After hearing so much hype about this movie over many months, I finally managed to lay my hands on a copy of “Apocalypto” DVD. Watched it over the weekend and guess what? It wasn’t that great after all. So much about the ‘gore factor’ and stuffs. I was expecting something deeper and more meaningful, something like “Dances With Wolves”… (because for some reason, motion pictures featuring tribals always give me an impression that they’re always about stories that are emotionally engaging and spiritually thought provoking…).

But not this one. This one turned out to be another hackneyed ‘Mel Gibson formula’ - you know, peace loving hero had his friends/family robbed off his life by unscrupulous villains, then made to go through an episode of death defying torment and finally made a comeback as a badass one-man-army to eradicate all his nemesis. It’s nothing new really. We have watched stories like these retold a couple times before under his sleeve. “Braveheart”. “The Patriot”.

These 3 movies seem to share the same plot. Just a theme change, like my Sony Ericsson phone theme. 2007, Mayan tribals. 2009, it’ll be about some orang asli at Cameron Highlands… fighting bigfoot at Johor perhaps. The story could have used a more intelligent plot.

And there were also a lot of flaws. Let’s not even talk about the historical accuracies. It’s the scientific ones that bothered me. One of them was the sacrificial scene. In the flick, it was shown that the (male) victim was made to lay on his back on top of a granite stump-like structure, and the priest would then use a knife to disembowel the poor dude at the belly and take out his heart.

See the problem here already?

The heart is actually located at the (usually) left side of the chest. How the fuck did the priest remove a person’s heart through the belly? Well, the priest could, IF… he were to shove both his hands all the way from the belly up to the chest area… along with the crudely made big ass tribal knife… then with a precise surgical precision, severe the arteries and remove the heart out. Like Jack the Ripper multiplied by ten. But that didn’t seem to happen in the movie. The priest would just reach inside the belly, and he took out the heart as if he was picking up a Zippo lighter to burn his Cuban cigar. Oh puhleez… (but the beheading scenes were pretty cool though…)

And there’s also this part, where the hero’s pregnant wife was trapped inside a cavern-hole with his kid. At the finale, it rained heavily and it was shown that she’s about to drown until the very last minute before the hero managed to get to her in time to rescue her. I was thinking, couldn’t she just hold on to the jagged walls of the cavern and literally ‘float’ up to the surface as the water level rises? In reality, it’s very easy to do that and you don’t have to be a seasoned swimmer to figure that out. The whole thing doesn’t have to be so dramatic.

And so on.

The movie was just barely surpassing the ‘ok’ mark for me. The plot was very predictable and it wasn’t as edgy as I’ve expected it to be. (I would have ranked this movie lower than “The Departed”). A DVD should be sufficient, but don’t expect too much out of it.

When I read the plot outline of this movie, I immediately got reminded of a Chinese flick that I watched sometime ago - “The Infernal Affairs” - which was a brilliantly made movie with an all-stars cast. Curious, I wiki-ed “The Departed” and found that it was INDEED the western adaptation of “The Infernal Affairs”. With a little bit of a tweak here and there of course, but the main plot remains the same - a thug undercovers in the police force, and a police undercovers in the thug force - which then, the fate of both undercovers intertwine into a complex plot of betrayal and lies.

So, it is only natural for us who have watched “The Infernal Affairs” to benchmark “The Departed” against the original. For me, I find the original better. “The Departed” seems to be too dense and the storyline’s a bit of a rush. It’s like, cramping the whole fucking lifetime’s worth of storyline into a 150 minutes of celluloid (yes, ironically, it FELT that long). Not that it was bad but, if you’ve seen “Infernal Affairs”, you’d know what the word ‘better’ means. The continuity was a little bit of a mess.

Then comes the cast. I don’t know if it was just me but, I think Matt Damon didn’t carry the character of the villain-rat well enough. That guy literally look more like a retard (though he surprisingly played the Bourne legacy damn well) than anything else. He’s a good actor yes, but he just didn’t have what it takes to play that role. For a complex role like that, you’d need someone that look smarter, you know, nice on the front and super freaking bad behind his veil of deception.

And then, there’s also something about the script. There were too many ‘fucks’ in it. The good and the bad, doesn’t matter who they are, they seem to revolve around the word ‘fuck’ like it was their religion or something. You can almost virtually spot a ‘fuck’ or two in each and every sentence that they utter. It’s like monosodium glutamate in Chinese food. It was so overused that it sounded trite and bland and not that special anymore. Here’s an example :

Dignam : [to a team of police officers inside a meeting] “Ok, my people are out there. They’re like fucking Indians. You’re not gonna see ‘em. You’re not gonna hear about ‘em. Except for me and Captain Queenan. You will not EVER, know the identity of the undercover people. Unfortunately, this shithole has more fucking leads than the Iraqi navy.” [then looks at Ellerby]

Ellerby : “Fuck yourself”

Dignam : “I’m tired from fucking your wife”

Ellerby : “How’s your mother?”

Dignam : “Good, she’s tired from fucking my father”

The script’s pretty much like that the whole length of it. Some of it ridiculous and some downright funny. I’m not even sure how are they going to release it in the cinema - it sure hell going to be a lot of beeps if it ever gets approved for screening.

So, that’s pretty much about it. Just marginally good. Nothing to shout about. I doubt you’re going to see this title in the local shore cinema - so if you haven’t already watched “Infernal Affairs”, go get this DVD or download it from the internet. It has 150 minutes worth of potential to kill your time with - if you don’t have anything to do.

*****

There’s actually one particular quote which I kinda like from Alec Baldwin who played that Ellerby character :

Marriage is an important part of getting ahead. It lets people know you’re not a homo. A married guy seems more stable. People see the ring, they think, “At least somebody can stand the son of a bitch.” Ladies see the ring, they know immediately that you must have some cash, and your cock must work.

How very apt… how very…

I know… I know… this movie is so passé. But I only watched it last night (I was probably the last person in town to watch this). But when a man’s gotta review, he’s gotta review, right? I’m gonna do it anyway.

Ok, so I was made known that this movie was actually an adaptation of a popular comic series from Hong Kong, with the same title - “Dragon Tiger Gate” (Lung Foo Moon). If you could understand Cantonese, you might notice that it was pronounced quite similar to a popular Chinese porn mag called “Dragon Tiger Leopard” (Lung Foo Pao). But it was of course, nothing of that sort. This is a kungfu flick. With plenty of CGI effects. Full of exaggerated stunts. And despite all that, it still sucked (donkey cock). Big time. (Needless to say, flipping through a stack of “Dragon Tiger Leopard” would have had better entertainment value than this movie…)

Let me put this in point form…

- Lame storyline.
I don’t know but, I felt that it is quite odd that the hero kept remembering a particular lapse of time when he was a kid (from what I reckoned, must be 8 or 9 yrs old), which… everything seems to have an effect from thence on his adult life. I mean, how ridiculous can that be? Haven’t he got anything else worth remembering throughout the years? What happened to his teenage memories - you know, screwing chicks and having fun? No. It’s only 9 year old hero and the adult hero. Nothing else in between. Even the chick that he was hooking up with (the one with a nice rack), was the same one he acquainted when he was 9. Lots of missing links man. Too fucking emo and hard to bite. (Maybe it was because the version that I watched was dubbed in Mandarin, I couldn’t understand half the shits they were uttering)

- Bad casting.
Except for Donnie Yen (the hero - Dragon Wong) himself, I think the other 2 of his sidekicks looked like total dorks. Too skinny and stiff to be martial art heroes. Totally off the standard. The villain boss wasn’t any good either. Had a mask on all the time. I wonder what’s with the mask. He could have tattoo-ed his face like Mike Tyson and it would have been wayyy cooler. But a mask is definitely corny. Come think of it, the villain boss was also damn goofy with that cape on. A Darth Vader wannabe. (If I were to be the casting director, I would have chosen ‘The Rock’ to take that role. He’d look good without any stupid mask or cape. No shit).

- Bad hairstyle.
From being a kid to a full grown adult, the hero and the rest of the characters seem to have the same stupid hairstyle (you know, the kind of disheveled style made popular by ‘F4′ and Jay Chou alikes). I mean, we don’t really sport the same hairstyle all our lives, do we? I used to have a comb-over when I was 7. Then sometime around my early secondary, I sported a mullet. Then the Aaron Kwok mushroom-do. You see, it changes together with time. But quite oddly, that wasn’t the case in this movie. The universe seems to revolve around that hairstyle in the “Dragon Tiger Gate” world. Fucking revolting.
The main villain on the other hand, had this blonde frizzy-do that reminded me of a typical Malaysian ahlongs (slang for illegal moneylenders). Slap in a 4 inch thick gold chain, you’d get a pimp-ahlong combo. The bad hairstyle on the characters were damn distracting, which made the whole experience of watching this movie a little bit of a pain.

- Poorly choreographed fight scenes.
The only good part was at the beginning of the movie, the showdown at the restaurant. The rest? Pathetic and boring. It would have been more interesting to watch a couple of stray dogs having a mating feud on a curb. Or maybe a crocodile wolfing down a wildebeest on Discover channel. Whichever that suits your liking.
I also took notice about the final fight between Dragon and the ahlong villain boss - some of the fight moves were actually grossly plagiarized from that popular Thai action flick - “Ong Bak”. The use of knees, elbows, were all uncannily similar. No good.

The continuity of the story was the biggest let down of all. The hero and his sidekicks were beaten down, but somehow, miracle came to them, which in a short period of time, would grant them Strength +10, Perception +20, Dexterity +15 and a bonus Power move (but unfortunately, the Charm would remain at -75, due to the crappy hairstyle) - and that’s all it takes to defeat that illegal moneylender villain boss. o_O

What the fuck indeed.

If you haven’t watched this movie, good. Keep it that way, go watch something else.

Like I’ve said before, ever since Regine was born, I don’t get to go to the cinema that often anymore. That’s why I resorted to downloading movies… outdated movies, and watch them late at night when nobody’s around. I have to admit, sometimes I’m kinda concerned about people might think that I’m watching porn - you know, with that kind of hour and privacy - it’s a matching profile. But I assure you… I’m not really into porn. It’s just unpermitting circumstances.

Alright, so I finally get to watch this “Snakes on a Plane” flick. Been wanting to catch this one for quite some time, and I finally did it on Christmas day. How do I find it? Totally out of my expectations at all. Totally.

With that kind of title and poster (the cool twin snakes intertwining a plane logo…), I thought the flick was of an action genre that has seriously complex and intelligent plots that involve a plane hijack or something - but I was so fucking off my mark about that. It turns out, this movie is ANYTHING but serious. Lame storyline, lame acting and lame everything… but despite all that, it was as entertaining as any of best movies I’ve watched in 2006.

Now how come a movie with everything so bad could be so good at the same time? I don’t know how they did it man. Maybe it’s the idea of being flippant itself. It was as if, the whole idea is about getting out of our mind and common propriety… and have a mind blowing laugh at the misfortune of others.

The plot is quite simple. It’s about a young man called Sean Jones who was at the wrong place at the wrong time - for witnessing a murder while dirt-biking at Hawaii. The murderer happened to be a famous Korean mobster (or was it Japanese?) who was at trial over some of his crimes and the person he murdered was the prosecutor who indicted him. But Sean was unfortunate, he was discovered by the mobster and soon, had his ass hot when the mobster’s hitmen found his apartment. That was when FBI agent Neville came in to save him and later convinced Sean to turn witness to put the mobster behind bars for good.

To do that, they have to travel back to LA on a plane (Sean to be escorted/guarded by Neville and another FBI agent) and that was where the ’snake adventure’ begins. The villains, bent on preventing Sean from reaching LA, put a time triggered crate full of poisonous and agitated snakes (triggered by pheromones) on board of the plane to bring the whole thing down from the sky. Adventure ensues.

As you can imagine, the plot’s kinda mindless and straightforward. Once we’re brought on board of the 747, it’s all about hissing serpents wreaking a carnage across the entire fuselage. You’d see blood, you’d see gore, you’d see the worst imaginable deaths that could be caused by snakes.

- snake bites on limbs
- snake bites on head
- snake bites on face
- snake bites on eyeball
- snake bites on boob
- snake bites on dick
- snake bites on ass
- high heel stiletto piercing through a human head (during pandemonium)
- snake sexually arousing a woman
- snake swallowing a human whole (yes, quite oddly, they manage to get a giant anaconda into the plane as well…)

and every imaginable animal cruelty to be inflicted upon snakes
- to burn a snake with fire
- to zap a snake with a stun gun
- to pop a few caps on a snake
- to inflict bodily harm on snake with an axe
- to explode a snake inside the microwave
- etc

You get the drift. There were heaps of fun violence and loads of bullshits scripts. I especially like one of the pilots. One of his notable funny quotes “this plane would go down faster than a Thai hooker”. Well, the plane did indeed go down - landed safely by a body guard of some famous hip-hop star (when the funny pilot died), who manage to do it based on his PS2 flight simulator experience. Simply awesome.

At the end of the movie, more than half the people inside the plane croaked from either a gruesome immediate death or slow painful ones - but I have to admit that, I never had a greater time watching people getting killed… than seeing those damn fake CGI snakes executing it.

I haven’t been watching any horror flicks ever since Regine was born - due to the fact that our TV has been declared an off limit item after 8pm, and I can’t haul my ass to the cinema either, since I am always needed around to clean up the shits and pukes of my infant daughter. So, I didn’t have any choice but to watch it only after my Regine was asleep last night, and for the first time in many months, I laid my eyes on a rather outdated horror flick which goes by the title “Fragile”.

A low budget movie starring Calista Flockhart, you know, that ugly emaciated girl who got her fame from that Ally McBeal role? Yes, she’s the protagonist of this flick (just a word of note, I’ve never watched that McBeal crap before… just in case you’re wondering…). And for such a low budget making, I’d cut this flick some slack and give it a mediocre rating instead. So, yeah, why not?

The story’s about this nurse, Amy (Flockhart), who got a temporary job taking care of a bunch children at an old hospital. The kids were the remaining patients that were supposed to move out from the building to another premise, but due to a recent train crash that caused a shortage of hospital beds around the region, the transfer had to be delayed till everything’s back to normal again. But it didn’t… for the hospital was haunted. And Amy found out about it the hard way. She would first sit through her shift noting something weird happening around the hospital and like many hundreds of other horror flicks seemed to like to portray, she’d find out more about it from the kids, about Charlotte the ‘Mechanical girl’ (which was supposed to be the ghost).

I don’t know about that but, they could have given ‘it’ a better name, you know, like maybe ‘Bloody Brain Sucker’… ‘Charlotte the Mutilator’… or something… But anyway, that ‘Mechanical girl’, seemed to be a topic of interest to the troubled Amy, and a subject that many of her fellow hospital colleagues would not discuss with her. But the haunting eventually became more audacious and threatening, that Amy had to do something about it. She decided to investigate (instead of peel the fuck off and never turn back), and found out more about this Charlotte ghost…

Apparently this Charlotte ghost, wasn’t the ‘Mechanical girl’ as Amy had originally thought it was. That ‘Mechanical girl’ was called Mandy, who used to be one of the children nursed inside the hospital aeons ago for some rare bone disease. And there was this fugly nurse, which was the actual Charlotte, who developed a very deep affection towards Mandy back then. Soon Mandy got well enough to leave the hospital, but Charlotte didn’t like the idea. As a result, Charlotte orchestrated an evil plot to prevent Mandy from leaving, by fracturing her bones to paint a facade that her condition’s worsening and needed to stay in the hospital longer. That’s how Mandy got the name - ‘Mechanical girl’ - ’cause she had all these metal braces supporting her fractured bones, thanks to Charlotte the psychotic nurse.

But Charlotte went a bit too far one day, and got Mandy killed. Overwhelmed by extreme sadness, she killed herself and turned into a motherfucking badass ghost. So, all along the story, the haunting was of that Charlotte’s, not ‘Mechanical girl’ aka Mandy’s. Charlotte became violent because she doesn’t want the childrens to be brought away from her one more time, and that was why she went apeshit about the whole thing and resurrected her old time hobby - breaking bones.

It was a mildly creepy movie with diggable plot, but lacked of the ’scare factor’. The scariest thing of all was probably Charlotte the ghost herself, which only appeared almost at the finale of the flick and only for a brief moment. She has this creepy looking face that very much reminded me one of my nasty school teachers (which I’ve blogged about as ‘Miss Lim’ here) and… you probably wouldn’t believe this but, Charlotte was half naked. Her rack was like, hanging out. This… this… set of ultra saggy tits that have more wrinkles per square inch than an entire box (jumbo pack) of dehydrated prunes combined… bouncing menacingly across the screen like… like… it’s gonna spoil my sex life. It’s horrifying man. The tits.

And that Calista girl wasn’t very good either. She looked so very fake when she does that flip out scene. They could just get a porn star to play the role Amy, and it would have been any way better than Calista Flockhart. And that, we get to see some flesh, to offset that Charlotte’s horrifying indecent exposure…

Maybe I should become a director instead of an engineer…