Into The Blue - movie review

Into The Blue - starring Paul Walker & Jessica Alba. Paul with Jessica welcomed Paul's long time pal with his girlfriend tagging along too. Paul brought them for skin diving off the Bahamas Island's coast. Really fantastic underwater movie. Diving is my passion to but due to lack of partners, it's quite impossible to go for frequent dives back home at Malaysia's fantastic islands.

On one of the skin diving trips, the four of them discovered some artefacts that could be traced back to some sunken ships. Co-incidentally, they found an airplane with the pilots still strapped to their seatbelts, dead. On discovering further, they found nicely wrapped boxes of drugs in the plane. Due to greediness, these 2 friends took a boat trying to take those drugs for themselves. Unfortunately, they bumped into 2 groups of drug dealers who were looking for the stuff too.

See, don't be too greedy if it doesn't belong to you. Be contended with your life like Paul and Jessica. Paul was dragged into retrieving the goods as his friends were held captive. Not much of suspense but still a 'watchable' movie. To me it was good enough.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Into The Blue, Paul Walker, Jessica Alba, Bahamas

DOA: Dear Or Alive - movie review

DOA: Dead Or Alive - starring Natassia Malthe, Jaime Pressly, Devon Aoki, Brian J. White & Holly Valance. The show started with 3 girls, one princess wanting out from her clan of warriors to look for her lost brother, another one was sun bathing but kicked the butts of pirates from hijacking her yacht. Lastly, this pretty lass (Christie is the character's name which I admire her beauty a lot) was an assasin and professional thief. While escaping from their various challenges, a flying DOA metal piece came right before their eyes. Apparently they were invited to a martial arts competition organised by a syndicate.

Around a dozen of them were brought to an island to fight it off and a US$10M winning purse awaits them. It's just like the famous Streetfighter video arcade game where 2 will fight and the loser will leave the competition. The competition came to standstill when the 3 main girls and the princess' protector/bodyguard qualified for the last 4. While the pro thief plots to steal the winning purse, the princess suspectd that her brother was kept as prisoner on the island too.

The whole movie is filled with superb martial arts and kung fu skills. I admire such skills. Without a doubt, Christie's beauty too. The owner of the syndicate was actually planning to master his martial art skills too, not by learning it but through unorthodox way. Plenty of actions throughout the movie. No boring scenes.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, DOA, Dead Or Alive, Martial Art, Kung Fu

Xu Jinglei Co-Stars With Jet Li

Peter Chan, a Hong Kong film director will be filming a movie based on the remake of famed martial arts director Chang Cheh's 1973 movie "The Blood Brothers.
Leading male cast will be Jet Li, veteran Hong Kong actor Andy Lau and Takeshi Kaneshiro. The movie, "Ci Ma'', has managed to get Chinese actress-director Xu Jinglei, one of the investors in the movie to be the leading actress in the movie. Xu herself has appeared in 14 movies and directed 3, including "A Letter From An Unknown Woman'' and "Dreams May Come."

Production cost for Ci Ma is estimated to be around US$40 million (RM144M). The story is about the breakdown of the friendship between three soldiers in China's Qing dynasty when one kills another to steal his wife, and the third seeks revenge. (source: The Star and Variety)
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Ci Ma, Jet Li, Xu Jinglei, Andy Lau, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Peter Chan

The Departed - movie review

The Departed - starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson & Mark Wahlberg. Directed by Martin Scorsese. The cast is good enough to draw your attention. But I'm very careful with that already since Lucky Number Slevin. Somehow this movie turned out real good and it has gained some nominatons for the Golden Globe Awards.

Leonardo was brought up in a not so good environment where his family members were involved in notorious matters and it almost affected his application to join the police force. Whereas for Matt, his actual parents were gone and were brought up by a non-related man. This is a movie of the police and the bad guys placing their mole into each other's camp. One is to discover the bad guy's next bad intention and the other guy will leak out the police's next operation. Intense cover-up here and there led to the death of the police chief.

Both of the moles were trying to find out and expose each other. Both moles fell in love for the same girl not knowing that the mole has the same crush too. This is one of those movies where all the main cast actually died. Unbelievable. A must watch movie but it was a bit slow in the beginning part. The heat will pick up in the middle. You need to watch the whole movie instead of forwarding it to the middle since I told you so that you can understand the movie in the end.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Action, Mole, The Departed, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon

Stormbreaker - movie review

Stormbreaker – starring Alex Pettyfer, Ewan McGregor, Robbie Coltrane & Mickey Rourke. Alex, the young guy has lost his parents when he was young & was brought up by his uncle whom travels worldwide a lot. Unknowingly to Alex at his young age, he was being nurtured as a spy for MI6, the same secret intelligence organization for James Bond. This show was better than the latest Casino Royale in terms of gadgets used by spies.

In his mission, Alex impersonated a computer geek that won a contest organized by the creator of Stormbreaker software for schools. He has to penetrate the creator’s, Darius Sayle, headquarters to check on their facilities and what they are up to. A nice movie with fighting scenes choreographed by Donnie Yen, one of the skilled kung fu masters and a friend of Jet Li. Alex was to stop the Stormbreaker computer from being launched that could trigger the death of schoolchildren who were witnessing the launch live on TV with the Stormbreaker. Time was not on Alex's advantage and numerous obstacles along the way delayed him.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Action, Spy, Stormbreaker, MI6

Crank - movie review

Crank – starring Jason Statham, Amy Smart & Efren Ramirez. The movie started with Jason being drugged with a deadly potion that has 1 hour time limit. He found that the moment he slowed down in movement, his heart slowed down too. In order for his heart to keep pumping, he tried to find the solution for his situation. As the clock ticks, he has to track down the notorious group responsible for his situation in order to obtain the antidote.

In the process, he almost damaged the whole city. Driving a car through a shopping mall with police tailing him; hunted viciously for the gang members; a shoot-out between a Chinese gang and the notorious group; these are the things that kept his heart pumping. Full of adrenalin and filled with violent scenes too. If you dislike blood, well, this movie is quite gory. Though it’s full of actions, I don’t find the movie interesting enough as it centred into Jason’s character only. The story line is quite flat and you won’t fall asleep if you have your loudspeakers on.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Crank

Accepted - movie review

Accepted – starring Justin Long, Jonah Hill & Adam Herschman. Year end result was out and high school students future was dependable on it as to which college will accept them. Justin’s result was just not good enough to be accepted by any college. Due to that he tried to talk the parents from sending him to a college which was rejected of course. Out of desperation, he, with a few close friends, created a college name, a fake college letter of acceptance and bluffed the parents into believing that he was accepted by a college named South Harmon Institute of Technology, in short it’s called S.H.I.T. To convince his doubtful dad, a website was also set-up by his mate. A rundown and abandoned building was obtained to be changed into a college front.

After checking into the college, an unknown guy came knocking the college door. To Justin’s surprise, dozens of other young people were standing outside the college entrance too. Apparently, his friend who created the website allowed people to register and those came in also paid up for the first term of college. With the money available, Justin and friends put up activities as lessons beyond your imagination. Such students were not bothered about the activities as they were also students who had failed to be accepted into any colleges. Staying there with frequent parties suit them just find. A high-end college came to know about SHIT’s existence and the authorities were alerted and operations came to an end. Justin and gang came together to appeal to the education authority and tried to apply for a licence to operate.

In the authority’s context, any group of people coming together with the intention of learning something will be allowable and an education could be set-up to cater to that needs. See the movie to see how is Justin going to convince the authorities, failing which he has to return all the money used or be jailed for fraud. A good comedy to break the daily monotonous life wherever you are (works best if you are in Sudan). Fraudsters will like this movie a lot.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Accepted, College, Institute

The Devil Wears Prada - movie review

The Devils Wears Prada – starring Meryl Streep & Anne Hathaway. About this much feared lady boss of a fashion magazine called Runaway. Her staff tends to avoid her as much as possible due to her temper & strictness. She doesn't care about her staff's morale, life, problems or hardships. She doesn't listen to their explanations or accept the word "No". A new assistance, Anne, came for an interview and got the job immediately. People in the same industry who met/bumped into her told her “people will die to get this job”. The boss, Meryl, really gave a good performance as a much hated boss in the office and her belittling attitude really has a heavy toll on the staff morale. Anne almost quit her job as she can’t stand it too. But as time passes by, she managed to get hold of her job and impressed her boss. She got to attend to matters deemed important by her boss.

Comes a time when she has to choose between her private life with her boyfriend/friends and time spent in her work. I think this affects many of us working folks in the whole world. If you are an employee, you would be able to relate to this movie a lot and feel for Anne’s predicament. A highly recommended movie as it managed to depict the life of many people. Watch the movie to see which direction Anne chooses.
Tags: The Devil Wears Prada, Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Fashion, Magazine, Movie, Review, Comedy, Drama, Cinema

Casino Royale - movie review

Casino Royale – starring Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Mads Mikkelsen & Eva Green. Managed to download this new movie and watched it with a colleague. Much awaited James Bond movie with a new guy taking the James Bond role. Throughout the film, we didn’t quite hear James Bond addressing himself as “Bond, James Bond” which was his trademark name. The movie started off with James going after a suspect and chased him through the busy streets of a city in Madagascar into an embassy located nearby. Killing that suspect in the embassy drew wide criticism from his lady boss. His next mission was off to Nassau of Bahamas to tail a guy suspected of illegal trading of arms.

James was to stop another guy from blowing up (with an oil tanker truck) a new aeroplane which was being lauched (similar to the Airbus A380 size). Not much of steamy scenes with ladies that he could draw with the usual James Bond charisma of previous Bond series. A lady (Eva) from the government treasury department was sent to assist him in the funds required for James’ next move, to participate in a private casino duel with top poker players. Stakes went to a high of US$150m and the guy he was trailing all the way to Bahamas was involved too. Somehow, as all gambling movies do, the hero will the final duel. James was cheated of his winnings (where he was to deposit back into the government account) by his lady assistant who was part of the bad guy’s team.

Towards the end, James was in Venice and had to pursue the bad guy to retrieve his money stolen from him by his lady assistant and the part where the building came tumbling down into the main river was a good take. Personally, I was very disappointed with this Bond show. For the first time (as far as I can recall from previous series), there was no gadgets introduced for Bond….all bare hands and guns. This Bond was portrayed as a very violent Bond who intend to kill the bad guy in the casino who almost caused Bond’s life. But I like his Aston Martin car a lot (the only thing in the movie which captured my eyes, not even the ladies in the movie). Click here to watch the movie trailer.

Tags: Casino Royale, James Bond, 007, Daniel Craig

The In-Laws - movie review

The In-Laws - Michael Douglas, Albert Brooks & Candice Bergen. This is indeed one of those better movies but was surprised that I missed this movie. It started when 2 future father-in-laws for their son/daugther came involved in a government investigation. The FBI were hot on their tails. Michael was an undercover CIA agent and Albert was your ordinary medical doctor majoring in foot/ankle (podiatrist). As Albert somehow bumped into Michael's secret stuff, Michael got no choice but to force Albert to go along with his plans. They "took" a jet to France to meet an international arm smuggler on the day of their children's wedding party.

Albert tried to expose Michael to the US authorities. FBI agents were given a run around going after 2 of them. Towards the end, Albert realised that Michael was truly macho in his fight against arm smugglers on his own. This is a hilarious movie which is not to be missed at all. I was sleepy watching an earlier show on TV until this came on. Even though it was a 2003 show but the storyline was not out of date at all.

Tags: Movie, In-Laws, Michael Douglas

Magneto movie

An upcoming movie based on the marvel comic character of Magneto (left pic) will be filmed and released by 2009. But the best part of it is that the story could involve Malaysia's former prime minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, which was highlighted in Internet Movie Database's website. Must be someone who has a good sense of humour while writing the script.

There is a movie preview done by Yahoo Movies about the said movie.
Tags: Movie, Entertainment, Marvel Comic, Magneto, Mahathir, IMDB

Cars - movie review

Cars - voices of Owen Wilson, Paul Newman, Bonnie Hunt, Richard Petty & Cheech Marin. When you have such cast lending their voices, the movie won't let you down. Lightning McQueen, the name of a rookie race car, couldn't handle the fame he has generated in his short career. He thought it was himself that made him successful. In the last race of the year, 3 cars were given the same points and a final race will be organised in California just for the 3 cars. So, our little hero, made his way across USA only to find himself "dropped" out of his carriage in the middle of the night.

He got lost and ended up at a sleepy Route 66 town of Radiator Springs. While trying to escape the law without headlights, he damaged the small town's road and was punished to fix the road prior to leaving the town. Finished he did and he made a number of friends from this small town. He discovered later that there was a superb race car (of the 50s) in town too. A beautiful relationship with Sally (a Porsche) developed at the same time. Thereafter, he made his way to California to participate in the final race of 200 laps. He could have won the championship but he stopped just before the finishing line..... why?

Everything in this movie is about cars only ........ and i actually rewind the movie to see it again...see what......even the insects are cars too....almost fainted. Nevertheless, it's a good animated movie with good story line. You can't go wrong with a strong Production Co, Pixar Animation Studios, brought to us by Walt Disney Pictures and had grossed US$244,052,771 in the U.S. Box Office (placing this movie at no. 40 in the All Time Gross chart).
Tags: Movie, Review, Cars, Walt Disney, Pixar, US Box Office, Owen Wilson, Paul Newman

Rob B Hood - movie review

Rob B Hood - starring Jackie Chan, Gao Yuanyuan, Charlene Choi, Michael Hui & Louis Koo. Jackie Chan's latest movie. With Michael Hui in the cast, definitely going to be a laughable movie. Jackie is in his usual trademarks of climbing here & there and avoiding punches/kicks while trying to fight with whatever stuff he could grab around him.

Jackie, a bad hat this time and also a gambler. In order to feed his gambling habit, Jackie with Louis and Michael steals at night on whatever stuff they can get their hands on. Then Michael would sell off the next day. Meantime, Louis is a playboy and loves Ferrari (he bought one later). Money was spent that way. While Michael keeps his share in a safe at home.

One night, they barged into a house and kidnap a cute baby and the funny story went from there while they try to amuse the baby to keep him quiet. A dispute between the baby's mommy and her former boyfriend led to the former boyfriend's death. The former boyfriend's dad took revenge by kidnapping the baby too from the hands of our "thieves or kidnappers now". Jackie and Louis tried their best to save the baby as they have grown to like him (even attending classes to take care of newborns). Sadly, they couldn't revive the baby after taking him out from a freezer.

I never miss Jackie's movies as I found his movie interesting with his skills/fighting/humorous scenes. This is an entertaining movie and enjoy the funny scenes with the baby around. Jackie Chan has his own website too.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Rob B Hood, Jackie Chan, Louis Koo, Michael Hui, Charlene Choi, Comedy

The Ant Bully - movie review

Yeah, The Ant Bully, it'an animated cartoon but it's fun to have a change at times. Notwithstanding, the amount of free time I have now. Office is officially closed for 1 week due to the muslim Eid celebration (after a month of Ramadan where all muslims fast from dawn to dusk) which should fall on 23 Oct, Monday. But I'm stucked in Khartoum with 2 other colleagues with nowhere to go. So a cartoon film is just nice.

The Ant Bully - voices of Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep & Paul Giamatti (a strong cast of famous actors/actresses here). A story of a 10 year old boy named Lucas. Just moved to a new neighbourhood and was often bullied by the young locals. Lucas tend to take out his frustration on the ants living in his lawn. One night, an ant wizard managed to pour a magic potion into Lucas' ear and he became the size of an ant. With that size, the army ants brought him before the Ant Council to be tried and the queen ant sentenced him to become an ant and a female ant took up the responsibility to teach Lucas. Until Lucas becomes an ant, he can't get the potion to make him human again.

So, he has to earn his stripes. One day, a pest controller came to wipe out pests in Lucas' lawn. A joint-operation of a few species of insects combined to defeat the pest controller. The ants went airborne to strike him. The scene looked like those war films attacking its land based enemies. Something different for a cartoon. Lucas led the field to victory and was given the potion.
Tags: Movie, Cinema, Review, Ant Bully, Julia Roberts, Nicolas Cage, Meryl Streep

Talladega Nights - movie review

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby – starring Will Ferrell & David Koechner. A crew member, Will, of a NASCAR team got a big break to drive the car in a NASCAR competition when its drivers took a break in between. He shot to instant fame and got his team new big sponsors. In the process got to know a stunning lady who became his wife and bought a new mansion. This movie turned was filled with slapstick jokes/humour. The owner of the NASCAR team somehow decided to bring in new blood and recruited a French driver.

He got into a nasty accident in a race and was not right in his mind to drive anymore. After some recuperation period with his dad’s help, he overcame his fear (due to the accident) and got back in shape to drive again. He got his old crew members back and formed a new team. On the big day, the entire field’s racing cars was caught in one single accident and only the French guy and him was left in the race. Their cars crashed badly with 1 lap to go but out of the extraordinary, a new type of race emerged on the race track. You have to listen to their crazy conversations to catch those jokes in between. Nothing spectacular for this movie as it’s the usual kind of car racing on a race track. If you have seen a racing movie before, this was nothing special but a good laugh.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Talladega Nights, Will Ferrell, NASCAR, Racing

Casanova - movie review

Casanova – starring Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller & Jeremy Irons. The name Casanova is synonymous with playboy. Set-up to depict the Roman days and the movie was shot at the beautiful city of Venice, Italy. This guy was able to tempt any lady to fall for him till he was caught by the church. The church gave an ultimatum to him to get married by a certain date in order to stop his promiscuous lifestyle.

Co-incidentally, he bumped into a lady who was good in fencing and took a liking on her. Unfortunately, her fiancé (which her mom arranged to her disgust) was on the way to town to take her hand. Casanova has to steal the identity of a few persons in order to get near to same lady who also happened to be a controversial writer under someone’s else name. The Vatican authorities sent a bishop to arrest Casanova and the controversial writer. Typical storyline of a man going all out after a lady’s heart but with nice costumes and good scenic backgrounds.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Casanova, Heath Ledger, Sienna Miller

Walk The Line - movie review

Walk The Line – starring Joaquin Phoenix & Reese Witherspoon. It’s a movie about Johnny Cash, the famous country music singer in the 50s & 60s. His fondness for music was not well accepted by his family. Johnny was then required to serve the US Air Force in Germany. His love for music continued when he was transferred back to USA and was married too. He went for an audition and his music hit the right note.

His stardom went up real fast and it got into his head. He couldn’t handle ladies who came along the way. He got hooked onto drugs and it got worse till he passed out in a concert. He was caught with drugs and his family (wife & 2 daugthers) left him. Music career – doomed. During the same period, he got to know another singer in his music tours, June Carter. June and her family tried to salvage Johnny’s life. He came back to his usual self and soon it was music to his ears. Both Johnny and June got together and lived up to year 2003. If you like music, this is the movie for you. The movie showed us that you are not down until you gave up and your dream is always in your own hands.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Walk The Line, Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon

Yours, Mine & Ours - movie review

Yours, Mine and Ours – starring Dennis Quaid & Rene Russo. Real comedy right from the beginning where it started with a family (of 8 kids) moving house again due to their dad’s occupation in the US Navy. Meantime, another lady who was trying also to manage her household of 10 children. I didn’t mention about their spouse? Both of them were single parent family.

Co-incidentally, both this man and lady knew each from their college school days and almost got married to each other. After finding out that each person’s spouse had passed away, they got their families together and got ALL of them to move into a real large house which has a lighthouse too. My my my ….. you would have guessed how did the story go by now…….both set of kids couldn’t see each other eye to eye. Battles do happen in the house quite often. The couple in the thought they got together too fast and a big argument erupted due to the kids’ behaviour. Good comedy throughout the movie and the movie did end up with a happy ending and showed us how the 18 children came together in one heart to put everything back into order for their parents.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Yours Mine and Ours, Comedy, Family

Poseidon - movie review

Poseidon – starring Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell & Richard Dreyfuss. This Poseidon was set for sailing to celebrate the New Year’s eve party. Movie began with party goers at the main ballroom catered mainly for adults. Younger generation would be found at the disco avenue. Not long into the movie, a “seldom occur” type of wave hit the big ship and it turned upside down. Our heroes/heroines took big steps to look for the exit. While almost all of the party goers stayed put.

One of the brave ones had to look for his daughter at the disco spot and found her safe with her boyfriend, who had just proposed to her. With that, their journey to safety throughout was definitely filled with suspense and full of thriller. I was sitting at the edge of my chair, with my legs on the table, worrying for them each occasion. As everything was upside down, lots of blockages and leakages became their obstacles. The ship was sinking fast at the same time and time was not to their advantage. Even the group of heroes/heroines was not spared their lifes. This is one of the top movies I have seen in terms of its suspense. FYI, this movie had the services of 2 main stunt co-ordinators and 65 stuntmen/women. Just imagined what was acted out.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Poseidon, Josh Lucas, Kurt Russell, Cruise, Stunt

Stick It - movie review

Stick It – starring Missy Peregrym, Vanessa Lengies & Jeff Bridges. A notorious/rebellious teenager lady was again impeded for her unwarranted behaviour. In the court, she was sentenced to a strict gymnastic academy. It seems that she was a former national gymnast but her character got the better of herself. Initially, she thought her assigned coach was purposely tough on her due to her background. Her team mates didn’t look up to her as her attitude was always pissing people off. As time passed by, she put efforts into her training and was chosen to represent her academy in a competition. A team mate who didn’t like her sabotaged her strategy and got 2 other team mates to go against her. Devastated, she left the competition.

Few years ago, she was remembered as the gymnast who ditched her performance that caused the national team to lose their medal hopes. Subsequently, at another national championship, she found friends due to her strong stand against the panel of judges who were not consistent with their method of awarding points. All the competitors bonded together and I had a good laugh at the judges’ reactions. Though the movie was without any big stars, it’s still worth your time. It showed us determination can get us anywhere and a failure is not a loser until he/she gives up totally.
Tags: Movie, Review, Cinema, Stick It, Missy Peregrym, Jeff Bridges, Gymnastic