Movie Mania

So, the first post for the year 2010. Time flies rapidly, it’s the end of an era as the years of the noughties drew to a close a fortnight ago. I’ve just been too lazy to blog since the New Year started; the last post was a month ago I think oops.

Since then, it’s been full speed ahead as I count down the days to 10^th of February 2010. My date of departure. My remaining days to enjoy Malaysian food streak by too quickly to count, pretty soon it will be time to start trying to fit my entire wardrobe into 2 suitcases.

But until those happy moments, I’ve been spending time with friends and family (though I very much doubt the Lamb enjoys the extra sibling time) and consequently suffering from movie overload. I watched 3 movies In 3 days! First I caught up with long-time BF Pei Chen (2 years without meeting up ZOMG), so we watched Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant. Yours truly is a staunch Darren Shan supporter and was horrified at that train wreck of a movie. {Full critique/bashing later on in the passage}. Then on Friday, Fei Ni and I watched Sherlock Holmes and the next day, it was Avatar with the family. I actually wanted to watch Old Dogs after Sherlock Holmes but I guess that would really have been pushing it.

Other than that, nothing too exciting: A whole host of Carling Cup/PL matches were called off last week due to the snowstorm that has engulfed Britain, so my weekend was devoid of its usual entertainment. But Man Utd and Arsenal both drew their matches, so to quote the Star; it was “All Balmy at the Bridge”, as we remain 1 point ahead of second-placed Utd with a game in hand.

Oh and did I mention that Michael Buble is engaged? “Breaking hearts all over the world, MB recently announced his engagement to Argentinean actress Luisiana Lopito” (or something like that), to quote the Daily Mail. Michael, how could you??? Well, actually as long as you keep on coming up with fantastic albums and don’t retire to start a family or something I guess I can live with this.

And another big thing: Simon Cowell LEAVING IDOL??? Oh God. That man is the life and soul of AI; the show just won’t be the same without his acerbic wit and never-ending repertoire of sarcastic commentary. Apparently he’s leaving the show to focus on the US version of X-Factor, which will begin airing in 2011. Plus, I read a rumour that he’s offered Paula Abdul the job of being one of the panel of judges on his new show. So, all we need now is for Randy to jump ship as well and voila! We have American Idol reincarnated. Oh and Ryan Seacrest as well to say, “This is…the X-Factor!” But somehow it just doesn’t have the same ring as AI.

Last but not least, I hope the government finds and catches all those responsible for the senseless arson of at least 7 churches in Malaysia; an action widely condemned by peace-loving Malaysians who do not want to see the fabric of harmony of our country destroyed by the misguided vendetta of a few extremists. I’m all for supporting the freedom of the use of the word, “Allah”. We non-Muslims do not mean to use the word in any blasphemous/sacrilegious context, so what’s wrong with allowing us the right to say “Allah”? The torching of the churches represented a dark stain on our otherwise relatively spotless history, so kudos to the government and all those caring Malaysians for being mature and united enough to weather the storm in an appropriate manner. Handled wrongly, this incident could have given rise to bloody protests and religious strife (reminiscent of May 13^th) but thankfully this was not the case. Jesus told us to forgive those who sin against us, so that’s exactly what Christians all over the country are doing. : Fighting hate with love.

Moving back to Hollywood…

I Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant

How many great fantasy books have we seen being butchered these past few years alone? That disastrous debacle known as ‘Eragon’ (Christopher Paolini) (2007), or the marginally worse ‘The Golden Compass” (Phillip Pullman- His Dark Materials Trilogy) (2007)? Other movies touted as being terrible adaptations of otherwise brilliant books include “A Series of Unfortunate Events (Lemony Snicket)”, and “Inkheart” (Cornelia Funke)(2008). I haven’t watched “Stardust” (Neil Gaiman) (2008) yet, so I can’t pass judgement. The only half decent book adaptations I saw were “Prince Caspian” (CS Lewis) (2008) and the first two HP films while on the other end of the extreme, the Twilight movies were tons better than the books. Another fantasy film coming out soon is “Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief” (Rick Riordan) (2009). The book wasn’t too great, so maybe the movie will be better.

It all started when a very good movie known as “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” exploded into cinemas worldwide and became an instant sensation, propelling the author and the books to dizzying heights of fame. Since then, countless movies have been made in an attempt to be the next “cult favourite” in the mould of Twilight or Harry Potter. So far, they’ve all flopped and Cirque du Freak is the latest victim of this unsavoury phenomenon.

IMO, the #1 rule of thumb producers/script-writers should always abide by: NEVER STRAY TOO MUCH FROM CANON. (read: Don’t change things too much from the original)

Which is where Cirque du Freak really falls short.

Top 10 Gripes: -

1. 1. Even before the release of the movie, the casting of John C Reilly as one of the fans’ favourite characters, Larten Crepsley was strongly opposed. Fans argued that they pictured Larten as tall and dashing, with angular features and a stuffy, no-nonsense demeanour. However, our fears were confirmed when the first shots of Larten Crepsley were released: Tall and chunky, with a shocking red afro-do. Sacrilege!

2. 2. The needlessly engorged role of Madam Truska from a bit-part character to one of the main attractions of the movie. Obviously meant to accommodate Salma Hayek. Her “relationship” to Larten Crepsley in the movie, further enraged us fans as we consider it disrespectful to Arra Sails, Larten’s true love who unfortunately only makes an appearance in books 4-5. The producers are going to have a real problem digging themselves out of this hole if a sequel is made.

3. 3. The casting of newcomer Chris Massoglia as the lead character, Darren Shan. Massoglia was bland and lacked screen presence; leading to him often being overshadowed by all his co-stars.

4. 4. The cheesy and cliché “movie-moral”: “it’s not what you are, it’s who you are inside.” The producers have completely lost the (pardon the pun) plot. Darren Shan is most definitely not as lame as that!

5. 5. The recasting of Darren’s girlfriend; Debbie Hemlock as “Rebecca-monkey-tail girl” and Darren drinking blood from her (vampires can’t drink blood from the freaks, it’ll make them sick). Furthermore, Debbie Hemlock is supposed to be a black girl. By recasting her as a white girl, doesn’t take make the producers a wee bit racist? Just a thought.

6. 6. Evra Von’s name being changed to “Evra von Britow” and his ridiculous portrayal as a wannabe indie-rocker

7. 7. The nonsensical casting of Ken Watanabe as Mr. Tall (Mr. Tall with a Japanese accent???). A lame attempt to inject some exoticism into the mystique of the movie.

8. 8. The vampires drinking from the shoulder (eventhough it’s specifically stated that they drink from a vein in the leg)

9. 9. The terrible CGI animations of the Little People which are again, in violation of the book

1010. The portrayal of Mr. Tiny which was all wrong

The only bright spots in the film were Josh Hutcherson (from “Zathura” and “Bridge to Terabithia”) , who played arch-nemesis Steve Leonard, future Lord of the Vampaneze and Murlough, two characters who were actually portrayed well (ie in canon). Sad to say, Josh Hutcherson overshadowed Chris Massoglia in all of the scenes, which doesn’t bode well for any future sequels. Also, the occasional blithe humour provided by John C Reilly (in his reinvented Crepsley role) provided some comic relief to an otherwise mediocre film; but Salma Hayek was really a waste of space.

When are you directors going to learn, that the only way to convert the book-fans to movie-fans is to stick to the story? After all, we book-fans make up the majority of the target audience. HP 1 and 2 were such successes at the box office because fans of the JK Rowling books found the movies worthy of the books. The problem lies in the fact that most of the time, the movies fail to meet the expectations of the fans because the producers chop and change to make it more “commercially appealing”. As soon as they began to deviate too much from the book (movie 3 onwards), the fans started to drift away. Nonetheless, it had already established itself as the forerunner to all future teen fantasy movies hence its current overwhelming box-office appeal (and forcing us book-fans to watch the movie anyway). Oh, and having lead characters that can actually act really help too. A recent example, “Star Trek” proves that you can still make a good movie without deviating from the original.

A real shame, because I had been waiting for 2 years for it to hit the big-screens.

But the movie’s not all bad. It’s a little disjointed as non-fans of the book would not understand many of the underlying plot lines but still worth a watch.

Rating: 4/10. “Good film, bad adaptation”-IMDB.com

II Sherlock Holmes

Guy Ritchie takes on the challenge of bringing the much-loved Sherlock Holmes (created by the late Scottish writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) to the big screen once more and bring us a film that leaves us gaping at the extraordinary intelligence and deductive powers of the world’s most famous detective. Thankfully, he does it with aplomb and the result is a well crafted 120 minutes of non-stop action and jaw-dropping analytical skills/detective prowess on show. Admittedly, the casting of Robert Downer Jr. as Sherlock Holmes takes a little time to get used to at first, but he is more than adequate for the role, playing a newly-reinvented Holmes to perfection (although the idea of a bare-chested Sherlock indulging in a little fight-club was unnecessary). Meanwhile, Jude Law shines as his faithful sidekick, Dr. Watson and the villains aren’t half bad either. Rachel McAdams does a decent job as the devilish Irene Adler, love interest of Holmes, which adds a little bit of romantic intrigue to the movie. I haven’t read any of Sir Arthur’s books (am planning to read Hound of the Baskervilles) so I can’t really complain much about the movie being out of touch with the original but most of the reviews online from Holmes fans have been positive, so I take it the movie does the series justice. Good strong plot and lots of suspense, moviegoers who fancy picking their brains a little should welcome this one with open arms.

Rating: 8.5/10. Plenty of twists and turns, and a cliffhanger at the end. Not to be missed.

III Avatar

The number one movie must-see of the decade, well on its way to grossing over $ 2 billion dollars worldwide (although it did cost half a billion bucks to make). Avatar is proof of the emerging trend: Mind-blowing CGI is the way to go. Admittedly, CGI isn’t everything and a winner still has to be backed up by a decent cast and storyline but this seems to be the way to making a worldwide hit. We’ve seen it before with Transformers II (great effects, decent plotline) and now we’re witnessing further proof of this theory. Avatar’s storyline is depressingly cliché (outcast from human world goes to alien planet, learns alien ways, falls in love with alien girl, fights enemies, one or two main characters die along the way, aliens win war, outcast and alien girl live happily ever after) but the lead character, Sam Worthington does a pretty-convincing job as Jake Sully (a wheelchair-bound ex-marine turned Avatar) while Zoe Saldana is decent playing whatever-her-name-is, his love interest. Other characters such as the main antagonist, the evil Colonel and the blue-skinned Navi tribe are also deserving of commendation.

Of course, Avatar is mainly associated with great special effects and we are not disappointed. Spectacular mountain ranges and a myriad of freaky looking multicoloured plants and animals, giant spaceships and spectacular fight scenes; Avatar is a feast for the eyes. The movie has enough feeling to actually make you feel for the characters, and the lines really aren’t that cheesy.

Rating: 7/10. Go there to be wowed by the scenery, not the plot.