on people. Watch it, like, now. Dammit, turn of your pc and go watch it now!

What do I think of it? Its a well done movie. The first half of the movie did seem to be a bit slow, but not like ‘oh well, I think I might sleep for this bit of the movie’ slow. Oh and is a documentary style movie. Or should I say, Mockumentary style. For those who didn’t know, its where a movie, is done almost like in first person view. But I can say, its pretty damn good. Especially the way Andrew use his power to let the camera go freely in the air. So this way, you can see the 3 of them in the movie, and not just 2. The movie is more about the 3 boys discovering their powers and go to a whole new level of awesomeness.

The downside is, well for me its just one, or two. The pacing for the first half is just a tad slow. So I was yawning quite a few time. Then, its the crystal. I still don’t know what it is, or how the hell did it gave them powers. But hey, its something that you really never bother to know though. So for me, that’s just it. The rest is brilliantly done.

My verdict? If Superman movies makes you wanna fly, this movie will make you want it really really really badly. The plot is great, the pacing is just right, the humor is just enough to make you laugh a bit, its just a well blend action movie. For me, its one of the most exciting movie that shows you the birth of a villain. Think Apex predator.

So what rating will I give this movie?

 

   

4 creepy Andrews out of 5!

Watch is, you will not regret it.

Credit:

Photos from Rotten Tomatoes

Poster from Best Movie Ever News

Dammit! More Books?

Welcome welcome to the 2nd part of “Books for nerds like….ME!” and I’m your host for this evening, Artic Monkeys! And notice that, I SPELT ARCTIC WRONG! The biggest regret in my life, ever. And get ready for 3 wall of text belowwwwwwwwww

Books and books and an actual blog post this time

Fuuhhh! Fuuuuhhhhhh! Dusty blog. Oh hye there! Welcome to my blog! A minimal reboot. Because I didn’t post anything for the last 2 gazillion years. So this time, I won’t let that happen anymore. I’m gonna update every week. By every week I mean after this post, see me in another 2 thousand years guys.