Movie Review: BEAST...

Earlier today, I watched the horror adventure drama Beast at AMC theaters. This film stars Idris Elba—who plays Nate Samuels, an American doctor and widower who takes his two daughters (Meredith, played by Iyana Halley, and Norah, portrayed by Leah Jeffries) on a trip to Africa to mend his broken relationship with them, only to stumble upon a rogue lion that hunts them down during a safari gone wrong.

Beast definitely had its moments...though it amusingly felt like a Jurassic Park movie, but with a bloodthirsty lion and not a pack of velociraptors relentlessly stalking the main characters. This is even solidified by one of the daughters—I think it was Meredith—wearing a Jurassic Park shirt at one point early in the film. (Beast was also produced by Universal Pictures, in case you're wondering.)

There isn't anything too deep or philosophical about the plot for Beast, except that it's a story about survival and the continuing threat poachers pose to the amazing wildlife in the African savanna.

Beast was shot on location in South Africa, so it's not a surprise that South African actor Sharlto Copley—who became famous from 2009's Oscar-nominated sci-fi movie District 9 (which also filmed in the African country)—would make an appearance in this flick as Dr. Samuels' anti-poaching best friend Martin Battles.

While Beast was filmed in South Africa, I wouldn't be surprised if some scenes were shot in the barren hills of Simi Valley, Santa Clarita or another location in California's San Fernando Valley as well. (It wasn't... I did some research about the movie on Google just now.) That would've been some nice Hollywood movie magic if it was!

Captain America: Civil War...

Check out the new trailer for Marvel's biggest film of 2016! Considering the fact that Iron Man and all but two of the Avengers will make an appearance in Captain America: Civil War (Thor and the Hulk are the only ones who are no-shows in this movie), it's no wonder that Warner Bros has moved the release date for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice up to March 25 of next year (Dawn of Justice was originally supposed to come out on May 6, 2016...which is the day that the third Captain America flick will be released). Tom Holland's Spider-Man is nowhere to be seen in this preview, but that's okay. Methinks that Marvel wants to keep footage of the new Spider-Man under wraps to some degree the same way that J.J. Abrams is keeping the story of Luke Skywalker a secret during The Force Awakens' marketing campaign. So at what point in Civil War will Captain America and Iron Man stop fighting and just hug it out? Thanos lurks on the horizon.

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Gravity: Movie Review

I watched Alfonso Cuarón's newest sci-fi disaster film this past weekend, and needless to say, it was intense. Folks who are space aficionados like myself will be impressed by the amount of work that was put into making the space shuttle, the International Space Station (ISS), the Soyuz and other actual vehicles and satellites look as authentic on-screen as possible. There are lots of creative licenses that Cuarón took with the film—such as the fact the ISS and Hubble Space Telescope (HST) are shown to be in the same orbit (the HST actually orbits more than 340 miles above the Earth while the ISS orbits at an altitude of 220 miles)—but this was obviously done to enhance the well-executed drama in the movie. Also, George Clooney's astronaut, Matt Kowalski, gleefully flies around the HST in that jetpack (modeled after NASA's since-retired Manned Maneuvering Unit)...not caring that one careless mistake could lead to him colliding with the billion-dollar telescope. And in later scenes, we see Sandra Bullock's character Ryan Stone (you would think that Stone would've changed her first name after turning 18 or something) wearing nothing but a tank-top and pajama shorts after removing her 300-pound spacesuit inside the ISS—when in real life, she would have a full-body thermal undergarment underneath her EMU (or Extravehicular Mobility Unit...NASA's fancy term for the spacesuit). Of course, Bullock flaunting her stuff in Gravity is to be expected from the director behind that "kid-friendly" flick, Y Tu Mamá También!



What makes Graviy such a treat to watch for die-hard space geeks is the fact that (potential spoilers ahead) Bullock uses existing spacecraft and their actual functions to make her way back to Earth. As depicted in the movie, the Soyuz does need to separate into three components prior to reentry, and has those landing retrorockets needed to touch down on the ground safely; and China does have a space station (Tiangong-1) orbiting the Earth right now. Explorer, however, is the actual name of a full-scale shuttle mockup currently on display at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. If Cuarón wanted the movie to have a stronger impact (pun unintended) on the audience with its authenticity, he could've named the shuttle after real orbiters (Discovery, Atlantis or Endeavour)...and designate the on-screen Hubble servicing mission as STS-136 instead of STS-157 (the space shuttle program came to an end after STS-135 in 2011).



The truly terrifying thing about Gravity is that it isn't really going overboard in its depiction of space debris wreaking havoc on the ISS and other orbiting craft in deep space. In real life, it was China that was reckless enough to destroy a satellite with a missile back in 2007...and the ensuing debris still poses a threat to other spacecraft circling the Earth today. Not to veer off-topic since this is only a movie review, but the only hypothetical thing about Gravity is how a fictional astronaut made her way home after experiencing a crippling strike against her spacecraft at the beginning of the movie. What isn't hypothetical is the fact that space junk surrounding the Earth, if left alone, will lead to a calamity that won't be as far-fetched as what we see in Gravity. And that's the message that we should take from Alfonso Cuarón's hit film.



Oh—and as for Gravity's Oscar prospects this March, if the brilliant sci-fi film District 9 can receive a Best Picture nomination in 2010, then so can Gravity next year. Like Avatar, Gravity's groundbreaking visual effects (especially the 3-D aspect) should make it the frontrunner to WIN the Best Visual Effects Oscar...along with Best Cinematography and perhaps Best Film Editing as well. Carry on.

Elysium...

Earlier today, I watched the latest sci-fi film to be directed by Neill Blomkamp...who helmed 2009's Oscar-nominated hit, District 9. Much as how District 9 conveyed a political message about apartheid in South Africa, Elysium dealt with the topic of illegal immigration and even um, Obamacare in its futuristic storyline. As the TV spots and trailers show, all of the rich (Caucasian) folks live on a luxurious space station orbiting the Earth—while the remaining inhabitants (RE: minorities) are left behind looking for decent medical care on our pollution-ravaged planet. The person destined to change all of this, of course, is a robot mechanic named Max (Matt Damon). Yearning to travel to space station Elysium ever since he was young, Max gets more than he bargains for when events transpire that actually makes it a matter of life and death for him to fly up to the orbital outpost. Not just for him, but for those close to Max and minorities wanting to experience the plush lifestyle that could be found on Elysium. The only people standing in his way are Delacourt (Jodie Foster) and her rogue agent Kruger (played by District 9's Sharlto Copley).



While Blomkamp did a respectable job trying to allude to illegal immigration and universal healthcare in Elysium, this latest flick wasn't as noteworthy as District 9. The visual effects in this latest film, like that of its '09 predecessor, were top-notch. The acting however, was a different story. While it was forgivable that District 9 had shaky performances since it relied on unknown actors working on a $30 million budget, Elysium was made for $115 million and had Academy Award heavyweights Foster and Damon to carry the film. Damon was commendable in the movie, though his character wasn't as tough as the marketing campaign made him out to be...while Foster had some moments where she was giving Delacourt's lines without putting much effort into them. Sharlto Copley was cool as Kruger, but his attempt to convey an Australian accent was as amusing as him talking with a Texas drawl when he played Murdock in 2010's The A-Team.



I wouldn't be surprised if Blomkamp and/or TriStar come up with a not-so-farfetched idea to make a crossover film between Distict 9 and Elysium. The technology portrayed in Elysium is obviously advanced; along with the fact that humans are capable of building a giant space station where the ability to cure cancer is possible, devices exist where a man can have his face perfectly reconstructed after half of it was blown off by a grenade. Oh, and a handheld rocket-propelled grenade launcher can fire missiles (from a vantage point in Los Angeles) hundreds if not thousands of miles up into space to destroy 'undocumented' ships trying to venture to Elysium. All of this sounds like something that you would've saw with the aliens of District 9. While Elysium is a different beast from Blomkamp's first feature-length film, it is still a sci-fi movie trying to make us think of the current world we live in (or at least about how things are in 21st century America). Any flick that tries to make itself relevant to the issues we see or read on the news everyday should be commended—even if the movie fell short in some other aspects of its story. Carry on.

Pacific Rim: Movie Review

Ignoring the fact that the movie lost to an intelligence-numbing flick by Adam Sandler at the box office this past weekend, Pacific Rim freakin' rocked! Giant ass-kicking robots (a.k.a. Jaegers)... Giant ass-kicking monsters (a.k.a. Kaijus)... Both courtesy of Industrial Light & Magic... Oh, and Rinko Kikuchi (of 2006's Oscar-nominated flick, Babel)... Guillermo del Toro did not disappoint (at least critically and artistically) in conveying his own brand of Godzilla-type mayhem. Story-wise, Pacific Rim is no different from said Gojira film—and even borrows from Independence Day, The Matrix and of course, a boatload of Japanese anime titles to make the plot move along. Action-wise, those of you wanting to see giant robots going on a rampage and can't wait for Optimus Prime to return in next year's Transformers 4 will not be let down by the sight of Gipsy Danger, Crimson Typhoon and other Jaegers taking on the Knifehead and other Kaiju that emerged from the Pacific Ocean to wreak havoc on hapless humans living in Manila, Seattle and other coastal cities of the world. And to see these gigantic monstrosities duke it out on IMAX 3-D (which I did yesterday)? Well, that's double the icing on the cake.



As mentioned above, Industrial Light & Magic rightfully had the honor of realizing del Toro's vision of monsters vs. robots on the big screen...which was definitely the right move by the filmmaker. Sure, FX houses like Double Negative (which worked on The Dark Knight trilogy), Weta Digital (founded by Peter Jackson to work on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies, as well as District 9 and Iron Man 3) and Digital Domain (which worked on Apollo 13, Titanic and Oblivion) have all created awesome visuals for major Hollywood hits over the past decade or so, but it's only fitting that the company that started it all (by George Lucas to work on Star Wars) would be the one responsible for making sure that Pacific Rim looked as exciting at the cinemas as possible. Music-wise, the film score was awesome. Ramin Djawadi, who composed the music for 2008's Iron Man as well as such successful TV shows as Game of Thrones and Prison Break, created an action-packed tune that also paid homage to the music of classic monster flicks. (Case in point: The percussive beat that plays when the 'Category 5' Kaiju emerges from the breach at the bottom of the Pacific in the movie's climax.) Djawadi's music didn't blow me away as much as Steve Jablonsky's work on the first Transformers film did six years ago, but I'll definitely download or buy Pacific Rim's score on CD in the near future.



Acting-wise, I didn't notice any performance that was even remotely worthy of being considered for an Oscar nomination next year. Which is pretty much why some critics call Pacific Rim the 'Star Wars for a new generation' (which, amusingly, was what Independence Day was called back in 1996)... Mind-blowing special effects, a great music score and—wooden acting. Idris Elba was respectable as former Jaeger pilot Stacker Pentecost, Charlie Hunnam was to Pacific Rim what Casper Van Dien was to 1997's Starship Troopers, Charlie Day was the same goofball (a compliment) that he was in 2011's Horrible Bosses, Burn Gorman was a lot wackier in this movie than he was as one of Bane's lackeys in The Dark Knight Rises, and Ron Perlman was cool as Kaiju black market dealer Hannibal Chau. Last, but most definitely not least, is Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori. Despite the fact that Pacific Rim is yet another Hollywood film that pervades the whole White Guy/Asian Girl romance bit, Kikuchi was great as the Gipsy co-pilot of Charlie Hunnam. And just as awesome as seeing 300-foot-tall (most likely bigger than that) robots battling 2,500-ton monsters is watching Kikuchi take on Hunnam in that entertaining Kendo fight scene. Is it a surprise that Kikuchi would know martial arts in real life? Um, no. Is it still a pleasure to see a beautiful actress show that she has some nice combat skills to display on the big screen? Definitely.



All-in-all, here's hoping that Pacific Rim will end up being a financial success this summer. Most definitely, it should become a cult classic the same way that Starship Troopers and Blade Runner did before it. Guillermo del Toro is a pro when it comes to creating fanciful creatures and monsters on the big screen...with the ability to effortlessly depict huge brawling robots added to his resume. Considering the fact that Sandler's Grown Ups managed to get its own stinkin' sequel, it would be an injustice if the Jaegers (and Mako Mori) don't return to the big screen again to rid this world of giant leviathans who emerge from the depths of the ocean to threaten all of humanity. Pacific Rim is the most visually-spectacular movie of this summer...and it should be rewarded as such with its story continuing for a sequel or two. If Grown Ups 2, The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions can be made, then so can Pacific Rim 2. That is all.

PACIFIC RIM Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars. ****1/2

Microsoft / 343 Industries

Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn... After a failed attempt by Peter Jackson to produce a film adaptation of the video game that would've been directed by District 9's Neill Blomkamp, Microsoft—which created the hit Xbox series—is taking it upon itself to turn Halo into a live-action flick. Budgeted between $5 million and $10 million, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn is set to debut as a 5-part Web series on Youtube this October. The 5 episodes will then be compiled into a 90-minute feature film (with 15 minutes of extra footage) that will be released on DVD around the same time the Halo 4 video game comes out. Daniel Cudmore, who played Colossus in X2: X-Men United and X-Men: The Last Stand, dons the helmet of Master Chief. The first webisode of Forward Unto Dawn will premiere on Youtube on October 5, while the video game itself will be released in retail stores on November 6.


Microsoft / 343 Industries

In other news regarding blockbuster video games that are getting the live-action film treatment, Ubisoft—which created the Assassin's Creed series—cast Michael Fassbender (of X-Men: First Class and Ridley Scott's Prometheus) as the well-known assassin in the movie version Ubisoft is developing. Check out the awesome computer-generated trailer for the upcoming Assassin's Creed III (out in stores on October 30) below...and imagine how epic the movie would be if it was executed as well as this Youtube clip was. If these motion-captured CG characters and settings were replaced by real and respectable actors (besides Fassbender) in an authentic location and not merely a blue-screen set, and the music was conducted by composers such as...Hans Zimmer or Howard Shore (of the upcoming Hobbit films and The Lord of the Rings trilogy), then Ubisoft will have a nice cinematic winner on its hands. And all of this would be done without the help (or interference) of a major Hollywood movie studio.

The Darkest Hour... I saw this sci-fi horror flick last weekend, and unsurprisingly, it could’ve been much better. It was just like the 2010 sci-fi action film Skyline...the only difference is; instead of being a derivative thriller with a no-name cast but awesome visual effects like Skyline had, The Darkest Hour was a mediocre movie with a no-name cast [with the exception of Emile Hirsch (who was in 2008's Speed Racer and the Oscar-nominated film, Milk) and Rachael Taylor (who was in 2007’s Transformers and several episodes of the TV show Grey’s Anatomy last year)] and shoddy special effects. Did the filmmakers even try to approach veteran FX houses like Industrial Light & Magic or Digital Domain to work on The Darkest Hour? Or even Weta Digital...which was utilized on such Peter Jackson flicks as The Lord of the Rings and District 9. Probably not.

I saw The Darkest Hour in 2-D, but I would have to assume that the aliens still looked like cartoon characters in 3-D when they’re revealed at the climax of the film (see pic below). Whatever. It’s clearly obvious if you watch the movie that most of its budget went to shooting on location in Moscow...and casting predominantly Russian actors. Of course, if I ever want to see the Kremlin on-screen again, I’d go and re-watch Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol at the theater. That is all.

BATTLE: LOS ANGELES... I finally saw the alien-invasion film today, and needless to say, it was the sci-fi version of Black Hawk Down. Which means...I thought it was pretty cool! Non-stop action was waged throughout B:LA, much like in Ridley Scott’s 2002 war flick about the 1993 conflict in Somalia. Aaron Eckhart was awesome as Staff Sergeant Nantz; while compared to her gung-ho attitude in Avatar, Machete and the Fast and the Furious films, Michelle Rodriguez was somewhat tame as Tech Sgt. Elena Santos in B:LA. As Santos, Rodriguez didn't have the usual sarcastic quips that she had playing previous movie characters. Not that that's a bad thing. Nothing exceptionally noteworthy about the civilians played by Bridget Moynahan and Michael Peña, but I’ll give them props since my review about this flick is supposed to be a positive one. I just found out through IMDb.com that 2nd Lt. William Martinez, who was in charge of the Marine platoon before handing command over to Eckhart's Nantz and then sacrificing himself later in the film, was played by Ramon Rodriguez. In case you’re wondering who this is, Rodriguez played the wacky college roommate of Shia LaBeouf in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. But back to B:LA.



Battle: Los Angeles didn’t exactly have a deep message like 2009’s District 9 (which B:LA also borrowed elements from...namely weapons that cause explosions surrounded by bolts of lightning) did, but it was still a lot better than last year’s Skyline. B:LA didn’t have a "WTF??" moment at the very end of the movie like Skyline did...though as I said at the beginning of this journal entry, B:LA was obviously inspired by Black Hawk Down in that Eckhart and Co. go back into the battlefield at the film's conclusion to take care of unfinished business. Also, the battle in Los Angeles lasted for one day...while the 1993 battle in Mogadishu, Somalia lasted a day as well. Nothing wrong with that. My personal gripe about B:LA is that, like the Bourne movies (as in The Bourne Identity, Supremacy and Ultimatum), it overdid it with the shaky cam. By now using this camera technique in war films has become a cliché, and unfortunately B:LA suffers from this tired method. It was cool in Saving Private Ryan, Gladiator and Black Hawk Down...but try spending more time setting the camera up on a tripod or at least a Steadicam, folks—if there’s a sequel (Battle: San Diego, anyone?). Thanks. Another gripe is that the trippy song used in B:LA's theatrical trailers, "The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky Turned Black" by Icelandic musician Johann Johannsson, wasn't featured in the movie. Oh well.



Special effects-wise, the aliens in B:LA looked interesting...though were they using projectile weapons (RE: bullets) just like the humans were? I guess having the invaders shoot laser beams at the Marines would’ve ruined the gritty, realistic tone of the film. After all, this ain’t Star Wars. Or Star Trek. Or Independence Day. Or Transformers. Or Terminator. The same people who did the visual FX on Skyline also did the FX work on B:LA. The FX work was what saved Skyline since its CW Network-quality cast of actors wasn’t exactly the saving grace of that movie. That is all.

DISTRICT 10... Check out this awesome fan-made illustration, created by artist Andrée Wallin, for the hit film's would-be sequel...


© 2009 Andrée Wallin

THE KARATE KID... Two days ago, I saw the new remake of the classic 1984 film. Needless to say, this is one of those rare occurrences where the remake actually makes a lot more sense than the original movie. In the classic version, Ralph Macchio’s character has to deal with bullies (Caucasian bullies, that is) in his new hometown of Reseda in the San Fernando Valley. For those of you who have been to this part of Southern California, you’d know that it’s kinda odd (but obviously not uncommon) that white dudes in this area would be proficient in karate. In this latest incarnation, Jaden Smith’s character needs to confront bullies near his new residency in Beijing, China. Let’s see... Chinese kids who know karate? Or at least kung-fu? That sounds just about right. Stereotypical, but right.

What the new Karate Kid has going for it is that Will Smith’s kid is apparently more acrobatic than Ralph Macchio was in the original flick. It also doesn’t hurt that the training scenes for Smith’s character took place in beautiful Chinese backdrops. I have the sudden urge to travel to China (if I had the dinero) after watching this film, and am in the mood to get into a staring match with a cobra at a mountaintop temple if I went. If you saw the movie, then you’d know what I’m talking about. This particular scene also ties in with the kung-fu move—which nicely replaced the 'crane kick' that Macchio did in the original movie—that Smith does at the climax of the new film. Overall, the Karate Kid was a good movie. A bit long...but not long enough to prevent the audience from clapping and cheering loudly after the film ended at the screening I went to.

I also watched The A-Team this weekend. It was a fun film...though not as fun as the TV ads made it out to be. The cast was awesome (District 9’s Sharlto Copley was cool as Murdock)...though there were times when I couldn’t understand what they were saying because of their rapid-fire delivery with some of the dialogue. I give FOX props for not revealing any part of the climax (which takes place at the Port of Los Angeles) in the trailers or TV commercials. In terms of who won the battle of the 80s remakes (for me, that is), The A-Team was entertaining, but The Karate Kid was waaay better.

82nd ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARDS... Congrats to Kathryn Bigelow and the rest of the crew behind The Hurt Locker for tonight’s 6 Oscar wins, including one for Best Picture (duh)! Pretty much the only Academy Award that Avatar truly deserved was for Best Visual FX...which it received. And props to Christoph Waltz on winning the Best Supporting Actor award for Inglourious Basterds, and Sandra Bullock on winning an Oscar for The Blind Side. She won a Razzie Award (for All About Steve) AND an Academy Award on the same weekend. Good for her.



Did District 9 win anything tonight? No? Oh well. It’s still kewl in my book.

82nd ANNUAL ACADEMY AWARD NOMINATIONS... Avatar, The Hurt Locker (both unsurprisingly) and District 9 all received Oscar nominations for Best Picture this morning. Nice. Good to see that the Academy didn't drop the ball this time around. Actually, I take that back. Star Trek should've gotten a nom as well. Sorry Trekkies.

And glad to see that Hans Zimmer got a Best Original Score nomination for Sherlock Holmes. I was surprised to see that it was Zimmer who did the fantastic music (since the score sounded very un-Zimmerish) for the Robert Downey Jr. film when I watched the end credits. Word.

AVATAR... Last Sunday, I watched James Cameron’s newest film on IMAX 3-D...and not surprisingly, it looked awesome! Cameron did an awesome job portraying an intriguing alien planet and species whose appearance popped right out through the wonders of 3-D. Floating mountains, exotic-looking plants and even an alien language that in real life was completely made up by a linguist who was enlisted from the University of Southern California... Cameron was very thorough in fleshing out the world of Pandora that was locked in his head for the past dozen or so years (as Cameron waited for special effects and camera technology to advance to the point where making Avatar would be possible...and also basking in the glory of making $1 billion at the worldwide box office and winning umpteenth Oscars for Titanic back in 1998).



Of course, some of you are probably wondering why I said that Avatar looked awesome...as opposed to being awesome. That’s because the film—as a couple of folks pointed out online in the months leading up to the movie’s release—had a storyline that wasn’t very original and was indeed derivative from other (Oscar-winning) films. Much as how some people pointed out that Titanic was similar to the 1939 Best Picture winner Gone with the Wind (both films had a love triangle set during a major historical event), Avatar was reminiscent of Dances with Wolves and Braveheart. It was also reminiscent of this year’s earlier well-reviewed sci-fi film District 9...in that the protagonist in that movie, Wikus van de Merwe (unintentionally) sheds his human skin to become just like the alien creatures he reluctantly has to protect in South Africa. In Avatar, Sam Worthington’s character Jake Sully (intentionally and permanently) sheds his human body to become one with the alien natives, the Na’vi, which he’s sworn to protect at the end of the film. If you haven’t seen Avatar yet, then ignore that last sentence (though I'm pretty sure you can guess this by watching the trailers). And yes, I’m 100% sure that the comparison to District 9 was definitely unintentional on Cameron’s part. I myself just found the fate of the main heroes in both flicks to be very similar.



In terms of the music, Avatar had a terrific film score by James Horner. However, I didn’t find the music as memorable as that in Titanic...or Apollo 13. Horner composed the score for those movies as well. Unlike Titanic’s music, which was on a CD album that was the bestselling film score since John Williams’ work on Star Wars in the late 70’s, I doubt Avatar will have any kind of presence on the Billboard music chart anytime soon. Oh well.



Lastly, will I watch Avatar at the movie theaters again? You betcha’! I saw it on a "fake" IMAX screen (which is nearly the same size as a regular movie screen but has an IMAX-quality sound system complementing it in the auditorium, and a digital print that has the same visual quality as an actual IMAX 70mm film reel) at an AMC theater on opening weekend, so I can assure you that I will be driving 20-30 miles to a "real" IMAX theater (specifically the one at the Irvine Spectrum’s Edwards 21 in Orange County) to watch James Cameron’s visionary work on the big screen again. Later.



Images courtesy of Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

2012... So I saw the film after work yesterday, and it was entertaining—in the typical Roland-Emmerich-blows-up-national-landmarks-and-other-things kinda way. If you’re expecting a sci-fi film that is as thought-provoking as say, District 9, then you’re watching the wrong film. If you’re expecting a standard Hollywood blockbuster with lots of great visual effects and (extremely) ridiculous action sequences, then this is the movie for you.



I can’t recall any memorable scenes from The Day After Tomorrow, but I will point out that 2012 had a lot more emotional moments in it than Independence Day did (don’t get me started on Godzilla). But unlike 2012, Independence Day (or ID4) had a lot more scenes that made the crowd gasp and cheer...at least at the screening I went to back in July of ‘96. Of course, back then the shots of the White House and other (American) landmarks getting destroyed by giant alien ships in ID4 were fairly new...and the scenes showing F/A-18 Hornet jets engaging in aerial battle with small alien fighters (a la Star Wars, DUH) were awesome. What 2012 has going for it are repetitive shots of airplanes trying to lift off of runways that were breaking apart below them...and a kick-ass scene of Yellowstone National Park going BOOM as the supervolcano beneath it (yes, this volcano is REAL) erupts.



I’d say more about the movie, but I don’t feel like it. I’ll point out one more thing though: I find it interesting and fortunate (ahem, sarcasm) that the computers onboard Air Force One could show real-time images of what’s going on beneath the Earth’s crust, as well as what was happening to the planet's magnetic field as s**t was hittin' the fan across the globe. I guess these comps were modified by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey at the White House's request between 2009 and 2012...the time period during which the movie takes place.


That is all.

DISTRICT 9: The Review... I saw the critically-acclaimed sci-fi film twice this weekend (the first time I watched it was during a midnight screening on opening day last Friday. The second viewing was yesterday), so I think you can guess where this review is going. The movie was AWESOME. First-time feature film director Neill Blomkamp (with the help of Oscar-winning producer Peter Jackson) did a masterful job making a flick that was not only action-packed, but also carried a serious, intelligent message: If living beings from another world came to our planet one day, would we treat them the same way we occasionally treat fellow Earthlings who are completely different from us? With violence and extreme prejudice? District 9 handles this topic with intense and gory results. And I mean that in a positive way.



I’m not gonna do a full synopsis on District 9...since you can just read about the story online (or, um, watch the movie?). The main character, Wikus Van De Merwe, was superbly played by Sharlto Copley...a South African director/producer who made his debut acting performance in a feature film with this flick. If anyone accuses this movie of not having any character development, then that person is, how should I say politely, a friggin’ idiot? Not to spoil anything, but Van De Merwe goes from a bumbling pencil pusher at a shady security organization called MNU (for Multi-National United) to a figure who most decisively has a good reason to relate with the alien creatures—known derisively as prawns for their lobster-like appearances in the movie—whose ship settled over Wikus’ hometown of Johannesburg, South Africa 20 years earlier. Van De Merwe just wants to be a normal person and go home to his hot-ass wife Tania (played by Vanessa Haywood) at the end of the day, but fate has something else in store for him. Van De Merwe eventually has to team up with a prawn that goes by the name of Christopher Johnson, who along with his young son (Little C.J.?) has to recover a mysterious fluid that was responsible for Wikus’turn of fate, and is vital to Johnson saving his people after learning how they were treated by MNU outside the walls of District 9.



For a movie with a ‘mere’ $30 million budget, District 9 looked phenomenal. The FX work done on the prawns was well-done, and I just totally dug the scenes where you see the massive alien mothership hovering silently and ominously over the city of Johannesburg. I don’t want this to sound awkward, but am I the only one here who thought Little C.J. was, um...adorable? If you thought like I did, then you would feel more sympathy for Christopher Johnson (I’ll call him C.J. from this point on) because of his smart and heroic son who helped him on his plan to reactivate the mothership and start the process of freeing his people from their current predicament outside of Johannesburg. The rich characterization by C.J. and Little C.J. is testimony to the hard work done by several FX houses, including Peter Jackson’s own company Weta Digital...which also did the epic special effects for Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. If I would have to take a wild guess for the Oscars next year, I would have to say that District 9 should be vying for the Best Visual FX award...along with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and, um, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra? HAHAHAHA! Just kidding about that last one.



Besides the alien creatures and the mothership, I also dug the FX work done on (Spoilers ahead) that robotic exosuit that Van De Merwe dons during the climax of the film...when he has to protect C.J. as he makes his way to his son and that alien shuttle that will take them up to the mothership. That suit reminded me of ED-209 from the first Robocop film, and the mech suits used during the 'Battle of Zion' sequence in The Matrix Revolutions. Speaking of Robocop, and Paul Verhoeven’s other smart action satire, Starship Troopers, District 9 had a lot of gory scenes like these two films. Most of that is attributed to the numerous shots of humans exploding whenever they were blasted by alien weaponry. The prawns are made to look pathetic as they wander around their squalid home in District 9, but me thinks that if they were in their home environment, with each of them armed with those large cannons that they casually exchanged for cat food during the film, then they would be to the humans what U.S. forces were to the Taliban in 2001. I’m talking about the war in Afghanistan, of course.



One last note before I end this review, the music in District 9 was pretty cool. But I think the African chant used by Hans Zimmer in Black Hawk Down (which you can clearly compare Neill Blomkamp’s film to, in a complimentary way) sounded a lot more unique. That is all. Along with The Hurt Locker, District 9 is the second best film I’ve seen this year...so far.