YESTERDAY

Release Date: Malaysia, 17 June 2019

Genre: Romance / Fantasy

Running Length: 1:56

Cast: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Joel Fry, Ed Sheeran, Kate McKinnon, Meera Syal, Sanjeev Bhaskar, Alexander Arnold

Director: Danny Boyle

Screenplay: Richard Curtis 

When I first saw the trailer to YESTERDAY, I was immediately intrigued by its concept. And oh, the songs! It was a must see for me. 

Obviously, the expectations was high walking into the screening of this movie. Unfortunately, I walked out feeling disappointed that such a good idea went to waste. 

What's this movie about? Well, it's about Jack Malik (Patel) a struggling musician who gets hit by a bus one day and when he wakes up, he finds that The Beatles and their songs are erased from existence. Imagine a world without the music of The Beatles! Nobody on Earth has ever heard of their music except Jack. Yup...he decides to seize the opportunity and claims ownership of The Beatles' songs. This is not a spoiler as it's all in the trailer (see below). 

I can't really put a finger to why this movie was a disappointment for me. Perhaps the filmmakers didn't fully explore the effects of a world without The Beatles? Perhaps the moral dilemma of stealing the songs was poorly interpreted? Perhaps the people behind this movie are really talented people (Danny Boyle, Richard Curtis) but what they came out with was just...meh? 

Instead, Yesterday ended up being a cliched rom-com. And it's not even very good. The chemistry between the two lovebirds were only half believable. All in all, it's one of those movies that aspires to achieve a lot of things but end up achieving nothing.     

However, not all is lost. Lead actor Himesh Patel can sing (In fact, I'm listening to him singing now from the soundtrack). His performance is serviceable with one standout scene, where he was challenged by Ed Sheeran (playing himself) to a song writing + performance showdown. 

If anything, I've a newfound appreciation for the music of The Beatles and their songs are playing on loop now on my Spotify. 

RATING: 6/10

GHOSTBUSTERS (2016)

Genre: Comedy/Horror

Running Length: 1:56

Cast: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Chris Hemsworth

Director: Paul Feig 

Screenplay: Katie Dippold & Paul Feig, based on the 1984 film written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis 

Eventhough I walked into the new GHOSTBUSTERS film without much judgement (in actuality, I couldn't remember much of the original or even the sequel), it turned out to be not very good. It's not very bad either but it's just...mediocre. 

When the studio announced that they would be rebooting the series with an all female cast, I thought it was a clever idea. I enjoyed the trailers because it checked all the boxes of the Ghostbusters elements which I was familiar; the four buddies, the comedy, the proton packs, the classic station wagon and of course, the theme song. 

But what made this movie meh is the weak script. It felt as though the filmmakers were torn between making a fan service film and taking risk to do something different. As mentioned, although all the familiar elements are present, and even the original cast made a cameo, I felt that the existence of this movie was just unnecessary. If only they followed what The Force Awakens did where the old characters came alongside to support the new cast, this new Ghostbusters film could have turned out to be a fresh approach to the franchise without alienating the fans.     

What made the the original worked is the comedy. But for some reason, this film's focus is on the Ghostbuster-on-ghost action. To be fair, some of the action sequences are engaging but the majority of it especially the "epic final battle" turned out to be boring (because it's so done before). But is it funny? Well let's just say there are more miss than hits. Chris Hemsworth is hilarious and I'm glad he wasn't just playing a small supporting role.  

What I do like about this film is the cool looking apparitions. They are bright and glowy (and some are quite scary looking). In conclusion, this is a serviceable film but there's just nothing memorable about it.

Rating: 6/10