Skadoosh again

Kung Fu Panda 2
My rating:




Apologies for not doing a Retro Review of the original Kung Fu Panda from 2008. I had the DVD all ready, and in fact I rewatched it the night before I went to see this sequel, but other mundane matters intruded; and yes, I am aware I am already behind on the latest cinema releases. (Curse you, day job that pays my bills and puts food on my table!) Anyway, Kung Fu Panda was the first genuinely good DreamWorks Animation film since Shrek seven years prior, and represented a turning point for the studio that had, during those years, earned a reputation as Pixar's punching bag. A funny-talking-animal movie starring Jack Black as a panda that learns kung fu seemed so similar to the rest of DreamWorks' undistinguished, uninspiring output that it was truly surprising how good it actually turned out. The question now is, can they maintain that level of quality and not fall into the trap that befell the Shrek sequels?

Yes they can - even if they can no longer maintain the surprise.

The Dragon Warrior Po (Jack Black) is now the full-fledged protector of the Valley of Peace, friend of the Furious Five - Tigress (Angelina Jolie), Crane (David Cross), Mantis (Seth Rogen), Viper (Lucy Liu) and Monkey (Jackie Chan) - but still the son of noodle restaurateur Ping (James Hong). But even as his Master Shifu (Dustin Hoffman) exhorts him to learn how to achieve "inner peace", a new threat emerges. The peacock Lord Shen (Gary Oldman) has gathered an army of wolves, captained by his Wolf Boss (Danny McBride), with the goal of conquering all of China, and they have a deadly new weapon: gunpowder. Shen is aware of a prophecy, told to him by a soothsayer (Michelle Yeoh), of "a warrior of black and white" who is destined to defeat him, which of course refers to Po - and the history between them leads to disturbing flashbacks for Po that cause him to question his very identity.

I don't agree with the reviews that say Kung Fu Panda 2 is better than the original; I say it's about on par with it. Which, of course, still makes it a pretty great movie. The first one was good because of its clear affection and respect for Chinese culture (I still grin at Chor Gom Prison), its eschewment of the irritating tropes that had become DreamWorks mainstays at that point (pop-culture references, pop hit songs on the soundtrack, etc.), and its commitment to being a proper martial arts movie with legitimately thrilling action scenes. This sequel maintains the first two but falls slightly short on the third; the action is fun and imaginative, but there's nothing as jaw-droppingly awesome as Tai Lung's prison escape here. But it makes up for it with a more emotionally affecting story.

Did I say "emotionally affecting"? Sorry, I meant "shamelessly tear-jerking". It will come as a surprise to absolutely no one that Po is an orphaned member of a tribe of pandas whom Shen exterminated in an attempt to prevent the prophecy from coming true. (The prologue that kicks off the movie pretty much spells this out already.) This leads to flashbacks, both of how Ping found Po as a baby and raised him as his own son, and of how Po survived his village's massacre only because his mother sacrificed herself for him. There is nothing subtle or sophisticated about these scenes, but hot damn they worked, and managed to get cynical and jaded ol' TMBF a little misty-eyed. Baby Po is weapons-grade cute, but the animation, art direction and character design on a whole is so gorgeous that these scenes do achieve genuine poignancy.

Another interesting thing about the first Kung Fu Panda was that it was as much Shifu's story as Po's; the latter's ascension to Dragon Warrior was a redemption of the former's guilt over the failings of his former star pupil. Kung Fu Panda 2 attempts the same thing here with the villain, and gives Shen a characterization that mirrors the protagonist's - the peacock lord also has a traumatic past involving his parents that defines his current identity. It isn't as affecting though, mainly because Shen is the villain - and also a less fearsome one than Tai Lung, being a comedic bad guy rather than seriously scary. I'm less impressed with his peacock fighting style than most viewers seem to be, since the fight scenes move too fast to be able to make out any of the moves.

But I carp too much. It's fun and funny and action-packed from start to finish, and handily achieves everything it aims for. Po is more likable than any character played by Jack Black has a right to be - being merely voiced by him probably has something to do with it. I liked the fact that he's still as much a fanboy as ever, and at one point geeks out over a glorious charge of kungfu masters that he is himself part of. And I especially liked the fact that the storyline nicely balances making him the butt of jokes with making him genuinely heroic and badass; he may be the Dragon Warrior, but he is still a bumbler and none too smart, and the two never seem incongruous. Shifu takes a back seat to the proceedings this time, and the Furious Five are once again played by well-known names who barely get half a dozen lines each. (As does Jean-Claude Van Damme, whom I would have no idea was in this till I checked Wikipedia.)

So no, I don't think this is better than the original, and I don't think it's deeper or more adult as James Berardinelli wrote in his review. But it is, as its predecessor was, a terrifically entertaining animated movie that works as well for adults as well as kids. (Especially for kids; my viewing was packed with 'em, and they had a blast.) The thing about both Kung Fu Panda movies is that they take a premise that could've been kiddified crap, and invest it with enough wit, intelligence and sheer craftsmanship to transcend expectations of a DreamWorks Animation movie called Kung Fu Panda. I mean, seriously, Kung Fu Panda?? Hell yes, Kung Fu Panda - now comprised of two equally great films, with a third almost certainly on the way (as the ending of this one teases). And we'll know to expect great things from it too.

NEXT REVIEW: TBA

Ada kasih tapi kurang berseri

Nur Kasih: The Movie
My rating:




Dah lama saya menunggu filem baru dari Kabir Bhatia. Filem arahannya Setem adalah filem tempatan pertama yang saya benar-benar sukai, tapi itu dah hampir dua tahun lalu. Sebenarnya saya tak paham kenapa Setem tidak berjaya di box-office. Audiens yang menonton bersama saya semua enjoy giler, ketawa dengan semua lawaknya dan suka dengan semua wataknya. Takde ke seorang pun antara mereka yang cakap dengan kengkawan, "Citer nie best, pergi tengok"? Jadi saya amat mengantisipasikan filem Kabir yang seterusnya, walaupun ia merupakan sambungan kepada siri TV yang saya tak tahu apa-apa mengenainya.

Malangnya, filem ini tak ada apa-apa yang buat saya teruja macam Setem.

Adam (Remy Ishak) dan Aidil (Fizz Fairuz) adalah dua adik-beradik. Ibu mereka ialah Mak Jah (Liza Othman). Adam suami kepada Nur Amina (Tiz Zaqyah) yang pernah juga dicintai oleh Aidil (I think). Aidil baru kehilangan isterinya yang telah meninggal dunia, meninggalkan dia bersama dua anaknya Elyas (Ilyas Suhaimi) dan Mariam (Mia Sara Nasuha). Kemudian Nur mengandung, tetapi tragedi menimpa apabila kandungannya gugur. Untuk menawar rasa kepahitan, Adam dan Nur melancong ke Jordan, tetapi mereka terlibat dalam kemalangan keretapi terbabas. Mereka berdua terselamat, tetapi apabila Adam pulang ke tempat kemalangan untuk mencari cincin Nur yang tercicir, dia tersesat di padang pasir. Nur dan Aidil berjaya mencarinya, tetapi Adam mengalami kecederaan yang mengancam nyawanya. Juga ada subplot tentang Adam mengajar kelas agama bagi remaja yang bermasalah, termasuk Mamat (Muniff Isa), Juriah (Sara Ali) dan Jamal (Syafie Naswip).

Dari sinopsis di atas, anda dah boleh tahu apa masalahnya dengan filem ini. Saya menggelarnya "cerita pastu" - kerana plotnya macam "ini terjadi, pastu itu terjadi, pastu ini terjadi, pastu itu terjadi, pastu etc. etc. etc." Tiada benang naratif yang mengikat cerita ini dari mula sampai akhir. Segala tragedi yang melanda watak-watak ini macam saja je. Ini cukup membingungkan saya, lebih-lebih lagi kerana filem ini tidak menyenangkan penonton yang tidak kenal dengan siri TV Nur Kasih. Teks kat mula-mula tidak banyak membantu untuk menerangkan sejarah watak-watak ini. Benarkah Adam, Aidil dan Nur pernah bercinta tigasegi? Tak nampak pun. Tiga-tiga macam baik-baik je.

Sebenarnya itu salah satu benda yang saya suka. Semua ahli famili ini saling sayang-menyayangi; tiada konflik diantara dua-dua adik beradik, mahupun antara suami isteri atau abang ipar dan adik ipar. Saya pernah kata saya suka filem dimana watak-wataknya mulia, bijaksana dan pentingkan orang lain. Melainkan satu watak antagonis yang minor, hampir kesemua watak-watak dalam cerita ini boleh disimpati mahupun disanjungi. Konflik didalam filem ini selebihnya datang dari pancaroba kehidupan watak-watak ini - dan ini membawa kita kepada tema cerita ini, iaitu keredaan kepada kehendak Allah.

Tapi Tuhan dalam cerita ini bukannya Allah, sebenarnya ialah Kabir Bhatia dan penulis skrip Mira Mustaffa. Merekalah yang menentukan Aidil kehilangan isteri, pastu Nur keguguran kandungan, pastu keretapi Adam dan Nur terbabas, pastu Adam sesat di padang pasir... agak sadis jugak cara mereka menyeksa watak-watak ini. Tapi Aidil, Adam dan Nur reda saja. Mungkin kerana saya bukan orang Islam mahupun orang yang kuat agama, tapi saya dapati ini sukar dipercayai, lebih-lebih lagi kerana setiap tragedi terasa macam dibuat-buat. Saya rasa lebih jujur jika keimanan Adam atau Nur terjejas akibat segala kesengsaraan hidup mereka. Kalau mereka memarahi Allah, ini mungkin boleh jadi adegan yang amat menyayat hati (contohnya macam ini).

Of course, mestilah mereka mendapat kembali keimanan akhirnya, dan ini akan menunjukkan betapa berharganya iman. Malangnya, filem Melayu - dan masyarakat Melayu - belum berani lagi untuk mengkaji erti keimanan dengan lebih mendalam. Sebenarnya filem Barat lebih memahami isu ini; satu lagi contoh ialah filem Signs arahan M. Night Shyamalan. Tapi saya suka babak dimana seorang ustaz (lakonan Beto Kushairy) dilihat sebagai kolot pemikirannya dan kurang berperikemanusiaan; namun ini diimbang dengan babak lain dimana seorang pengusaha Melayu (lakonan Jehan Miskin, yang saya kasihan kerana tak pernah membawa watak orang yang baik) mahu menubuhkan kelab malam. Of course, dia dilihat sebagai seorang asshole.

Filem ini sentiasa nampak kemas dan berkualiti. Arahan Kabir teliti dan prihatin, dan skrip Mira adakalanya corny tetapi cukup bermakna. Lakonan Tiz Zaqyah cukup efektif dalam babak pasang air (i.e. turning on the waterworks), tapi saya lebih suka ketika dia bertekad hendak mencari suaminya yang hilang; ini satu-satunya ketika kita lihat watak yang aktif melakukan sesuatu. Pelakon-pelakon lelaki pula kurang menyerlah dan agak kayu; anehnya, Remy Ishak kurang chemistry dengan Tiz. Ingat mereka dah biasa memainkan watak-watak ini. Saya juga suka dengan Muniff Isa, manakala Sara Ali tetap kiut gilebabi.

Dukacita saya mengatakan bahawa ada persamaan diantara filem ini dengan Lagenda Budak Setan, yang juga mengamalkan polisi "lagi watak derita lagi menghiburkan" sampai tahap 11. Dukacita kerana Nur Kasih: The Movie tampak lagi baik (tahap 6 atau 7 je), tak macam filem taik itu. Ia bercita-cita hendak menceritakan kisah drama epik tiga insan dan erti kehidupan mereka hingga akhir hayat, tapi kurang berjaya akibat plot yang episodik dan bercelaru. (Dan kalau nak tiru filem The Notebook pun biarlah dari memula.) Cubaan yang boleh dihormati, tetapi saya lebih gembira bahawa saga Nur Kasih sudah tamat disini. Bolehlah Kabir - serta Mira - bikin cerita yang seharapnya lebih baik.

NEXT REVIEW: Kung Fu Panda 2
Expectations: pretty high

...right over my head

Let the Bullets Fly
My rating:




It's been a while since I reviewed a Chinese-language film (aside from two local productions). There just hasn't been anything from Hong Kong recently that caught my eye; on top of that, my favourite source for Hong Kong and other Pan-Asian film reviews has slowed down a lot recently, depriving me of information on Asian films worth looking out for. But Let the Bullets Fly was one that got a glowing review from LoveHKFilm. And it's finally here on Malaysian shores, but only through the GSC International Screens program, and showing only in three cinemas. I'm quite worried that it's on a limited run and will disappear from our screens before long, hence my decision to bump it up on my already-backlogged reviewing schedule. (Nur Kasih: The Movie and Kung Fu Panda 2 will just have to wait.)

And it is so very much worth it. But I have to admit, I almost gave up on writing this review.

In 1920s China, in the remote Sichuanese countryside, a bandit leader (Jiang Wen) robs a train carrying Ma Bangde (Ge You) and his wife (Carina Lau), on their way to the backwater Goose Town to take up the governor post. But Ma is actually a conman who buys gubernatorial posts to bilk the locals out of tax money - and he poses as his own (dead) counselor Tang to save his own skin from the bandits. The bandit leader meanwhile, decides to pose as Ma and play the con himself, and they all ride into Goose Town - which is controlled by local gangster Huang Silang (Chow Yun-Fat). Ma/Tang knows the game is to kowtow to the gangs and walk away with the money, but the bandit leader/Ma kneels to nobody, certainly not a murderous tyrant like Huang. And thus the stage is set for a battle of wits, wordplay, and whether or not the bandit leader/Ma is actually the fearsome "Pocky" Zhang whom even Huang fears... or does he?

Wow. This film is dazzling. Its title may lead you to expect a John Woo-style balls-out action movie, but it's actually... um, to be honest, it's hard to peg it into any particular genre. It's very funny, but its humour is of the pitch-black variety, in which blood gets spilled and spattered and it's meant to make us laugh (albeit uncomfortably). Zhang/Ma and Huang - with Ma/Tang possibly double-crossing and triple-crossing them both - do battle through cunning and trickery more than with guns, although when the bullets do fly, the action is fast and frenetic (and Zhang/Ma's bandit cohorts are totally badass). There are clear homages to Westerns, with its premise of a man riding into town and cleaning it up, but possibly befouling it a little bit more first. But whatever genre fields it plays in, it is always and ineluctably its own singular and terrifically unique creation - one that takes you for a ride through places you've never been.

Half of which whizzed by me so fast that I could barely keep up. Which brings me to why I almost made this my second ever non-review; it's an extremely dense and complicated plot, involving people lying to each other, knowing that they're lying, and knowing that they know that they're lying. It's also an extremely fast-moving plot, in which everything can turn on a single line of rapid-fire dialogue. And the dialogue is rich in Mandarin wordplay and Chinese cultural references, almost all of which flew over this shameful Chinese banana's head. (The English subtitles do a valiant job, but more than one instance the largely-Chinese audience laughed at something that sounded perfectly innocuous in English.) And there's supposedly a fair bit of pointed satire in this movie, which I again missed because I am somewhat behind on my grasp of the current political scene in China.

Which means this is going to be a pretty lame review. If I'm going to review a film well, it is imperative that I actually understand it; my mantra as a film critic is to engage a movie on its own terms, and judge it by how well it accomplishes what it aims for. Watching Let the Bullets Fly often made me feel like a bystander listening in on a conversation between an extremely intelligent and witty speaker and several enraptured listeners content to laugh at all his jokes. Another reason why I'm finding it hard to review this film is that it's also extremely unpredictable; as is the nature of black comedies, it's hard to pick a side to root for at first, since none of the three main characters are particularly admirable folks. I said at first, since eventually a clear protagonist (who is not above doing some pretty reprehensible things) and antagonist (who still adheres to his own code of honour) emerges.

But it was fun. Unpredictability at the movies is such a rare and precious thing; seriously, when was the last time you watched a film in which you honestly could not tell what was going to happen next, or how it would all end? A lot of the comedy was broad enough that it did translate well, or at least well enough to earn a laugh from me; one especially LOLworthy moment was when the bandit leader attempted a little acting, having previously been pegged as a lousy actor. All three main actors are terrific; Jiang Wen was super cool, Ge You was a total weasel yet strangely endearing, and Chow Yun-Fat gets to ham it up as both the gentlemanly gangster and his idiot double. (Yes, Huang has a double, and Chow is clearly having a ball playing him.) There's also solid support from Carina Lau as an unrepentant gold-digger, the band of young hunks who play the rest of the bandit gang, and Zhou Yun as the sweetly innocent prostitute who tames these men's hearts.

However, the real star of the show is Jiang - his direction, to be precise. Here is a director in absolute and consummate control of his film, right down to the occasionally fake-looking CGI which wouldn't surprise me if it was meant to be cheesy. Every stylized shot, every whip-pan, every lightning-quick edit, every line delivery is masterfully precise - and that extends to every plot twist, every Mandarin joke, and every subversive little jab that snuck past China's censors. I may not have gotten all (or even most) of it, but I do know I'll be getting this movie on DVD and taking my time to savour it. I reserve the right to revise my rating upward and giving it a high spot on my year-end list of 2011's best films. Even now, I'm already thinking it deserves 4-½ stars.

NEXT REVIEW: Nur Kasih: The Movie
Expectations: yay Kabir Bhatia!

On well-trodden ground

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
My rating:




You know what annoys me? Reviews that condemn a film as "unnecessary". What kind of a criteria is "necessity" anyway? In 1977, was there a "need" for a quirky little low-budget sci-fi film from an upstart young indie director? No, but the world got Star Wars anyway. I know the word gets tossed around only in regards to sequels, and sure, a great many sequels are announced to which the only sane response is bewilderment that there exists a demand for them. But that's only if you haven't watched them. Once you have watched them - which is kinda necessary if you're writing a review - you are obliged to judge them on their merits. So yeah, I am plenty annoyed at the reviews for the fourth and latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie that disparage it for being "unnecessary". What you're supposed to tell your readers is, is it good? Do you even know what makes these movies good?

I reckon I do. And I gotta say, it's on par with Dead Man's Chest - the weakest of the first three.

Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) turns up in London to rescue his ex-first mate Gibbs (Kevin McNally) from the gallows, but then finds himself embroiled in the search for the fabled Fountain of Youth, which everyone seems to think he knows how to find. Three parties are in a race to reach it first: a Spanish expedition; a British one led by Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), now a privateer in His Majesty's Navy; and Edward "Blackbeard" Teach (Ian McShane), the pirate whom all other pirates fear, who captains a crew of zombies aboard the feared ship Queen Anne's Revenge. Jack is shanghaied onto the Revenge by Angelica (Penélope Cruz), an old flame who turns out to be Blackbeard's daughter, and who knows the Fountain's ritual. They must recover two silver chalices from the shipwreck of Ponce de León, as well as a single tear of a mermaid. In the course of their voyage - on which a naive young missionary named Philip (Sam Claflin) is another less-than-willing participant - they manage to capture a mermaid whom Philip names Syrena (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) and whom he also falls in love with.

It's pretty clear that this latest installment in the series is going for a back-to-basics approach. No more massive threats to the entire pirating world, no more convoluted betrayals and shifting allegiances, just a simple quest storyline - but with the trademark POTC complex plotting. Which, as I said in my Retro Review, is one of its strengths, although overdoing it is also its main weakness. So if On Stranger Tides is aiming more to emulate Curse of the Black Pearl rather than the other two, that can only be a good thing. And it is a good thing. Sadly, it just doesn't pull it off as well. The elements are there, but the whole package just doesn't come alive as well as Black Pearl did.

First of all, Penélope Cruz is miscast. She really is. She acted alongside Johnny Depp in a 2001 film called Blow, where presumably she had good chemistry with Depp, but it ain't showing here. She simply lacks the light touch needed to be in a POTC movie, that combination of comic, dramatic, and plain badasseric acting that, say, Keira Knightley pulled off so well. And her character Angelica may have been a major misstep as well, supposedly being the lost love of Jack Sparrow's life. I'm not sure Jack is the kind of character that should have a One True Love. (If he does, it's clearly himself.) Even if she's not meant to be that, whatever their love-hate relationship is supposed to be didn't work for me. There were parts where her life was threatened to force Jack into doing something dangerous (or that he just doesn't want to do), and I just didn't buy it.

Second of all, Ian McShane is miscast. And this is a sore disappointment, because Ian McShane as Blackbeard should've been dream casting. I don't know what went wrong. He was far too subdued when he should've been chewing up all the scenery in sight. And though the script laboured mightily to make him the most irredeemable villain in the series to date (and halfway succeeded), he remains the third Evil Pirate Captain that we've seen after Barbossa and Davy Jones. Worst of all is whatever was supposed to be going on between him and Angelica. She says she truly loved him and wanted the waters of the Fountain of Youth for him, but that never really came across - nor did his supposedly conflicted fatherly affection for her. This is another key character relationship that simply didn't work.

There's also the romance between Philip and Syrena, which is so underwritten it was practically irrelevant. (He falls in love with a murderous inhuman creature of the depths just because she's pretty.) And speaking of irrelevant, the Barbossa subplot was exactly that in the first half; it did not escape my notice that the film only cuts back to him to remind us he's there. (I have more things to say about him that are spoilerrific, so I'll discuss them in the comments.) Elements such as the zombie crew, or Blackbeard's supernatural control over his ship's rigging, also never amount to anything consequential - and in the case of the zombie crew, feels like a retread of Black Pearl's undead pirates and Davy Jones' mutant crew. One retread was enough, thanks. And there's a voodoo doll of Jack that is even more inconsequential, to the point where someone tosses it into a river and no one seems to care.

No, the plot wasn't complicated, but it was busy, in that getting from Point A to Point B always has to slog through Points A.1 to A.9 first. It occasionally feels like a slog, in a way Black Pearl never did. I don't know if Rob Marshall, taking over the franchise's reins from Gore Verbinski, is to blame for that. It certainly doesn't feel as breezy and light on its feet as the first film did, and is noticeably lacking in cool action setpieces to boot. And although Dariusz Wolski returns as cinematographer, the film looks distinctly different from its predecessors - duller colours, and occasionally lit too dark, especially during the swordfight near the beginning (that also feels like a retread of the Jack-Will duel in Black Pearl). No, I did not watch it in 3D, even if it was filmed using 3D cameras, and if it looks this dull and dark because of those cameras, then I say feh. And feh to Marshall too. I don't know why making a couple musicals and friggin' Memoirs of a Geisha qualifies him to direct an action movie.

But honestly, I still enjoyed it. No really, I did. (I also have a habit of writing 3-½-star reviews that focus more on the movie's faults than its strengths.) Jack Sparrow - sorry, Captain Jack Sparrow is as much fun as ever, and I'm not seeing any sign that Depp is getting tired of playing him. And the comedy still works well; Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott penned some great dialogue, witty enough to recall much of Black Pearl. Like Dead Man's Chest, it's still a fun swashbuckling adventure that boasts an intelligence to challenge the notion that summer blockbusters need to be dumb. It very much demands that you not leave your brain at the door, and that's rare enough to give credit for. It only suffers in comparison to the first and best installment in the series, which is starting to look like a fluke - or at least, a serendipitous confluence of all the right elements that On Stranger Tides lacks some of. But not all. Only some of.

NEXT REVIEW: Let the Bullets Fly
Expectations: ooh, I've been looking forward to this one

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate trilogy for me

I believe I have previously mentioned Wordplayer.com, the website run by big-shot Hollywood screenwriters Terry Rossio and Ted Elliott. If you can get through to it (it's a little paranoid about Malaysian IP addresses), it's an invaluable resource, hosting a terrific series of columns on screenwriting as well as an active forum community of very smart folks. Well, when I first found it their shots weren't that big; they'd had credits on a few modestly successful films, but they were mostly struggling through the trenches like any other working screenwriter. And then we heard that their new movie was coming out, based on a Disneyland ride, which both Rossio and Elliott claimed was the best experience they'd ever had working on a film. For the first time in their careers, the final film accurately represented the script and story that they'd painstakingly crafted (a rare occurrence in Hollywood), and thus they were prouder of it than anything they'd ever done. This, above all, was what had me looking forward to the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie - and from then on, film history was made.


Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
My rating:




I watched this twice in cinemas, but my recent DVD rewatch of it was my first viewing since it first came out. I remember loving it, and I agree when most people say it's the best of the three. But I think I'm only now realizing how great it is. This movie is packed to the gills with entertainment; every third line of dialogue is either a joke, plot-related exposition, a plot-related setup for a later payoff, or an allusion to something that won't be made clear until a second viewing. (Or third, or fourth, et cetera.) Often it's two or three of these at once. And it's also a deliciously twisty plot, in which every character is thinking a step ahead of everyone else, trying to exploit the way the central MacGuffin of the Aztec coins work for every angle and loophole they can think of. And it's an action-packed, swashbuckling revival of a genre that hasn't been seen in ages. It's a brilliantly clever film that doesn't require smarts to enjoy - but if you're willing to pay close attention, the rewards are awesome.

And speaking of brilliant, there is of course Captain Jack Sparrow. Johnny Depp's swishy, swaggering, guylinered, seemingly-perpetually drunk, inept-and-ingenious-in-equal-measure pirate has to be one of the most inspired performances of the decade and possibly of all time. But as fun as he was, I enjoyed watching Geoffrey Rush every bit as much; if Sparrow is a postmodern take of pirate-as-rockstar (or rockstar-as-pirate), then Rush's Barbossa is classic movie pirate all the way right down to the "Arr!" (Yes, he actually says "Arr!") Depp and Rush chew so much scenery between them that it's a wonder we have any attention left to pay to anyone else, but there's also Keira Knightley and Orlando Bloom to play the requisite straight man (and girl); Knightley fares better than Bloom, who's a little out of his depth. Still, Will Turner the noble romantic hero and his lady love Elizabeth belong in a movie that's as much an homage to classic pirate tropes as it is a modern update of them.

But there's smart writing, terrific performances, and also great action scenes, orchestrated in all their old-fashioned swashbuckling glory by Gore Verbinski. His previous movie was the remake of The Ring, the only good Hollywood remake of Asian horror; here he proves equally adept at light-hearted action-adventure. Critics were quick to rave about how Depp's performance "single-handedly" elevated the film, but honestly, they're fulla shit. There's just so much more it has to offer: the awesome undead-pirate effects, the genuine affection for the old-fashioned pirate movie genre, the pitch-perfect blend of action and comedy, and most of all Rossio's and Elliott's terrific screenplay. It proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that a summer blockbuster need not be dumb and hollow, and that it can in fact be a genuinely great film if it's not. Even if it's based on a theme park ride.


Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)
My rating:




After enjoying The Curse of the Black Pearl so much, I was of course hugely anticipating its sequel. And I pretty much agree with everyone that it's not as good as its predecessor, and that its plot got too confusing. Complex plotting was one of Black Pearl's great strengths, but Rossio and Elliott go overboard with it here, giving every character their own agenda and having them work at cross-purposes with everyone else in pursuit of not one, but three Macguffins (the key to Davy Jones' chest, the chest itself, and the Letters of Marque). I remember the exact moment the plot lost me: when Elizabeth, whose arrest and death sentence drove Will's quest to enlist Jack's help in freeing her, escaped on her own - no, not escaped, but persuaded Beckett to let her go. I don't know what threat Beckett posed anymore after that. I don't know why she and Will couldn't just skedaddle off into the Blue, happily ever after.

Yet as you can probably tell from my rating, I still enjoyed it. The cannibal island sequence is hilarious Looney Tunes-style slapstick (although the whole segment is completely irrelevant to the plot); the Flying Dutchman is awesomely cool (although its fish-mutated crew seem like a knockoff of Black Pearl's skeletal pirates, with less personality); Davy Jones is one of the most seamless CGI characters ever created (although I thought he should've been scarier, instead of another snarky villain-type like Barbossa was); the Kraken was absolutely terrifying (although I don't know why Davy Jones needs it if he can just teleport across the sea, as shown); and I totally loved the three-way swordfight on the giant wheel (unconditionally!). As you can tell, I'm making lots of excuses for this movie's weaknesses. I can't help it. It is relentless at trying to entertain you, and that's an impressive thing.

But it doesn't succeed at it as well as Black Pearl does, with the former film's seemingly-effortless wit, ingenuity and panache. It tries too hard with visual spectacle and constant callbacks to Black Pearl's dialogue that aren't as funny the second time. Clearly, the less-than-ideal circumstances under which it was made are to blame: Dead Man's Chest and At World's End were filmed back-to-back, on a rushed schedule while the scripts were still being written (and re-re-re-written). Verbinski thought up many of the ideas and setpieces and gave Rossio and Elliott the task of somehow weaving them all together into a (somewhat) coherent story. Depp himself "contributed" to the writing, and who's gonna say no to the superstar actor who "single-handedly" made the first movie a success? With so many cooks brewing this broth, it's a wonder the final product still turned out this good - and that's because each of these cooks are damn good filmmakers in their own right.


Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007)
My rating:




I will swear up and down that the third Pirates of the Caribbean film was great, a return to form, and better than the second if still not at the level of the first. But I doubt many people will agree. It's the lowest-rated of the series on RottenTomatoes, and while Dead Man's Chest's reviews were ambivalent, this one's were positively scathing. But they were wrong. ('Cos only my opinion is right and true and 100% objective, it is.) Sure, the over-complicated plot continues here. Sure, Chow Yun-Fat was sadly underused. Sure, the off-screen disposal of the Kraken, one of the coolest parts of the last film, is proof positive that the filmmakers (it's no longer fair just to finger Rossio and Elliott for the storyline) wrote themselves into a corner. Sure, it probably goes on a little too long. But what every film critic missed is that this film's aim is to create a living, breathing mythology. And it is an utterly cool mythology.

These movies do not take place in the real world. Port Royal and Tortuga were real places, and the East India Trading Company a real thing, but that's as far as its nods to reality get. This is a world in which there's a goddess of the sea, and she was wooed and loved by the captain of the Flying Dutchman, the ship charged with ferrying the souls of those who died at sea to the afterlife. But a goddess does not love as a mortal does, and the captain, feeling betrayed, in turn betrayed her to a Brethren of pirates who bound her in human form so that they may possess mastery of the oceans. And thus the captain and her crew abandoned their Charonic duty, and grew monstrous in both form and spirit. The pirates meanwhile, composed of Pirate Lords and a Pirate King, traded those titles amongst each other via treachery and back-stabbing, for such is the nature of pirates; they detest authority, but they like titles. Until somehow, one Captain Jack Sparrow - who, when we first saw him, barely even has a ship to command - became a Pirate Lord, as did one Hector Barbossa - who, when we first saw him, was an undead walking skeleton.

And by the movie's end, a Pirate King has once again been appointed - and she is the wife of the Flying Dutchman's new captain, who has returned its crew to its sacred mission, and who tragically can only meet his beloved for one day every ten years. And the sea goddess is once again free, and what this portends for those who ply the oceans, no one knows - but somewhere in her dark clutches is the soul of the lover who betrayed her, bound to the cruelest punishments a goddess can devise. This. Is. All. Cool. How could anyone not think so? It's worldbuilding and mythmaking at its most captivating, the kind of setting that people would dream of either living and adventuring in, or of creating new stories in - perhaps achieving the former with the latter. This is a rare and precious accomplishment, maybe even unprecedented in film. And it does this while still working its butt off to entertain; Jack Sparrow's personal hell in Davy Jones' Locker, the boat-tipping scene, Keith Richards' cameo, the ship-to-ship duel in the maelstrom, the wedding-in-the-heat-of-battle. It's criminal how all of this went unappreciated. Criminal, I says.

-----

So yeah, I really like this franchise, even the two sequels that no one else likes. The vast majority of opinions, professional and amateur, tend to entirely miss the point about what these movies are going for - especially those who think it's all about Jack Sparrow. I don't expect everyone to like them as much as I do, but lazy reviews are lazy. I'll be the first to admit they're not perfect either, and I certainly won't rush to defend their many flaws. Yet I do think, as I mentioned earlier, that the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise has made its mark on film history. Dead Man's Chest made over $1 billion worldwide and is the 4th highest-grossing movie of all time - but even that aside, I believe there'll come a time when the empty-headed snarks of "typical dumb summer CGI wankfest" will fade into obscurity and a critical re-evaluation will bring their accomplishments to light. And I'm already looking forward to the fourth installment, and getting my knives out for the critics who have already savaged it. I do appreciate Pirates of the Caribbean on a deeper level than them - and yes, that does make me a better person. So there.

Lu sudi, gua tak reti

Kongsi
My rating:




Saya benar-benar tak paham citarasa penonton filem Melayu. Filem yang best tak untung, manakala filem tak best jadi box-office hit. Tetapi satu arah aliran yang jelas ialah blog TMBF langsung tidak berpengaruh Shaheizy Sam sudah menjadi pelakon yang paling panas baru-baru ini. Kedua-dua filem dimana beliau memegang watak utama sudah memecah rekod, maka tak hairanlah bila yang ketiganya berjaya mencapai lebih RM1 juta pada hari pertama tayangan. Tapi ada sebuah teori yang mengatakan jumlah kutipan hari pertama bukanlah ukuran bagi kualiti filem tersebut, tetapi ukuran antisipasinya. Saya akur kepada teori ini, dan sebab itulah saya hairan dengan reaksi audiens dalam panggung semasa saya menontonnya. Diorang suka. Ketawa masa babak lawak. Cukup enjoice ngan citer ni, terutamanya bila Shaheizy keluar.

Inilah yang membuatku hairan, kerana filem ini menyedutkan mengesuckskan menyuckskan sucks.

Dunia kongsi gelap KL digegar apabila seorang pembunuh bernama Tumulak (Shaheizy Sam) mula menghapuskan orang kuat geng Melayu, Cina dan India satu demi satu. Ini menyebabkan ketua-ketua geng, iaitu Jimmy (Chew Kin Wah), Victor (S. Veerasingam) dan Maliki (Pak Piee), terasa gerun; manakala Mikail (Azad Jasmin), anak Maliki dan abang long gengnya, cuba memburu Tumulak sebelum dia diburu. Pihak polis pula, diketuai ASP Shariff (Fizo Omar) dan dibantu Inspektor Olla (Yana Samsudin) dan Inspektor Yati (Putri Mardiana), bertungkus lumus hendak mencari dan menangkap Tumulak. Sebenarnya Tumulak bertindak atas arahan Kempedu (Bront Palarae), seorang gangster dari Thailand yang mahu membunuh ketua-ketua kongsi gelap di KL kerana... kerana dia jahatlah. Oh, dan citer yang banyak bunuh-membunuh ni adalah komedi sebenarnya.

Ai kenot brain dis muvi. Ai rasa takde siapa yang boleh. Jalan ceritanya berserabut dan tak tentu hala; sekadar adegan berikut adegan yang tiada kena-mengena antara satu sama lain, lepas tu tamat. Tumulak ni, kononnya nak bunuh orang, tapi kangkadang bila dia dapat peluang nak bunuh, dia tak ambik. Polis ni, kononnya nak siasat, tapi tau buat roadblock je - roadblock yang tidak mendatangkan faedah, sampai dekat ending kira nasib je dapat tangkap orang yang dikehendaki. Mikail ni, kononnya watak penting, tapi subplot dia tak berhubung kait dengan apa-apa. Dan segala babak dengan ketua-ketua geng tu buang masa je. Hanya lawak berbentuk parodi filem triad Hong Kong macam Young and Dangerous dan Election, yang tak relevan kepada cerita - dan tak lawak pulak tu.

Menurut Tuan Pengarah En. Farid Kamil, mulanya skrip filem ini berbentuk cerita aksi yang serius, sehingga ia dikerjakan semula menjadi komedi. No wan der laaa. Filem ni macam tak tau nak serius ke nak kelakar. Tumulak ni tak tau samada dia watak villain yang mengerikan atau bahlol semata-mata. Nadanya tak konsisten langsung. Ada subplot tentang sejarah dan dendam antara Shariff dan Tumulak, kerana mereka pernah berkawan suatu ketika dulu. (Protip kepada Farid: kalau nak tunjuk flashback, tukarlah gaya rambut watak. Baru nampak peredaran masa.) Subplot ni macam datang dari filem yang berlainan sama sekali. Bukannya komedi dan aksi tak boleh bercampur, tapi campurannya mesti jitu. Ini, ibarat nakkan minuman yang masam manis seperti ice lemon tea, tapi dihidang Pepsi campur cuka.

Yang paling menyedihkan ialah, ada kesan yang menandakan bahawa skrip asalnya agak baik. Saya terkejut melihat satu dua adegan yang menunjukkan hormat kepada kepintaran penonton, dimana plot point disampaikan tanpa dijelas bulat-bulat. Satu ialah introduksi watak Inspektor Yati, dan satu lagi ialah babak dimana Tumulak mengekori isteri Shariff. Mungkin skrip itu boleh dijadikan filem action-thriller yang best, tapi Tuan Pengarah Farid telah menokok-tambah jenaka yang bodoh lagi membodohkan. Contohnya part dimana seorang pegawai polis menumbuk seorang ketua geng tanpa sebab. Kau tau tak, polis pukul saspek dalam tahanan itu salah? Mencabul hak asasi kemanusiaan. Kau nak tunjuk Polis DiRaja Malaysia kita ni korup ke? Kau ingat ini hanya adegan lawak ringan, tapi dis is not fanni bro.

Saya tahu, semua orang nak tengok filem ni semata-mata hanya kerana Shaheizy Sam. Tapi dia juga membawa masalah bagi filem ni. Persembahannya tak ubah macam pelakon diva, tapi ini bukan mengatakan tentang perwatakan peribadinya. (I'm sure he's a very nice person in real life.) Dia membawa watak Tumulak macam tak endahkan jalan cerita mahupun nada filem, asyik mengunyah hiasan latar (i.e. chew scenery) dan syok sendiri dengan telatahnya. Ini bukan salah Shaheizy tapi salah pengarah yang sepatutnya mengawal semua aspek perfileman. Saya suka filem ini memberi peluang kepada pelakon wanita beraksi - barulah female empowerment - tapi tak berapa guna kalau Olla dan Yati lawan Tumulak tapi kalah. Satu-satunya pelakon yang saya boleh puji ialah Azad Jasmin yang benar-benar faham bagaimana nak melakonkan filem bergenre aksi komedi. Dialognya juga agak lucu, dan saya tak hairan jika dia yang mengimprovasikannya.

Saya juga agak suka dengan beberapa lokasi menarik yang menunjukkan sudut-sudut kotaraya KL yang seedy dan serbah-serbih. Tapi nilai produksi dan mutu teknikal filem ini masih jauh dari kesempurnaan. Masih ada syot yang tak fokus, sama seperti filem arahan Farid yang dulu, dan Farid masih belum memperbaikinya. Seperti kesemua filem MIG, kualiti bunyinya memang fail. Aku tak tau nape diorang suka sangat ngan Brian Ng selaku sound engineer, dia ni konpem teruk. Adegan aksinya pula boleh kata okey, kecuali satu babak kejar kaki dimana Farid tetiba nak tiru filem Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon dengan aksi wayar yang sungguh ketara. Jujur kata, semua babak aksinya membosankan, kerana semuanya tidak berhubungkait dengan plotnya. Siapa kejar siapa, siapa lawan siapa, siapa menang siapa kalah, semuanya tidak bererti.

Tapi audiens masa saya tengok filem ni tak kisah semua tu. Diorang suka. Shaheizy bukak mulut je, sumorang berdekah-dekah. Ai kenot brain dis. Ini bukan filem yang baik, mahupun filem yang layak memecah panggung. Dan ini bukan filem yang menonjolkan bakat Shaheizy dengan sebaik-baiknya. Saya cuma terasa lega apabila banyak rebiu-rebiu lain yang juga mengkritik jalan ceritanya, dan pendapat mereka lebih kurang sama dengan saya. (Cuma saya rasa pengulas lain semuanya mengkritik terlalu lembut. Kasi hentam lagi kaw laa!) Tapi kalau filem ini betul-betul berjaya mencecah kutipan RM10 juta, saya betul-betul akan givap dengan penonton filem tempatan. Filem tahap ini sajalah yang korang berhak dapat.

NEXT REVIEW: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Expectations: reviews haven't been good, but I appreciate the series on a deeper level than you

Man, hwat a mess

Priest
My rating:




I had my approach to reviewing this movie all thought out. I was gonna say of course it's an adaptation of a Korean manhwa, what with its hodge-podge of sci-fi, fantasy and horror tropes. I was gonna rip into Hyung Min-Woo's obscure (well, to me) comic for being the most ridiculously clichéd manga imaginable, yet its sheer ridiculousness is most likely the reason why a dumb gaijin like director Scott Stewart thought it awesome enough to make a movie out of. And then I found out that the movie has almost nothing in common with its supposed source material, so now I have to leave Mr. Hyung's work out of my snark. It may be awesome for all I know.

But not the movie. The movie is just bad.

It is a world that has been ravaged by a millenia-old war between mankind and vampires. But after the Catholic Church developed the ultimate weapon against vampires - the warrior Priests - the war finally ended, with vampires confined to reservations and humans living in giant walled cities ruled by the clergy. And the Priests? Reduced to working menial jobs, their services no longer needed. Then one of them (Paul Bettany) receives word that the vampires are on the rampage again, and have kidnapped his niece Lucy (Lily Collins). He teams up with frontier sheriff Hicks (Cam Gigandet) and sets out to find her, in defiance of his Church superior (Christopher Plummer), who sends out another team of Priests - and one Priestess (Maggie Q) - after him. But soon they will all face the leader of a new vampire army (Karl Urban) - a former Priest himself, now turned into a new breed of vampire.

Gaah. Sense, this movie makes none. Why are the Priests, who we're told single-handedly won the vampire war, now shunned and reviled by the populace? Or even by the Church, who stupidly refuse to believe the vampire threat even exists anymore and would rather waste time and resources to prevent someone from proving it does? I was ready to call the big plot twist that the evil religious fundies are actually in cahoots with the vampires, but it didn't go there - but I'm not about to give it credit for avoiding that cliché either, since it makes these Church folks even dumber. They live in a world where vampires exist, yet they turn their cities into polluted dystopias that doesn't get sunlight? And what's with these "vampires"? They're pale, naked, eyeless, and seem more like super-zombies than the traditional bloodsuckers. They're supposedly able to infect humans and turn them into vampires, but... how?

The only one who looks and acts like an actual vampire is the black-hatted Big Bad, who later reveals that he's this new and improved "human vampire". That's when I facepalmed. Everything about this movie's premise, setting and plot seem completely arbitrary, like Stewart and his writer Cory Goodman are throwing in everything they think is cool with no regard for common sense; also, they have a particularly asinine idea of what constitutes cool. Its kitchen-sink storyline recalls Sucker Punch, only with a far less cohesive creative vision (yes, Sucker Punch had that); if you thought Zack Snyder's movie was pandering geek-porn, wait'll you get a load of Priest. Most damning is, they don't even have Hyung's manhwa to blame this on. They came up with all this stupidity themselves.

And yet Stewart is clearly trying to go for the Snyder-type comicbook-movie look, with his artfully-composed shots of combatants leaping through the air at each other in slow-motion. Which brings us to the action scenes, usually the saving grace for movies like this - but there ain't much grace it can save when the action scenes are dull and unimaginative, when they aren't being just plain silly. It attempts to earn its horror cred with some jump-scares, most of which are either telegraphed or were spoiled in the trailer. The only real thing I enjoyed watching were the occasional cool bits of production design - the Priests' jet-powered motorbikes, Hicks' double-barreled gun, the vampires' train. And yes, the production designers' ideas of what constitutes cool are a lot more cromulent.

In interviews, Paul Bettany gives the impression that he's buddies with Stewart and enjoys working with him. I certainly hope that's the case, because the alternative is that he makes crappy films like this because his career is in the dumps. In Legion - and my favourable review of that movie may be one of the hardest for me to live down - he effectively lent gravitas to the role of an immortal supernatural being, but the Priest is just a one-dimensional growling, grim-faced badass. (And what's with this annoying affectation of never giving names to any of the Priests anyway??) It's a role that anyone from Steven Seagal to Don "The Dragon" Wilson could've played to equal effect. Cam Gigandet is dull, Karl Urban desperately wants to be a gleefully over-the-top villain in a movie that would rather make him tortured and serious, and Maggie Q... I want to say she looks good, but unfortunately she spends the entire film fully covered.

May I stress that I have nothing against a good genre mash-up; I liked Sucker Punch, f'rinstance. But there's no point trying to make a post-apocalyptic vampire steampunk western featuring kungfu-fighting ecclesiastics if your blend of all these tropes makes no sense. I don't think making sense was high on Stewart's and Goodman's agenda. My impression of them is of two clueless white guys discovering manga and anime for the first time and thinking to transplant its most gratuitous clichés for a Western audience to whom they think this'd all be new and awesome. And I don't think they're familiar with Hyung's comic at all; I think it's just the cheapest property they could purchase and claim to be adapting in an attempt to sucker a few fanboys. I think this is an entirely artless, passionless hackjob, because man, it shows.

NEXT REVIEW: Kongsi
Expectations: suka Shaheizy Sam tapi kurang yakin dengan Farid Kamil