Movie Weekend!! Resident Evil - Afterlife (3D) & Grown Ups

I've been waiting for Resident Evil - Afterlife ever since I watched the last installment. I was totally looking forward to an enormous clone war brought forth by the army of Alice clones. Especially if they release their super powers all at once!! The start of the movie was promising as at was like I expected, an army of Alices going up against the Umbrella Corp, somehow the clones are easier to kill compared to the original Alice. They got eliminated. Damn Sad!! Double Sad when Alice lost her powers too. :(

The rest of the movie were more or less typical Resident Evil action minus super powers. There's also a huge hint for a sequel, i hope it gets on screen soon before Milla Jovovich gets old for this. The 3D effects were, not bad but it's also a case of having 3D for the sake of having it only. They don't need to be there.
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I've trying to catch Grown Ups for the past few weeks and for 1 reason or another I kept missing the chance to watch it. Well finally I caught it and I liked it alot! It's Adam Sandler style comedy at it's best. Really funny and apt jokes, although some are just lame and sick. It's really enjoyable and really relaxing movie to watch. And like always there's always a moral of the story included. This time it's simple enough. Just see the quotes below.

Stressed out Singaporeans out there!! Watch it!!

Spikefire ratings:


Resident Evil - Afterlife (3D)
Story & Plot: 6 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 7 out of 10

Grown Ups

Story & Plot: 8 out of 10

Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10

Overall: 7.5 out of 10

Favourite Lines:

Resident Evil - Afterlife
This movie is never about the lines.... hahaaa.

Grown Ups
Coach: Today's game, all of you played your best. Play exactly the way we wanted to and when the buzzer sounded, we were champions. Now, I want you all to live your life like how you played the game today. So when that final buzzer of life sounds.. you have no regrets.
________
Salma Hayek: How did you miss that last shot? You never miss that shot.
Adam Sandler: Sometimes Lennys have to learn to lose while others learn to win.
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watch the movie for the jokes.

Resident Evil Official Website

Grown ups Official Website


Pictures

Knight and Day

Watched @ Cathay Downtown East

Comedic action thriller which will leave you very lost for the most of the movie. BUT!! this is not the kind of movie you watch for the story line. Watch it for the comedy, watch it to be disgusted how cool tom cruise can still act like. Oh not to mention the camera angles which have to be constantly adjusted to make him look like he's taller than Diaz. Put aside the vague plot and pointless twists, it's actually entertaining!! Muahahaa...

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 6 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10
Overall: 6.5 out of 10


Favourite Lines:

Milner: [from trailer] Some people are gonna come looking for you now.
June Havens: Why?
Milner: They'll tell you I'm mentally unstable and violent and dangerous and it will all sound very convincing.
June Havens: I'm already convinced.
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June Havens: [from trailer] The pilots are dead!
Milner: Yeah, they've been shot.
June Havens: By who?
Milner: By me. No, actually, I shot the first pilot then he accidentally shot the second pilot. It's just one of those things.




Official Website


Pictures

Karate Kid

Watched @ The Cathay

Re-make of the old Karate Kid but with many twists. White kids becomes black, karate becomes kung fu, Japan becomes China. Well that just show how much world perception has changed. Japan used to be the up and coming nation with all the high tech stuff and super efficient economy, but my china is the new dragon, everything is about china.

There's quite a bit of chinese propaganda in the movie. The movies seems to put the country in a pretty good light. It's nice to know that US movies are trying to change the image of china being backward and old.

The action sequences in the show are pretty tight. Perhaps that's Jackie Chan's credit. His trade mark funny actions are still there but much less intensity. Age played a pretty big part, his character ages too.

This is a good movie to watch. Entertaining and Yu Rong Guang is always good at being the villian. haha.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 7 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10
Overall: 7 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Dre Parker: You don't know the rules?
Mr. Han: Simple. You hit him, don't let him hit you. 

Official Website

Pictures

Prince of Persia - The Sands of Time

Watched @ Cathay Downtown East

This movie is adapted from a very popular video game. A classic video games makes it to the big screen once again. I loved the parkour like jumping actions thru-out the movie, those are exactly the type of actions players of the prince of persia games hopes to achieve. Super cool.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 8 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 8 out of 10

Official Website

Pictures

Iron Man 2

Sequel to the 1st Ironman movie, not much link between the 2 other than the characters. Plot wise it's quite simple. But it's the high tech gizmos and gadgets that's most captivating. Just the suitcase size ironman suit? Super cool!!

Watch it for the action, nothing more could be asked abt the acting. it's not an arts film, it's action!!

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 7 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 7.5 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Ivan Vanko: If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come.
[looks at Stark]
Ivan Vanko: All I have to do is sit here and watch, as the world will consume you... 

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Tony Stark: I'm not saying I'm responsible for this country's longest run of uninterrupted peace in 35 years! I'm not saying that from the ashes of captivity, never has a Phoenix metaphor been more personified! I'm not saying Uncle Sam can kick back on a long chair, sipping on an ice tea, because I haven't come across anyone man enough to face me on my best day! 

Official Website

Pictures

Ip Man 2

Watched @ GV Marina Sq

Usually I don't watch chinese movies at the cinema, cos they are always out in stores or online within a few weeks. But this is an outing movie with friends so i watched. I have to say, i'm not disappointed with what I was watching.

I think the greatest credit has to go to the script and the director, they manage to make a movie about a man who was known to be unassuming, and made him into a cult hero. Impressive. Perhaps even more credit had to go to the guy who played the villain in the movie, he really managed to make everyone in the cinema hate him so much, that everyone cheered with the supporters in the movie when he was finally beaten. That is a great reaction indicating a great movie.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 8 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 8 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
洪震南：为了生活，我可以忍。但侮辱中华武术，我不能忍！
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梁：师父，如果真的有10个人带上家伙来打你，怎么办？
叶问：跑！

Official Website

Pictures

Bounty Hunter

Watched @ The Cathay

Another Gerard Butler movie that comes of the assembly line. His movie are coming out so fast, there's hardly time to forget his previous one. The problem with this one is that it totally reminds me of the ugly truth, not totally the same, but there's essence of the previous show in it. That is a bad thing.

The other bad thing is that the plot is quite filled with loopholes. the opening and finale are just lousy. Not plots that are well thought off, just plots that are trying to give gerard butler a movie, so that they can squeeze as much $$ as they can out of him while he is still the popular man. disappointing. Notice how far he has fallen in movie standard ever since 300? tsk tsk tsk

There nothing much to say abt jennifer aniston, she is in her typical role. boring cos it's the same her, but than again, that's the her I wanna see. :P

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 4 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 6 out of 10
Overall: 5 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Nicole Hurley: Life is making mistakes.
Milo Boyd: And death is wishing you had made more.

Official Website


Pictures

Date Night

Watched @ GV Vivo

Hilarious comedy, the plot is NOT out of this world, just a series of unfortunate events. Nothing very memorable, but being memorable is not the point for comedies. The laugh is all that counts, and laughs I've really had quite a few.

I think Steve Carrell has been typecast, his roles are more or less the same, goofy, underachieving guy who whacks out a good thing or two at the end of the movie. Tina Fey, i think it's the first time i've ever seen her a a lead. She's been around for ages and got famous for mimicking Sarah Palin. Great performance by the leading duo, good chemistry. They really did take my on a good comedic ride.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 8 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 6 out of 10
Overall: 7 out of 10

Official Website

Pictures

Clash of the Titans (non-3D)

Watched @ Cineleisure lvl 9

So much hype had been brewing around this movie, I personally feel it has not delivered much. At least it has not done enough to out-do it's predecessor. I've watched the old classic, monochrome version before when i was a kid, and i briefly remembered the movie to captivate me much more than this version did. Oh!! I remembered the owl, though I have no recollection of it's usage. I only remembered it used to move.

Acting wise in this movie, it's hard to judge, liam neeson as zeus, feels alittle feeble. And sam worthington as perseus, felt like terminator 4 all over again. well, I think the biggest problem lies in the plot. This is supposed to be an epic movie, but after watching it, it felt like a summary.

It's like the whole original story was summarized into under 2hrs so that we could watch it in 1 showing. actually, I would be happier if they made it into a 4hr long epic movie. Much like the "10 commandments" sort of  way. The whole grandeur of the movie would be lifted. Unlike this haphazardly compiled version.

Also the fact that it was converted to 3D as a sales gimmick is really desperate. They are so desperate to ride the 3D wave phenomenon, that they totally flopped in it. Well that was the comments i had gathered, so i watched the non-3D version instead. Indeed there are several scenes in the movies that would do well with 3D effects. But the effects are just the same when you do it in post-production instead of pre-production.

What could have been a hell of a ride became just a walk in the park.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 6 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 6 out of 10
Overall: 6 out of 10

Official Website

Pictures

Daybreakers

Watched @ Funshion

This is not the usual vampire story, vampires are immortals, but killable. They are still afraid of daylight and still feeds on human blood. The story begins in the future where most of the world's population are vampires and are facing a shortage of human blood to feed the vampires. Although the producers are the same ones as Matrix, I think the plot is kindda poor in that sense or maybe vampires are just not as smart as i thought.

Humans are captured and bleed dry for their blood, and when dried, they dispose the human. HOW DUMB IS THAT!!?? Even the Matrix from that long ago has the common sense to keep the humans alive for the extended shelf life. And the vampires in this movie simply used humans like disposables, dumb vamps!! It's probably cos the script was written so so long ago, perhaps way before the matrix and perhaps way before they heard of cloning.

Those are the worst loopholes that have left me utterly disappointed with the plot, otherwise it could have been a much better movie. oh yah, i think the producers also tried very hard to stereotype their vampires, in this movie, they are weak, they just dun age, but they can be killed quite easily.

However, I do like the twist in the vampire legends, vampires can turn back into humans, and man can return a plague of their own back onto the vampires. I liked that part.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 6 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10
Overall: 6.5 out of 10

Official Website

Pictures

Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief

Watched @ GVMax

The movie is an adaptation from a series of storybooks of the same name written by Rick Riordan. The acting in the movie says, teen pop movie from start to the end, but i'm happy to accept that sort of entertainment.

The storyline is interesting though, the whole premises of the story is based on ancient greek mythology, which somehow manages to exist in this modern world. Modern parallels are cleverly used to depict places and characters in ancient mythology.

This movie is direct by the same guy who direct the 1st 2 installments of Harry Potter.

Watch this if you are interested in teen fantasy and greek mythology.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 7 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 7.5 out of 10


Favourite Lines:
Chiron: [from trailer] Use this to defend yourself. It's a powerful weapon.

Percy Jackson: This is a pen.
Chiron: Only use it in times of severe distress.
Percy Jackson: This is a *pen*.

Official Website

Pictures

Little Big Soldier

Watched @ Cineleisure lvl 9

This is Jackie Chan's production, and the result is simply a typical Jackie Chan production. In his type of productions, the storyline doesnt matter, and pointless twists often occur.Comedy is quite effective in the show and the acting required is quite limited, hence focus lands on the action sequences. The action this time is not bad but could have been more.

So my recommendations for this movie is simple, lower expectations and you'll just enjoy the little things in the show.
Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 6 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10
Overall: 6.5 out of 10


Favourite Lines:
挺好的。(this is selected simply for the number of times it was used!!!)

Pictures

Legion

Watched @ Cineleisure lvl 9

I was actually looking forward to watch this movie, most of the movies which have involved paul bettany so far have been not bad. sadly, this time it's not encouraging, his acting was not the issue, is the loose plot. Angels fighting angels, god losing faith in men, doesnt sound all that bad. But the way everything was put together was quite disappointing. There's too much reference that can be seen from history. worst of all was...

It's a waitress who is the target of saving cos she bears the child who would be the saviour. Think terminator. Oh the gun fights remind me of terminator too. The ending also reminds me of terminator, I wonder if they are going to have legion 2.

Notice there's no devils or demons in this movie, why? cos the minions in this movie are angels. So where did all the demons go? on holiday, since now angels are doing their job of possessing and killing. :P

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 5 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10
Overall: 6 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Gabriel: I would not have shown you such mercy.
Micheal: Which is why you have failed him.

Official Website

Pictures

The Spy Next Door

Watched @ Cineleisure lvl 9

Just catched the show late last night, and surprisingly the cinema is a full house on a monday midnite session. Even though the cinema has nothing more than 10-12 rows, a full cinemas once again prove that there are LOADs of Jackie Chan fans in singapore. WOAH!!

The plot of the story is quite solid, cause it's simple and logical. Although I'm not sure about CIA ever loaning agents from China, especially in this currently political climate. Well, let's says it's plausible. hahaa.

The introduction into the movie was a short clip of Jackie Chan's poast movies, that was pretty cool. He has really done many movies with similar themes. Comedy is always present in his movies. In this one, the action is still quite amazing given his age.

Therefore, simple watch and enjoy.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 7 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10
Overall: 7 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Bob Ho: Family is not about blood relations, but about the people you love and the people who loves you.
Official Website

Pictures

Bodyguards & Assasins

Watched @ Cineleisure lvl 4

All star cast in this movie about 1 significant event in the revolutionary years of China. Bodyguards here are people who protect Sun Yat Sen in his crucial trip to Hong Kong to meet and liase with fellow revolutionaries. Interesting to know is that even though the bodyguards in this movie were almost wiped out, close to none actually knew who they were suppose to protect, nor why. They just did it.

It's pretty much based on historical events, not sure if the names and background behind each character is accurate, but it fulfills the purpose of bring forward the images of the unsung heroes in the long journey of China's revolution.

Oh, it also shows be it on purpose, how utterly useless and brainless the ailing qing dynasty was at that point in time.

However, I do find some of the protection strategy they were using were seriously DUMB!!!!! I would have totally done it in a different way.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 7 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 6 out of 10
Overall: 6.5 out of 10

Pictures

Avatar (3D)

Watched @ GV Grand

This movie has generated SO MUCH HYPED, it's impossible to even try to miss it. James Cameron has once again served up a movie blockbuster. Like he said in some many of those interviews on TV, it's really so difficult to come up with something new in movies. Harder still to come up with something new and AWESOME!!

The plot of Avatar is actually quite simple, humans found life on another planet and also some very valuable minerals which they wanna harvest. The only thing stopping them are the natives, the Na'vi and they are tough nuts to crack. So they go to war, and the ultimate weapon for humans are a band of genetically engineered Na'vi bodies (avatars) which can be remotely controlled by humans.

Well as with all things genetically engineered, they go wrong. But in this case, it went wrong for a good cause. The avatar pilots changed sides, as they grew close to the na'vi, and found a greater cause to fight besides for $$$!!

Action and effects wise, there's really nothing better. It's state of the art and the scenaries created in the movie are simply WOAH!! This is a movie that MUSt be watched in 3D, and an advice when watching 3D, the best seats are in front!!

My favourite part of the movie, the plug&play tails of the Na'vi tribe. Also love the way nature interacts with the Na'vi. It kindda reminds me of Final Fantasy 7, energy of life never dies, it gets recycled into the life stream which supports the world and new life.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 8 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 10 out of 10
Overall: 9 out of 10

Official Website

Pictures

Lesbian Vampire Killers

Watched @ PPStream

Basically this show is so BAD!! so bad, the lesbians are pretty much the only watchable thing the whole movie. I think UK movies have big issues with comedy, they just cant do it. The only comedy they come up with nowadays are C-rate movies like this one. Shitty, the plot is really really lousy, except for a few lame laughs there's not much to it. Oh btw, this movie features one of the WEAKEST vampires ever to hit the screen. Perhaps even the zombies in zombieland were harder to kill.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 3 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 4 out of 10
Overall: 4 out of 10

Pictures

Surrogates

Watched on 3rd Oct @ The Grand Cathay

This movie actually had quite a build up to it's opening. So I was looking forward to a COOL movie. But in the end, it was not fantastic, it's good but just not fantastic. Maybe i'm just expecting too much from it. I think this movie is a product of people starting to shun away of AI. AI is hard to control, so we control the robots ourselves.

The story is about a world where humans are ALL couch potatoes. They spend their lifes at home controlling robots to do everything they wanna do. So there's practically no more humans in the streets, only lookalikes that are remotely controlled by couch-potato humans.

What I like about the story is that, there's a documentary like start to the show, kindda explains the history of how the surrogates came about. But common to these genre of movies, it only raise more questions that requires answers. That's the bad part about it, there's just too many questions in my head at the end. It's IRRITATING!!

The visual effect are cool, but it's the usual stuff, nothing new and out of this world.



Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 7 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 7.5 out of 10

Official Website

Pictures

WhiteOut

Watched on 26 Sep @ The Cathay

This movie was supposed to be an adaptation from a graphic novel, but it does seem to have the captivating pace and intrigue of graphic novels, or maybe that's just my narrow understanding of graphic novels. :P

main selling point for this movie is actually Kate Beckinsale, and the producers make it SO SO obvious by have this scence at the beginning of the movie which shows her stripping and taking a shower. This scene has totally no value to the rest of the movie, ZERO!! but, for male viewers like myself, it aint bad.. hahaa.. you know what?? You can actually leave after the first 10mins. There's nothing too exciting from then on.

As you can tell, i'm kindda disappointed with the movie. The action was kindda slow due to the cold winter, everything gets sloppy, the mystery part was kindda lame, cos you dun really have to solve it. It just seems to keep unfolding and unfolding by itself, which means "I CAN SOLVE THAT TOO!!".

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 5 out of 10 (kindda slow, too slow!!)
Audio & Visual: 7 out of 10 (cool views of the antartic)
Overall: 6 out of 10 (you dun miss much, if u miss this one)

Official Website

Pictures

Gamer

Watched on 10th Sept @ The Cathay

This is a movie about the future of interactive gaming. What's the next step from controlling virtual avatars?? Well, controlling avatar that are real humans. It's really an intersting concept, and a rather attractive one. It seems that a person can control another in this "virtual" world and do watever they one and not be punished for it. Cool Eh??

It seems to me that the future of ours may not be as cheerry as it once was. Degeneration seems to be the path we are wlking into. This is the 2nd movie I've seen that depicts the future and a rather degenerated world. You will notice the emphasis on sex more than anything else. Sex sells... So is porn the faster growing industry in the world now??

Anyway, about this movie. Gerard Butler plays a death row convict who took part in some sort of a lottery to gain his freedom. The catch is that anytime during this lottery he may die. As the story unfolds, it turns out that the mastermind behind the virtual reality, is once again the bad guy!!

I personally find it funny that in this movie, hackers are actually pretty lousy. So they were not the ones who save the day. It's more of bad guys hitting the self-destruct button in the end.

Spikefire ratings:
Story & Plot: 8 out of 10
Audio & Visual: 8 out of 10
Overall: 8 out of 10

Favourite Lines:
Ken Castle: I think and you do.
Kable: Now imagine me stabbing you with this knife

Official Website

Pictures