Thursday, November 17, 2011

Movie Reviews - Real Steel, Paranormal Activity 3, Apollo 18, The Immortals and err... Clone Wars Cartoon Series

There is nothing intelligent I can think of for this caption.
Real Steel - Watching the movie is like paying for the privilege to stick your head into a blender and then turning it on. The shallow personalities in this movie leaves the non-human character, Adam the fighting robot as the only interesting diversion to this appalling movie. Adam, and of course the robot battle scenes which are quite good. In the end, Jackman takes off his shirt for some shadow-robot fighting, so there is a little sex-lite gratification for some members of the audience. But this hunk of meat from Down Under has not actually been cerebral in his choice of movies, see 'Van Helsing' and 'Australia'. A sad 3 out of 10.

Awesome
Paranormal Activity 3 - The first was a novel piece of film-making. The 2nd movie had a little too much going on (but still light years better than the Blair Witch Project 2). I am extremely happy to say that PA3 returns to the simpler set pieces of the original movie. Who would have thought that an old videotape camera (the movie is set in the 80s) on top of a table-fan can build up such suspense. But then again, I am such a complete coward. Heche had to hold my hand through out the movie. She said I was distracting her, not knowing that I WANTED to be distracted. I am giving this movie an 8 out of 10.

You will never look at a moon rock the same way.
Apollo 18 - A review I read says that "This movie is more than just Paranormal Activity in Space..." The movie basically revolves around a supposedly covert moon mission which turns disastrously wrong when 'things' start to happen on the dark side of the Moon. All shot for prosperity by way of Westinghouse cameras supplied by the Department of Defense (DoD... uh oh. spells trouble and betrayal). I found the movie pretty intense and the acting was rather good. 7 out of 10.

Another golden brown tinted movie. Urgh.
The Immortals, a pre-preview preview - I have not actually seen this movie shot through golden brown lenses. But Heche insists that we watch it. Perhaps it's the sight of men prancing about in loin cloths. The tagline 'From the Producers of 300' does not actually fill me with confidence, given my review of the Spartan movie, Click Here. But even without watching it, let me hazard a guess how it will be. A lot of male screaming and exhortation to manly and hazardous deeds. A lot of male posturing about destiny and some baloney about a good cause. A lot of steely and unnerving gaze by the hero. Gratuitous nude scenes (I am not against this) and a CGI cast counted in the hundreds of thousands. My prediction is that I will later review this movie as a 3 out of 10.

The Clone Wars Cartoon series - To show that I am not entirely the grumpy Colonel Blimp, this is a belated review of the 3 Star Wars prequels - 2 words suffice to summarise my review, 'Epic Failure'. If you are looking for some real intelligence, nuance and sprightly dialogue, cast your eye instead on the current Star Wars: The Clone Wars cartoon series playing on television. Compared to the actual movies, this intelligent cartoon series is simply light-years better. Strange but true. Having enjoyed 2 series of the cartoon show, I thought that perhaps I was too judgmental about the movies themselves. So I switched back on an old copy of the Revenge of the Sith. I could stand just about 20 minutes of this film. Amazingly, the writers of the Clone Wars could write a better plot and script for the cartoon show compared to the writers of the live action prequels.

No poems, just movies today, sunshine. You may disagree with my reviews. Hehehe. 

wa min Allah at-taufiq. 

2 comments:

Uncle ZT said...

Bro, i beg to differ:
Real Steel is a stealer for a good, quality and enjoyable time for everyone ie, my 10yo, my 6yo and myself. 7/10.

Haven't watched PA3 and will not watch it. Not my cup of tea. Btw, i regretted watching BWP. Waste of time and leaves you with a headache.

Apollo 18, same first two sentences of PA3 above.

Immortals, haven't watched. Thinking of watching, though.

Star Wars III, failed to come on par with Star Wars IV!

Apologies for using your blog to express my "reviews" of the movies. :)

Milky Tea said...

Dear Uncle,

Your movie insights are always welcomed however I disagree with them. Hehehe.

I am gonna watch the Immortals this weekend, so I shall update this review later...

Pax!