A Movie Blog

Warning: Spoilers abound!

Superman Returns has the usual Superman-saves-the-world theme. There was practically nothing new to begin with. When the world is in a mess, Superman saves the day. He is the savior that the world has always been waiting for, and now that he is back, everyone is more than happy.

The funny thing is, when Superman was away for five years, everything seemed well. But when he comes back, the world suddenly needs help all the time. There’s so much saving to do. But then again, isn’t this the very premise Superman is built on eversince? Yes it is, so just get in and enjoy the ride…sort of.

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Many peeps have been creating a fuss over this Superman Returns movie poster. They say this poster is a reflection of Brian Singer’s identity, having Superman appear like he is going to perform a ballet or something. Well Brian Singer is openly gay, and this poster somehow manuevered to suggest the director’s sexual preference.

Aside from ballet pose, many have noticed the presence of ‘that naughty’ peninsula, which happens to be Florida, protruding just in front of Clark Kent’s crotch. Geez, these peeps are really something. They can always generate weird ideas from a quitely simple and harmless poster.

Here’s the link: The HotBlog: Must be a Full Moon

In addition to that, this Superman comic cover doesn’t give much help though. [Grin]

[Caution: Spoilers Ahead]

X-Men:The Last Stand is the darkest sequel in all the three installments. The previous sequels have managed to put the number of deaths to a minimum, having Jean Grey die in a deluge in X2 and practically having no casualties [?] in the first sequel. However, X3 dares to create an atmosphere of grief, terror, and despair as it maneuvered to take the life of three important personas in the once formidable, but now vulnerable, X-Men Team.

Jean Grey has come back carrying a deadly personality within her - The [Dark] Phoenix. This personality contains all her joys, desires, and rage. And this is where she unleashes her great power; a power that even Professor Xavier and Magneto could not handle, even with their powers combined. The Phoenix was totally unstable that she killed Cyclops effortlessly with a Death Kiss. Likewise, Professor X might have given her a hard time, but he is just no match for her, and he ended up pulverized into tiny bits of human debris. That scene really shocked me, as it did the people who watched the film, and who have been following the sequels all throughout. I even thought I was just seeing things, but no I wasn’t. Charles Xavier, the mutant considered as the world’s most powerful telepath and whose powers can kill a person in an instant through his mind, was blown to pieces!

After Xavier’s death, Storm and Wolverine were left with the responsibility of continuing Charles’ vision and stopping Magneto and his army of mutants from destroying The Cure, a mutant who can ward off another mutant’s X-gene and make the latter a normal human being. These are humungous tasks to handle, and knowing that Beast, Shadowcat, Iceman, Colossus, and even Angel are there to help, doesn’t even lighten up the load. They are about to engage in a battle, they know they already lost before it even began.

The visual effects are not flawless but they are acceptable. One scene worthy of note was when Magneto brought all his allies to Worthington Labs in Alcatraz Island, by literally executing a bridge transfer.

I cannot say that I enjoyed the film, but I cannot say the film is bad either just because it did not meet my expectations. I just felt that Brett Ratner overdid something in the plot, in which it affects the entire X-Men story as a whole, with Cyclops’ death and all. My heart was heavy when I went out of the cinema and wished that things did not turn out the way it did.

Here’s a seven-minute sneak peek of X-Men 3: The Last Stand. Check it out and get even more excited.

Ciao.

Most of us must have discovered the meaning of the word ’superhero’ through the character of Superman. Well, I don’t know about you, but that’s how I would describe my acquaintance with the superhero image. I just can’t get Superman out of my mind when I think about superheroes. And the more superheroes have emerged, the more that I came to realize that the image Superman has formed into me has never been wrong.

Whew, it seems that June 30 is too far away. My excitement has intensified the moment I saw the official trailer of Superman Returns. Brandon Routh looks good in the role, though I have slight objections about the girl who played Lois Lane.

RATING: 2 STARS

Cory Yuen’s Blade of the Rose did not impress me. The plot, which depicts women ruling over an empire, and making men their slaves would have been an interesting story to get curious about, and which I really did. However, that is just what it is good at —> enticing curiosity. The moment you step inside the cinema, and you get to see how the story goes and how the visual effects [more importantly] are rendered, it was quite disappointing.

I noticed that most of the cast was taken from The Twins Effect. Even Jackie Chan was also there. In comparison with the fx used in the Twins Effect, Blade of the Rose is somewhat inferior.

The movie may not be that bad, but it terribly fails to meet my expectations.

RATING: 4 STARS

Sky High is not another X-Men movie, though they both portray a school for mutants, [though I havent really heard anybody said anything about mutants because they are more concerned on 'powers' than care about mutation]. It’s supposed to be a comedy movie, and somehow, sometimes, it worked on me. I am a superhero fanatic, that’s why I am so much into animes and marvel stuff, so I really like the movie eventhough I was not very much impressed with the effects. When it comes to super-things, I tend to lower my standards a bit.

The movie focuses on the story of a boy whose parents are the major defenders of the world, having a father who has superstrength, and a mother who can fly, [that's all?], called respectively as Commander, and JetStream. Whew, cool names huh. The boy, Will Stronghold, struggles to deal with this situation, since until now, he doesn’t know what his powers are. Now, that’s hard for someone whom the people expects a lot from. Being a son of the most famous superheroes is tough for Will so he pretends to be ok when in front of his parents.

High school has arrived, and it’s time for Will to be enrolled in his dad’s alma mater - Sky High - which is literally sky high, since the school is located above the earth’s stratosphere [hehehe...not sure about that, though]. In school, students are classified according to the superiority of their powers, taking resemblance on the way Hogwarts classify students into four groups which I am sure everyone knows about. A student may either be a hero or sidekick; the former being the superior of the latter. And as expected, Will ends up being a sidekick to the slight dismay of his dad. However, due to Will’s sudden engagement into a fight, his powers begin to show up, and Will turns out to be a-flyer-and-a-superstrong lad.

The story goes on and on, [laziness rules me over], and ends up in happy ending. Did I enjoy the movie? Yeah. It is ok. That’s all.

RATING: 4 STARS

supposed to be a feel-good movie, but there are scenes that made my stomach feel bad.

storyline deals with the a mother-daughter relationship strained by frequent misunderstandings. mama [curtis] is a serious professional psychologist who, according to her daughter, is having a perfect life, perfect job, and perfect boyfriend while daughter [lohan] is a punky, hard-rockin’ high-school student who always gets herself into trouble (unintentionally most of the time), thereby a frequent subject for detention. these opposite lives haunt both inviduals in terms of their failure to get into the other’s shoes. they never understand each other until the time has come for some effective and life-changing [literaly] occurrence. one freaky friday, they switched bodies…

the result, of course is expected…how can this two very different individuals manage to live each other’s lives normally now with their switched roles? difficult indeed…and the resultant scenarios would give the audience quite a good laugh about their plight. however, daughter-possessed mother is way too obvious with the huge change of behavior. this is usually where my stomach feels bad. meanwhile, mother-possessed daughter tries to be good in everything in school, but still fails to smoothen everything out. however, she finds out the real score with what really happens to daughter in school.

the switching has a good effect as they now eventually and completely understand each other’s concerns and issues. nice…

RATING: 4 STARS

terrific martial arts action and effects. it’s like a combination of matrix and crouching tiger as the ad says. storyline dwells on a human-vampire love affair and the quest of a vampire hunter –who happens to be the brother of the aforementioned “human” in the human-vampire romance—to vanquish (i dunno if that’s the right term) all vampires in the world (if that’s possible in its context, considering having vampires of different nationality…heheeh—there was a mention kasi of ‘european vampires’). meanwhile, a vampire duke is on the lookout for the aforementioned “vampire” in the love affair(who happens to be the last vampire prince) in his quest for ultimate power.

needless to say, the duke was defeated and the weird lovers together with another semi-vampire friend became a deadly triad of vampire hunters.

the movie started right with a whopping display of ass-kicking-mind-blowing stunts right in the railway station. however, a good start is not always good when accompanied with slow-pacing plot in the middle. it makes you wanna fast-forward to another action-filled scenes leaving conversations and storyline ignored. it’s the fight scenes and effects that made me awake.

fortunately, it satisfied my craving as it ended with a brilliant exhibit of fighting skills towards the end…not bad at all…

It was worth the watch. The movie has a very family-oriented lesson in it, and I was touched by it, eventhough that lesson has been repeated over and over by other movies. Chocolate factory has amazing effects. There is enchantment and wonder as the characters surveryed the entire factory. Whew, that factory is huge, and has so many exciting things inside such as, but not limited to, the Oompah Loompahs [<--- forgive the spelling], who crave for chocolates.

Rating: 4 Stars
ciao…