Yeah, yeah. This movie has been out for quite awhile but I still felt like giving my 2 cents on the movie.

I’d like to start out with saying I like Jack Black. I think he has been in some really funny movies and some I don’t mind watching over and over again. Tenacious D was a good no-brainer movie, School of Rock was entertaining and Tropic Thunder was hilarious even if it was because Robert Downing Jr was magnificent. Nacho Libre was super funny and even The Holiday that had himself, Jude Law, Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet was heartwarming at best. But then there are some movies I thought are shit like Shallow Hal but that wasn’t his fault. It was a stupid idea for a movie to begin with. Kung Fu Panda doesn’t count. My reasoning is that credit for animated movies should always go to the animators and not those ‘lending’ their voices. I do not associate Ray Romano to Ice Age for this reason.

So how did I find Year One?

In a few words, I’d say Year One was an idea that could but didn’t. There are some funny bits and I thought the hitting-a-woman-on-the-head-with-a-stick was classic. It wasn’t a waste of time but as I write this, I can’t remember how the movie started, climaxed or even finished. As Simon Cowell would say, “It wasn’t memorable.” Even the movie description got it wrong. It starts with saying ‘When a couple of lazy hunter-gatherers’ which is way off base. They aren’t lazy. Jack’s character is bumbling, accident prone and idiotic (much like any other characters from his comedy genre). Michael’s character is to be his sidekick.

It just seems like during the script-writing, there were so many good ideas with many jokes planned until someone left the best bits at home during filming. There are no spoilers here because the movie is quite unimaginative and anyone could guess how it ends (he becomes the hero and gets the girl) but I guess that’s a general comment for most comedies nowadays.

So, how did I find the movie? It was alright. Could have been better but I find myself saying this a lot.

Goal! 3

I waited in anticipation for this movie. I finally got my hands on a DVD copy last week and watched it just last night. Sad to say, I’m left totally disappointed by a stupidly written movie. To be honest, it was idiotic and undeserving of a production. I think all who were involved in the making of this movie should voluntarily remove themselves from the business of making movies because it is a business they should not be involved in to begin with.

[Warning: There could be spoilers contained within this review.]

When Goal! first came out, it was fantastic. I remember the scene where Santiago Munez jogged along the shores of Newcastle to an Oasis song. Its fantastic scenes drew the best out of the shit-hole that is Newcastle. The action scenes were realistic and well timed and didn’t need the movie magic of a green or blue screen to fill in the images. It had a good solid story of a young man living his dreams and it set the stage and tone to what could have been a memorable trilogy. It left me wanting more.

Goal 2 was horrendous. Hoping to show the world of the pitfalls that surround professional footballers, it showed a little too much enthusiasm for my liking. The writers seemed to have forgotten that there are many football stars that live the good-life without all the parties, sex and booze. Instead, they went all out to ensure David Beckham had a speaking role. If a person is a football fan because of David Beckham then I say that person doesn’t know anything about football. The movie seemed to take forever to finish but when it did, it still managed to provide the next film with an opportunity of a good story. At the end of the movie, Santiago stood up for Gavin Harris saying that he could still make the England World Cup team and Santi also looked to salvage his relationship with Roz who, by the way, is supposedly pregnant.

Enter Goal 3. Santiago plays cameo roles. There is no mention of his efforts to salvage his relationship with Roz besides the reference ‘I messed it up’ in the latter stages of the film. Gavin Harris is gone and replaced with 2 other idiotic characters that in real life would never have played professional football. The story has nothing to do with football and is crammed with highlights from the World Cup. Blue screens are extensively used which shows the poor foresight of the producers to not shoot some of the movie scenes during the actual World Cup and build around there.

To make the movie stink even further, 4 clowns are introduced as fans and they have a mini story within the movie, which is neither relevant nor amusing. The jokes written for them were bad but that was only bettered by the lousy acting of these 4 gentlemen who I believe were only picked for the movie because they look like any typical English bloke; ugly, immature and sexually deprieved.

This could have easily been passed off as a cheap chick-flick movie that squandered most of the production budget on high director wages and paying FIFA for the rights to use the World Cup clips.

What would I have done? Easy. Just as the producers recreated the Champions League to have Real Madrid win it against Arsenal, I would have recreated the World Cup with a fantasy story as well. Where ultimately Mexico would meet England in a match that would see Santiago vs Harris. This doesn’t have to be the final. A second round or quarterfinal game would suffice. England would eventually prevail but only to lose their next game. Leading up to the World Cup, I would have gone with a story of reconciliation between Santiago and Roz as well as Santiago with Glen Foy. But to add a bit of drama, I would have had Santiago get injured and having to face the battle of being fit in time for the World Cup. Doesn’t this sound like a movie you’d watch?

I am scarred so badly by this experience that I want to warn the world; DON’T BOTHER WITH GOAL 3! In fact, avoid ANY movie directed by Andy Morahan AND written by either Mike Jefferies or Piers Ashworth. These guys stink big time and I hope the stench from this movie sticks to them for a long, long time.

I hated this movie. Speaking of trilogies, I think Goal 3 is worse than Matrix 3, Terminator 3, Jaws 3, Rambo 3, Karate Kid 3, Home Alone 3 and Missing in action 3 all combined. I HATE this movie. I hate it so much that I want you to hate it too. That is how much I hate this movie. On a brighter note, there are some pretty hot ladies in this film and Santiago is fat. He reminds me Ronaldo. The Brazillian. Not the Portugese.

I wouldn’t say I grew up watching Star Trek. I’m not a fanatic or the most hardcore trek-kie but I do believe Captain Jean Luc Picard is a bigger captain than Captain James Tiberius Kirk. I believe Patrick Stewart could like William Shatner’s behind anytime.

As much as I loathe James Kirk, I was intrigued with a storyline that is meant to be a prequel of all that has been aired either on the big screen or on the TV. If it meant that I had to spend 2 hours watching the life story of James Kirk, I believe it would be worth it and damn was I right.

Before I get to how I found the movie, this is a warning for those that have NOT watched it. There might be some spoilers so if you want, skip this post to the end.

During the middle of the movie, the old Spock and the young Kirk met in a surprise twist to the movie. Is that guy still alive, I thought to myself? And at that moment, people around me went, “Who’s that guy?” Just then, Spock introduced himself as Spock and the same people went, “He said he’s the young guy. ” “No, you sure?” “Yeah, yeah. He said his name is Spock.” I wanted to yell, “You guys don’t know Leonard Nimoy? What the hell are you doing watching this movie for?”

Then it made me realize that maybe these people have never heard of Star Trek before. It made me sad to think this because I honestly felt that the appreciation levels in the theater hall was solely just with me. I’ll admit. I’ve only truly enjoyed Star Trek: The Next Generation while I feel that Deep Space Nine was a deep bucket of bull and Star Trek: Voyager should have just stayed lost while Enterprise was filled by bad acting and a poor portrayal of a Federation captain by Scott Bakula but at least I know Leonard Nimoy!

When the characters were gradually introduced, I recognized them and remembered their former selves. Mr.Scott, Dr. “Bones” McCoy, Chekov and Sulu (FYI: George Takei played Sulu in the original series and he’s openly gay. Just thought this piece of information would interest somebody) but I did miss Uhura in the beginning. Never in my life would I have ever imagined her to be that hot judging from the previous person who played her (just being honest) and it felt like a homecoming for me. The other people probably had no idea who these characters are.

It got a wee bit bizarre when I saw hands mimicking the Vulcan greeting like it was something new to them.  Hands started to appear from nowhere. Not because they were responding to the iconic splitting of the fingers, it was simply because they had never seen it before. Those damn idiots. It’s been around since before most of them were born.

Still in the spoiler mood, it was a bit stupid that the warp cores had to be ejected yet again. Rough count, the movie has ended like that for errrr 4 times now? Word to the producers, it’s getting a bit annoying and subtly cheesy. Stop it!

Skip here

Overall, the plot was good. The CGI was fantastic. And I all-around loved it. I’d just like to add that while the Star Trek franchise is getting more violent and death counts increasing by every movie (a few things Gene Rodenberry would never approve of) due to these modern crowds that love big explosions and spaceships shooting loads of torpedos (like me), this movie is really fresh and deserves to be watched. Just don’t be too much of a geek or a blonde (this is a bad metaphor but I wanted to give the implication of a nitwit who thinks space is something between 2 cars and Star Trek is a period of time before things got really bad and then began the Star Wars period) while watching the movie.

I loved it. Now I’m counting the days till Demons & Angels.

I have 2 major concerns of the movie; castings & plot.

THE CASTING

I like Keanu Reeves. I really do. He’s one of the best one-only expressioned faced actors out there. With a list that includes attention craving Jim Carrey and many basketball players, he faces stiff competition to be where he is.

If you think I’m being sarcastic, it’s because I am. I’m going to be nice and not mention anything about Bill and Ted and how he probably got his brain cut in half to imerse himself in the world of idocracy. His past few films hasn’t really helped him to explore his range of expressions or maybe it was down to his own style of acting.

When watching him in “The Day The Earth Stood Still”, I couldn’t help but think to myself, “Look, it’s Neo as an alien.” But then I corrected myself, “No, it’s John Constantine 2.”

I think that the casting of Kathy Bates as the Secretary of Defense is to remind the general US public of the consequences of voting Sarah Palin as President should she ever succeed in convincing the Republicans. I’m not against females in high places but Kathy was unconvincing as a person that would be chosen to lead the defences of the US.

The highlight for me was to see that guy from Early Edition, Kylie Chandler. I couldn’t recognise him at first but it all came back to me after mentally removing his facial hair and turning the clock a bit.

The Plot

Did they get Al Gore to co-write the adapted script? My work does involve environment conservation and forest rehabilitation but even I thought the plot was somewhat stupid. The story had a slow pick-up and finished quite hastily. It’s probably argued that the first came 9 years after WWII which would have moulded it’s plot to be anti-violence so the remake should be relevant to the current issues of environment and climate change. Still, it was boring. It looked like “The Inconvenient Truth” with a story line and real actors.

So the only thing I liked about the movie was GORT. It was cool and it should have played a bigger part in the story as opposed to the story being focused around the relationship between a single mom and her step-son.

I haven’t been bothered to write any movie review for awhile now but Max Payne has compelled me to do so. I feel it is my duty to warn those who are fortunate enough to have not seen it to reconsider watching it.

In not so many words, the movie was CRAP, C-R-A-P!

I’ve played Max Payne but decided to skip both sequels. It was an alright game with a really good ‘detective-falls-from-grace-and-finds-his-solace-in-the-end’ kind of plot. I loved the slow-down-time ala Matrix where the time slows down and bullets come at you really really slowly.

When I heard the movie was coming, I expected the classic detective versus mafia who has developed a new kind of drug. I heard Mark Wahlberg was taking up the role of Max Payne and I knew it was going to be a good movie. I have yet to find a Mark Wahlberg movie which I ended up hating, which speaks a lot because besides Mark, only Adam Sandler and Johny Depp are the other actors which have a clean bill from me. Jack Black could have been on the list as well except that I totally hated Shallow Hal and absolutely didn’t enjoy King Kong.

Back to the review of the movie, it was dumb! The plot seemed like it was written by an aspiring writer in college while the more experienced writers were busy picking up picketts during the writers strike not so long ago.

The movie was so bad that I have actually forgotten it. It’s like I developed selective and temporary amnesia if ever there is such a thing. I can’t remember how it started after the opening scene and I can’t remember what happened in the middle. I do recall the movie starting off with Max drowning and narrating a poorly written opener then cutting to a scene one week earlier. It was stupid because there was never an indication of the movie coming back to the present day.

You have to guess for yourself that the beginning scenes continued after his dead wife mutters ‘not yet’ and he rises back to the surface and swims back to the docks. If you think I’m not making any sense, it’s because the movie didn’t.

The CGI looked irrelevant to the movie and seemed to be added to keep the audience awake during the gruelling and boring storyline while the erections eased off after the few bare skin and imaginatory-leading scenes.

I’m considered lucky because I only shelled out RM5 for this dismal show but even that seems pretty steep. Mark Wahlberg was, well, Mark Wahlberg and he has nothing to regret for his performance in this movie. I just hope that next time, he chooses his movies more carefully because it’ll be sad if he associates himself with another stupidly written movie.

Sorry, Mark. I hated Max Payne.

Happy: I loved the fact that one of my favorite cartoons hit the big screen. It was absolutely wonderful. It was great that Peter Cullen was able to do Optimus Prime. Anyone else would have made a mess of it. It was brilliant to bring back the same quote from Transformers: The Movie in 1986, “One shall stand and one shall fall”. The animation was world class and the story was worth having the name Transformers as its title.

It was cute the when the Autobots were on Sam’s lawn. Iron Hide was hilarious. There were actually a lot of funny points in the movie which was really unexpected. It was a good mix. There was a lot of action and really little time to take my eyes off what was going on.

I never imagined Optimus Prime having lips nor Bumblebee looking so fine. Let’s face it, it would have been so uncool had they made Bumblebee a Volkswagen Beetle from the 60’s.

Not Happy: What the hell is Allspark? Apparently, allspark was actually mentioned in Beast Machines. Now, I love transformers. I quite liked the Japanese version, Transformers:Victory with Star Saber and Victory Leo BUT I despised, and still do, Beast Wars: Transformers. To take materials from anything other than the original Transformers is quite unacceptable. I will not explain anything regarding allspark because to me, it was a stupid thing to put as the core of the movie, utterly stupid. The writers could have gone with the more obvious way; The Decepticons wanted to destroy the Autobots’ Matrix of leadership. Pure and simple as the cartoon was.

I mentioned the out of this world animation but somehow I feel let down by the portrayal of the robots. It looked more GUNDAM-ish than Transformers. I just didn’t seem right. In the original series, you could tell what machine they are while they’re in robot form. In the movie, you couldn’t tell if Bumblebee was a car or a toaster. A little exaggerated on my part but you get the point. Megatron was a star ship of some kind which was a little confusing and for some reason Optimus Prime decided to go funky with decals. It’s like George Bush with a Mohawk haircut.

There was too much of the human factor which I did not like at all. The story revolved around how humans played their role in the war between the 2 sides. A headmaster story would have done the trick instead where the Transformers need humans to act as their heads in order for them to transform. That would have been cooler instead of Mikaela backing up the tow truck while Bumblebee was shooting.

What Now? There will be 2 more sequels coming our way. Dinobots, Constructicons and Soundwave will be introduced. But take it from me; they really need to go back to the original series or the first movie and gather their materials for the storyline there. Bring in Unicron, let the battle move into space. Be less creative with the script because it’s not working too well.

It was released in the UK in February this year. And it has taken until July, 2007 for me to finally get my hands on a crisp and clear pirated DVD. It’s scheduled for a US release at the same time David Beckham makes his MLS debut. Gee, I wonder why? Honestly, I wonder why.

How was it? Well, I’ll try to give an insight without giving too much of the movie away. It was: Fine. In my books, they could have done better than Real Madrid but it fits the story of trying to show the demise of the personal life of a star player.

Goal! was supposed to be as genuine to real life as it could get. The only player I can think of who has actually gotten himself in this type of predicament would be David Beckham himself, who plays a supporting role in the movie. I do not want to explain more as this would seriously expose a lot of the story.

But having watched it, I felt that a story revolving a serious injury as opposed to a story of a player just losing it would have been a better way to go because I do believe this movie would befit the normal pitfalls of professional athletes in the NBA or NFL but not most football players in Europe.

Further development of the character of Santiago; his mother who ran away when he was a young boy suddenly reappears in his life with his step-brother who is an absolute major pain. Had he been my step-brother, I’d have killed him the moment he tried to fleece my stuff (Oopps). Gavin Harris is still around. I thought we’d see the last of him in Goal! but I was to be proven wrong. Their roles of good conscience/bad conscience are slightly reversed in the middle of the film but Santi still manages to be the better person of the 2 towards the end of the film.

The ending was a bit stupid. A little clue; imagine the European Champions League Final of 1999 between Manchester United and Bayern Munich.

Now that is done and dusted; Goal! 3; I think this next one will revolve around the World Cup. Gavin Harris will be surprisingly picked for the England squad and Santiago will play for Mexico. Somehow their paths will meet and drama will unfold. Santi will definitely lose somewhere along the line. Or I could be wrong and Santi goes back to Newcastle? But I think the World Cup looks a safer bet. Any takers?

Transformers is coming soon. It’s something most of us (who were born during the prime of the Transformers and actually remember the first movie released in 1986) have been waiting for. But I’m just afraid that with its imminent success, producers might fall into the common trap of releasing unwanted sequels or suddenly announce that it was meant to be a trilogy (how common is that?)

What movies have hit the magical number of 3? James Bond, Indiana Jones, Shrek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Terminator, Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean, X-Men. To be fair; some movies were actually planned to be trilogies and some became very cliché by the third movie.

Now there’s talk of a new Indiana Jones movie which is being played by Harrison Ford. I hope they don’t plan to put a love scene involving his character and someone not his age because anything involving him would make him look like a pedophile. I’m not saying he’s old but I do think there comes a time when you need to retire the stretch pants.

What about Terminator 4? Surely you jest? Gee, I wonder how they’re going to make it different? I know! A cyborg from the future has come to the present to kill John Connor but little do the unsuspecting bad guys know, a protector has been sent back as well. Eventually both killer and defender will die in a heated battle scene which the good guy dies first only to come back to life in just the nick of time after they’ve spent a third of the movie running away. Wow, I should be a movie writer.

It’s like the movie industry is suffering from a bout of no imagination. Yes, it does take an amount of creativity and effort to do a sequel but more often than not it just becomes a fracas of disappointment. Ask the world of their opinion of Matrix 3, you’d get a single unanimous response; BLEH!  And this isn’t because of Keanu’s faceless expression; you can never seem to tell if he’s mad or has constipation. He’s probably mad because he’s constipated  or vice-versa.

Honestly, I love some trilogies; Spiderman and the up-coming Goal series. It’s a given because I’m a Spiderman fan and I love football. I didn’t warm up to Star Wars episodes 1 to 3 because I thought George Lucas just didn’t have enough money for a new island rather than him wanting to finish his story or in this case, begin is story. I still don’t understand the hype surrounding Harry Potter. And I think sequels of certain comedies have outlived their time; American Pie & Scary movie come into mind.

I hope Brandon Routh gets to pull on those blue tights of Superman mainly because I think Kate Bosworth is worth the movie admission price. But Brandon makes a better Superman compared to Tom Welling from Smallville. And what is up with Smallville anyway? It looks more like a soap drama rather than a TV series of a super hero. If it wasn’t for Kristin Kreuk who plays Lana, I wouldn’t waste a second watching that crap. Opps, my mind got sidetracked. But since we’re on the subject, I wonder if she’d mind dating a slightly overweight Asian dude who apparently doesn’t look Asian and isn’t merely ’slightly’ overweight. With the odds of 7 to 100,00,000, I’d have a better chance winning the lottery.

So, Transformers. I don’t mind the film coming up in multiples but just as long, in the words of Johnny Depp, “If they had a good script, why not?”

I’ve waited for this since watching Spiderman 2 in 2004. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely! The CG was brought to another level which is a compliment because I thought the effects in Spiderman 2 were fantastic. The way Sandman breaks off and bonds again was brilliant and so too the alien symbiote which how it moved around Eddie Brock.

The storyline was good but I would say that this movie really shone with its fantastic CGI. But alas; as a Spidey fan, I look to the short-comings than anything else. Honestly, I was disappointed with the over zealous of the writers to introduce too many enemies at one time. They pulled it off, no doubt but it left me frustrated still.

 The things that ticked me off:

• Gwen Stacey: I remember commenting with the first movie that she should have been mentioned first rather than Mary Jane. It’s common knowledge with Spidey fans that she was in fact Peter’s girlfriend and she died in his hands when he tried to save her falling from the Brooklyn Bridge during a fight with The Green Goblin. Putting her in this movie was so out of place for me.

• Eddie Brock: He went into the church with the intention of committing suicide which wasn’t the case in the movie. His bonding with the alien symbiote was done because they had one thing in common; their hatred of Spiderman. Fact: Venom has a twisted sense of justice and would not hurt someone that is perceived in his eyes as innocent. His only goal is to kill Spiderman. Fact: Eddie Brock is a journalist and NOT a photographer. His anger was directed towards Spiderman and NOT Peter Parker.

• Mary Jane: Her aim in life was to be an actress. I don’t recall her singing. I think it was cruel of the director to have Kirsten Dunst sing. I cringed at the end of the movie with her bawling it out. Sam Raimi, how could you? I looked up to you, man!

• Harry Osborn: Eh, I found his suit quite stupid. Reminded me of this robotic ninja thing I saw once. They should have just given him the Green Goblin suit as Harry is very much a ‘like father, like son’ kind of kid. His glider was also idiotic. It looked like a snowboard with lights. A far cry from the first glider.

I seriously feel that the story could have taken a different path. Rather than focus on more enemies, they could have gone with showing Spiderman’s problems with his waning powers. Forget Sandman and concentrate on Venom instead. But what do I know? I’ve only been reading Spiderman comics since I was 9. I would seriously enjoy another Spiderman movie that centers around Carnage. That would be so cool! But hey, what do I know?

This movie was first released on 22nd March, 2007 in 3 countries; Brunei, Singapore and Malaysia. We were the first countries to open and I only got to watch it on 8th April. Which would still leave me in front of 4 countries; Poland, India, USA and Canada. For some reason, it opens in US on 31st August while in Canada its 28th September. Take it from me, get a pirated DVD for this one.

Before we get started, let me just explain myself. I respect Rowan Atkinson and his brand of comedy. Mr.Bean did get him started but I also found Black Adder and The Thin Blue Line quite enjoyable. I absolutely loved the first Mr.Bean movie. Although, I didn’t like the transfer of material from the sitcom to the movie. For instance; the plane ride.

So, we have established that I love Mr.Bean and am a fan of Rowan Atkinson. Now to the movie.

It was alright for me. Comparatively with the first movie, I got annoyed with the fact Mr.Bean didn’t speak much. I still preferred the first one. It was kind of embarrassing that nobody in the cinema got the joke where this attendant on the train tells Mr.Bean that he speaks good French and he replies Gracias. I guess that shows the level of intelligence of the local audience here in Kuching. The ending was kind of lame as well.

But there were many good scenes in the movie to make up for its lacking. The storyline was as simple as it could get; to get to the beach.

It was just alright for me.