Resident Evil: Retribution - Poor, Bad, A Simple Case of Decay Zombie

Review:
I still remember the first Resident Evil, directed by the same director, Paul W.S. Anderson and i would consider that movie still the best of the whole series (of 5 up to now). I always like Resident Evil, being an avid computer gamer fan of this franchise, Resident Evil game is always scary, mysterious and entertaining. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the movie franchise. I notice after the first part, the subsequent parts begin to slowly deteriorate and decay just like the zombies in this movie. And finally when we reach this latest fifth series, it was a full blown bullshit right in our faces. When i watch this movie yesterday, i didn't have any expectation at all so that i was able to take in all the poor storyline and senses and just enjoy the action, right? Wrong! It was so horrible that i kept cursing the movie after it ended. The movie picks up where the last Resident Evil: Afterlife ended with Alice (Milla Jovovich) battling hordes of Umbrella Corp. armies on-board a tanker but was outnumbered and knocked unconscious. She was brought back to the Umbrella Corp. detention cell where she was interrogated repeatedly by Jill Valentine (Sienna Guillory) who was under control. However, Alice managed to break free after an unknown force, later reveal as Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), (no surprises there) helped her and also sent out a group of men lead by Leon and Ada Wong (Li Bingbing) to extract out Alice from the facility. Along the way, Alice and the group of men are faced by simulation zombies at Tokyo, Moscow, created by the Red Queen, the supercomputer who went crazy after the first outbreak. So basically about 95% of the 1.5 hours duration movie shows how Alice and the gang break free from the facility of Umbrella. That is also the same time where there are no dialogues whatsoever and only loud music with slo-mo action sequence. I don't remember going into a movie where there are only 5% of dialogue in the whole damn movie and was blasted with loud music and over-the-top action sequence. The only time i remember having watch at least 10% of the dialogue is from Zack Synder's "Sucker Punch". At least in Sucker Punch, i get to watch some foxy ladies in skimpy school uniform bashing monsters and etc. If the action was mesmerizing and unforgettable, then i would have forgive but it was just some same old formula from the 2nd series and it got tired and bored rather quickly. If the no dialogue is bad enough, you should have seen the acting performance of Li Bingbing, Sienna Guillory and the worst of them, Shawn Roberts. It was dreaded performances and i cringe each time they open their mouth. It was as if i was watching some low budget movie or something. Simply awful, simply dumb-fold and most importantly, simply a waste of time and money. It was like paying to watch a whole 1.5 hour of MTV video. Now that's stupidity.

Verdict:

I give this a 1 out of 5.

Ghost On Air - Weak Plot, Cheap Scare, Horrible

Review:
This is a ghost movie made-in Singapore recently released on DVD. I guess it was release in conjunction with the "7 month" , in a chinese calender meaning the month of Hungry Ghost to boost up sales. I saw many scare movies being release normally during this season every year but many of the movies are made purposely for this occasion, so throw out the good storyline and in-comes the weak plot, horrible acting, cheap scare, and most importantly a re-cycle of ghost movies. This reminds me of HK famous director/producer Wong Jing who keeps churning out garbage nonsensical movies year after year. However, Singapore has come out with quite decently scary movies such as The Maid. Anyway, lets get back to this Singapore-made movie, Ghost on Air starring famous Singapore Radio Deejay, Dennis Zhou Chongqing and also Malaysian Deejay, Gan Mei Yan. Plot is simple with Ping Xiao (Dennis Zhou), a radio deejay who lost her girlfriend Jia Li (Gan Mei Yan) after the previous apparent suicide upon staying in a room of an old shop house selling chinese prayers items, purportedly to get ghost inspiration for her novel. After the loss of his girlfriend, Ping Xiao became disillusion and was replaced on the midnight slot. He then began to tell ghost stories written by Jia Li and soon began to experience some horrific event that is similar to the novel, and starts to investigate the room of an old shop and strange things began to happen. First thing i notice is how poorly the acting of lead actor, Dennis Zhou. It was so 1 dimension with only 1 expression, angry expression. During his position being upstage by a newbie, he had this expression. during asking Jia Li's mother some question, similar expression, during doing deejay job, same expression. Next is the scare element which is very very poor and predictable such as "bending towards the door gap to check & some ghastly also looking back". The storyline is also incoherent and boring at some occasion. Awfully painful  movie to watch.

Verdict:

I give this a 1 star out of 5.

The Tall Man - Many Twist & Turns but no substance

Review:
In fact i do not know how to review this movie. To say that it wants to be original than other movie storyline would be an understatement. It does try to be unique but unfortunately it falls flat and i wouldn't be bothered to even see the rest of the movie after the first 15 minutes. The story started with the many disappearance of  children especially from broken home families from Cold Rock which lead the community to think that it was from a person they referred to as "The Tall Man". Then we are focus on nurse Julia Denning (Jessica Biel) whom also lost her son during one night to the Tall Man, and after pursuing him through the thick forest, under the van, attacked by his dog, she still lost him. Then, we were lead to believe that the whole community is plotting some sinister thing against nurse Julia Denning and that they might have something to do with the disappearing of the children. But later we were shown that all the pursing and trying to rescue by nurse Julia Denning is all a hoax and that Julia is in fact the one abducting the boy from other family and the community had began suspected Julia as the Tall Man. Finally Julia is arrested and confessed to abducting the children and killing the children. The police tries to find the bodies around the area but to no avail. Finally we saw that another tall guy in trench coat abducting a girl and then brings the girl to a wealthy family who brings up the girl as their own and given the best of education and etc. As you can see, this movie flow is full of twist and turns to confuse the viewers but i felt that it was done a little too much. There isn't a real suspense in this movie nor any good performance in this movie.

Verdict:

2 star out of 5

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.