Toy Story 3/A-Team

I'm not even going to talk about TS3 too much because you can read everything I want to say from all the positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. All you need to know is this: Quality finish to a quality franchise. Be sure to note: This film is NOT a kids' movie. I could hardly find a bit of humour in it that a child would actually laugh at. In fact, there was actually a moment where I genuinely jumped. It was just like a 'holy shit' scary moment.  What the film does is bring us (I'm talking late adolescents, early adults) back to our childhoods. Only thing I was disappointed to see was the omission of some characters (including RC Car, Wheezy, Bo Peep). But yes, TS3 is a nostalgia-fest. Enjoy it while it lasts. Be prepared for bawww at the end. I won't spoil the ending for you but I'll say that it's completely and utterly satisfying. Lastly, the Ken doll voiced by Michael Keaton is pure awesome. 

4.5/5, you MUST watch this. However, if you haven't, watch Toy Story and Toy Story 2 FIRST. 

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Alright, the A-Team. I am honest to God going to try and miniaturise these a bit more. I saw this the day after Toy Story 3, so it was nice to watch a film that has virtually zero emotional impact after that. The A-Team is awesome. I loved it. It's just like, 'here's Liam Neeson, here's some black guy from UFC, here's the guy from The Hangover and here's the guy from District 9, and then we'll just chuck in Jessica Biel as well, now sit back and watch some explosions and shit.' The action and visual effects in The A-Team are nothing short of sublime. It's just a never ending thrill ride that keeps going and keeps going... and when you think it's over, keeps going (naturally leaving the ending open for a sequel). 

Note that I haven't actually watched the original show, but I've heard it shares the movie's main traits, namely being loud, rambunctious and pretty funny. Sharlto Copley (dude from District 9) is fucking HILARIOUS. He plays Murdock, who's apparently a crazy pilot. And yeah. It's good stuff.

There are two things I didn't like though. Firstly, the hand-to-hand fight scenes. Lately, directors have this annoying habit of NOT FILMING THESE PROPERLY. The A-Team simply follows suit. These scenes are so quick and terribly edited that you have no idea what the hell is going on. Also, the story. I don't know, it might be just me, but I couldn't follow it. I'm fairly sure it made sense, but it seemed to jump the gun a lot. Things are explained, and only explained once, so if you miss it, you're screwed. I guess the film doesn't do too well in the sense that movies are supposed to show and not tell. However the action and set piece scenes more than make up for it. There is a scene where they fly a tank. Not kidding. It's not even some super sophisticated airship tank. It's just a regular Panzer tank. Also there's a brilliant satirisation of 3D television.

So yeah, drift into Michael Bay mode (expect no narrative coherence, look for plenty of action and explosions) and catch The A-Team. It's lots of fun.

4/5, recommended. 

-Dilan

Sheesh.

Suuuuuch stress. It is so cold that my back hurts all day. It feels like a plank, on the verge of snapping at any given moment. We've had a heap of trouble sorting out shit for our formal. Shit I don't even feel like going anymore. I guess I've learnt a lesson to organise it earlier next year.


You know, I think there needs to be more integration between Tumblr, Blogger and Wordpress. I mean I would switch to Tumblr if it didn't have such a retarded name; I'd switch to Wordpress as it seems more professional but I don't know what the follower system on that is like either.


I really need to go overseas. A break would be nice... in my opinion, the two week period of school between exams and holidays is silly; but of course, Year 10s have work experience and blah blah blah. And God damn it we have so much French homework it makes me cringe and die a little inside. And that's HOLIDAY homework. It's like twelve items -- including three essays. I spent literally all of the latter ten days of last holidays doing motherf***ing French homework. God. It is not fitting that Physics and Math and even 3/4 Psychology leave me unscathed and then French comes and wrecks the whole damn show. Damn it.


I need to branch out more. I would like to branch out more. I don't think I've grown up enough in high school the way everyone else has.


To end -- watch this. I dunno it spoke to me. 

robin hood

gud moovee go watch hurr

Prince of Persia

I've been pretty neglectful of my blog due to exams. So I'm back now, and to cap off the end of exams I saw Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time last night.


Basically the only video game-movies out there are all pretty bad. I've only seen Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (both of which I loved), and Street Fighter (which is terrible). I say most adaptations are bad because most adaptations are made by Uwe Boll. Enough said. No matter how much shit the guy doles out someone keeps giving him money to make movies. 


So here's the first video game adaptation with a decent production value. I'm happy to say that it's not half-bad either. In all the Prince games so far, the Prince never has a name; he's simply referred to as 'The Prince'. So of course, they had to give him a name. 


Jake Gyllenhaal plays Dastan (pretty lame name IMO), a young street urchin who happens to be seen by the king of Persia as he helps an urchin boy out of a sticky situation. The king is struck by Dastan's character and nobility and takes him in to become a Prince of Persia (dun dun dun). Fast-forward several years later, and Dastan, accompanied by his 'brothers' (they're obviously not blood-related), Tus (Dastan and Tus...) and Garsiv (seriously?), as well as the Vizier of Persia and the King's brother, Nizam (okay, seriously, who thought of these names?), finds himself leading the Persian army to victory against the holy city of Alamut. Now here's where it gets funny. The Persians attack Alamut because they receive 'false information' about Alamut manufacturing weapons for Persia's enemies. Okay, now just wait. It is later revealed that Alamut houses the Dagger of Time and the Sands of Time, which is what the antagonist is actually after. I actually love the allegory to Iraq and the WMDs. 


So anyway, Dastan and the Persians take Alamut, and shortly after Dastan finds himself framed for the murder of the King and fleeing from his very own family with the beautiful princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton). 


I'm going to spoil the surprise antagonist for you. Why? Because it's so damn obvious that he's the villain as soon as you see the first shot of him. But how, you ask. Firstly, he's the VIZIER. Who is always evil in fictional stories set in India or Persia: the Vizier. Read Asterix and the Flying Carpet. You will never look at a Vizier in a good light again. However, the main factor is: the guy's bald. Vizier Nizam, played by Ben Kingsley, is bald, and that is what makes him the villain. Baldness equals villainy. Remember that.


Onwards. The most surprising thing about this movie is that the plot is actually good. Like, it stands up for itself and is really interesting. It's a little clichéd but I thought it worked really well, and Nizam's motives are pretty well conveyed (by the way, Sir Ben Kingsley plays a badass villain). There are a couple of plotholes that I spotted while watching it, but the sequences they occur in happen so fast that it's really difficult to pick them up at all. I thought the special effects were beautiful. Pretty much any scene containing sand was beautiful. 


There's a reasonable amount of humour (amusingly often directed at the government's fiendish habits of collecting taxes), although the acting is a bit sub-par. I'll have to say that the opening lines of the early scene where the Persians are about to attack Alamut just had me going 'Oh my God this is going to be such - a - drag.' The action in that section of the film definitely made up for the cheesy acting though, but thankfully the dialogue got better as it went. At first I was doubtful about Gyllenhaal playing the Prince but he actually pulls it off pretty spectacularly, although I still wish they'd picked someone that could do more of his own stunts; there are simply too many shots where we're looking at the Prince's back because it's a stuntman doing all the parkour. Oh yeah, the parkour's great too. But... some more of it would have been nice. 


Something the film is a bit too full of is incessant drabble being fired from Arterton's mouth. She's great and she's hot and all, but oh my God is her dialogue annoying. BLAH BLAH BLAH I'M A SPOILT PRINCESS THAT NEEDS HER PRADA HANDBAGS AND HAS A REALLY HIGH VOICE. Far out. Apart from her there are some really nice characters to go along with the Prince and Nizam. While the dude that plays Garsiv reminded me a little too much of Taylor Lautner, I thought the dude that played Tus was quite proficient. Overall the film's acting is a bit hit-and-miss, which is pretty much exactly what you expect from a video game adaptation. 


My final complaint will be directed at the editing. It will therefore be directed at Mike Newell, the director, who also happened to be responsible for the train wreck known as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, the film. The editing is too scrappy. Seriously. Jeez. The action sequences are good only because of the actors in it and the special effects; they could've been great if not for the spontaneous cuts and amateur editing. They just seem rushed. And that's not a surprise, considering this is a Mike Newell film. Go away Newell. I will never forgive you for the shit you vomited out in place of a Harry Potter film. 


Rant complete. Yeah, so Prince of Persia was actually pretty fun. The film stales a bit throughout the midsection, but the action sequences are really cool (there's a particular one between this huge Numidian warrior and an assassin, and they're only using throwing knives) and are well complemented by sublime CGI. The acting is hit-and-miss, but the performances by Gyllenhaal and Kingsley are near-flawless. This is the most professional video game-to-film adaptation I've seen so far (I maintain that Mortal Kombat is still the best adaptation I've seen so far), and it was surprisingly satisfying. 


Recommended watch, but go in with relatively low expectations. 3.5/5. 


P.S. I actually saw Robin Hood a couple of weeks back and was too lazy to write about it, I need to do that. Blah.