Iron Man - A Movie Review

The start of the Iron Man movie kinda reminds me of that Jonah guy from the Bible. In the Bible, Jonah disobeys God's command, and ends up in the belly of a fish, only to seek forgiveness. He gets spit out from the fish and continues doing the task assigned to him.

In Iron Man, Tony Stark is a modern day weapons maker, one who doesn't really have a conscience, not losing sleep over the people who have died because of his weapons. He gets attacked by terrorists using the very weapons he created, gets captured and thrown in a cave, where he finds redemption, deciding to do something with his life and becoming Iron Man in the process.

Like Jonah, he escapes the cave a changed man. But unlike Jonah, the Tony Stark in the movie doesn't lament about the mission he sets out to do, otherwise there would be a plot device where he turns to drink as an escape, just like in the comics.

That point aside, Iron Man is quite a different kettle of fish from other superhero movies. For one, the casting is perfect. Even before the movie was announced, I always thought that Robert Downey Jr. would make an excellent Tony Stark, with his past substance abuse and his looks, and this movie was an Iron Man fanboy's dream come true.

The repartee and on-screen chemistry between Tony Stark and his assistant Pepper Potts (played by Gwyneth Paltrow) would make you forget about the suit(s). Not only that, the interactions between the characters, played by an ensemble cast that include not only Downey Jr and Paltrow but also Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard is something to be marvelled (no pun intended) at.

Even Paul Bettany (of The Da Vinci Code and A Knight's Tale) is thrown in as the voice of Tony's sarcastic computer system.

The art of conversation is lost in superhero movies, but Iron Man brings that back, with some really cool action sequences and a bloody cool suit. The suit is kind of like the one in the Ultimates comic books, whereby it's like a wearable fighter jet and assembly is required. I actually prefer the Extremis enhanced version, but this movie version is so hot, even my girlfriend (who doesn't really watch superhero movies) wants one.



Iron Man fans will be in for a treat at the amount of fan service given... Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, anyone?

So, what are you waiting for? Go watch Iron Man at a cinema near you!

Your Vote Counts - Vote for Nine Over Ten 9/10

There's a new addition to the "features" portion of Nine Over Ten 9/10's navigation pane. This time it's for movie reviews.


Before I forget, I would like to invite you, cherished readers to vote for my blog in the following categories of Best Geek Blog, Best Entertainment Blog, Best Pop Culture Blog and Best Hobby Blog for the Blogger's Choice Awards. Click on the following mini banners to vote for my blog in this annual compettion:

As a token of gratitude, here are 5 coupons that you can use with your order at Play-Asia to get USD 5 off your 50 dollar (or more) purchase.

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These coupons are one-time use only, so better hurry and click here to begin shopping at Play-Asia.

Street Kings - A Movie Review

Casino Royale revealed James Bond to be a blunt instrument, and a rather effective one at that. This year, Keanu Reeves takes on a similar role, as Tom Ludlow, a gun-fighting police detective in the David Ayer directed Street Kings.


Detective Tom Ludlow is one cop you wouldn't want to cross (if you are a felon). The type to deadpan a little before shooting you dead, he is essentially a one man judge, jury and executioner for the vice squad that he works in.

Such is the nature of his work that his superior, Forest Whitaker's Captain Jack Wander, would be left to clean up the mess, often by making evidence go missing, twisting headlines and turning a blind eye to Ludlow's penchant for gunfights. More often than not, the rest of the vice squad would be press-ganged to do clean-up detail and this causes some tension between Ludlow and the rest of the squad.

Not helping matters is a Dr. House like IA captain, James Biggs, played by non other than Hugh Laurie himself, investigating Ludlow and the activities of the vice squad.

When Ludlow's former partner, Washington, gets killed before he gets the chance to bash his jaw in for ratting him out to Biggs, Ludlow uncovers a conspiracy involving Wander, the vice squad and the rest of the police squad.

As a gun-fighting policeman, Keanu Reeves' character is surprisingly "blur". Deployed as a blunt instrument and seemingly prized by his Captain, he doesn't realise that he is just a tool and really is expendable.

Reeves' wooden acting style, as seen in the Matrix movies doesn't really suit a pained detective with baggage (his wife died when she was with another man), but the dead-panned scenes are pretty funny.

I wouldn't recommend watching this ensemble cast in a local cinema even though it's a good one, as true to form, the censors practically butchered the movie, cutting up even lines of dialogue. My suggestion? Wait for the DVD. It should be out anytime soon. Hugh Laurie, not Keanu Reeves, is worth the price of the disc.

Jumper - A Movie Review

You know what? Movie trailers are like those KFC food ads put up on billboards. They look very nice, and often are good at making you fork out money for the real thing. Movies on the other hand, tend to be like the KFC zinger burger you had for lunch, disappointing. The burger pattie is half the size advertised, and in actuality the real product bears no resemblance to the glorious ad you saw on the way to the restaurant.

The same thing can be said about Jumper, a movie based on a sci-fi novel of the same title by Steven Gould, starring two former Jedi Knights, Hayden Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson. The movie is about a young chap (David, played by Hayden Christensen) who finds that he has the ability to teleport, anywhere in the world, and with this great power, comes a spin on the old Spidy line: with great power, comes great consequences.

The first thing he does is to rob a bank and he soon finds himself being pursued by a ruthless
Paladin (Roland/Samuel L.Jackson), who hunts down Jumpers. David does get some help from a fellow jumper Griffin (Billy Elliot's Jamie Bell), and in the ensuing action sequences, saves his girlfriend, dumps Roland in the Grand Canyon, and meets his Paladin mom who left him when he was five.

The premise sounds ok, and the trailer looks even cooler, but the movie suffers from a lack of depth with the plot and characters being paper-thin. Hayden, like his Anakin Skywalker persona, is a piece of wood. Slap on a mask and a voice synthesizer and he is Darth Vader all over again. Anything not wooden, would seem forceful, and bleh.

I actually prefer his performance in Shattered Glass, where he took on the role of Stephen Glass, a journalist who fabricated his articles and sources. Now, that's the way to play a conflicted character.

There's not much explanation on Paladins, except for the fact they are quasi-religious and been hunting Jumpers since the 16th century because Jumpers are an abomination. These guys have to be REALLY dedicated to be carrying on the same "mission statement" right into the 21st century (the Jumper novel was published in 1992 by the way). Boring. There's not much explanation on how Jumpers, jump...so there..

The fights scenes were the highlights in the trailer but in truth, they are too few and spread far apart. And while the fight scenes look cool in the slap dash format of a movie trailer, they look rather akward in the actual movie. Doug Liman, if you want to shoot a movie with teleporting fight scenes, go watch X-Men 2's Nightcrawler fight scene in the White House. Watch it 10 million times if that is necessary for you to get it right in YOUR own movie.

So, after a rather unsatisfactory movie, and paying RM 40 for 2 Premier Class tickets at GSC Signature, would I recommend this movie? I would suggest that you watch something else instead. Or read Stardust. Modern fairytales for modern times.

Before I forget, Hayden Christensen's character in the movie doesn't look as cool as the one in the poster above.

Atonement - A Movie Review

I went to watch Atonement today, with the girlfriend. It was actually quite interesting although it did leave quite a number of viewers in the cinema hall a tad confused.

The movie, which is an adaption of a novel of the same name by Ian McEwan, stars Kiera Knightley, amongst others. It begins by telling the tale of how one young girl (Briony - Saoirse Ronan) got the wrong impression of an incident she witnessed, and when one thing led to another, she causes an innocent man (Robbie - James McAvoy), her sister's (Cecillia - Kiera Knightley) lover, to be jailed.

The rest of the movie explores how Briony atones for it, right into her adult life and twillight years.

Since the movie is set in World War II England, and France, there's bound to be some prerequisite "war footage". If you are expecting visceral combat, forget about it, but there's some visceral shots of the after-effects of war, the injuries, the dead, etc.

I wonder whether it was because of the Malaysian censorship board exercising due dilligence, or the movie director's cut, that the movie had us guessing which part of the female anatomy, Robbie was referring to in his type-written letter to Cecillia. No hints here, but I did get it right. We even dropped by the nearby Borders bookstore to check out the book in order to confirm my guess.

Anyways, as mentioned earlier, the movie did leave some people confused. One even remarked that she didn't know "what the heck was going on". There were also a group of teenagers that looked like they were in it for Miss Knightley.

I can't say that this is an ideal date movie (it's not romance per se) but I rate it highly though as an individual and certainly wouldn't mind watching it again on DVD. If you want something much deeper than any popcorn fare out there, this would be it.

Shake 'N' Bake!

HBO has been showing a lot of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. I probably caught it like, 3 times, but still that movie is still gold! This Nascar comedy stars Will Ferrell as the title character, with Sasha Baron Cohen (Ali G, Borat) playing his French, albeit gay, nemesis.

Not crazy enough a premise? Just what kind of dad names his children Walker, and Texas Ranger.


For those of you who have not watched it yet (quoting the little kid in the movie: tragic!), get the movie now from Play-Asia in:

• Plain ol' DVD (Collectors Edition) (Japanese Cover)
  
• Blu-Ray

Otherwise, get the movie (and a whole lot more stuff) from Amazon.com, click here.

Two Movies

I had the good fortune of catching two movies at the cinemas over the weekend. The first movie was the excellent The Bourne Ultimatum. Jason Bourne may be a poor man's James Bond, but the latter would certainly trade in his Aston Martin, and then some, for the stuff Bourne can do.

Paying ultimate tribute to the contribution of the Bourne movies to the spy genre, the latest Bond film, Casino Royale was an attempt to colour, with minimal success, James Bond in the same dye as Jason Bourne.

In any case, Ultimatum brings Jason back to where it all started for him as a government-trained black-ops operative. Be prepared for some twists (and turns and a very brutal fist fight) and even though flashback sequences are used to drive the story, you'll need to wait till the very end to piece the puzzle that is Jason Bourne.

I have a tip for fans of the movie: Try not to pick up the book as the books and movies have already diverged since the first movie. So unless you are prepared for an entirely different story and a wee bit of a headache, don't go for the books.

While Ultimatum didn't disappoint, Resident Evil Extinction sucked. I don't even want to attached the label "Summer Pop Corn Fare" to a schizophrenic film that relies on cheap shocks, undeveloped characters, a seemingly nonsense plot and a setting as far removed from the video games.

So do give Resident Evil Extinction a skip.

Look Out! He is a Spider Pig...

Spider Pig...Spider Pig...that is one tune that you won't be able to get off your head once you have watched The Simpsons Movie. I caught this movie at Cineleisure after the CIMB Malaysian Open Squash Championships 2007 finals at The Curve on Saturday. It turned out to be one of the funniest movies I've seen all my life.

Full of gags, jokes and familiar characters and sights and sounds from the TV series, the movie had the entire cinema hall laughing, cheering and even clapping and it was almost a laugh-a-minute roller coaster ride with Homer and family. Bart's attire-less skateboarding sequence drew hoots... :P

The series kind of translates well from being 30 minutes per episode to a feature length movie and it doesn't disappoint. The 2D animation is retained and the writting is as funny as ever. So go catch the movie, otherwise it's D'oh! to you.

Pirates of the Caribbean. Brought to you by Nuffnang

I just got back from Cineleisure, Mutiara Damansara, having attended a free screening of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End courtesy of Nuffnang/Exabytes (and thanks to Aaron for the ticket - do visit his site, he is starving for traffic).

Having never attended a gathering of bloggers prior to this, seeing so many (250) in one place was abit overwhelming, but I did get to see some familiar faces. Here are some of the typical questions normally asked during these kind of meets.

Q: Do you blog?
A: Yes I do.

Q: What's your blog address?
A: nineoverten.blogspot.com. Thats nine over ten... in letters

Q: Do you read so & so's blog? -> I heard this question being asked to someone else, and I suppose the answer below would be appropriate, if I were to reply in the negative.
A: Errr. No. Am I supposed to?

No talk about work or food or other things in life, just blogs, blogs, referrals, ads, ad providers, traffic, blogs, some reference to sports and more blogs. I write about my hobbies usually, and unlike most blogs, not my personal life (or commentaries about life), so naturally I was a bit out of place :).

However, enough talk about bloggers, the main highlight of the event was the movie. I thought it was abit indulgent (maybe convulated to some) on part of the screenwriters and producers, but it was not bad. Jack Sparrow and gang are abit funnier than the previous movie, despite the darker setting and captain is nuttier than ever (you might think he is schizophrenic).

As for the rest of the movie, lets just say that things don't end up the way you think to be and with all the craziness going on-screen, you would do well having some shots of Vodka, or a bottle or two of Heineken to accentuate the effect or help you through some long talk scenes.

A word on Nuffnang, I thank you for your effort in organizing in event, but I'm seriously considering moving the Nuffnang ad to the bottom of my sidebar. Reason being it takes too long to load and at its current position, it prevents the rest of my sidebar from being loaded properly. You guys can certainly do better.

Dogtown

Having watched the movie Lords of Dogtown, I realize that the entire skateboarding community probably owes it to the Z-Boys for its existence and subsequent popularity. One of the original members, Stacy Peralta left the team to form his own company and subsequently a skateboarding team known as the Bones Brigade. This team had Tony Hawk as a member at the age of 14.

The rest as people say, is history. Tony Hawk became one of the most successful and influential skateboarders in history. Having said that, without him, there will be no Tony Hawk games. In any case, he makes a cameo appearance in the movie, as an astronaut who tried out Stacy Peralta's skateboard in a photoshoot... and falls flat on his back when he tries to.