SEEKING JUSTICE (2011)

MyRating: YYY1/2

Director: Roger Donaldson

Cast: Nicolas Cage, January Jones, Guy Pearce, Harold Perrineau, Jennifer Carpenter, IronE Singleton, Xander Berkeley, Marcus Lyle Brown, Cullen Moss

MPAA: Rated R for violence, language and brief sexuality

Will Gerald (Nicolas Cage), a high scool teacher, never knows that his perfect life with her beautiful wife Laura (January Jones) will suddenly go upside down, just after spending their happy time together celebrating their anniversary, when one day Laura is being sexually assaulted by an ex-con.

Feeling anguish, shaken and confused, while his wife is being hospitalized for her badly beaten up condition, Will is approached by a stranger named Simon (Guy Pearce), representing a vigilante group, who offers him a service to seek for justice by 'executing' the person who has attacked his wife. Will just has to say yes, and they will do it for him. Clean and safe. What he has to give in return is only to agree to help them back if any time in the future the group asking him for some 'small' favors. Hesitant but feeling pity for his wife, Will agrees to Simon's offer.

Life seems to slowly back to normal, when six months later Will is being contacted again by Simon, asking him to repay his debt by doing something for his vigilante group. The thing is, what Will has to do is to kill a guy whom the group accused as a pedophile and a danger to the society. On realising that no killing blood is running in his stream, Will knows that he can't do such a thing. But Simon is not easily to let it go and the group cannot accept 'no' for an answer. Soon, Will faces another kind of terror that may endanger his family, which will make him regret to ever accept their offer at the first place.

This is a surprisingly good action thriller from Nicolas Cage, who seemed to stumble in continuously making bad movies for some time. But I assure you, this movie is not one of them. The revenge theme is not something new, and at a glance, this movie may look like another typical crime thriller. But this is actually not just an ordinary revenge movie, as revenge is not something that our main protagonist badly pursuing for here. Rather he is halfly forced to take a revenge by using other people's hands, but still he has to pay for the result of his decision afterwards.

This is a well-made and entertaning movie with a slowly built suspense. Maybe a bit predictable, but I didn't find it reduce my interests towards the movie, as the story flowed smoothly and well-paced, with enough tensions and actions to be enjoyed. The desperate situation of Will colored the plot, made us wonder how he would escape his unfortunate situation. Good direction from Roger Donaldson (Species, Dante's Peak, Thirteen Days, The Recruit, The World's Fastest Indian and The Bank Job). And good acting from Nicolas Cage and Guy Pearce, who appeared pretty solid and gave this movie some weights. While January Jones was okay as the wife (this has been a pretty busy year for this Mad Men actress, after also appearing in Unknown and X-Men: First Class). I don't know when this movie will get a wide release in the U.S., but believe me, it is definitely worth to be checked out. It was a good movie. (MJ)

MYMOVIE CRITIC - REVIEWING MOVIES FROM THE AUDIENCE'S STANDPOINT

IN TIME (2011)

MyRating: YYY

Director: Andrew Niccol

Writer: Andrew Niccol

Cast: Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried, Cillian Murphy, Vincent Kartheiser, Alex Pettyfer, Olivia Wilde, Johnny Galecki, Matt Bomer

MPAA: Rated PG-13 for violence, some sexualty and partial nudity, and strong language

Welcome to a world where money is not anymore the ultimate power and the world divides people based on their social class, each to live in a different area called the 'Time Zone'. Money has even ceased to exist, as time now has become the currency. This happens in the future when over-population has become the biggest concern, and to avoid that, humans are being genetically-engineered to stop aging when they reach 25, and then they will stay forever young. The bad news is, once you reach 25, you have only one more year to live, as the greenish phosphorescent digital clock, imprinted in your forearm since you were born, will start counting down and when it reaches zero, your heart will automatically stop pounding. And you die.

 

Your time can be added or bought though, the same way you have to trade some of your time away to pay for your necessities. Your wages are paid with time, the same as you pay for everything with time, whether it is a single public phone call that may cost you one minute, a cup of coffee that may cost you four minutes, or a trip by bus that may cost an hour or more. You also pay all services with time, including paying for a prostitute for 10 minutes of pleasure with 1 hour of your life. You can borrow time from other people, or take loans from banks and pawnshops, but with high 'time' interest rates . You can even gamble your time in order to win more time. And all these trades and exchanges can be done as simple as clasping your hands with others or by scanning a metal time reader to your clock. So simple, that your time can also be easily drained away by robbers. It's a world controlled by the rich, who set the system to benefit them by harvesting decades of time (even milleniums) from the poor, while the poor have to struggle day by day just to earn enough extra time to live for another day, or they may die in the streets at anytime with their time life running out.

That's the kind of life Will Salas (Justin Timberlake) lives, a 28-year old poor young man living in the ghetto with his 50-year old mom (played by Olivia Wilde). Will has managed to live another 3 years of his life as 25, the same as his mother who has lived an additional 25 years as 25, without growing old. When Will receives a huge amount of time gift from a stranger, he starts to get into troubles with a notorious mobster gang called the Minutemen, and when his mother fatally miscalculates the bus fare, Will decides to leave for New Greenwich, a place where the rich live in luxurious, in order to take revenge and uphold justice. There, he meets and falls for a beautiful woman named Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried), a daughter of a rich bankers, Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser). But as he is from the wrong side of the world and as the Timekeepers, lead by Raymond Leon (Cillian Murphy), hunts him on account of murder, Will is again forced to run and he takes Sylvia as hostage. And together, they have to trust and help each other in order to survive in a world where time is not on their side.

This is an interesting and unique science fiction movie from Andrew Niccol, the same director who gave us Gattaca (1997). I think the premise of using time as the ultimate currency, which can shorten or prolong people's lives, was such a fresh and original idea. The movie itself was entertaining. However, by seeing the big potentials that this movie has, I didn't think that the movie reached its full potentials. The story was a bit simplified by the actions that it offered, as I expected for much deeper story. This movie actually could offer more. The simple execution of transferring time through merely clasping hands and the minimum amount of special effects also made this sci-fi look rather simple, which was actually not a bad thing.

Amanda Seyfried was stunningly beautiful in her short brunette wig, which was perfectly suited for her and somehow made her look futuristic. And she has that tempting appearance that made her look so adorable and smokin' hot, running all the way throughout the movie in her sexy dresses and stilettos. Sometimes I couldn't explain the appeals and charms that this actress has, but she just 'has' it, even though I must say that her character was a bit underdeveloped in this movie.

I think Justin Timberlake played his role well as the street-wise young man whose struggles to earn extra time for his life he deserved and his anger towards the system's injustice made him tough enough to do all the risky and dangerous things. However, even though his motives were strong, I think that his character transition from the normal life to the 'live or die' life did not flow that smoothly, which made some of the actions that he took didn't look believable enough (for example, the high risk gambling scene that he was involved in, or the good fighting abilities that he has). Again, it was not about his motives or his drives, but in my opinion, the movie just didn't give enough backgrounds of what he is really capable of when those scenes happened.

Besides the good-looking leads, the supporting casts were also interesting to watch. I think only in this movie we can see Olivia Wilde played as Justin's mother. While Cillian Murphy gave a good performance as the Timekeeper, who judges things as only black or white. Interesting performances also came from Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell from Mad Men) as the greedy time-loaning businessman and Alex Pettyfer (I am Number Four) as the mobster boss who is infamous for stealing other people's time by force.

As much as I enjoyed this movie as I enjoyed the beautiful casts and entertained by the creative premise, however in overall, I think the screenplay and execution from Andrew Niccol was felt a bit short from its very promising premise. I actually expected more and I think it could have been better. (MJ)

MYMOVIE CRITIC - REVIEWING MOVIES FROM THE AUDIENCE'S STANDPOINT

BUDDHA MOUNTAIN (GUAN YIN SHAN) (2010)

MyRating: YYY1/2

Director: Li Yu
Cast: Sylvia Chang, Fan Bingbing, Chen Po Lin, Fei Long

True friendship is the most blessed thing in the world. Life may get so difficult, but with true friends around to share the burdens, there should not be a problem that is too difficult to overcome, if not to be casted away. This refreshing friendship was depicted beautifully in this art-house movie by Li Yu, a Chinese controversial female director, whose 2007 film Lost in Beijing was being banned in China due to its gratuitous sex contents.

Three best friends, living carefree and reckless lives in the city of Chengdu, China, find that their friendship may be the only thing matters the most in their aimless lives. Ding Bo (Chen Po Lin) hates and blames his father for his mother's death, and the fact that his father will get remarried again makes Ding Bo hate him even more. Nan Feng (Fan Bingbing), a beautiful young girl who sings at a bar in the town, comes from a disfunctional family with a history of alcoholism and domestic violence. While Fei Zao (Fei Long) is often bullied by other people all his life due to his overweight body, that makes him an easy target to be mocked. But no matter what, they stick together and back up one another, whether to accompany Ding Bo to his father unwanted marriage, or to help Nan Feng out when she needs a lot of money, or to face gang members who bullying Fei Zao.

When they decide to move from their houses and find a new place to live by their own, they rent a room in an apartment and share the place with the owner, a widowed and retired Chinese opera singer Chang Yue Qin (Sylvia Chang), who is still mourning for the recent death of her son. But soon they start a conflict with the landlady due to their different lifestyles, as the three youngsters are more of night creatures who are still hanging around in the pubs pass midnight, while Mrs. Chang has a routine hour to practice singing her opera vocal out loud early every morning, at the time they are practically still sleeping. Only after when they start to know each other well, and the three friends help Mrs. Chang to overcome her anguish towards her deceased son, they can start to appreciate one another and become friends. And a journey together to Buddha Mountain, where they help to rebuild a damaged temple after the Chengdu earthquake, their friendships with Mrs. Chang bonds stronger, and the three friends also start to learn the real meaning of life.

It's always interesting to watch a human drama, where the not so perfect humans are put in a not so perfect world, with their real and perfect problems. And this movie told the fact of real life that is not always sweet. Each character has his or her own pitiful background, and all of them are trying to escape and forget their problems, even trying not to think of their uncertain futures, whether they realize it or not. But the one thing they have, that others may feel jealous, is their strong friendships. This is what I like the most about this movie. It's a joy to watch this three friends took the adventures walking aside the railway tracks and across the hanging bridge with river deep down below. Or when they hitchhiked on a freight train, shouting in the air while the train travels across mountains and tunnels, like there are no problems at all in the world. Let loose yourself and just scream. Today is today, and the world is us, and only us with the world.

There are many quiet moments with camera shooting only close-up to the faces of the characters, including when the trio shouting on the freight train, sometimes with no sounds but only the music scores, trying to grab the essense of youth and the joys that they express. Also when the scene where Chen Po Lin and Fan Bingbing swimming together with many long takes under water. All these make the movie looks artistic (this movie actually won the Best Artistic Contribution Award at the 23rd Tokyo International Film Festival). However, the use of too many close-ups with the shaky moving camera takes may not be comfortable for the audiences who watch it. For most moviegoers, this movie may also be felt boring because of its rather slow pace. The story also did not like the usual commercial movie where everything run fast with high intensity conflicts, this movie has many static and quiet moments, in order to give you time to enjoy the beauty and think about life.

All the actors acted pretty natural, with the highlight given to the senior actress Sylvia Chang, who gave a solid performance as the grieving landlady with an anger inside, that may tear her apart. Her interactions with the three youngsters were fun to watch. The very beautiful actress Fan Bingbing also gave quite an interesting performance here. Not exactly outstanding, but we can see how she tried to show that she is not only beautiful face. This may excite her fans, she has at least a couple of long-take kiss scenes in this movie, including the long kiss scenes with Chen Po Lin, and a kiss scene with a girl, with blood flowing down her face, when she challenged the gang members who bullied Fei Zao. Chen Po Lin and Fei Long also acted well in playing their characters.

The change in the relationship between Ding Bo and Nan Feng from best friend to become lover was not explored good enough though, it felt too sudden, as suddenly they became lover. But the change in the relationship was what the audiences may expect. The ending also turned to be a bit fairy tale, as I don't think the film has prepared us enough to accept what we have to accept in the end. The ending may force us to reflect about life and death. I enjoyed and liked this movie as much as I enjoyed the beauty that the film offered. It's a moving movie with heartwarming friendships. (MJ)

THE DRUNKARD (JIU TU) (2010)

MyRating: YYY1/2

Director: Freddie Wong Kwok-shiu
Cast: John Chang, Irene Wan, Joman Chiang, Wei Wei, Elena Kong, Katie Kwok

Adapted from the landmark novel The Drunkard (Jiutu, 1963) of Liu Yichang, one of the most notable Hong Kong writers who has influenced many Hong Kong artists, including the famous director Wong Kar Wai. This is the film debut from the critic-turned-director Freddie Wong (nominated for Best New Director in Hong Kong Film Awards for this movie), who also wrote the screenplay of this movie. Set in the era of 1960's Hong Kong, a struggling middle-aged writer named Mr. Lau (John Chang), who abuses his life with alcohols, finds out that his idealism for writing only good literatures may not survive him in a publication world full of commercialisms. And in order to live, he may have to let go of his dignity and write popular pulp fictions, such as martial arts and erotic stories. Besides alcohol, he also lives a lustful life by seeking comforts from one woman to another, including paying for sex and sleeping with other man's wife. An alcoholic and a womanizer, deep down inside he lives a bitter life, that the more he falls for his demons, the more he may loathe himself for what he may not become, and the more difficult for him to escape his addictions that may lead him straight to self destructions.

As an art movie, this is not a movie for everybody. But if you could enjoy it, then you may find the beauty of this movie, that is almost poetic, but at the same time also a bit too literature. It was slow moving and many of the scenes were just suggested, meaning the story will tell you that something important has happened without showing you in visual how it's happened. When you need to see some direct actions or conflicts, it will rather show you in a narative way, interrupted the scenes with Chinese writings on an empty black screen, explaining the things or how Mr. Lau thinks. Many times, it was like reading poetries, one after another. However, that was also the beauty of this movie. The atmosphere of the movie also brought us to that era, when people smoking a lot and Chinese women wearing cheongsam everywhere, even though without showing any significant settings, as the films were mostly shot indoor.

John Chang, the senior Taiwanese actor, gave a very solid performance as Mr. Lau. You can feel his deep personal struggling inside, while at the same time convinced by his believable acting as an alcoholic writer who just can't stop drinking, as well as a middle-aged man who is good when dealing with women. He's not the most handsome man around, but women like him, from a wild under-aged girl Katie Kwok, to a beautiful matured married woman Irene Wan (who still looks gorgeous in her mid forties), and to an attractive and sexy nightclub hostess, Joman Chiang (she played a double role here, another role as a young man a friend of Mr. Lau, who invited him to start a literature magazine together). All these actresses did look nice and elegant in their Chinese cheongsam outfits. There was one scene where Joman Chiang daringly appeared nude, shot from behind, as the erotic scene in the movie.

This is a movie that will intrigue us more on how we feel about it, rather than seeing big things that will happen on screen, because it won't. Instead, it will involve us to think and reflect. It's a literature challenge in a form of a movie. A beautiful movie in a literature package, that may scare people away if they're not used to it. (MJ)

A CHINESE GHOST STORY (2011)

MyRating: YYY1/2

Director: Wilson Yip

Cast: Louis Koo, Liu Yifei, Yu Shaoqun, Kara Hui, Louis Fan, Wang Danyi

A remake of the 1987 Hong Kong popular fantasy romantic horror A Chinese Ghost Story starring the late Leslie Cheung, Joey Wong and Wu Ma (the original movie was produced by Tsui Hark). The plot was adapted from a short story taken from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio (Liaozhai Zhiyi), a collection of nearly five hundred ancient Chinese supernatural tales, written by Pu Songling during the early Qing Dynasty. This remake is directed by Wilson Yip, a director who boosted Donnie Yen's career through Ip Man & Ip Man 2 (the two guy also collaborated in three other martial arts movies with Yen in it, SPL: Sha Po Lang, Dragon Tiger Gate and Flash Point).

 

The original movie was very popular in Asian back in 1987. People liked the romantic ghost story between the human and the demon, as well as the two charming and attractive main leads, the singer-actor Leslie Cheung and the beautiful Joey Wong as the ghost. The film ended up with two sequels in 1990 & 1991, and it set a trend of folklore ghost movies in the Hong Kong film industry at that time. The original movie also received a dozen of nominations in the Hong Kong Film Awards and won three of them. It will be difficult for a remake to top a popular movie like this. If we talk about the originality and the charismatic of the two main stars, well, this remake didn't top the original. And if we compare the two films, then this movie may always fall under the shadow of the original. However, despite some unfavorable that people may have towards this remake, for me this is a pretty decent film that stands on its own. And I have to say that I liked and enjoyed the movie more than I expected.

This 2011 remake (also known as A Chinese Fairy Tale) tells a slightly different story and backgrounds, even though the myth and the main characters are the same. Yan Chixia (Louis Koo) is a great demon hunter until he breaks the forbidden rule and falls in love with a beautiful demon Nie Xiaoqian (Crystal Liu Yifei). On knowing that a human and a ghost cannot live together and their romance will never have a good end, he decides to end their relationship by wiping their romance memory out of the demon's mind with a magical mind wipe, and makes her totally forget about him.

But the history seems to roll all over again when a young scholar Ning Caichen (Yu Shaoqun), journeying to the Black Mountain to help a town finding a water source to end their drought, meets with Nie Xiaoqian and they fall in love, even though the demon wants to kill him at the beginning. But there is no easy way for their romance, as the Tree Demon (Kara Hui), the strongest evil power in the mountain, despises humanbeing and will never let Xiaoqian go. At the other hand, Yan Chixia, the demon hunter, also tries to separate them with every possible way he could, as he knows their romance is doomed to fail, as what he experienced before with Xiaoqian. But will a true love finally overcome the human's forbidden crossover into the world of the ghosts?

The main difference with the original movie is, while the original focused on the love story between the scholar and the ghost (and nothing about the demon hunter and the demon itself), this remake spiced the story with the love triangle between the demon hunter, the ghost and the scholar. It was a bald's moves actually taken from the director Wilson Yip and the screenwriter to make something different out of an already familiar tale, which some people may accept and some may not. But if we see this movie in its own ground, it's still a fun and entertaining movie, which story and ghost fantasy atmosphere we can enjoy, disregard how cheesy you might feel about the story. More actions, funny at times, and lots of CGI, with the movie budget of US$ 20 million.

Leslie Cheung and Joey Wong from the original movie were hard to beat, as their images and charisma will always be correlated when talking about A Chinese Ghost Story. Cheung was a legend in the industry (he died tragically in 2003 on suicide at age 46). He was one of the greatest canto-pop singers Hong Kong ever has. And he was a fine actor too. It will not be easy for whoever that plays his character as the scholar in the remake. And Yu Shaoqun didn't play it bad actually, he looked more naive though, but he was definitely overshadowed by our fond memories of Leslie Cheung.

The ghost role in the original movie help uplifted the career and stardom of Joey Wong, the character she will always be remembered. Maybe the most beautiful, elegant and sexy ghost ever existed in the Hong Kong movie history. Even though also overshadowed by the aura of Joey Wong, I liked Crystal Liu Yifei (the girl from The Forbidden Kingdom) in this movie. I think she played her character as the ghost well. Not as sexy as the appearance of Joey Wong in the original, but she is also beautiful, seductive and very lovable, which will make human guys fight for her love. While as the demon hunter, Louis Koo gave a different interpretation to his character as has been shown by Wu Ma in the original, and much younger. Louis Fan Siu-Wong from the Ip Man series also appeared as another demon hunter here, who has unsettled hatred towards Louis Koo's character.

In overall, I am having quite a good time with this movie. Not a perfect movie as it has its flaws, and this is not a kind of movie you should take too seriously at. But if you want to see a Chinese fairy tale with beautiful ghost in it without being scared, and enjoy some sweet human and ghost romance out of it, plus some actions, then this is the movie. The theme song at the beginning and the end of the movie, sang by the great Leslie Cheung, will flush us with nostalgia and make us remember of him. (MJ)

WHAT WOMEN WANT (WO ZHI NU REN XIN) (2011)

MyRating: YYY

Director: Chen Daming
Cast: Andy Lau, Gong Li, Yuan Li, Benny Chan, Li Chengru, Russell Wong

A Chinese remake of the American romantic comedy with the same title starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt in the year 2000. This movie marked the first ever collaboration between the two Chinese superstars, Andy Lau and Gong Li, who appeared as a dream pairing cast together.

Sun Zigang (Andy Lau) is a chauvinistic creative director of an advertising company in Beijing, who likes to be the center of attentions of women, an expert in seducing females with his sweet mouth and charming personality, and eventually brings them to bed. However, deep down inside he doesn't really understand how women feel and what they want. When his company hiring another creative director, a talented executive woman named Li Yilong (Gong Li), in order to aim and sell more to female market, Zigang feels threaten as he gets himself a real competitor.

Doesn't want to lose his superiority to a woman, Zigang knows he has to prove himself, as well as to make the new comer quit the company as soon as possible. But one weird accident changes everything, as he suddenly has the ability to listen to all the thoughts and self talks from all women. Feeling like a curse at the beginning, Zigang quickly learns how to use his new gift for his benefits, as now he can know women's opinions and desires from listening to their thoughts, including stealing the advertising campaign ideas from Yilong and makes them his own. From disliking each other at first, Zigang slowly falls for his rival as they come to know one another, and he realizes that what he has done is not respectable and fair to Yilong, that he may need to do something to change the situation.

This remake has almost all the same plots and story with the original, with only some small adjustments. As I watched it, the scene that I waited to see was how the accident happened, as that was also the scene I remember the most from the original movie, when Mel Gibson fell in the bathroom and got electrified. And when Andy Lau finally fell, hah... it's happening! But despite all the similarity, in which it was obvious that the writer did not feel the need to creatively change the story and plots, I still think it was a decent remake.

What made the movie worked the most was actually the two main stars, Andy Lau and Gong Li, who made perfect leads in this movie. They were the reason why I watched this movie at the first place. Andy Lau was charismatic and charming as always. He played his character well and his acting was fun to watch. While Gong Li was attractive and fine in her role as the executive woman. Together, these two veteran actors sparked the screen and made the movie worth watching, definitely not in a heavy tone, but in an enjoyable way. Overall, a good movie for me to have fun and romantic time, a bit overlong, but I was entertained. Andy Lau sang an English soundtrack titled "Slip Away", a nice song, where he sang the song in the stage for Gong Li in one romantic moment in the middle of the movie. He's always my favorite actor. (MJ)

Original Sound Track: "Slip Away" by Andy Lau.
(Open the song with right-click to stay in this page)

SCREAM 4 (2011)

MyRating: YYY1/2

Director: Wes Craven
Writer: Kevin Williamson
Cast: Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, Adam Brody, Marley Shelton, Rory Culkin, Anthony Anderson, Erik Knudsen, Marielle Jaffe
MPAA: Rated R for strong bloody violence, language and some teen drinking

'New decade. New rules.' Just the 'right' tagline. It has been eleven years since the last Scream, and as a popular slasher franchise from one of the masters of horror movies, Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes), it's time for a come back. It also marked the return of Kevin Williamson as the screenwriter, after absent in Scream 3 (this talented screenwriter is the creator of Scream and its characters, as well as the one who is responsible for I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty, and the popular TV series Dawson's Creek and The Vampire Diaries). And it's also time to refresh the series by adding to the original cast (Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox and David Arquette) with the fresh new cast from younger generation, such as Emma Roberts and Hayden Panettiere. Seems to be an exciting and promising new decade, especially for the fans who have been waiting for a long time to see the new action from Ghostface.

Sidney Prescott (Campbell) returns to her hometown on her new book promotion tour, just at the same time with the fifteenth anniversary of the Woodsboro massacre. As the local celebrity due to her survival story from the massacre, the appearance of Sidney does not only attract the attentions from her town people, but also attracts the new copycat of Ghostface to spread the new terrors in town, as the town's high school students start to get killed one by one. Reuniting with Sheriff Dewey Riley (Arquette) and Gale Weathers (Cox), who are now husband and wife, Sidney has to again face the rampage of Ghostface, and find a way to reveal and stop the killer, before her cousin, Jill Roberts (Emma Roberts), and her friends will become the next victims. And the screams begin.

Same old formula, but the smart written script from Williamson made this new Scream an enjoyable movie to watch, without feeling it stale. It may be easy to write countless sequels of this kind of generic slasher movie just for the sake of making sequels, but it was not easy to write a memorable good one. If you ask me, besides the first Scream, which offered something new when it first appeared, I did not exactly remember the details of Scream 2 and 3, including the killers behind the mask as well as their motives, since they were just not that memorable for me. Every Scream sequels just felt the same, with the exactly same aura and executions. It definitely needs new fresh cast members. It needs a new 'break out' story plot, if not standout. It also needs a new different motive from the killer. And I think both Craven and Williamson have done a good job in bringing some new excitements in this same old stuff, at least that was what I felt when the movie was over.

It was a good fun ride with many scary jumps and violence kills (for girls, it definitely was a good scream practice, I knew it was for my partner). Funny at times, especially when one of the characters said the 'forbidden words' in a horror movie, "I'll be right back... I know this one. You're not supposed to say that, are you?" And it was unpredictable with an unexpected twist. Everybody can be the suspect. I always think that the writer can put whoever he wants as the killer behind Ghostface in Scream, with whatever the motives, and you have to accept it whether you like it or not. But I must say that the ending and the motive of the killer in this sequel, and who the writer made 'sacrifice' as the killer, was also the strong point of this movie (if not, it might just be another generic Scream movie). It did not totally made me jump in my seat actually (as I was prepared for whoever the killer will be), but still I did not exactly see it coming. It did give something different and made us appreciate on how the writer has planned to fool us in the first place with all our own presumptions on how a more than ten-year-old sequel, where an old cast meets new cast, should turn out, which cast member should be killed or about time to be killed, and which one should not. It for sure was not the way I thought it would be. The motive may seem ridiculous, but it was a good choice.

It was great to see all the three main old cast (Campbell, Cox and Arquette) back on screen together with the interesting new cast members, including the gorgeous Hayden Panettiere, Emma Roberts, Adam Brody and Rory Culkin. The beginning of the movie was also a terrific and inventive one as you will see terrors in a movie inside a movie, with some familiar faces such as Kristen Bell and Anna Paquin.

This was a good come back for a beloved slasher franchise. Disregard how this sequel was under performed in the box office, it was much better from the last two installments, and again, much more memorable for years to come. And the hardcore fans will definitely scream for more. (MJ)

THE MECHANIC (2011)

MyRating: YYY

Director: Simon West
Cast: Jason Statham, Ben Foster, Tony Goldwyn, Donald Sutherland, Jeff Chase, Mini Anden
MPAA: Rated R for strong brutal violence throughout, language, some sexual content and nudity

Jason Statham is Arthur Bishop, reprising a role played by Charles Bronson in 1972 in the movie with the same title, as a professional hitman with the skills of a 'mechanic', who kills his targets with careful and detail planning, to make them look like accidents. It's a job with high discipline and perfection. Driving by guilt, Bishop decides to mentor his mentor's, Harry McKenna's (Donald Sutherland) son, Steve McKenna (Ben Foster), an impulsive and short-fused young man, to become an assassin like him. As their mentor and student relationship grows, Bishop unavoidably puts himself in a position that may expose his deadly secret, as if the secret is being exposed to Steve, it may not only complicate things as well as their relationship, but also it may put them opposite one another in a table, to kill each other.

This is a brutal and bloody violence action thriller that seems to be a perfect vehicle for Jason Statham. As one of the most exciting action stars nowadays, who continuously building his profile to become a prominent one, Statham does know how to satisfy his fans. And he did look cool as a fine assassin here. When watching a Statham movie, we must know what we expect, since it may not be the story that purely attracts you, but Statham himself is an attraction now. If you want to see a fun (again, violence) action movie that shows the fine Western 'martial arts' moves, then you have to see a Statham's movie, as we used to like Jean Claude Van Damme's or Steven Seagal's in the past. But what makes Statham a bit different from Van Damme and Seagal for me is, I think this guy can act pretty well, as compared to those two old actors. Statham didn't catch much of my attention in his earlier apperances in the big screen, as he played a lot of supporting actor roles in the past, but now, he surely slowly catches my attention.

Another main cast here is Ben Foster, who appeared as the angry young rookie assassin, and a loose cannon. Foster is a good actor, but he is yet to find a role that could give him a bigger career. And a role like this is a role that we have seen so many times of him. But anyway, he seems to be quite good at it.

The story itself was a decent one. Not really outstanding, either in the script or direction, but it has its good moments. The shaky camera works when it came to actions were actually a bit disturbing for me to enjoy the action sequences in full. I guess it's simply because I am not a big fan of shaky camera things. What interested the most was, of course, Statham. Not his best movie, as I expected him to fight more with his bare fists, but in overall, it was quite okay and enjoyable. (MJ)

TRON: LEGACY 3D (2010)

MyRating: YYY

Director: Joseph Kosinski
Cast: Garrett Hedlund, Jeff Bridges, Olivia Wilde, Bruce Boxleitner, James Frain, Beau Garrett, Michael Sheen
MPAA: Rated PG for sequences of sci-fi action violence and brief mild language

For 20 years, Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), didn't know why his father Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), a well known innovative software programmer and a leading video game developer, suddenly disappeared. Despite left as a rich heir, Sam grows to become a rebellious young man, whose idealistic thoughts have made him against the corporate actions taken by his father's company, ENCOM, now led by his father's successors.

When Sam investigates a strange signal, that could possibly come from his father, sent from an old Flynn's Arcade, he unintentionally finds himself sucked into a cyber digital universe created by his father, the Grid, where his father has been trapped for the last twenty years. The Grid world is now ruled by Clu, a Program created by Kevin, whom forced a mutiny towards his Creator. Now, the father and son, with the help of Kevin's warrior confidant Quorra (Olivia Wilde), have to take a dangerous journey across the cyber universe, to fix what went wrong and to go back to the real world. But the amazing advanced cyber world has become their deathly home, with their deathly games, which will vanish their lives as easy as it is in a video-game.

This is the follow-up of the popular 1982 science fiction movie, Tron, produced by Walt Disney. A long waiting of 28 years. This sequel, Tron: Legacy, has a stunning special effects and amazing 3D. Interestingly, this movie was shot with both 2D (then converted into 3D) and real 3D cameras, with most of the scenes were shot in real 3D, only the beginning and the end of the movie were shot in 2D cameras. And when it comes into the real 3D part, you will feel the different, as it was much-much better. Actually, the 3D was awesome. The cyber world was mesmerizing with in-depth details. The fights and the races, both with cyber light-cycles and cyber light-planes were cool, especially the scene where Sam and his team have to race against the sentinel team in a deathly game with the light-cycles. It was a very exciting scene, as we know how to play that simple video-game.

The great visual effects and 3D were not followed by a good story though. The beginning of the movie was very promising up to near the middle of the film, with its wildly imaginative idea and settings, but somehow the story then faltered with weak plots and overlong unexcited dialogs. The storyline came flat and unable to develop further, with some boring moments. The pace then peaked up again in the final battle, but the story never really picked up until the end of the film. The actings were just okay. Garrett Hedlund seemed to equally fit his role as Sam Flynn. He is not outstanding, but also not bad. While Jeff Bridges played two characters, as the old Kevin Flynn and the much younger computer program, Clu.

This movie has a breathtaking visual effects, however it was hurdled by a lame script. I still recommend it since it brought something new and interesting in the visual department, just to spoil your eyes and for entertainment sake, and I suggest you watch it in 3D. But don't expect a good story. (MJ)

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 (2010)

MyRating: YYY1/2

Director: Tod Williams
Cast: Sprague Grayden, Brian Boland, Molly Ephraim, Katie Featherston, Micah Sloat, Vivis Cortez, Seth Ginsberg
MPAA: Rated R for some language and brief violent material

Following the huge success of the surprised hit of 2007's supernatural horror film, Paranormal Activity (widely released in 2009), which with only US$ 15,000 budget, resulting in a worldwide box office of more than US$ 193 Million (all thanks to the brilliant viral marketing strategy and good words of mouth), here comes the sequel, Paranormal Activity 2, which is actually a parallel prequel to the original movie.

The story begins two months before the scary event happened to Katie and Micah (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) in the first movie. This time it happens to the family of Micah's sister, Kristi (Sprague Grayden), who lives in a beautiful home with her husband Dan Rey (Brian Boland), together with her stepdaughter Ali (Molly Ephraim), their baby boy Hunter, and their dog. After a mysterious break-in occurred at their house, Dan decides to install a set of security cameras surrounding their house to protect his family. But what they don't expect is the cameras start to record the 'unexpected' things, as strange 'activities' start to occur around the house and terror the family. When they suspect that all these 'happenings' may have something to do with what Kristi dan Katie experienced when they were children, which was being tormented by a demon, they realize that the dark spirit may somehow prey for their baby boy, Hunter.

This sequel did not yet lose its 'paranormal' charms. In fact, they did it again, now with much higher budget of US$ 3 Million, directed by Tod Williams, a different director from the first movie. More of the same story, with the setting inside a house and a family terrorized by ghost. But if you thing you have known everything about Paranormal Activities, then wait until you are being startled and jump at your seat together with other audiences in the theatre. If one camera in the first movie scared the hell out of you, then imagine it with six cameras, in a bigger house, captured by the blue screen cameras. It was creepy, especially everytime the night came, that will make you hold your breath to wait whether something will actually happen or the night will just pass to morning.

The story was 'interestingly' scary, mostly will scare you psychologically than visually, which has become the trademark of this series. Not totally fresh in the story, as this is a sequel, but the moviemaker surely did not lack of new ideas to shock you. The story also has a parallel correlation with the original movie, and if you have not watched the first one, then this sequel will spoil the important outcome of the first movie, but at the same time will answer your 'unanswered' questions towards the first movie. As for the acting, like the original one, all the actors gave natural and believable performances, that made all the scares valid.

This is another good horror movie shot with camcorder (and security cameras). Wait for the third one in 2011, and see what other tricks they will offer us again next year. (MJ)