Movie Review – Page 6 – Vinko’s Thoughts On…

May 23, 2009

Movie Review: Night At the Museum – Battle of the Smithsonian

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My Rating:

This afternoon I saw the movie Night At the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian at AMC Theater, Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

It was a typical performance by Ben Stiller that was nothing special. On the other hand his supporting casts were quite impressive, namely Hank Azaria, Amy Adams and Ricky Gervais. With Azaria carrying most of the movie by playing 3 characters.

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May 16, 2009

Movie Review: Angels & Demons

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My Rating:

This afternoon I saw the movie Angels & Demons at Grand Ocean Theater, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

This is a movie from the Dr. Langdon franchise, the first being the 2006 movie, The Da Vinci Code. There were very little references to the previous movie accept for the use of the same lead character, Dr. Robert Langdon, played by the Oscar winning Tom Hanks, and several references to Langdon’s activities against the Catholic church. As a result no requirements to watch the first movie for viewers to be able to enjoy this one. Like the first movie, this was also directed by the award winning director, Ron Howard. These factors may be the reasons behind why the movie was sold out at almost every cinemas in Hong Kong on Thursday (release day in Hong Kong), Friday and Saturday.
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May 2, 2009

Movie Review: X-Men Origins – Wolverine

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My Rating:

This afternoon I saw the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine at Grand Theater, Elements, West Kowloon, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

There had been many prequels in the past, for example: Star Trek Zero, Batman Begins and Quantum of Solace. Aside from the first one the rest were all fairly good movies, and the Star Trek prequel is not yet released until June in Hong Kong and May for the USA.

I normally do not like prequel much, not sure why, may be it has to do with the fact that I rather move forward with the story rather than speculate what was.
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April 27, 2009

Movie Review: Defiance

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My Rating:

This evening I saw the movie Defiance at AMC Theater, Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

The movie is a true story of “Tuvia Bielski“, played by Daniel Craig, in Poland during World War II. Tuvia the eldest of four brothers was forced to take care of each other after their village was attacked and their parents killed by Polish police who were rounding up Jews for the German army.

Determine for revenge the second eldest of the brothers, Zus, was determined to fight the Germans and decided to lead a faction to join the Russian partisans after his wife and kid was murdered by the Germans.

I did not really like Craig as James Bond in Quantum of Solace last year, but in this movie he delivered a believable performance portraying Tuvia. There were the right amount of fighting for a war movie, while there were characters and stories to the plot for the audiences to focus on and become immerse into the movie. It passed my forget-where-I-was test, which usually means that the performance and plot of the movie successfully took me away to the setting of the movie.

If you are a fan of Craig, this is a must see. If you are a World War II history buff you will be reasonably entertained.

Rating Legend:
	Not to be missed
	Wait for the DVD
	Buy from iTunes Store
	Rent it on iTunes
	Waste your time elsewhere

April 18, 2009

Movie Review: Knowing

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My Rating:

This afternoon I saw the movie Knowing at AMC Theater, Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

After watching the poor performance of Dwayne Johnson in Race to Witch Mountain last week, I was glad to watch a seasoned actor, Nicolas Cage, delivering a great performance. Although Cage’s performance is only great when compared to Johnson, here Cage was playing his “Ben Gates” character from National Treasure.

The thing that earned this movie an extra penguin in my rating was the story and the twists in the plot. It did not have as complicated of a plot as National Treasure, but contains enough suspense for the audience to want more. Without breaking my rule of no spoilers, there is really not much more I can say about the movie.

I can leave you with the following detail, as with I Am Legend the ending of this movie is a bit unexpected.

Rating Legend:
	Not to be missed
	Wait for the DVD
	Buy from iTunes Store
	Rent it on iTunes
	Waste your time elsewhere

April 5, 2009

Movie Review: Race to Witch Mountain

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My Rating:

This afternoon I saw the movie Race to Witch Mountain at UA Cinema, Time Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

I went into the movie without much expectation, since it was staring Dwayne Johnson, famous for his WWE character “The Rock” and his motion picture debut in The Mummy Returns, as “Mathayus the Scorpion King“.

The movie had two child actors, AnnaSophia Robb and Alexander Ludwig, and they were just as bad as Johnson. The only excuse Robb and Ludwig has is that they were playing aliens who are new to human speak, in this case English, but Johnson does not have this excuse, as he was playing an English speaking American.

I guess the blame cannot complete go to Johnson, Robb and Ludwig. The play writes, Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback should take some of the blame these bad dialogs. This would not have been a total surprise if I had known Bomback was the one who wrote the screenplay for Live Free or Die Hard. Next time I will look at the “play writes” in additional to leading actors and director in a movie before deciding on whether to include it in my” Must See Movies list.

Rating Legend:
	Not to be missed
	Wait for the DVD
	Buy from iTunes Store
	Rent it on iTunes
	Waste your time elsewhere

March 19, 2009

影評:《收錯愛情風》He’s Just Not That Into You

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My Rating:

今晚睇完套戲《收錯愛情風》，有一個好強烈的體會，也是感覺，更加強化了自己和好朋友的一套的理論…當你的男人真的愛你，想同你共渡此生的時候，不用你開口，他就會娶你；當他仍然不想放棄這個森林時，無論你怎樣要求，怎樣歇盡所能地要求-結婚，他寧願放棄，也不會妥協。這並不代表他不愛你，只是時間上彼此的需求有差距，不配合。一個很多人覺得是人生自然的階段，說來自然，但是，對一些拍拖多年的情侶來講，卻並不是那麼來得得心應手，從心所欲！我相信沒有一個正常未婚女人不期待婚姻…

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February 15, 2009

Movie Review: Valkyrie

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My Rating:

This afternoon I saw the movie Valkyrie at UA Cinema, Time Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

The movie started off telling the audience this was based on a true story, which I felt was the wrong thing to do. Since the story of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich were well documented, the audiences were able to guess what will happen in the reminder 116 minutes of the movie. Especially when the movie opened with Colonel Stauffenberg (played by Tom Cruise) making an entry into his diary, where he felt Hitler was destroying Germany. Within the first 5 minutes of the movie the audience knew that whatever Colonel Stauffenberg had in mind will not succeed.

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January 26, 2009

Movie Review: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

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My Rating:

This afternoon I saw the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at UA Cinema, Time Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong. Another one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

The plot of the movie is fairly typical but with a special twist. It is about a man, Benjamin Button (played by Brad Pitt), who was born with an old man’s body and died as a baby.

The special effects and makeup were quite amazing. Although one would not expect special effects to play an important role for a movie like this. It enabled the team to transform Pitt, a 46 years old in real life, into a young teenager. The other side of the transformation was to make Pitt into a convincing 70 years old, which was the creativity of makeup artist, Greg Cannom.

Cannom’s artisan included the transformation of Pitt’s body into an old man’s, along with sagging chest and flabby stomach. This efforts earned him an Oscar nomination, “Achievement in Makeup”.

For some reasons this movie reminded me of Tim Burton‘s Big Fish (2003). I guess it was the cinematography and the fantasy nature of the plot. There is a questionable yet believable feel for the events that transpire throughout the movie.

Pitt delivered his usual great performance, convincing the audience he was indeed the age the character was going through. Enough so that it earned him an Oscar nomination for “Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role”. One of his supporting actresses, Taraji P. Henson also had a great performance, earning an Oscar nomination herself for “Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role”. In total the movie racked up 13 nominations at the 81st Oscars to be held on February 22nd.

This is definitely a movie for fans of Pitt, but anyone into fantasy and stories of Eric Roth should not miss either.

Rating Legend:
	Not to be missed
	Wait for the DVD
	Buy from iTunes Store
	Rent it on iTunes
	Waste your time elsewhere

January 4, 2009

Movie Review: Lady Cop & Papa Crook (2009)

My Rating:

This evening I saw the movie Lady Cop & Papa Crook (aka《大搜查之女》) at AMC Theater, Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong. Not one of the movies from my Must See Movies list.

I normally do not watch too many Hong Kong made films, particular ones staring pop singers. Tonight it was different, it is a holiday Sunday and I had not watch a film for some weeks. The only US film I was willing to watch, Four Christmases, was sold out. So I bought tickets for the only Hong Kong made movie that did not seem too boring at the same time may be funny.

Not sure if it was my low expectations, but to my surprise, this movie was definitely entertaining. The two leads: Sammi Cheng and Eason Chan were not bad. Best of all were the plot and cinematography. They have this Infernal Affairs feel, and the plot twisted also like Infernal Affairs did.

For those who knows the directors this would not be a surprise, as one of the directors, Felix Chong, is the same director who filmed The Departed; the 2006 remake of the famous Hong Kong movie Infernal Affairs. Where the Chong’s partner in those movie, Alan Mak, again teamed up with him to make this movie.

That was two in a row, where a Hong Kong made movie presently surprised me. Next time, even if you have other choices at the cinema, do give this one a check before settling for one of the US films. I for one will not give Hong Kong movies a pass so hastily in the future.

Rating Legend:
	Not to be missed
	Wait for the DVD
	Buy from iTunes Store
	Rent it on iTunes
	Waste your time elsewhere