The Possession - Scary exorcism since The Exorcist

Review:
I went into the cinema with some expectation especially after reviewing this movie trailer just a week before the opening. For the past few months, i always had the impression that this movie is going to be the same old exorcism movie - weak, predictable, same scary moments, and i might say boring script with many influences of religion-type script involving a priest like the Rite, The Last Exorcism and Emily Rose. While movies like The Rite and The Devil Inside are a complete waste of time, there are some movie that tries to breakout from that genre like Exorcism of Emily Rose and The Last Exorcism which are slightly better but still miles behind of the brilliant The Exorcist. However after viewing the movie trailer, it shows a glimpse of promises and i decided to check it for myself. The movie is based upon true events about an antique box that kept spirits called "dybbuk" and this movie screenplay is based revolving this box. It involves a to be divorced couples - Clyde (Jeffery Dean Morgan), Stephanie Brenek (Kyra Sedgwick) and their 2 daughters - Em (Natasha Calis) and Hannah (Madison Davenport). Em stumble upon the antique box during a yard sale and began to have change in behavior such as possessive, burst of violence, rude and etc. As with similar exorcism movie, the father- Clyde notices the changes and decided to search for the root cause and this led him to suspect the haunted box. He decided to get help from a priest (this time a Jewish one) to help with the exorcism. As you can see, the script and storyline is nothing special nor complex. In fact, the movie storyline is easy to follow. So does this movie falls under the "waste of time " category? Unfortunately or rather fortunately no. It performs better than my expectation and some of the scenes are scary. The scary scenes are complimented by a very suspense background music. Scenes such as Em checking her throat, scavenging and eating raw meat from the refrigerator at night, poking the food with her fork and the scenes at the morgue are some truly scary moments. Unfortunately some of the scenes are also rather incoherent and cut off abruptly and change to another new scenes without a complete closure of the previous clip. It makes us felt that the scenes are there just for scary moments to viewers and nothing else. The acting are mediocre except for Natasha Calis playing Em whom i felt is quite good. With not much usage of any CGI nor cheap scary moments, this movie excels in being a really realistic scary exorcism movie that i felt could rival The Exorcist if they could just spare some few minutes in the editing parts for the in-between scenes.    

Verdict:

I give this a 4 out of 5 star.

The Lorax - Light-hearted but forgettable animation

Review:
Just to sums it up on this animation movie is that it is a simple movie with an embedded message to viewers on the environment impact to our earth. This animation movie is supposedly inspired by the same children story book by Dr.Seuss. The movie follows a 12-year old boy, Ted who lives in an enclosed community, Thneedville whereby everything is made of plastics and non-organic materials such as plastic neon trees, plastic gates, all water supply from water bottles, and etc. In order to win the affection of his dream girl, Audrey who wishes to see an actual real tree, Ted ventures outside Thneedville to a creature named "Once-ler" who is the only one that knows about the trees. Once there, Once-ler began to tell his story to Ted on how he first came to Trufulla Tree forest and due to greed, chopped away all the trees in the forest even with the prevention of the Lorax, a mystic creature protecting the trees. This animation movie tries to create awareness on how our greed can led to the destruction of our world but it doesn't really affect me emotionally, unlike how Toy Story 3 is able to do it. I would say that this is just a so-so animation with very direct storyline and less suspense. However, the colors are bright and beautiful to signify the greenery and lushes of the Trufulla Tree Forest. In conclusion, it is a little light-hearted for me

Verdict:

I give this a 2.5 out of 5

The Dictator - Hilarous Over The Top Comedy

Review:
I didn't really expect the movie by the eccentric Sacha Baron Cohen to be that good. I find Borat and Bruno to be an okay movie with its comedy draws on excessive nudity and vulgarity but this is a good movie with the right balance of nudity, vulgarity, comedic and easy to follow storyline.The movie showcase a dictator, Admiral General Shabazz Aladeen' tyranny and bad treatment to his fellow subjects in a country called Wadiya. However, after he has been replaced with a body double by his uncle at the UN convention in US, he found out about democracy from a lady, Zoey. So, he hatched a plan to regain back his identity and hopefully change his country perception of himself. There are many great funny moments in this movie such as how he executes his people without having second thoughts, began his life as a store assistance in US, his chemistry with his rocket scientist, Nadal. Of course you cannot have a Sacha Baron Cohen movie without some form of nudity, offensive and vulgarity and this movie does delivery all 3 in a nice possible way.
Verdict:
I give this a 3.5 out of 5

Silent House - A great suspense & believeable movie

Review:
I watch this movie without any expectation nor have i read any synopsis on this movie and boy, i am glad that i did. The movie sequence was extremely good and the pace was fantastic. They film the movie as if it was a continuous shot and makes us somehow felt that we are part of the movie inside. The movie shows that a teenage girl, Sarah together with her dad and uncle decided to clean up their vacation house so that it can be rented / sold off to some new owner. However, soon Sarah realize that they are not really alone in the house and was unable to escape from the house with an intruder lurking around. I find that the lead actress, Elizabeth Olsen as Sarah was fantastic and her acting performance deserve praises as a scared girl with no chance of escaping. Her traumatize feeling is able to be captured by the viewers and makes us feel for her, rooting her escape and feeling suspenseful throughout the movie. However, towards the end of the movie, it was a little predictable and somehow the ending was a little disappointed but overall, i feel that this is one of the movie that is genuinely scary and will have you clutching your pillow or your partner while watching it. I believe that this can be a trend setter for horror films to succeed in scaring viewers.
Verdict:
I give this a 4 out of 5. A truly suspenseful movie.  

The Raid: Redemption - All Out Crazy Action Movie

The Raid: Redemption (Indonesia)
Review
I manage to get hold of a copy called the Raid after hearing many positive review on this movie in particularly of the action scenes. After watching it, i can conclude that the storyline was just average and direct, the acting was also so-so but the action was relentless, forceful and the execution was just perfect. The movie plot is simple with a band of police swat team on operation to capture a kingpin holed up in an apartment full of criminals. A simple raid suddenly becomes complicated and dangerous when they are locked inside and the criminals started to exterminate the police team one-by-one. From then on, it is fighting all the way to the top from both sides. The action sequence is extremely believable, fast and vicious. I didn't really expected that an Indonesian movie can be on par with some of the best action movie that Hollywood can offer. The fight sequence by lead action and martial artist, Iko Uwais was extremely good and to me, it is almost equivalent with Hong Kong martial art actor, Donnie Yen. The highlight of the fight sequence in this movie must be 2 against 1 combat between Iko Uwais and Donny Alamsyah against another great martial artist in Yayan Ruhian. The fight sequence is approximately 15 minutes and you can almost feel the pain and bone crunching of all the 3 actors. In short, it could have been a great action movie if they can improve on the dialogue and scriptwriting as well as doing some better editing. However, all the flaws in this movie be ignored when the action starts and that is why it is one of the best movie that comes out from Indonesia.
Verdict:
I give this a 3 star out of 5.

The Dark Knight Rises - A finale that was a bit short

Review:
I enjoyed the first movie - Batman Begins but i was blown away with the second movie- The Dark Knight especially the performance of Heath Ledger's Joker character. The second movie has a complex script that is unique and masterful in every department. Thus, i guess everyone was kinda excited and thrill to hear that director, Christoper Nolan was going for his third movie and his last in Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises. In the beginning, i find it kinda strange that the movie title was a little less imaginative (in my expectation). By adding the working "Rises", where it could have been some special title like "The Dark Prince", or "Knightfall" or something like that. But i was thinking, perhaps the story will be much better especially since the movie runs to approximately 2.5 hours long. In short, the movie started 7 years after the 2nd movie ended. Bruce Wayne ala Batman was demotivated and keep hid from the public for 7 years. We were also introduce to Batman arch-nemesis, Bane who is planning a massive attack on both Bruce Wayne and Gotham City. Thus, after Batman was defeated once by Bane, he was in a broken spirit until he finds inside of him, the courage and the strength to rise back up again - thus the movie title" The Dark Knight Rises". There are many wrongs in this movie to began with such as why does Bruce Wayne need to hid himself and for 7 years? It wasn't really explained and the 1st showdown between Bane and Batman was extremely weak. It somehow didn't showcase Batman agility, fast, deadly moves but rather just a brawl between both man. To me, it should be one of the highlight in this movie but the movie didn't manage to make viewers draw to such confrontation but rather just a mere coincidence. I also felt that the movie 2 leading ladies, Miranda Tate and Selina Kyle is somewhat out of place and felt hurried with both especially the chemistry between Bruce Wayne and Miranda Tate and Selina Kyle was not there. The love story thingy was horrendous and don't get me to mentioned the dialogue / speech by Bane. His voice was comical rather than intimidating and his dialogue was at times laughable rather than Joker with this intelligence and careful wordings. However, luckily the last 30~45mins of the action was the best in the 3 series. I like his Batpod was the best i have seen in action so far and the parallel action between Batman, Catwoman, and Commissioner Gordon was very intense. To wrap it up, there are many items that needs improvement if it needs to overtake the second movie but overall it was an okay finale for the Batman trilogy.  
Verdict:
I give this a 3.5 out of 5

Prometheus - An Overhype Movie

Review:
I think i shall skipped the synopsis and go straight with the review as i have tons of movies to review but was unable to do so due to many commitments especially since my last review of The Avengers which was consider as relic in movie timeline. Lets move on to the 1st movie that i watch after The Avengers, called Prometheus. In the months before the release of this movie, the movie industry and internet was buzzing with excitement that it was ala prequel of Alien created by the same director, Ridley Scott. There was also some early review praising the spectacular of the visual effect, originality and the complexity of the movie but after sitting though roughly a 2 hour duration, i didn't find anything out of the ordinary. To cut the story short, the movie is about a group of scientists who wanted to know their early civilization or in another word, who their creator is - which they refer to as the "Engineers". Thus, they were shipped in a big spaceship towards a planet called LV-223 and once there, they found out that the "Engineers" is dead decades earlier due to some viral - a black goo that is still remain stored but already leaked out. Due to the black goo, some tiny creatures began mutated and attack the crew. The color and visual was okay to me, the movie script was just so-so and the monster - alien was tone down to the bare minimum. There wasn't really a scare moment in this film, more on a jump scare tactics that has been overused in many monster movies.  The movie has many sub-plots but somehow it wasn't that complex and many scenes were left hanging without any continuation. Also the lead actress, Noomi Rapace was rather underused in her character and was rather bland. In short, i think this movie was over-hype and was consider as a watered-down alien movie to me.
Verdict:
3 out of 5. Mediocre movie.