Saturday, February 23, 2008
L-change the world & P.S I love you
Despite my schedule, I am able to catch 2 recent movies.First being, "L – Change the world".
Synopsis: L is the greatest crime-fighting genius the world has ever known. He proved without a doubt, that fellow genius Yagami Light is KIRA, but at a terrible price. Now with only 23 days to live, and without his trusty partner Watari, L must solve the new case before he runs out of time.
Basically, the events unfolding in the L spin-off movie have little or nothing to do with the original DeathNote series. And it shows a completely different side of L. L basically outwitted Light by sealing his own fate, so that he wouldn't die prematurely, by giving himself the maximum time limit of the deathnote, 23 days. As seen in the 2nd movie of DeathNote, Light tried to kill L, but without avail.
So Light died in the 2nd movie and now L has lost Watari, misa has lost her memory and only has 1/4 left of her life to live. L now faces an enemy within his own ranks, K. K is also another brilliant individual which I can only assume was an orphan from the organization as well. For details you have to watch the movie yourself.
But somehow along the way, L found himself babysitting two children, a influza-ebola hybrid virus infected 12-year old girl and a small maths-prodigy boy who escaped the viral epidemic in a rural village. Somehow these two children would be connected and the boy turns out to be the cure for the virus because of his high-MK proteins. (MidKine).
Actually when L wrote the two letters "MK" on the board, my heart skipped a beat. Very interesting! Talk about coincidence.
So eventually, L's own haven has compromised, he was on the run with the 2 children, finding the friend of the murdered virus-expert in order to develop a cure for the terrible virus-weapon. So in the end, the girl was cured, the plane was saved, the bad guys were caught, and the boy returned back to the orphanage, and L went away quietly to pass away.
Still it has been an interesting show, attempting to show L's weaknesses, because even under the most incredible armor, there is always a crack or a weak spot. But I found the movie a tad long, with several scenes definitely redundant and pointless. The story could have been shortened, made more concise and more riveting. And of course, L's performance in this movie was dismayal on the brainy side, but the director attempted to add more humor into the character.
Disappointing. The book is far better. I give this movie a disappointing 3/5. The disappointing this is the movie starkly deviates from the original story. This time the movie was very predictable and L doesn't seem to use his brain very much. The scenes and plots flowed from one into another without any intrigue or surprising twists in the plot. Deathnote 1 was the best, showing L's wit and intelligence in it's full glory. DN 2 was terrible, giving the original manga story a bad name from the way events unfolded. Now in this movie, L mainly displayed knowledge, but not the legendary L-quick wit and intelligence.
The next show is "P.S – I love you", based on the award-winning novel by Cecelia Ahern.
Synopsis: Holly Kennedy (Hilary Swank) is beautiful, smart, and married to the love of her life, a passionate, funny and impetuous Irishman named Gerry (Gerard Butler). So when Gerry's life is taken by an illness, it takes the life out of Holly. The only one who can help her is the person who is no longer there. Nobody knows Holly better than Gerry. So its a good thing he planned ahead - by leaving her a list of tasks revealed in 10 monthly messages that are intended to ease her out of grief and transition her to a new life.
It was an interesting concept, the probability of attempting what transpired in the movie seemed achievable and somewhat practical no matter how incredulous it may seem. I spent the whole movie thinking about possible ways that messages could be carried out posthumously. You gotta have lots of spatial intelligence and wit in order to imagine and simulate what things would be like when you weren't there. Of course it will only be possible if you knew the people inside out.
It was a very heart-warming story that almost borders on a tear-jerker.
I am hard-pressed to decide whether to give this movie a 4/5 or a 3.5/5. The plot is relatively simple, but Hillary Swank's performance in this movie is outstanding. Probably an Academy award nominee caliber. The lines are heart-warming but the scenes had some sort of friction, it didn't really flow and seemed quite superficial at times.
So I guess it's a 3.5/5 from me.
Recommended if you are going to watch this with your heterosexual partner. Not recommended for watching in large all-male groups, (e.g NS guys meeting up).
