Monsters | Review

Monsters. Or District 9: The Boring Version.

But I gotta give this movie credit, it ain't easy to make a beautiful, realistic looking sci-fi movie with a budget of $15,000. This movie looks like a $30 million dollar movie, easy. The only sad thing to this is that Monsters can be summed up in 3 words. Boring & Uneventful.

Monsters takes place in a world 6 after the Earth makes first contact with extraterrestrial life. NASA sent a space probe to Mars to collect alien lifeforms but the probe crashes upon reentry in the Mexican-American border. Now new life forms begin infesting Mexico, prompting the U.S to seal off the border with high walls. And the film follows a journalist who goes to Mexico to escort his bosses really really hot daughter through the infected Mexican zone into the safety of the U.S.

Director Gareth Edwards makes an amazing debut creating an almost Avatar meets Predator-like utopian world where alien and Earth life has fused into a hybrid ecosystem of awesomeness. The cinematography and the visual effects of  Monsters is a feast for the eyes. And when you find out the budget Edwards made this movie for, it gains the crew of the film a whole new level of respect.

But ultimately the biggest fault of Monsters was it's incredibly predictable, lazy and mediocre script. If you saw The Crazies, you've seen Monsters. It's your basic survival movie of, "Oh, we need to get out of this infected zone filled with hostile creatures. We gonna power our way through, encounter creatures here and there, lose tonnes and tonnes of friends on the way and end up in safety and realize we love each other." The plot of the movie has been done so many time and done better so many times, it made me not care for the movie as much.

The pacing of the film is really really bad to. Gareth Edwards needs to fire his editor because the film moves hella slow. We spend a good 30 minutes being introduced to the two main characters before we even start the survival journey through the infected zone. And up to then it does get good awhile but the energy drops to an all low when we reach the final 15 minutes of the film.

Out of the two main characters, only Whitney Able stands out. And not because she's hot. But because at the very least, her character is actually trying to do something other than just walk, look intensely into dark places where a creature might be hiding, run and scream. From what I could understand, her character was in Mexico because she wanted to learn more about the alien creatures (an interesting sub-plot that never gets developed any further than the first 10 minutes of the film) A waste really.

I would have liked Monsters better if they didn't focus the whole plot on the survival aspect and delve more into the story of the monsters, what they are, what they want and stuff like that. Monsters is ultimately and pretty looking, one-dimensional, uninspiring film.

But give Gareth Edwards a bigger budget and a better production team. And let the wonderful alien movies flooooow!

RATING: 5/10

Jonah Hex | Review

My.Brain.Can.Literally.Explode.From.The.Shittyness.Of.This.Movie.

First of... Josh Brolin is wearing a vagina on his face. Second.. this movie makes Wild Wild West look like a western epic. Thank God I didn't pay for this movie.

Jonah Hex is based on a comic book by Marvel about an ex-confederate soldier who's wife and son was murdered by his old commander, Quinton Turnbold for defying his orders and brands his face with his mark, hence the vagina. After being revived by Red Indians, he becomes a mythical soldier of fortune with powers to talk to the dead. Now he is called upon by the U.S government to stop Turnbold from unleashing a weapon of mass destruction on the world.

Oh and notice how I didn't mention Megan Fox in the plot at all? That's because she was only in 3 scenes and only 1 of it had purpose to the story. Her character in Jonah Hex is probably one of the most de minimis characters in movie history. It's as if the producers told the writer, "OMG we have Megan Fox for our movie!" And the writer went, "Uh.. but she's not in the script." And the producer goes, "Ohhh you'll find a way to put her in."

The film is directed by Jimmy Hayward who was one of the starting animators at Pixar and I wonder what the hell did they ever see in him. First of, the guy's direction is that of a retard. The opening animation sequence of Jonah Hex is so poorly done coming from the man who animated Toy Story. And you can tell that he is barely trying to make this movie even mildly tolerable.

What you gotta know about this movie is that it is 70 minutes long. It barely qualifies as a feature film. The first 2/3 of the movie is slightly entertaining with incoherent plot mixed with mindless but distracting explosions and action sequences, but it is the final act of the film that made my brain cells become suicidal. It's as if Hayward shot the whole movie in 45 minutes and realized he needed to pt more stuff in to make the film longer, so he grabbed the camera and asked Josh Brolin to start fighting a character I could have sworn he killed 15 minutes ago.

Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex was a decent choice of casting and he did try to make his character less campy as it was intended to. He gave Jonah Hex a dark approach which sadly didn't go with any of the outlandish settings and characters he has to work around with. It's like taking Christian Bale's Batman and dropping him in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin.

You know what? Jonah Hex really isn't far off from Batman. We got the dark anti-hero character, a black assistant who makes cool ass weapons and a vehicle/horse with guns strapped to the side. Only difference is the director of Batman made Inception, The Dark Knight and The Prestige. The director of Jonah Hex made Horton Hears A Who. See any problems?

Let's not waste anymore time with this mess and get to the pointless rating.

RATING: 3/10

Darren Aronofsky To Direct Wolverine 2

This can't be good.

Darren Aronofsky, director of such art films like The Wrestler, The Fountain, Requiem For A Dream and the upcoming Black Swan has officially signed on to direct Wolverine 2 starring Hugh Jackman.

Jackman who has worked with Aronofsky in The Fountain promises that Wolverine 2 is going to be the best of the X-Men series, saying that it will be a meatier, thought-provoking sequel.

Yeah I'm not really convinced about that one. Why? Cause Aronofsky's style doesn't fit mainstream comic book movies. And do you remember how shitty X-Men Origins: Wolverine was last year?

Buried | Review

Alfred Hitchcock is rolling in his grave. To get into a position that's comfortable for him to applaud.

This is one of those movies that really has me thinking if I liked it or not. Certainly without much review, I can say that Buried is easily one of the most creative, thrilling, heart-stopping movies I have seen since Inception, but the end to this movie left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied.

Buried is basically 90 minutes of Ryan Reynolds in a box. Contractor Paul Conroy wakes up to find himself buried in a small box with only a cellphone and a lighter. As the movie progresses Conroy and the audience begin to piece together how he ended up in the box and why.

The biggest strength this movie has that completely blows me away is that this movie is literally 90 minutes of Ryan Reynolds in a box. Through the whole movie we are with Ryan Reynolds inside this small confined space. How Buried differs from Phone Booth is that in this movie, we never go anywhere else, no flashbacks, no outside scenes. Just one actor, one location and 90 minutes of the best and most ingenious stops indie filmmaking has to offer.

And if you can't appreciate the unbearable claustrophobia Buried puts you through, you have to applaud director Rodrigo Cortes for pulling of one of the most suspenseful, creative, thrilling films ever to take place in one location. And keep in mind that location is a box smaller than a cupboard.

But Buried is far from a perfect movie, what made this an amazing movie and not a masterclass one was the writing of the film. The plot of the film is incredibly compact, weaving narrative with breakneck suspense but there were times where the film became implausible. And it wasn't big or anything, they were just small 2-3 minute scenes or phone conversations that were unrealistic and took the audience out of the film for a couple of minutes. I wish I could say what those parts are but it's major spoilers.

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Given the conditions Ryan Reynolds had to work in, I'd say his acting was fantastic but I was left underwhelmed with his overall performance. There is only so much weezing and screaming I can take from The Green Lantern. Again, very minor complains that did hinder the film somewhat but weren't big faux pas.

But what was unsatisfactory was the ending of this film. To be honest, when Buried ended, I was kind of pissed. Without revealing too much, the ending of this film is going to leave people feeling very unsatisfied or maybe depressed. You just don't put people through such emotional strain and attach us so much to Ryan Reynold's character to have it end like that. People want to have their trauma rewarded. But I gotta say, if you compared that ending with everyone's ideal ending, this is the one that will stick with people.

But with all those small complaints aside, this is a movie I am going to remember for a long, long time. Buried goes against all rules of filmmaking, backed by a visionary young director, a daring actor and a zero budget to produce one of the finest films to come out of 2010. Hitchcock would have been proud. Very proud.

RATING: 8.5/10

Black Swan Teaser Posters

Empire published 4 teaser posters of Darren Aronofsky's upcoming drama, Black Swan starring Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis. I gotta tell you these posters look bad ass. Like vintage bad ass.

And coming from the man who directed The Wrestler, The Fountain and Requiem For A Dream, Black Swan could make a killing at the Oscars next year. I said COULD. Cause movies this year have been kinda shitty lately.

Still no word if the film will have a release in Malaysia. No Aronofsky film has ever had a theatrical release here. But there's always Limewire. Muahahahahahaa.