Laugh it up, fanboys

Paul
My rating:




I loved Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. I love movies that can pull off the tricky trifecta of mocking a genre, yet show boundless affection for it, and be a solid entry in that genre in its own right. Simon Pegg and Nick Frost - and their frequent collaborator, Edgar Wright - are acknowledged masters of this, and I'll watch anything they make. (Not so much the ones with just Pegg though.) Paul, their latest, was released 2 months ago in the States and 3 months ago in the UK, and has already earned a reputation of being good, but not at the level of their previous two films. Well, maybe if I watched all three back-to-back, I might agree.

But right now, I can't see it. It's massively entertaining, and the best laughs I've had at the movies in a long time.

Graeme Willy (Simon Pegg) and Clive Gollings (Nick Frost) are two British sci-fi fanboys who have come to America to visit San Diego Comic-Con first, and take an RV road trip tour through the Midwest's most famous UFO sites second. But while on the road, they encounter Paul (voice of Seth Rogen) - rude, uncouth, cigarette-smoking, weed-toking, and also an alien. Paul has just escaped from government custody, and needs Graeme's and Clive's help to make it to a place where his people can take him home. On the way, they also pick up Ruth Buggs (Kristen Wiig), a fundamentalist Christian whose worldview is changed shattered by Paul, but this only makes Ruth's domineering father (John Carroll Lynch) pursue them with a vengeance and a shotgun. Also hot on Paul's tail is the ruthless Agent Zoil (Jason Bateman) - supposedly-aided-but-more-often-hindered by two other bumbling operatives (Bill Hader and Joe Lo Truglio) - whose superior (Sigourney Weaver) doesn't much care if Paul returns dead or alive.

Malaysian audiences are shamefully ignorant. Oh no, it's not because the audience at my viewing didn't enjoy this movie; they did, uproariously. It's because this movie is dense with in-jokes and references to a dozen other classic sci-fi films, and almost every one sailed over their heads. Mac And Me. The song playing in the redneck bar. "Boring conversation anyway." And an absolutely delicious one aimed at Sigourney Weaver which it would be criminal of me to spoil. I was literally the only one laughing at these, but I'm pretty sure there were even more jokes that I missed. Just those ones I mentioned above were awesome enough.

Yes, as befits a movie about two sci-fi geeks made by two sci-fi geeks, Paul is chock-full of sci-fi geekery. And yet it remains accessible and entertaining for non-geeks, because as I said, even the audience I watched it with had a great time. The dialogue is hilariously vulgar, which is possibly still a new thing to Malaysian moviegoers. (If you're still not aware yet, rated 18 now means profanity is completely uncensored.) As writers, Pegg and Frost display a mastery of the running gag that should be the envy of comedy writers everywhere. As actors, they have no problems playing likable characters, and Frost's Clive even gets a little more dimension than the one-note clueless morons he played in Shaun and Fuzz. And just like those two films, this one takes care to tell a real story, not just a string of jokes.

It's probably not the tightest story though, being a road movie after all. Somewhere in its second half, they pick up yet another character, Tara Walton (Blythe Danner), and her subplot is perhaps not as well-developed as it deserves. But it is warm and touching, which is another thing about the movie that I liked. He may be voiced by Seth Rogen, and he may practically be a typical Seth Rogen character, but Paul is more than just another slacker/party animal/asshole/mainstay of many a modern American comedy. He develops a real warmth for his new human friends, has a conscience and a desire to make right his mistakes, and his loutish behaviour never becomes dickish or causes lazy plot complications. As much as you may dislike Rogen or Rogen-ish characters, Paul is always more than that.

That's probably because two Brits wrote it. In many ways, this movie is also an outsider's view of America, as seen by two foreigners and one literal alien. It takes potshots at drunken rednecks and Christian fundies, and I've read a fair bit of huffing about this from butthurt Americans. Suck it up, I'd say to them; Hollywood has done more than its fair share of insulting portrayals of other countries and cultures, it's time to taste some of it yourselves. Though it's amusing to think that Pegg and Frost are doing it in their most Americanised film to date - produced by an American studio (Relativity Media) and directed by an American (Gregg Mottola, who previously made Adventureland). In any case, I thought it was freakin' funny.

I thought the whole damn movie was freakin' funny, and that ought to be as good a recommendation as any. Y'know, thinking about it, perhaps it is the weakest Pegg-Frost movie thus far. I'm remembering how Shaun's and Fuzz's jokes were more sly and sophisticated, whereas this movie tends to cover the same comic ground in a more obvious manner. (Compare the gay jokes, f'rinstance. And yes, for the complainers, there were plenty of gay jokes in the other two movies too.) But like I said, I'd have to watch all three back-to-back to be sure. And I also think it'd be niggardly to pronounce this a lesser film when it is already so terrifically entertaining. Because it is. Even for folks who didn't catch the reference to the Kirk-Gorn fight.

NEXT REVIEW: Priest
Expectations: three 4-star summer movies so far - clearly it can't last

The okay-est show on earth

Water for Elephants
My rating:




Yay for counter-programming! The summer movie season is here, with all its ass-kicking stuff-upblowing CGI-filled blockbusters - which makes it such a nice reprieve to watch a smaller, quieter, more human-scale film for a change. (It also helps me keep my film critic cred, for which no good is done by only reviewing movies made for 15-year-olds.) Water for Elephants is based on Sara Gruen's novel of the same name, and the trailer looked intriguing enough for me to make it my next break from typical summer popcorn fare.

Well, as a reprieve from summer blockbusters, it's nice enough. But it's nowhere near the best of its kind.

An elderly man named Jacob Jankowski (Hal Holbrook) arrives at a circus, but too late to catch the show. He starts reminiscing to a circus worker of when he was 23 years old (Robert Pattinson) in 1931, a Cornell student who loses everything when his parents are killed in a car accident. Homeless, penniless and despondent, he stows away on a train which turns out to be the travelling Benzini Bros. circus. There, he befriends Camel (Jim Norton) and Walter (Mark Povinelli) and gets a job as the circus veterinarian from owner and ringmaster August Rosenbluth (Christoph Waltz). He is also instantly smitten by the circus' star performer Marlena (Reese Witherspoon), who happens to be August's wife. When they bond over Rosie, an elephant that August purchased for the circus' menagerie, the attraction between them grows - and grows dangerous, due to August's insane jealousy and violent tendencies.

As I believe I have previously mentioned, I can be quite a sucker for a good romance. And this movie seems all set to be a grand, old-fashioned, soaring romantic melodrama. It certainly has all the potential for one; the Depression-era period, the fascinating little details of circus life, the abused-animal subplot carefully calculated to jerk a few tears, the romance that's all smoldering looks and absolutely no discussions about feelings. But it never quite lives up to it. It tries mightily to soar, but only ever manages a low flyby.

Part of it has to do with the cast. I like Robert Pattinson; he may be an easy target for snarkery for being the face of the Twilight franchise (an even easier target), but I don't think he's that bad an actor, certainly no worse (probably a damn sight better) than many others. (*coughPaulWalkercough*) But here, he just never quite brings Jacob Jankowski to life. Worst of all is that he and Reese Witherspoon simply don't have any chemistry, and that's crucial for this kind of classic-style love-at-practically-first-sight Hollywood romance. Witherspoon looks cute riding the elephant, but she's a lot more believable when she's trying to convince August that she loves him - and Marlena never really seems unhappy or uncomfortable around him.

She should be, of course, since August really is an absolute monster. Often charming, seemingly reasonable when he talks about the difficulties of keeping the circus afloat in the midst of the Depression, even sympathetic at times - but able to switch to violently abusive on a dime. And has no qualms about firing his workers by throwing them off a speeding train. He's a magnetic villain, and an actor of Christoph Waltz's caliber should've absolutely killed it. But I am of the opinion that he wasn't right for the role. There's always something goofy about Waltz's smile, which he parlayed magnificently in the goofy-yet-still-deadly Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds. The generic villain roles that Hollywood has since put him in never use his talents right.

And there's also Francis Lawrence's directing, and Richard LaGravenese's screenplay. LaGravenese streamlines the plot of Gruen's novel well, but his dialogue is corny and on-the-nose in a lot of places - although I can forgive that as keeping with the old-fashioned vibe, almost as if it were made in 1931 as well as being set then. (Yes, I think that's definitely what this movie is going for.) What bugs me is how easy Jacob often had it; he has one too many strokes of contrivedly good luck. (Example: the train has left him behind, he's despondently following the tracks on foot, all seems lost - and then he finds the train again, because they stopped to clear a conveniently fallen tree off the track.) Lawrence is more known for Constantine and I Am Legend, so this is quite a departure for him, and he proves competent. But again, his direction never really soars to the heights it's aiming for.

"Merely competent" about sums up this movie. Talent of this caliber - Waltz, Witherspoon, LaGravenese, even Pattinson and Lawrence - means it's never bad, but never achieves greatness either. It exemplifies the saying "good is the enemy of great." But honestly, if you feel like watching a romantic melodrama on the big screen - or just feel like something other than a superhero comicbook adaptation or the latest instalment of an action-movie franchise - then I'd recommend Water for Elephants. And if you're an RPattz fangirl, you're gonna love it. If you like this kind of thing, then this is just the kind of thing you'll like.

NEXT REVIEW: Paul
Expectations: after Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, pretty high

Jangan tengok filem ini!

Momok Jangan Panggil Aku
My rating:




Saya cukup sedar bahawa rating yang saya beri kepada filem tempatan semakin meningkat sejak saya mula mengulas filem dua tahun lalu. Daripada purata 1-½ hingga 2 bintang, kini lebih kerap ada 2-½ mahupun 3 bintang. Sebabnya ada dua kemungkinan: a) filem tempatan makin bertambah baik, dan b) saya makin terpengaruh akibat sering menonton filem tempatan hingga pandangan saya sudah hilang keobjektifannya. Mungkin yang pertama ada benarnya. Mungkin pada tempoh masa dari bulan Mei tahun 2009, kebetulannya banyak filem yang teramat teruk dan buruk yang ditayangkan. Tapi saya juga pernah mengaku berat sebelah terhadap filem Malaysia. Ini suatu perkara yang membingungkan saya.

Tapi selepas menonton filem ini, saya sudah pulang ke pangkal kepastian. Kalau filem macam ni boleh berjaya dibikin, jelas industri kita masih di tahap jamban.

Ada mamat bernama Ramli (M. Jamil SARIMAH) yang keje kat opis. Dia menerima panggilan dari kawannya Ajis yang mengajak dia datang melawat sebab ada surprise yang nak ditunjukkan. Masa tengah berbual, Ramli tersandung wayar talipon dan terjatuh. Lepas tu, dia nampak seorang tukang tilik di kaki lima kena sapu oleh DBKL. Lepas tu, dia bawa kereta bersama dua orang rakannya, Sudin (Ariff S. Shamsuddin) dan Qaseh (Cassandra Patrick), menuju ke kampung Ajis, rupanya kerana Ajis nak kahwin. Surprise! Dalam perjalanan, Qaseh bercerita pasal hantu. Kemudian mereka mengajak seorang total stranger bernama Abang Long (Syed Abdullah Uncle Seekers) naik kereta bersama, tanpa mengesyaki dia ni serial killer ke apa, dan Abang Long ni juga ceritakan kepada mereka sebuah cerita hantu.

Ada satu benda dalam filem ini yang saya suka. Dalam babak Hantu Saka, ada watak Chu Lamah (Mariani Ismail) yang sedang nazak ingin berjumpa dengan cucunya Jasmin (Baby Faralia). Bila seorang mamat membawa Jasmin ke sisi Chu Lamah dan berkata, "Jasmin sudah datang," nenek itu balas, "Aku taulah bodoh!" Ini membuatku tersenyum. Mungkinkah kerana senyuman saya itu, filem ini patut diberi pujian? Mungkinkah dengan baris dialog yang mencuitkan hati ini, saya patut memberinya rating 1-½ bintang sekurang-kurangnya? Tidak sama sekali. Kerana dalam filem yang memakan masa 1 jam 38 minit ini, hanya ada 5 saat yang menghiburkan. Yang lainnya semua macam taik.

Ini sememangnya filem sampah. Jalan ceritanya sampah. Dialognya sampah. Arahannya sampah. Lakonannya sampah. Efek khasnya sampah. Sinematografinya sampah. Kesemua barisan pelakon dan kru telah mengaibkan diri sendiri kerana terlibat dalam sampah ini. Kesampahannya sudah jelas ternyata dari awal lagi, masa adegan tersandung wayar talipon dan tukang tilik yang saya sebut dalam sinopsis di atas. Kedua-dua adegan ini tiada kaitan langsung dengan apa-apa. Tak lawak. Tak logik. Tak bermaksud. Dalam perjalanan ketiga-tiga watak utama, tetiba cakap nak pergi majlis kahwin Ajis kawan mereka, sedangkan pada permulaan dia cuma kata ada surprise nak tunjuk diorang. Skrip dah ubah kat tetengah tapi lupa nak betulkan kat memula.

Tapi yang paling meradangkan ialah betapa kerapnya filem ini membuang masa. Bila ada orang ketuk tingkap kereta, pemandu dan penumpang bersembang selama seminit dua sebelum membuka tingkap. Bila ada hantu raya yang sedang mengejar seorang perempuan, perempuan itu berhenti sejenak dan meraung kepada suaminya, manakala hantu itu pun berhenti dan berdiri sambil menunggu keputusan perbualan mereka. Bila seorang suami mengesyaki bahawa hantu polong sedang mengganyang isterinya, dia berjalan perlahan-lahan ke arah bilik isterinya, kemudian mengetuk pintu dan memanggil dengan sopan. Filem ini menguji kesabaran penonton dari mula sampai akhir. Jika Kesabaran dijadikan subjek baru dalam kurikulum sekolah kebangsaan, filem ini boleh jadi ujian STPM.

Ah! Malaslah aku nak ulas filem ni. Kalau nak huraikan segala kegagalannya, sampai tahun depan pun tak habis catatan ni. Saya cuma hairan bagaimana filem ini boleh terbikin. Ia merupakan follow-up kepada Momok The Movie yang keluar dua tahun lalu. Dalam rebiu filem itu, saya tertanya mengapa ia perlu dijudulkan sebagai The Movie, macam dia takut penonton movie takkan tahu movie yang ditonton tu ialah sebuah movie. Rupanya ia berasal dari sebuah filem VCD keluaran tahun 2004. Mampukah sebuah VCD dapat meraih untung sehingga jenamanya dapat meningkat ke panggung wayang? Adakah Momok The Movie benar-benar mendapat kutipan RM2.5 juta, menunjukkan permintaan orang ramai yang tinggi untuk sebuah sekuel?

Saya dapati ini amat sukar untuk dipercayai. Saya amat musykil dengan kejujuran dan ketulusan syarikat penerbitnya, Galaksi Seni Sdn. Bhd. serta pengarahnya M. Jamil SARIMAH. Ya, begitulah namanya ditera pada filem ini, kerana beliau anak kepada seniwati Sarimah Ahmad. Co-star dia Ariff S. Shamsuddin juga anak kepada S. Shamsuddin, dan nama watak-watak Ramli, Sudin dan Ajis jelas merujuk kepada karya seniman agung Allahyarham Tan Sri P. Ramlee. Tapi filem ini bukan tribute, sebenarnya ia suatu penghinaan. Ibarat M. Jamil mencampak arang kearah memori zaman kegemilangan filem Melayu. Toksahlah kau nak jual nama mak engkau, wahai Tuan Pengarah. Bakat dia setitik pun tak turun pada kau.

NEXT REVIEW: Water for Elephants
Expectations: been a while since I watched a good melodrama

Fifth time's the charm

Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist
My rating:




Also known as Fast Five in the States, 'cos it wouldn't be a Fast & Furious movie without a ridiculous title. The Fast and the Furious, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Fast & Furious, Fast Five - these are either some insanely unimaginative titles, or there is some deranged genius in how terse and straightforward they are. Either way, the common denominator is insanity. And as my retrospective of the series to date will indicate, I didn't think much of the movies themselves either. But after the roaring box-office success of this latest instalment (it opened a week early in the States), it's a foregone conclusion that there will be a Fast Six, and a Furious Seven, and then a Fasturious Eight. (*insanelaugh*) The prospect of these might have previously filled me with, if not crushing despair, then at least a mild dissatisfaction with the world.

But not after actually watching this movie. Now, I say bring on the sequels, whatever they'll be called!

After breaking Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) out of jail, former FBI agent Brian O'Connor (Paul Walker) is now on the run with his girlfriend, Dom's sister Mia (Jordana Brewster). In Rio de Janeiro, they meet with Dom's old partner in crime Vince (Matt Schulze), who brings them in on a job to hijack cars from a moving train - a job that goes sour, earning them the enmity of Hernan Reyes (Joaquim de Almeida), the crime boss of Rio. Instead of running for their lives, Dom plans to stage a daring heist to rob Reyes of $100 million, and he brings together a team of familiar faces: Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson), Tej Parker (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges), Han (Sung Kang), Giselle (Gal Gadot), Tego (Tego Calderon) and Rico (Don Omar). But hot on their heels is US Diplomatic Security Services agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), who with the aid of local rookie cop Elena Neves (Elsa Pataky), aims to bring the "wrath of God" down on Dom.

Whoo! That was a fun movie. And it's honestly surprising how much it improves on its immediate predecessor, as well as every other previous Fast & Furious sequel. I said that the formula for making these movies good is to completely forego emotional involvement in favour of car chases, more car chases, and not forgetting, car chases. Whaddya know, screenwriter Chris Morgan actually got me to care about these people through a few broad character strokes. And more importantly, Justin Lin captured the exact right balance between humanising these characters and emphasising the plain dumb action movie fun.

But it's the plain dumb action movie fun that people come for, and they'll get it in spades. And yes, it is dumb. (It is, in fact, very dumb.) But it is just the exact right kind of dumb that'll get you to willingly leave your brain at the door. I don't generally like that phrase, since I don't see why a functioning intellect should be an impediment to enjoying a film - but the thing is, there is good dumb fun and there is bad dumb fun. A movie that fails to convince me to not think about the impossibilities of its action scenes - and the holes in its plot - is a bad one, but Fast Five convinced me handily. These are some of the most bone-jarringly thrilling, high-speed action scenes you'll see anywhere, from its opening train heist to its climactic chase through the streets of Rio - in which two cars drag a ten-ton safe behind them and still manage to achieve 100mph speeds.

And leave a shitload of destruction in their wake, all of which looks for goddamn real like they really did smash real cars and real buildings into real smithereens. One clear weakness of Fast & Furious (the fourth one, and yes, I have to clarify this) is an overabundance of fake-looking CGI in its action scenes; there's none of that in Fast Five, probably owing to a bigger budget (you'd be surprised how modestly-budgeted all the previous ones were). And the action scenes were imaginative. The train heist, the Rio street chase, even the various bits of heist-planning business in between are always fun and inventive. There's this terrifically funny video skit by the Onion News Network, an interview with Morgan - who's five years old - but the movie itself has the last laugh. This stuff was devised by at least a nine-year-old.

You know what else makes this the best in the series, action-wise? No street races. Oh, there is one, but more about that later; what's clear is that this instalment largely moves away from the street-racing angle and turns our heroes into international heist artists - with a specialty in expert high-speed driving. The one time it visits Rio's underground racing scene is deliberately brief, as if to say "yeah, this is where we came from, but we're done wit dat now." And yet, there are heaps of references to the previous films, not the least of which are all the returning characters - one from every instalment, in fact. They're all lots of fun, the banter and camaraderie is often very funny, and it even adds weight to its theme of how Dom values family above all else. Emotional weight, at that. And the one street race, an impromptu one between Dom, Brian, Roman and Han, feels like Fast & Furious All-Stars - an entirely forgivable fanservicey moment.

Wait! I haven't even talked about The Rock yet! This is indeed the first cinematic match-up between these two brickhouses, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Vin Diesel, and it is given both the momentous buildup and awesome payoff it deserves. Lin and Morgan are clearly aware of how yummy this pairing is, and they play it up to the hilt, as do Diesel and Johnson. The latter especially has found a great role in the inexorably badass Hobbs, much better than his previous one; he is given some terrifically cheesy tough-guy dialogue on which he can exercise his rare talent of delivering with a straight face. Paul Walker is still dull, but Tyrese Gibson's return as the hilarious blowhard Roman Pearce is welcome. I'm still not much of a fan of Han, but I thought it was neat that the Asian guy gets the girl this time. Oh, and speaking of girls, Giselle, Mia and newcomer Elena all play prominent (and useful) parts, so there's none of that trophy-female sexism of previous instalments.

So yeah, this isn't just the best of the series (a pretty low bar), it's a genuinely good action movie, one that's unashamedly ridiculous yet completely wins you over with its ridiculousness. It took five films and ten years, but the Fast & Furious franchise has finally figured out how to be good - the kind of good that I'd never have expected from it. And yes, good enough to make me look forward to more sequels. Bring 'em all back! Bring back Dom, Hobbs - you can lose Brian, frankly - Roman, Tej, Han (although, and I may be completely alone in this, I think it's time to bring back Sean Boswell), Giselle, and the two surprise cameos in the post-credits scene. Yes, there is one, and yes, it's a boon for long-time fans of the series, and yes, it worked on me. And yes, I'm a Fast & Furious fan now. Late, but better than never.

NEXT REVIEW: Momok Jangan Panggil Aku
Expectations: oh gaaawwd

The fastest, furiousest, and stupidestly-named movie series ever

I have only ever watched The Fast and the Furious (the first one, which I have to clarify for reasons I will later make clear), and even then as a late-night DVD session at a friend's place. See, I never knew my friend as a car freak before (although I shouldn't've been surprised, he always was a bit of a meathead - sorry Ray), but he was totally into this movie, more for the cars and the car porn and the street-racing subculture than any of the movie's actual merits. And that subculture was active enough to sustain the movie through three sequels and a fourth, which makes it a genuine film phenomenon and thus worthy of TMBF's Retro Review coverage. But let me say this upfront: I am not a car freak. I am a (mostly) law-abiding driver. I don't understand why anyone would want a car that can hit 140mph when our highway speed limit is 110km/h. And I happen to value things like plot, character and dialogue. Yeah, these reviews are gonna be fun - probably more for you than for me.


The Fast and the Furious (2001)
My rating:




I wonder now if Ray and I fast-forwarded through the boring bits, because I don't remember it being so lame. Even if you haven't watched the 1991 Keanu Reeves-starrer Point Break - of which this film is a blatant ripoff - the plot would still be pretty predictable. But the screenplay is incredibly lazy even at hitting its own beats. Brian's friendship with Dom, Brian's romance with Mia, Brian's alienation from his fellow cops, Dom's enmity with Johnny Tran; it's like the film doesn't even care about developing any of these things. None of the characters talk; they just preen and posture like 9-year-olds. The acting is uniformly bad. (This is one of the movies that launched Vin Diesel's career? I say his career launched in spite of it.) And the dialogue, when not being painfully dull, trades in hilariously faux-pithy lines like, "It's not how you stand by your car, it's how you race your car."

So what does the film care about? The racing scenes? Maybe, but that doesn't make them good. No matter how many camera tricks director Rob Cohen employs to make 140mph look like freakin' warp speed, there's just not much excitement to watching cars speeding straight down a straight track. Only a truck heist scene near the end generates some decent thrills, mostly through some impressive stuntwork - but still diminished by the fact that the guy in danger is an asshole whom I didn't care if he lived or died. I think what the film really cares about is showcasing the cars and their engines, on whom Cohen's camera lingers as fetishistically as it does on the hot chicks. It's certainly cheaper - 'cos I was reminded of the fact that this movie was a sleeper hit. Meaning it had a relatively small budget, too small to have any really elaborate car chase scenes save for that truck heist one.

And yet the general critical consensus is that this first one in the series is the best (or maybe just the least bad). If that's true, boy, am I in for some fun. But I didn't like it at all, and I think it's because it's dated. Whatever charms it had were small and ephemeral, and have long since fizzled out in the past 10 years. And maybe because, it's one thing to be a little dumb-fun sleeper hit movie; it's another thing to be the progenitor of a franchise that has now encompassed five movies. Maybe it's because I saw nothing about it to warrant any further thought two minutes after it ended, let alone four sequels. Or maybe I'm just biased against Rob Cohen for making one of the most aggressively stupid movies I've ever seen. But I think it's mostly because of its datedness. Ten years ago, I might have given it a pass for being bad but fun - now, it's just bad.


2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
My rating:




Hey, I actually liked this one better. I did! And that puts me at odds with James Berardinelli, who regards it as one of the worst movies of 2003. Oh don't get me wrong, it's just as trashy and dumb as its predecessor. The plot is sublimely ridiculous; the big bad crime lord's plan to have skilled street-racer drivers transport his drug money makes not one lick of sense. And it loses Vin Diesel but keeps Paul Walker, who belongs to the I'm-cool-'cos-I-smirk-a-lot school of acting and is as dull as ever. But I actually preferred the action scenes in this one. It has a bigger budget, which means its car chase scenes have quite a bit more action in them. Maybe they're over-the-top - the double-car bridge jump bit was very over-the-top - but they're also a lot more fun.

Also fun: Tyrese Gibson as the wisecracking Roman Pearce. There's an agreeable quality to the proceedings however silly it gets, which counterpoints another thing I don't like about Rob Cohen - his movies tend to have a certain mean-spiritedness to them. Not so here with John Singleton on the directorial reins. There's just one, somewhat incongruously nasty scene involving the villainous Verone and a rat, and even that serves to tell us in perfectly unambigious terms that this movie is all about spunky good guys vs. a capital-B Bad Guy. It's not asking for any emotional investment in the characters or their relationships, their jealousies and betrayals and tedious bickering. And no romance either; it teases us with hints of one between O'Connor and Monica, then shuts it down as if to say "naah, we don't really need any of that here."

All it is is a trashy action movie with a prettyboy hero, a comic-relief sidekick and a hissable villain - two out of three of which its predecessor lacked. Another thing its predecessor lacked is a ridiculous and annoying title, which I already know this series is full of (and is bound to get even more annoying). I doubt I'm going with the general critical consensus here when I say this one's better than the first, but I'm sticking to it. It's very very dumb, but it's just the right kind of dumb that makes it just decently enjoyable. Still, I'm not seeing anything about the plot nor the characters - certainly not Brian O'Goddamn-Connor - to make it worth making sequels out of. It's not like there's ever been a desperate shortage of cinematic car chases.


The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
My rating:




Hmm, this one's an odd duck. It's a sequel with no returning characters from the previous two movies (except for a cameo at the end), and most of its new ones never go on to appear in any further instalments. About the only thing linking it to the franchise is that it's once again about street racing, which is either a bold new purely thematic direction for the series, or (let's not kid ourselves) an otherwise unrelated movie with a proven brand name carelessly slapped on. Still, odd duck is odd in many ways. The storyline is meandering and never develops any momentum, nor does it ever progress in a way that makes sense. Knowing what kind of movie this is, I knew it would end with a climactic car race, but I couldn't imagine how that could satisfyingly resolve anything that came before. Whaddya know, it didn't.

These new characters aren't very interesting either, and for this franchise, "interesting characters" is a low bar. The mentor-student relationship between Sean and Han is dull, because Han is never more than an aloof cypher. Brian Tee smarms it up as the villainous DK, but this is ultimately just a guy who's rightfully pissed at being cheated out of his money. Our new hero Sean is this weird combination of "arrogant white boy who think's he's better than the Asians" and "loser who keeps getting pwned and never does anything right" - and Lucas Black is laughably unconvincing as a teenager. This is also the one that made me question the series' portrayal of women. It's hard not to see Neela - Sean's main romantic interest - as a dangerous temptress who likes egging men on into self-destructive contests for her affection, especially after an opening sequence featuring that exact female stereotype. It seems that in these movies, women only ever cause trouble for men, or give themselves up to the men once the trouble is resolved.

Still, there is fitful enjoyment to be had from this one. Black is as bland and wooden as Walker, but he's just a little bit more likable and easier to sympathize with. The climactic car race is also pretty exciting, and still better than the first film's - though not really so much for the drifting. I know drifting is its own wildly popular thing in the racing world (and the street-racing subculture, so does that make drifting a sub-sub-culture?), but I've never dug it and this movie ain't making me dig it. And the whole series' depiction of street racers and their world is frankly extremely juvenile. Over-decorated cars, over-expensive engines and parts, under-dressed chicks waiting to throw themselves at the next race's winner - all this can't be real. It's just a glossy artifice of a bunch of movies designed to pander to a very undiscerning audience.


Fast & Furious (2009)
My rating:




Oh dear. Yes indeed, that's its official title in the U.S. It was called Fast & Furious 4 in other markets, probably here as well, for the same reason that X2: X-Men United was retitled X-Men 2; to wit, because we like our movie sequel titles to make some goddamn sense. This is how you're gonna name the fourth installment in your series? Drop two definite articles and replace "and" with an ampersand? Its slipshod attitude towards nomenclature extends to continuity as well; for some reason, this one takes place after the second and before the third, just so that Han can show up in a cameo. And word has it that the latest in the series does the same thing. Are they embarrassed by Tokyo Drift? Do they want to forget they ever made it? Poor Sean Boswell.

But in truth, this is the most continuity-heavy of the franchise to date. It brings back Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, and features as many shout-outs to the first film as screenwriter Chris Morgan can fit in. Unfortunately, it also brings back the same weakness; its story depends on us caring about these characters and their relationships, and that's just too much to ask for this bunch. We're meant to believe Dom loved Letty, and that his need to avenge her is what drives the entire plot. We're meant to believe Brian and Mia are star-crossed lovers, and that Brian and Dom are brothers from other mothers, but none of this carries the emotional weight it needs to work. Not even the shout-outs are fun in the way continuity nods in a long-running franchise should be fun.

Worse, the movie occasionally goes completely brain-dead. (How could the tanker truck driver not know there's a sharp turn in the road ahead that his truck can't safely negotiate? Is this not his regular route? And how can Dom be more wanted than Letty or the rest of his road-hijacking gang?) Its saving grace is, once again, the action scenes - even though they employ a little too much CGI, they're still more enjoyable than the dull chases of the first installment. Still, I very nearly gave this two stars. It vastly overestimates the appeal of the series, thinking there's substance beyond the purely cheap thrill of fast cars and vehicular mayhem, and that that's what we want to see. No it's not, and no there isn't. There never was.

-----

Well now, we've just defined the formula for making a good (or at least decent) Fast & Furious movie. To wit: a simple, no-brainer plot that allows for lots and lots of car chase scenes, and nothing else. No drama, no pathos, nothing that attempts to engage the heart. I know die-hard fans of the series will probably think I'm some hoity-toity film snob, for rating each one so low - but really, I like a good dumb action movie as much as you do, and I actually like these movies when they're being purely loud and dumb. I just wish they would figure this out and stick to what it's good at and what its fans want. (Except for the street-racing angle. That's just never gonna appeal to me.) Anyway, I'm all swotted up on the series, and I'm ready for Fast Five, which I'm honestly looking forward to - previously because I expect a car chase to be more fun on the big screen, but recently because of this unexpectedly generous review from AV Club. Could this one actually be good?

It's a slasher horror movie, all right

Seru
My rating:




Everyone has their own particular tastes in movies, and film critics are no exception. However, a film critic is obligated to at least try to broaden his cinematic dimensions, understand the appeal of genres he doesn't normally watch, and judge them fairly by the standards of their fans. (And yet, there always those who don't.) But critics are human too, and we have our prejudices over certain types of movies we'd have no interest in watching if it weren't our job hobby to review them. I've been pretty choosy about the foreign (i.e. Hollywood) movies I watch, and if there's a major release that I conspicuously did not review, you can bet it's because I chose not to. I make that up by watching (almost) every local film, for which I have deliberately chosen to not be choosy about.

Seru is a slasher horror movie. And, um, that's one genre I have no interest in. Which makes this a hard review to write.

The shooting of a horror film in the middle of a dark and foreboding jungle in the dead of night is interrupted when two crew members, Sari (Nisha Dirr) and Julie (Cut Mutia), suffer hysterical fits. Amidst fears that the two have been possessed by ghosts, most of the crew stay with Sari at base camp while two others, Sham (Sufian Mohamed) and Tony (Qhaud AF), go looking for Julie who has wandered off into the forest. The cameras continue to roll at the behest of producer Lina (Khatijah Abdul Ghani), who wants to capture "making of" footage, recording the rest of the night's events: the crew encounter evidence of sabotage to their power generators. Ungkai (Dewa Sapri) and his wife (Aida Yuamanja), two Orang Asli who live nearby, lend their aid in treating the deliriously ill Sari. And then... the killings start.

Has there ever been a first-person "found footage"-type slasher movie? I don't think there has. Co-directors Pierre Andre and Woo Ming Jin have cited the Spanish film REC (and its Hollywood remake Quarantine) as an inspiration, but that was about zombies. In any case, I'm willing to hail Seru as a true original, a film that has something fresh and new to offer to the world and not just Malaysia, and that it's about frickin' time for Malaysian film. But I'm going to state upfront that I don't like slasher horror. Gruesome death scenes, bodily dismemberment and evisceration scenes, squick me, and I cannot understand the appeal of a genre in which "inventively gory" is a standard of quality. (Not to pass judgment though. I'm sure there are folks who don't like action movies and don't get what makes an inventive action scene.)

So no, I didn't enjoy this movie, although I daresay slasher fans might. There's certainly a constant sense of dread throughout, especially in how these characters' attempts to get the hell out of there are thwarted again and again. I found it a genuinely, effectively scary movie, probably more so than any other local horror film I've seen to date. But I also daresay it's hobbled by our Censorship Board in the goriness of its kills; there's a clear sense that Pierre and Woo want to show some hacked-off limbs, a beheading or two, maybe a good ol' fashioned disemboweling, but couldn't for a very FINAS reason. Full disclosure: I was quite relieved they didn't, but in the spirit of critical objectivity, I reckon it's really quite tame by the standards of international slasher films.

But what about the standards of just plain good films? Well, slasher movie n00b that I am, I will say this: these characters are dull. I didn't even list most of them in the synopsis above, since they're either interchangeable or end up dead before halfway through. The closest thing to a hero here is cameraman Jeff (Sharnaaz Ahmad), and only because the movie starts with a flashforward in which he says he's the sole survivor. Certainly not because he's the most well-developed, or that he does anything heroic, and this is another reason why I don't like slashers - because the genre just doesn't need character development. Everyone's just there to get gorily hacked up. Likable characters, or admirable characters, or three-dimensional characters, are about as relevant in a slasher as a song-and-dance sequence in an action movie.

Or maybe that's just my prejudices talking. Maybe a knowledgeable slasher fan can school me. Honestly, I'm really finding it hard to review this movie, and one major reason is that it made me nauseous. I've said before that I like "found footage" movies, but I have to add a caveat: only if the camera is largely static, as in Penunggu Istana and Paranormal Activity. I get dizzy watching long hand-held shots, and this plus the bloody goings-on (relatively tame as they are) made me worry I was going to throw up right there in the cinema. So consider this a warning if you're as prone to movie-induced motion sickness as I am - but how does one judge a film like this on its own terms, rather than those of us with faulty vestibular systems?

So three stars it is. And I have no real idea whether that's overly generous or unfairly mean, and for that I apologise. But hey, best of luck to it at the Udine Far East Film Festival! Seru is one of two Malaysian films featured there, and I think it has a fair chance at making an impression on the international stage. (The other is Hantu Kak Limah Balik Rumah, and although it's not a bad movie, I don't think mat sallehs are gonna "get" it.) It's not wildly innovative, but it does have a somewhat fresh approach to its genre; aside from having a first-person camera, it's also a supernatural-tinged slasher, involving black magic and ghostly possession ('cos this is Malaysia, where it ain't horror unless there's supernatural spookiness going on). Which I believe is pretty unusual for slashers. Nice going there, Woo and Pierre - it's ideas like this that'll bring filem Malaysia ke persada dunia.

NEXT REVIEW: Fast & Furious 5: Rio Heist
Expectations: pretty high, believe it or not