of X-men, Star Trek, Angels & Demons

Sometime last week, in the midst of me being busy and all the assessment vibes going on, I broke my own record. I watched THREE fantastic movies in less than SEVEN days! Oh come`on! I need a break too aye? and so as promised, I am going to do a quick review of the three movies I've watched, specially for my own archives and to share my views. First thing first,

A WARNING: Spoilers ahead!

If you haven't watched the above mentioned and intend to,

STOP right here!

'Angels & Demons' is the sequel to Dan Brown's big hit 'DaVinci Code'... or rather the sequel to the 2006 movie incarnation based on the book. (:

Tom Hanks plays super-genius crime-solving Professor Langdon, a 'symbologist ' expert from Harvard. I didn't know you could be a symbologist... is that a real major? I find the profession rather cool. haha!

Anyway, this time instead of running around Paris with Audrey Tautou, he's running around Rome with Ayelet Zurer, who is apparently some sort of biologist who works in a particle accelerator (yeah, don't ask too many questions, it doesn't make sense...)

Yes, there are a lot of similarities to 'DaVinci Code', so if you enjoyed that one, you'll probably enjoy this. In this case someone has kidnapped four Catholic Cardinals on the eve of electing a new pope and is threatening to destroy the Vatican... can Professor Langdon unravel the mystery of the Illuminati to foil this evil plot against the Catholic church?!

The locations and sets are visually interesting. I'm wondering where they filmed it (obviously not the real Vatican, right?)
\\Okay edit; Khai just told me it was shot it L.A. Because the catholic churches banned the director from filming at Vatican City. They built the whole entire set. Astonishingly IMPRESSIVE!

It has some good twists and turns and is reasonably entertaining most of the time. There's some major plot holes of course... but don't think too hard and you'll enjoy it.

I went to ask around and I learnt that some of those who went to see it already, agreed that it was pretty decent and definitely better than DaVinci Code as a film. Nonetheless, I would personally describe it as heart-pounding, edge-of-your-seat anticipation on what will happen next, and it’s rather good that the movie has lulls in it for the audiences to catch their breath. Because of the missing or changed plot elements. Other than that, a superb movie thus far!

My personal rating: 4.8/5.

Anyway, here are some of the plot holes for discussion; feel free to speak your imagination. haha!

#1 How did the bad guy Henchman get the 2nd Cardinal (the black one) into the middle of St. Peter's Square amid several hundred thousand people? Dragged him in all the way from the parking lot? Popped out of a manhole?

#2 I felt that they totally could have traced the signal from the camera. It would have taken like 20 minutes to find it.

#3 So the bad guy's whole plan was based on the fact that he could parachute out of the helicopter in time?!? What if he was 30 seconds late getting to the helicopter? What if he landed on something pointy and was pierced with a sharp stake? All that sinister planning would have gone to waste. :P

Alright, next up,


Star Trek. I told buddy I was going to catch the movie and he awed in disbelief. haha. He thought I was not the kind who watch such movie. Well, i'm not really a fan but if I can sit my butt down and have a good time watching Star Wars, why not Star Trek? right? hehs.

I've got not much comments. But special effects-wise, well, this is "Star Trek", so we are treated to fantastic visuals. I especially enjoyed the creative use of light and sound. In the all-white Enterprise, the bright lights were surprisingly not very blinding. But the little flashes of light that peeked at the corners made the set seem even more futuristic. And that saying about you can't hear a scream in space? That was driven home almost deafeningly in the opening act and some of the later scenes.

But even if you take away the fanciful lights and sounds and the iPod-like sets and the loud explosions, you're still left with a very good, watchable movie.

Oh! At the end of movie, the young Spock (played by Zachary Quinto) meets his aged self (played by Leonard Nimoy)! It was a complete dissing of all conventional space-time continuum wisdom! Something I'm sure J K Rowling and Hermione Granger will have a lot to say about, by the way. Quoted from the movie; Put aside logic, and do what feels right (:

My personal rating: 3.5/5.

Moving on to my last movie review. (like finally!) haha!


X-Men Origins; Wolverine

Before I start, just FYI; No Cathay cinemas is showing this film (you can check the newspaper listings. Read that Cathay (Singapore) and 21st Century-Fox (the distributors) got some disagreements. Not too sure if it covers other films by Fox or is it long-term.

Quite a rare thing....especially for blockbusters.

I guess you could call this a prequel to the first X-men film. As the title implies, it tells the origin of the most interesting of the X-men characters, Wolverine, as played by Hugh Jackman.

I don't have much to say on this one though. Its definitely not Shakespeare, but for the most part its typical comic book fun and entertaining, decently made. Wolverine boasts some neat special effects with some decent acting. But of course gravity and a bit logic impaired at times, but thats forgivable. One fault I found that was hard to ignore was the Graphics. Some of it looks pretty good, but there are more than a few scenes that don't look very good... in fact in a few spots its just plain bad. (Okay, I wont waste my effort trying to explain further what I mean. Go watch it if you havent! :P )

Anyway, still worth checking out if you're into comic book movies. Wolverine remains a fun comics outing that’ll probably have you going “that was awesome” as you leave the cinema. I'm hoping that Wolverine won’t be a once-off and we’ll get to see Hugh Jackman in action again in a future Wolverine instalment.

My personal rating: 4/5

P/s: Buddy went to school the next day (after watching the movie) and told me he's in love with Lynn Collins; as Kayla Silverfox in the movie. hahaha!

Picture References; Flickr.com, Yahoo.com

Okay. Im done with the movie reviews!
Next MUST-watch movie; Night at the Museum 2!

Till then.

Lots of love, N.