Spiderman 3: the greatest battle lies... within.

Friday, May 4, 2007.
Before I watched Spiderman 3, I already told my friends that I will be biased when writing this review. And true to my words, I liked it already when the movie started with the roll call credits. I liked the way the movie presented refresher scenes during the roll call scenes to jolt the viewer’s memory of the first and second installment of the trilogy. However, there’s some slight deviation from the real story presented in the comic books. Gwen Stacy, who was supposed to be the first true love of Spiderman in the comics and later died tragically, has become “just a girl in his class” in the movies. However, the directors showed a glimpse of Captain George Stacy (Gwen’s father, who, in the comics, is supposed to be heroically killed by falling debris while saving a baby during a battle between Dr Octopus and Spiderman), so I suppose they are going to stir in more complicated plots for Spiderman 4.

Besides that, this movie is really intense. It discusses a lot of issues.

1) Every villain is not totally bad. Inside every bad person, there’s some element of good in him. (like sandman, hob-goblin or the new goblin)

2) Every hero is not totally good. Inside every good man, there’s a bad person/child, waiting to be released. (like spidey himself under the influence of venom)

3) Not everyone is born a villain or wants to be a villian. Circumstances will decide the path of a person. However, a person must choose wisely which path to take because once chosen, there could be no turning back. (i.e. sandman, venom)

4) We must control our greed, our lust, our powers or it’ll consume us. (Peter Parker, and Eddie Brock’s greed with their new found powers when they were assumed by Venom and Flint Marko’s confusion with his new found powers as the sandman)

5) Young adults intoxicated by love will think of marriage and children but forgot the many issues that come with the territory, i.e. protecting the spouse, putting your spouse before you, sharing both the ups and the downs, listening to each other, etc.

6) Friendship founded on the grounds of love, honesty, sincerity will stand the test of time.

7) How old folks deal with old age and lost of a loved one without going senile. (Aunt May hold out hope for Parker while leading a lonely life. You can see her loneliness through her eyes but she’s not giving up on life yet for the sake of Parker.)

8) How to deal with retrenchment while your spouse is riding high on his career. (Mary Jane Watson on a downhill slide after losing her job, and her boyfriend but still managed to move on without losing herself).



9) How to deal with hate and revenge before it consumes us and push us away from real life and our loved ones. (Peter Parker on his quest to avenge his Uncle Ben’s injustice death)

10) How to deal with office rivalry and the perils of using dirty tricks instead of hardwork. (Eddie Brock and Parker’s tussle over the permanent position in the Daily Bugle)


Now I remember why I endorse this comic book for adolescence. It discusses a wide spectrum of issues that a young adult will face and how to be responsible and how to handle them. I recall learning a lot from this comic book when I read it during my teenage years. It gives an insight to young adults to all the problems one might face at every stage of growing up and how to handle them if they happens to you, like a sudden lost of a loved one, revenge, friendship, love rivalry, world injustice, and how to handle great power and great responsibilities when they are handed to you without proper preparation.

No one warned me about Director and Scriptwriters Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi excerpting these qualities from the comic book into this installment of Spiderman. I thought it would be one of those insane power thumping, glass shattering, violent blood shedding action-packed animated movies which are so popular nowadays. Well, it’s all that, plus some really good real life issues as mentioned above. That’s why I wouldn’t recommend kids below the age of 13 to watch it without parent guidance as they might just be too mesmerized and mimic the violent parts and forget the moral to the story.

And also bring tissues. Spidey is famous for his humour as he takes on his rivals, so I thought it’ll be a fun and exciting movie. And thus, I was caught without tissues. Yes, it has a very touching storyline but it’s not a soppy love story. It’s full of action right from the beginning. A great movie that stirs your emotions, cracks your head, test your neurons, and fills your heart. Casting is good as they used the original casts to avoid confusion and in my opinion, all the casts, Kirsten Dunst, James Franco and Tobey Maguire (Mary Jane Watson, Harry Osborn/New Goblin and Peter Parker respectively) has grown together with their characters, especially Tobey Maguire, which displays such an apt transition from the silly teen that he was when he first discover his superpowers to the more responsible and matured Peter Parker. Rosemary Harris plays Aunt May well with passion coming out through her eyes and clear voice.

The CGI for the villains, Sandman and Venom, was seamless and blends nicely to the movie. This is a must watch considering it’s one of the most expensive movie ever made with a budget of USD$250 million (surpassing King Kong’s USD $207 million). Catch it in the theaters if you can find yourself a babysitter. I see people bringing their children in their prams, which I really find inappropriate. The scary scenes and loud noises may make or break a child at such a tender age. Leave the kids at home so that you can fully enjoy the movie.

Oh, a little trivia which I found out on the E! channel on Astro. According to gossips, James Franco (the cute Harry Osborne) is actually gay and there was a scene which was censored from the film. The censored scene shows Peter parker was giving him (as the new goblin) mouth to mouth resuscitation after Harry fell hard after a battle with Parker/Spiderman. He was blushing when he claims that there's no real lip touching, but the real answer.... you figure it out.. :)

(All photos are courtesy of imdb.com)

Cars and 300

Cars, it’s more of an adult movie. The kids will be captured for the first half hour due to the new concept where the cars can talk and have eyes and mouth and feelings….And there are a lot of different models of cars to make a very colourful screen. But the story is just too adult… and boring… about saving a city because they want to build a highway and thus taking away the traffic (and subsequently income) from an already dead small town. This kind of Sami Velu / Politician type of movie is too boring or too much for kids to digest… and after some time, they will get easily distracted and not want to continue watching…. That’s what happened to Bryan. He still likes to read the books on the Sally and McQueen, but when I asked him if he would like to watch Cars, he’d rather watch Power Rangers…. (even though Power rangers is in Japanese, he don’t care coz there’s lots of ACTION and dinosaurs!!)

Even I didn’t manage to finish the whole movie… so I can’t comment…

But I can comment on something else. On Friday I watched something that kept me glued to the screen till the end. 300. This is a gory movie about 300 brave Spartan soldiers, led by King Leonidas, making a last stand against all odds to set the path for Spartan victory against the Persians. Interesting story and somewhat a good movie as it invokes interest in the ancient Rome empire history and also induce some sort of patriotism, strength, brotherhood, friendship, pride and bravery which is so lacking nowadays.

The movie touches on the surface on how a Spartan soldier is made and also gives an insight on how heartbreaking and brutal “Agoge” is for the Spartan combat community. Agoge is the brutal training that a young Spartan has to go through to prove himself worthy of being a Spartan warrior. Also shows the structured and systematic fighting techniques that Spartans soldiers used. And best of all, this movie has lots of blood, lots of flesh (yes uncensored), lots of battle, and lots of limbs and body count. Not for children and not for the faint hearted… but definitely for Loke Wee. Hahaha…. Zack Synder, who previously did justice to Land of the Dead, is bringing his style of gory directorship into a combat movie and have successfully created an interesting movie that bridges the generation gap. It’s not as expensive as Gladiator, which was filmed in 5 countries, because most of the filming was done in the studio with plenty of CGI. It’s not as complicated as Troy, but still show off the strength of the Spartan army. Unlike Helen of Sparta, 300 reminds us that women counts too in modern civilization, instead of being just mere beauties that’s only good for sacrifice purposes. Also show men are capable of betrayal and return to their beasty nature when lost, or lured by greed.

All in all a good movie to watch. It’s a highly entertaining and thought provoking. It’s interesting to know that Greece which once produced the highest of human civilization and the most elite and feared army, have now reduced to an economic slum in Europe. Now how did that happen, go figure… meanwhile, try not to buy too much popcorn if you can’t eat at the sight of blood.

*Note: A friend of mine noticed that this movie is highly stereotyping. Asians are shown to be weak and small size and ugly beings, while, the Spartans are all good looking, fit and muscular beings. So try to keep an open mind to enjoy this partial animation (which is probably why it was sprared from the "chopping board").

Raising Helen and Count Olaf

18 July 2005 14:59

I would love to be able to hang out with my kids but no matter how cool or how hot you are, if you hang out with your kids, it's just plain silly when you come to their teenage years. They just want to live their own lives and want you OUT of their lives. And that leaves you wondering what you did wrong during their infant years. Well, I guess it's normal, and everyone just love to break the rules and not listen to adults.

I just watched Raising Helen y'day night and I cried my eyeballs out (gosh, my eyes are still swollen. Ppl might think I am a battered wife!!) Anyway, it's not that the show was soo good, but it's because the nail hits me so hard. Your kids grow up so fast and you don't know how to handle them. You're as new to adolescence years just as much as they are discovering puberty. And you have to manage it for them... gosh... Well, all we can do, really, is just TRY our best and leave the rest to God. That is why I am sooo afraid to have another child. It's so much pressure to be responsible for a live.

I also watched "A series of unfortunate events" y'day and what the little boy said when their parents died in a fire was so heart breaking. The well-learned little boy, Klaus, said, "I hate our parents. Didn't they have plans for us? How could they do this to us?" You see, the disappointed orphaned kids were left in the care of a cruel and greedy distance relative (Count Olaf played Jim Carrey) and they hated their parents for that.

It makes me realize how big the responsibility is. You CAN'T even die. It is your responsibility to keep yourself alive, healthy and wealthy to ensure the kids grow up well ad healthy. Both the shows have one thing in common. The kids' parents died in an accident and the kids are left in the care of a relative. It's a really scary thought... I am not pushing insurance nor will writing here, but just planning for the "future". Your dependents are depending on you to at least have some plans for them. Even I don't have much plans ... Talk about working for an insurance company and having a lawyer bro ahahaha.

Ok, sorry to have scare you. Having kids is not that scary. Only scary for scardy-cats like me (and Aunt Josephine)... fear of the unknown. I wonder who I am to leave Bryan to if anything happens...

Some thoughts for you: Have you made plans yet?

(note: all photos are courtesy of imdb.com)

King Kong - The 8th Wonder Of The World

I have watched King Kong since Friday but I am still speechless. How do I write a review that befits a King? Oh, incidentally, the King and I share the same surname. But that’s about all we have in common because the silly, lovesick and bad-tempered beast has totally opposite characteristics from this fair maiden. Peter Jackson really did justice to this 1933 remake and lived up to a standard which he himself has set. If you haven’t watched a single movie this year, then this is the ONE. In fact, I am not sure I’ll ever watch another movie with the same perspective again. Well worth watching in the theater and you will leave the cinema wanting more even after 3 hours. Plus, the THX will definitely blow you away!

Well, if you have watched the trailer (which I have watched more than 20 times now thanks to little Bryan), then you already have an idea what to look forward to. The story line is all there, a desperate director (Jack Black of Shallow Hal fame) cons his ignorant film crew to make a movie on an uncharted island, where King Kong and other huge strange creatures lives. The crew were “greeted” with extreme adventures when their lead actress was captured and presented to the giant ape as a sacrificial offering. How King Kong ended up on top of the Empire States building (the ever popular scene), fighting off what he thought was strange flying creatures, is what you need to find out yourself… :)

However, to really enjoy the show, you have to throw your logic out of the window. Seriously, I had a hard time accepting the illogical sequence of the movie that I wasn’t able to totally lose myself and enjoy the non-stop “monstrous” adventures. While I was kept on edge of my seat most of the time by the superb special effects (well, also partially because of a dilated bladder), I couldn’t really accept how these people manage to find each other let alone rescue Miss Ann Darrow (played nicely by Naomi Watts) in that massive Skull Island. I also couldn’t feel the love/romance between beauty and the beast which Peter Jackson said is the most touching scene he has ever made. Maybe it’s because I am not an animal lover (please don’t throw red paint at me). Or maybe Peter Jackson made comparison with his other films which were mostly horror flicks (The Frighteners) or adventure epics (LOTR). The fact that my movie partner was sobbing her eyeballs out right beside me didn’t move me. Even the droopy-eyed ever-so-kind Andrien Brody (of The Pianist, The Village and The Jacket fame), who played The screenwriter Jack Driscoll that Ann Darrow fell in love with before the interception of the huge mammal, didn’t manage to set even a tiny tug to my heartstrings.

Kudos to the Weta Workshop Team (who created special effects for Narnia – now that explains why King Kong cameo in Narnia) for generating screen-magic again in this mega-movie by making all the spectacular CGIs seamless. Of course Andy Serkis (Gollum in LOTR) made King Kong very much “alive” and projected King Kong’s character (childish, infatuated, playful, lonely and hot-tempered all in one big gigantic furry suit) very appropriately with “virtual reality” technology.

Oh, a funny thing happened after the movie. It really wasn’t a day for the Kongs. First King Kong died, and then later I couldn’t find my car in the midst of the hundreds who throng 1 Utama’s new wing for a glimpse of the “8th Wonder of the World”. I was so sure I parked near Parkson and it was my friend who was the panicky one as she thought she will never find her car after they closed all the shop entrances after 11pm. Ends up, Miss Fret found her car easily while Miss Confident had to go from floor to floor and had to summon Miss Fret (who was already out of the parking lot and happily driving to her next destination) back into the car park to help me find my car. Took me 45 minutes to find my car and by then, my car park ticket has already expired and I couldn’t get out. Later, I found out that all I needed to do was to reinsert the ticket back into the Autopay machine for a reprint (no extra charges) to reinstate the expired ticket. Oh well, at least I learnt something out of this. “It wasn’t the over-crowding of cars that camouflage my car, it was over-confidence” (as opposed to Jack Black's final line, “It wasn’t the airplane that killed the beast, it was Beauty!”) Ha ha. Incidentally, I just found out that Fay Wray (the original actress in King Kong 1933) was supposed to cameo in this movie and deliver that particular last line but she passed away before the negotiations were finalized.

Have a Merry Xmas & Happy New Year.

Kelly Rivers.

(note: all pictures are courtesy of imdb.com)

Narnia: Kingdom of Boredom

I never thought I would say this as I have been waiting to watch Narnia since June, but here goes, Narnia is a tat too slow moving…almost crossing the boundaries to the Kingdom of Boredom … Yes, I remember looking at my watch 3 times during the first hour. This is another 2.5 hour movie which is a Value-For-Money type of film. Lately, directors are fond of long winded shows (perhaps thinking LOTR’s success is measured by the length of film used) without realizing that paying too much to details is the major downfall of a great epic. Or maybe the price of film has dropped due to digital filming. Well, maybe New Zealand directors are long winded (Both Narnia’s director Andrew Adamson (also directed Shrek and Shrek2) and LOTR’s Peter Jackson are New Zealanders). King Kong is another 3 hour movie! More value for your money to go to the theater!

However, I must give fair compliments to Richard Taylor and his US Weta Workshop Team for his special effects work in creating 60 different species of Narnia inhabitants. The CGI effects are almost flawless as he breathes live into all the characters he produced. Perhaps film makers nowadays are willing to spend a bomb on making detailed film sets and real-life props and costumes with the realization that these film locations and items can be used as a tourist attraction after the movie release.

The casts are good too especially the child actor Georgie Henley as little Lucy Pevensie who is full of emotions in her face and Tilda Swinton (of Constantine fame) as the witch queen, Jadis. The creatures/animals (especial the lion) are also good in showing their emotions too….

The storyline is good too. I have never read the Narnia book series but as the title reveals, the story tells you about The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. In layman’s terms, The Good, The Bad and The Link. As it meant for children viewing (and as per the normal Disney deal), it’s full of good elements such as moral, friendship, family, love, respect, doing the right thing, good triumphs over evil, truth over lies, all the good stuffs. There are body counts (thus it is rated PG for battle scenes) but don’t expect gory blood splashing. Even the dead can come back to live (to encourage doing good and heroic deeds)…. Well, Narnia is indeed a large scale, Christmas movie to spread some magical spirit and cheer to warm our hearts.

The action of this movie starts after 1 hour of boring introduction. After that, the characters of Narnia make fun viewing. Try and see if you can spot King Kong in the set. Yes, King Kong made a cameo appearance in the movie. So more value for money ha ha…

Notice that I mentioned King Kong a lot in my reviews lately. I can’t help it as I am expecting a lot with all the hype about the remake of a 1933 classic. Let’s hope Peter, after spending USD207 million, would carefully paced the much anticipated film and not make the same mistake as Narnia (USD200 million) and Harry Potter(USD150 million).

I will stop here for fear that this will turn into a long-winded review….

Another "long-winded" week ahead?

Kelly Rivers

(note: all pictures are courtesy of imdb.com)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Harry Potter and Goblet of fire….

I remember last year I gave a stupendous review on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. I remember being truly entertained by the cleverly directed and produced movie where Harry and friends manipulated time traveling in their adventures and magical quests to save everyone from evil. This time, however, I must say I wasn’t too impressed. Yes the graphics were great. Of course, getting to watch it in THX is even more breathtaking as the experience is truly different. I am not telling a lie when I say I can FEEL the movie. The THX effects were even greater during the King Kong trailer where I could feel the whole cinema shake when King Kong roared, thumped his chest and boy did the cinema rock when T-rex came charging. No kidding, King Kong rocks man…. I can particularly feel the difference as I have watched the trailer like more than 10 times through my 17 inch monitor (thanks to little Bryan who threatens to starve himself if I don’t give in to his request - “I want to watch King Kong again!”). So believe me when I say that it’s a totally different experience watching it in a THX theater.

Ok back to Harry Potter. I am impressed, but 2.5 hours later (yes this movie is longggg), somehow I have forgotten its greatness. I can hardly remember what amazed me in the first place. When I think back, I remember being awed in the beginning. The stadium scenes where the Quidditch World Cup was held, was amazing. And the dragon. That was spectacular too. Don’t worry, I am not giving anything away as all these are already depicted in the trailer. And then the arrival of special guests from other parts of the world. Now all these are already in the trailer but still it was magical. What was not in the trailer is the fact that I somehow associate the Burly Bulgarians (representatives from other parts of the world in the TriWizard Tournament) with Russians coming in a “submarine”. And of course the French Girls (ala Madeline, the little girl in the French convent school) came from the skies in their “planes”. Of course, their transports are not just plane submarines or planes. They are magical. You have to watch the movie to know where the magic is.

Alright, notice that I deliberated on the special effects and diverted entirely from the real movie plot. In fact, I can’t really remember what the movie is really about after 2.5 hours. There are a lot of elements about growing up like friendship, love, helping others, and other morally right stuffs to do. This is a good movie for the youth. Parents should bring their children but note that the movie is rated PG13 in the United States.

Maybe because there are deaths and ghosts involved in this movie but it’s not morbid or bloody or gory. I just found out that Mike Newell is the first English director employed in this Harry Potter series, but that’s not the entire reason why this movie is so long winded. The actual book is long winded with 734 pages so the director actually did a good job in squeezing it into one movie instead of breaking into 2 parts.

Note that there are some parts which may have been censored in the Malaysian theaters. I can’t understand why Hermione cried and scolded Ron during the ball. It seems (I use the word seems as I am not sure) she was upset with Ron for not dating her but there was no love tension between them all along and if it was mentioned in the book, the director certainly did not dwell on that point.

Alright, enough of cheap wizardry talk about the movie. It’s time for you to go and feel the magical THX experience for yourself. It’s the experience that counts…

New Police Story and Resident Evil: The Apocalypse

The New Police Story and Resident Evil: Apocalypse.

As I write the reviews for these 2 movies, I realise that the people who does movies reviews for a living must really be very very passionate about movies and writing. I say this because I find it difficult to write about movies that I am not passionate about. Benny Chan’s The New Police Story and Alexander Witt’s Resident Evil: Apocalypse seems to fall into this category as they don’t seem to leave a deep impression in my mind. I have almost forgotten the plot even though I just watched them yesterday and the day before.

What comes to my mind is that the 2 directors seemed to have shared notes when they made these 2 movies. Both stories are similar in the sense that they are both:
1) sequels,
2) related to computer games,
3) have cops as the main characters,
4) engages in lots of gunshots and explosives and also bare-fist fighting,
5) have dramatic car accident scenes, and
6) displayed elements of the current fashionable vertical “catwalk” stunts where the actresses walk down vertically from the buildings!

Despite the similarities, I must say that both this movie have done a great job in keeping the viewers entertained from the beginning of the movie till the end.

As both are sequels, the leading cast have been retained, i.e. Jackie Chan and Milla Jovovich (can’t help but think she looked like Kylie Minogue). Some of the casts are pretty funny to me, especially in Police Story where I just can’t help but think that Jackie Chan made this movie as a charity towards his “unemployed” friends. The casts for Police Story are all made up of old “has-beens” who hasn’t appeared on the big silver screen for a long time or newbies who can’t land a contract due to various reasons. Having said this, I am not implying that their skills are compromised. Nicholas Tse and DanielWu gave one of their best performances. Cant say the same for Wang Chieh and Charlie Young though.

Nevertheless, it was a good production, with elements of love-hate relationships, friendships and good ethics and moral education (cops always win, so don’t be the bad guys). Of course, the good old fashion Jackie Chan funny fighting styles and jokes are still present but served in small portions. In fact, I think this is the best Jackie Chan movie since Shanghai Noon and perhaps the best Police Story among the 5 sequels (although it would be perfect if Maggie Cheung would make a comeback in this movie). Worthwhile watch at the movies. Definitely no regrets if you open up your mind to accept over-exaggeration (it seems that every Police Story have him stuck in the most impossible situation and yet he just cant die! In this edition, he’s not even hurt nor did he bleed when he ran out of an exploding building). Some may say that the ending is anti-climaxed, but I find the ending where he chatted with the little kid was extremely touching. Shall not reveal too much, go find it out yourself.

I would say that Resident Evil is also a good watch too. Perhaps my views are biased as I have not watched the predecessor. I have always associated Zombie movies with low budget B grade movies (due to bad experience with old zombie movies which was so bad that I can hardly remember their names). However, this movie has changed my perception. Well, yeah, the zombies are still low-tech and the fighting scenes are a bit blur. Nevertheless, the game-concept incorporated into a movie, where the humans have to shoot the zombies in the head to survive each stage, seems pretty new and entertaining to me.

This show gives a glimpse into the possibility of us living in a game-world where certain individuals possess extra powers to fight zombies and aliens that are all out to eat us alive! A very well choreographed movie, which is entertaining if you don’t mind exaggerated storyline. Well, zombies-based movies were never famous for their storylines anyway, it’s the number of zombies that matters and yes, body counts are high with this one. Very violent and not for the under-18s and the weak hearted.

Till the next edition, have a nice weekend at the movies,…

Kelly Rivers. (1 October 2004)