Merry Christmas to everybody!

I Am Legend -3.5/5



Dir: Francis Lawrence (Prev work, Constantine)




This is another one man show movie since Cast away by Tom Hanks, although not comparable to Tom Hanks performance, but Will Smith manage to pull it off.

Robert Neville (Will Smith) is a brilliant scientist, but could not contain the terrible virus that was unstoppable, incurable, and man-made. Somehow immune, Neville is now the last human survivor in New York City and maybe the world. For three years, Neville has sent out daily radio messages, desperate to find any other survivors who might be out there. But he is not alone. Mutant victims of the plague -- The Infected -- lurk in the shadows... watching Neville's every move... waiting for him to make a fatal mistake. Perhaps mankind's last, best hope, Neville is driven by only one remaining mission: to find a way to reverse the effects of the virus using his own immune blood. But he knows he is outnumbered... and quickly running out of time.

Firstly, the New York you see in the whole movie is totally rendered in CG, only some scenes shot in real motion, thus this is one of the best visuals i seen, very well thought and totally look real and stunning. Secondly, for some reasons zombies seem to be moving faster n faster, last time the zombie speed is 2km/h, now they can run even faster then a car, in yr 3000 movies, i cant imagine how fast zombies will be. But there's a answer from the director, which say zombies like human are also evolving, especially in the 3 yrs time, and cleverly they also set up the trap to caught Will Smith too, with Fred the mannequin as the bait. Another great part of the movie, they managed to drag our suspence and make us worried for the characters in the movie, with the acting and the camera work (remind me of Sixth Sense), which turn out to be scarier then those recent horror movies.

I think alot people will think 3.5 rating is a slightly low rating for this movie, but i feel there are alot of loopholes in the movie, thus i giv it 0.25 star lesser. Why won't the canned food expired? Where did he get the water and electricity from? How can Anna and Ethan get to New York when you see all the bridges destroy in the movies? And the worse is the ending which just try to end the movie quick, when Will Smith spend 3 yrs trying to look for humans, Anna and Ethan can just heng heng, bang, find out where the other survivors are. trying to bullshit me. and the most important, if he is so convinced that everybody is dead, (bang bang, everybody is dead, dead!) as he say to Anna, why do he still bother to send the messages to the radio and wait for other survivor every single day? but a forum post in imdb seems to answer some of this questions but i am not convinced. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480249/board/flat/92867373?p=1.




Warlords - 3.25/5


Dir Peter Chan (prev work Perhaps Love, Tian Mi Mi)





This movie aka Kill Bill style, you saw killing non stop and everyone was killed. Peter Chan trying to break out of his safe zone to make a epic blockbuster, i think it fails to win any chinese audience but might get some from the western.

This movie is about a heroic tale of three blood brothers and their struggle in the midst of war and political upheaval. It is based on "The Assassination of Ma," a Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) story about the killing of general Ma Xinyi.

The reason i don't really have anything much to say about this movie because it is a typical chinese war movie you watch on chinese serial drama or those old hk movies. Man meet man, man became buddy with man, man steal man wife, man betray man, man kill man. every men died in the end. end.

The worse part of the movie is the casting of Takeshi Kaneshiro, i always had doubts about his acting, but he seems to be the favourite of those great chinese director acting in, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels(Wong Kar Wai), House of Flying Daggers (Zhang Yi Mou), Confession of Pains (Andrew Lau), Perhaps Love (Peter Chan again) and the next John Woo epic comeback Red Cliff. His acting is so unnatural at times, and it makes the audience uncomfortable watching, and when you see the audience laughing at some of the suppose to be serious scenes, you can imagine how wrong his acting is.

Jet Li and Andy Lau acted pretty well but their acting expressions seem to be always the same in every movie and rigid, thus the movie fails in its no surprise movie plot and non surprising acting.


Valley Of Elah - 3.25/5


Dir: Paul Haggis (prev work. Crash)






The next feature of fame screenwriter Paul Haggis, so how was his next attempt on the director chair?

Hank (Tommy Lee Jones) receive a call from the Army that his son Mike, who just came back from Iraq, has gone AWOL. In the search of his son, a detective Emily Sanders (Charlize Theron) becomes interested in the case and starts helping Hank outside of her job. When Hank's son's body is found, the search suddenly turns into a search for the murderer.

The winning formula of the movie is the portraying of Hanks by Tommy Lee Jones, which the story just totally revolve around him. This is what i call first class acting, you see the lines around the expression of his face, which tells alot even when he dosen't say anything. If acted by other actors, the guy might just go all out to show off his acting skills by venting his anger and crying out, but he expressed them all through his face, subtely, he looks concerned, under pressure amd try to control his feelings not letting people realize how breakdown he was. His voice full of power and authority which truly shows that he work in the Army in the past. Which makes us wonder why did he act in craps like Men in Black?

The bad point of the movie might not be bad for some, cause I am not really into really slow paced and draggy movies. But the small twist of the movie works for the movie. Nevertheless i would not recommend this for the mass, only for a minority.