Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Movie Marathon!
Talk about a movie marathon! I know this entry is late, but I caught 3 consecutive movies. Crazy right? But hell, it was nice!First movie caught was "Sex and the City", followed by "Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian", then "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull".
My ratings :
Sex and the City - 4/5 stars (Excellent show! MK recommended)
Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian - 4/5 stars (Excellent show! MK recommended)
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull 3.5/5 (Good show and humor, but does not live up to previous Indiana Jones movies)
Okay, lets talk about each of the shows.
Now I understand why this show has such a cult following for the popular TV series. It is just so fantabulously funny/hilarious/enjoyable to watch! This movie is a feature film adaptation of the hit HBO television series. The film will follow the continuing adventures of the series four main characters - Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda - as they live their lives in Manhattan four years after the series ended.
Stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon are all on board to reprise their roles. Additionally, Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler and Jason Lewis will return as the women's love interests. Academy Award-winning actress Jennifer Hudson ("Dreamgirls") has also joined the cast of the film and will play Carrie Bradshaw's assistant, a new character to be introduced in the film.
Each of the characters are just so enjoyable, each with their own flaws and unique character. The main character is Carrie Bradshaw, a writer who has the most flawless smile like Anne Hathaway in "Princess Diaries". This movie portrays the ups and downs in each of the characters as they live their lives as best friends, love and sex problems, working and family problems and such, and the flow of the movie is so seemless, you just enjoy every moment of it. There are many parts of the movie which portray priceless friendship, seeming betrayal, bitterness, sadness and of course eventual happiness and you just can't help but feel for the character as well.
It's a drama with an infusion of comedy in it. A must-watch for the month. Catch it if you haven't already watched it!
4/5 stars.
The next movie is "The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian". The characters of C.S. Lewis's timeless fantasy come to the life once again in this newest installment of the 'Chronicles of Narnia' series, in which the Pevensie siblings are magically transported back from england to the world of Narnia, where a thrilling perilous new adventure and and even greater test of their faith and courage awaits them.
Actually I thought this movie wasn't as good as the first. But the plot, the action, the character portrayal, development, scene flow and scripting were all so well done, the movie didn't deserve a 3.5 star rating.
This time the 4 siblings are magically transported back to Narnia a thousand years later, in a darker period where the Telmarines have greater control. Think of it as war on a smaller scale compared to LOTR, also set in a fantasy world. This time a prince Caspian of the humans have been unlawfully ejected from his own kingdom as his evil uncle claims the throne for himself.
I found the 4 siblings acting sorely acting, and lacking their former charm as compared to the first movie. Peter wasn't assertive enough as the high king, Susan wasn't as confident, even showing a weaker emotional side by kissing Caspian, Edmund didn't seem to mature from the previous movie, only Lucy seemed to have improved from the previous movie by contacting Aslan. I thought that scene where she dreamt of Aslan very heartwarming.
Okay, all-in-all, I think Prince Caspian (Ben Barnes) acting TOTALLY SUCKED. During the scene where the Narnians succeeded in raiding Miraz’s castle, he buckled and made stupid irrational mistakes based on emotions, not following to plan and causing half of the Narnian Army to be slaughtered. I think the starting covert infiltrating scene where Edmund used a torchlight to signal the army very hilarious.
Caspian's presence in the movie seriously detracts the original innocent story from C.S Lewis fantasy world of Narnia. He was portrayed much better in the novels. Having strengths, emotional soft sides but generally very courageous and chivalrous. But in the movie, he can't act for nuts. He had little facial expressions, little acting worthy of mention, the friction between Caspian and Peter is a departure from the novel.
Peter came back to Narnia expecting to be king again and that everyone would do as he said, and Caspian is unwilling to let him take over, so that causes some of it. That's really what happens. And it's a lot about humility. I think they both have to learn a certain humility and that's really what a great king needs is to be humble, to listen to his people, to be willing to compromise, and they start off as these sort of angry teenagers, and become kings at the end.
Okay, so Caspian had his own ideas about fighting, and Peter has his own ideas. I found myself favouring Peter's decisions rather than Caspian. And in the end when he was given the chance to kill his uncle, he slams the sword down on the ground and mutters a lame scripted line.
Before the Pevensies depart, Peter and Susan declare, much to Caspian, Edmund, and Lucy's dismay, that Aslan has told them they will never return to Narnia. Aslan explains that Susan and Peter have gained everything they could possibly gain from their experiences in Narnia and are no longer needed there. Susan and Caspian share a kiss, knowing they will never meet again. The Pevensies then go back to England, leaving Caspian as King of Narnia.
I could have given the movie 4.5/5 (Almost as high as LOTR), but no. Caspian has to ruin it all with his lame acting, nervous portrayal of his character and totally lack of flair nor individuality uniqueness.
4/5 stars.
NEXT! Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal skull.
With worldwide anticipation at an all time high, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is brushing off his fedora, picking up his whip and re-uniting with some old friends to face all new enemies in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. The movie reunites Ford with directing-producing team of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. New additions to the cast include Shia LaBeouf of Transformers fame and Cate Blanchett.
The story begins in 1957, where Colonel-Doctor Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) leads a convoy of Soviet soldiers infiltrating a military base in the Nevada desert containing "Hangar 51", where they force Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) to lead them to a crate holding the remains of an extraterrestrial creature that crashed ten years before in Roswell, New Mexico.
The way he found that highly-magnetized box was very interesting, but very impractical. Magnetism decreases in strength in relation to distance exponentially. For him to have done that, the magnetic field would have to be linear and in the order of dozens of Teslas!
Still it was very interesting, very "Indiana Jones-like", and after a short fight, he escapes in style on a rocket test sled into the desert, where he then very conveniently stumbles upon a nuclear test town and survives a nuclear blast by hiding in a lead-lined refrigerator. Very implausible, but very entertaining nonetheless. Take note: in real-life, everything, including the fridge would have been vaporized, not conveniently blown away like debris as depicted in the movie. At that range, he would have been killed by heat and vacuum of the nuclear blast, not the radiation.
Still he goes on to find an extraterrestrial crystal skull holding great psychic power. (Also another implausibility), without a ferrous conduit for magnetism, a CRYSTAL object can never be magnetic. So anyway, in a series of chases and interesting archaeological finds, they go about meeting and fighting the Soviets which started with a very humorous and "Indiana Jones-like" humor of sinking into quick-sand and getting out only to return to square one.
To another very humorous and "Indiana Jones-like" lengthy vehicle chase involving sword fights and several Soviet soldiers being killed by army ants. (Again, creepy-crawlies are signature Indiana Jones movie stuff). Mutt, Marion, Mac, Oxley, and Jones ride an amphibious vehicle over a cliff and down three waterfalls, eventually finding the Temple of Akator. Claiming that he is a double agent working against the Soviets, Mac enters the temple with Jones and the group while leaving a trail for the Soviets to follow.
So after that it becomes so bland, and unnatural. Suddenly the movie is boring. The next scenes are predictable, and disappointing. The group enters the temple and the skull is returned, which turns out to be an Alien, then the baddie dies by an overflow of knowledge and disintegrates, an Alien portal opens up, sucking all the baddies in.
The heroes escape, the main baddie disintegrates; a flying saucer rises from the debris and disappears. Back home, Jones is made an associate dean and marries Marion.
WTH.
To actually use aliens and flying saucers and all that nonsense in the last scene is actually an act of desperation for the script. They are just running out of ideas. Just when the movie seemed to be getting along fine! The slapstick humor and action of the vehicle chase to the giant ants nest was actually very exhilarating and humorous, together with the "Three times it drops" waterfall joke. But after that, the plot and script just deteriorated to absolute crap and rubbish all the way to the Aliens scene.
Disappointing actually, but Harrison ford, Marion and up-coming and rising star Shia LaBeouf's acting were all stellar and worthy of praise, probably redeeming the whole movie itself with the corny and funny exchanges.
3.5/5 stars.
