KUNG FU JUNGLE (2014)

Genre: Action
Running Length: 1:40
Cast: Donnie Yen, Wang Baoqiang, Charlie Young, Michelle Bai
Director: Teddy Chan

I made a big mistake of watching fight scenes from The Raid 1 and 2 on YouTube before catching KUNG FU JUNGLE. From the trailer, I was expecting MMA/street brawl kinda fight scenes like The Raid series with a decent storyline on honour, brotherhood and sacrifice just like the good old days HK heroic bloodshed genre. Alas, this movie was a frustrating experience. The plot is pretty straight forward; one man's quest to be the No. 1 martial artist in HK goes around challenging other martial artists - just like any beat em' up video game ie. Street Fighter. I was thinking, "How can this ever go wrong? It's just an excuse for characters to engage each other in long drawn fight scenes, right? And we have the always dependable Donnie Yen as the action director, right??" WRONG! To be fair, the fight choreography is pretty decent, especially the final fight scene. But everything else is just so embarrassingly poor - cheesy dialogue, uninspired acting and horrible CGI. And the movie just takes itself too seriously; our main villain is so OTT he literally froths at the mouth while the rest of the male performers spends a lot of time staring intensely at each other and emote before they go for each other's throats. The police operational scenes were boring and unnecessary. If you're looking at getting your fix of intense fight scenes, just watch The Raid 1 and 2 clips (or even old Jackie Chan fight scenes from his earlier films).   

Rating: 4.5/10

BIG HERO 6 (2014)

Genre: Animated
Running Length: 1:38
Cast (Voices): Ryan Potter, Scott Adsit, Daniel Henney, Jamie Chung, T.J. Miller, Genesis Rodriguez, Damon Wayans Jr., Maya Rudolph, James Cromwell, Alan Tudyk
Director: Don Hall, Chris Williams

As kids today are growing up faster due to their exposure to the Internet, producing an animated movie in Hollywood these days is definitely much more challenging than the yesteryears. The content needs to be edgy, globally appealing and politically correct. If The Little Mermaid was released in this day and age, it will be crushed to instant death at the box office by the likes of Frozen and Maleficent. Disney's BIG HERO 6 will unlikely generate the same mass following like Frozen, but nevertheless, it's a decent follow-up. In fact, I enjoyed Big Hero 6 more because it's geared more towards boys, it has no singing and the main theme of this animated film appealed to me; confronting death of a loved one (woah). Despite its sombre theme, the filmmakers managed to successfully balance the light-hearted elements with the serious stuff and presented it in a seamless entertaining experience. Two highlights for me; the cultural, architectural and geographical fusion of East meet West fictional city of San Fransokyo and of course, the lovable robot Baymax - which looks like a fluffy Michelin Man with the soul of Wall-E. Baymax is lovingly awkward, caring and full of heart; “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your pain?" :)

p/s: Since Big Hero 6 is a collaboration between Disney and Marvel Comics, stay right to the end for the post credit scene.

Rating: 7/10

INTERSTELLAR (2014)

 

Genre: Science Fiction/Adventure

Running Length: 2:49

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Wes Bentley, David Gyasi, Matt Damon, Michael Caine, Casey Affleck, Mackenzie Foy, Topher Grace, Ellen Burstyn, John Lithgow

Director: Christopher Nolan

 

"The depth of the love of parents for their children cannot be measured. It is like no other relationship. It exceeds concern for life itself. The love of a parent for a child is continuous and transcends heartbreak and disappointment." James E. Faust

INTERSTELLAR is arguably Christopher Nolan's most ambitious movie to date. He is one of today's great modern cinema showmen. He is a master at balancing cerebral storytelling with moments of grandeur. And Interstellar checks those boxes; it simultaneously displays complex physics (but yet accessible to laymen and sounded reasonable enough) told on an epic big-budget cinematic canvas, but at the heart of it is a simple tale of sacrificial love that binds a father and his daughter. And without a doubt Matthew McConaughey is the human factor of this movie. His believable love for his family (and the despair he has to go through) makes this one of Nolan's most emotional film. The scenes between father and daughter made me shed some tears (thankfully it didn't go the way of Armageddon). But Interstellar is not all weepy as its incredible imagery is an amazing achievement that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen with the best sound system possible (watch it on IMAX) - the space travel and new worlds feels like the real thing (and not CGI) and the scene where the rocket lifts off, the bass shook the entire cinema I was in. And Hans Zimmer's score (with heavy use of organs) is gripping. That said, Interstellar is almost too perfect and there lies the problem. It has just the right balance of everything; family drama, love, great effects, action, some light hearted moments, betrayal etc. Personally, I find things more beautiful when they are still imperfect than when they are too perfectly crafted. Also, this film may not provide enough traditional entertainment value compared to Nolan's The Dark Knight or Inception, and thus could leave certain movie goers feeling underwhelmed. On many levels, Interstellar is a very good film. I liked it but not as much I wanted too.

Rating: 8.5/10

JOHN WICK (2014)

 

Genre: Action/Thriller

Running Length: 1:41

Cast: Keanu Reeves, Michael Nyqvist, Alfie Allen, Willem Dafoe, Adrianne Palicki, John Leguizamo, Ian McShane

Director: Chad Stahelski, David Leitch 

 

JOHN WICK is a straight forward revenge-based movie. Such movies do not have much of a plot. The narrative, just like a video game, is all about following our hero fighting through a series of increasingly difficult bad guys until he meets the Big Boss for a final showdown (usually under the rain because fighting under the rain is just more 'jantan'). It's all about the action scenes and the creative kills. Thankfully, they are delivered in truck loads and in old-school brutality fashion. The shootouts are short but effective and the mano-a-mano fight scenes don't drag on forever. Casting Keanu Reeves as the lead is perfect as Reeves' screen presence has always been his strongest asset (vs his acting range) and the directors really know how to capture that. There are some intentionally amusing scenes to give the film a little breather from being overly action-packed. A special shout-out to the portrayal of the villains as they (especially the Big Boss) are not the usual frothing-at-the-mouth bad guys but are portrayed more as business people (special note: after 25 years, nobody can still come close to Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber baddie). 

Rating: 6/10

NIGHTCRAWLER (2014)

Genre: Drama/Thriller

Running Length: 1:57

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Renee Russo, Riz Ahmed, Bill Paxton

Director: Dan Gilroy 

 

Sociopath: A person with a psychopathic personality whose behaviour is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

Although advertised as a thriller, NIGHTCRAWLER is actually a character study of a sociopath. In the beginning, we are introduced to our main character's initial "career" - carrying out petty activities. And when confronted, what happened thereafter will give the audience a clue who we are dealing with because as the film progresses, our anti-hero gets much worse. This isn't a feel good movie. It's dark, cynical, tense and at times downright uncomfortable. Viewers will be able to relate to the premise of the film where the sensationalisation of a piece of news is more important than reporting the truth to garner ratings (interesting enough, the core value of the TV series Newsroom is somewhat opposite of this film but I digressed). However, the most notable highlight of the film is Jake Gyllenhaal performance. He undergoes a radical physical transformation to play the part of the main character. His almost skeletal appearance, fake smile and dead eyes and his creepy "knowledge is power" personality really gets the audience under their skin. I thought his performance in last year's equally disturbing film Prisoners was mind blowing (soft spoken, eye twitching when stressed) but Gyllenhaal's performance here is a game-changer for his career. He deserves to get an Oscar nomination nod for this film. Equally impressive is Renee Russo's supporting character and the interesting relationship between her and Gyllenhaal. My favourite scene in the movie is at a Mexican restaurant where we can literally experience the balance of power shifting from one to the other. That amazing scene made my jaw dropped. The movie of course is not without its flaws as it occasionally runs into pacing issues and some of the plots are a little far fetched. The score is serviceable and the photography is noteworthy as it managed to capture the darker underbelly of LA suburbs. 

 

Rating 8.5/10