Early review from Al - I AM LEGEND

This review is brought to you from Al, who can usually be found here.

Just got back from Kuantan couple hours back - still recuperating. It was raining pretty much every second I was there, but turned out quite a therapeutic experience if you take the nightmarish weather aside. Anyhu, managed to catch I AM LEGEND while I was there - a film I wasn't particularly excited about, but finally decided to watch (it was between this and ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS) knowing how in the past, the charismatic Will Smith was the only good thing about movies like PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS and HITCH that were otherwise massive stinkers.

Oh wow, looks it's Will Smith trying what he does best - saving the world!*Applause* But alas, Smith looks fatigued and reluctant in this movie - out of his usual energetic self, from start to end he's pretty much moping around and by the time a pedantic attempt at an emotional climax arrives, it's evident that nothing can save this movie from the self-destructive monotony it's chosen to pursue. I understand where it intends to go - to try and construct that magnificent 28 DAYS LATER effect - relying on the sights of a usually chaotic city (in this case, NYC) now disturbingly quiet & inhabited only by overturned cars, rubbish and a main character who seems to have lost hope in mankind and lost his soul along the way. But here, it's just dead monotonous and dreary as fuck. It just doesn't work on any level. Oh,and it probably didn't help that the "Dark-Seekers" were as scary as Spongebob.

Possible SPOILER ahead. As if it weren't bad enough that for an entire three quarters they put all this weight on this bloody dog I really wanted out of the picture from the get-go: not that I hate dogs, but you could see from the start the way they established the man-dog relationship in this tacky, superficial dog-food commercial way that they were eventually going to USE the dog for some exploitative purpose. Oh,and once they're done with the dumb disposable dog as a plot-driving tool - suddenly this pile of dung about Bob Marley Being A True Inspiration and Survival Philosophy and Where is God pops out of NOWHERE - no,seriously, the film walks miles just him and his bloody canine, talking about nothing specifically, then without any build-up or the slightest hint this random mother-son pair show up and before you know it they're having THAT argument about The Human Race and Fate. At this point, I felt like choking myself on popcorn.

It's just so damn stupid and ridiculous-I can't put it any better than that.Think movies like Transformers,The Day After Tomorrow-movies with really one-dimensional,self-important characters with laughably shallow motivations at the center,where the writers have this EPIC movie in mind and they take everything so goddamn serious the final film turns out some sort of banal mockery of itself.There's always a cheap family-related backstory,a whole proud bunch of unfunny jokes and the action scenes seem lavishly done but are flatly disappointing.There is absolutely nothing to salvage from this film.

Spoiler-free: I went in hoping for a half-decent post-apocalyptic film with mildly scary devolved humans, and I also read beforehand they were showing a 7-minute Dark Knight preview before I Am Legend in US theatres and also, I vaguely remember seeing online a screenshot of the making for this film featuring Charlize Theron. Well,obviously none of those materialized.

I AM LEGEND is on release in the US, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and the US. It opens next week in Spain, France, Belgium, Israel, the Netherlands and Denmark. It opens in Christmas week in Denmark, Egypt, Iceland, Norway and the UK. It opens in January in Greece, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Estonia, Turkey, Germany, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Italy, Brazil, Russia and Sweden.

Bina007 adds: If we were gonna get a remake of The Omega Man, then wouldn't it have been cooler to get a Ridley Scott/Schwarzenegger remake as originally intended? Apparently Gulliermo del Toro also turned Smith down which is how we ended up wih relative newbie Francis Lawrence (CONSTANTINE). I also have a soupcon of suspicion about any flick that's green-lit without a script in place.

KNOCKED UP - best comedy of 2007?

This review is brought to you by guest reviewer Al, who can usually be found here.

This is the kind of movie you'll miss due to it drowning in the inevitable over-hype for other blockbuster films released at the same time (I'm looking at you, Homer,) only for you to watch it on a lazy Saturday afternoon years later after discovering a dvd copy of it by accident somewhere in your house, or actually running out to get one because you're done hearing bloody Al rave endlessly about KNOCKED UP and you want to see for yourself if it's all that good.

As far as comedies go, I usually walk in with relatively low expectations. The usual culprits are uninteresting one-dimensional characters with superficial problems; formulaic, paper-thin stories littered with holes (all overlooked, if only for the sake of a good joke), and aside from the exceptionally hilarious BORAT, I can't think of a comedy I've seen in the past two or three years that's managed to stick in my mind. Things look grim for the comedy genre - the current trend shows a surge of popularity for sick and unfunny parodies (EPIC MOVIE, SCARY MOVIE 1 thr 4), your once-adorable-but-now-deplorable-and-exhaustively-unimaginative-comedy-archetypes: be it another wide-eyed, narcissistic Will Ferrell character or supposedly cute and loveable animated creation carrying with it a script of terminally dull gags (SHREK 3, CHICKEN LITTLE) - all films destined to end up in the massive black hole of forgettable comedies that should've never existed.

Which is why Judd Apatow's new film comes off fresh and genuinely amusing. The characters here are fleshed out and human. The problems they face and situations that occur don't simply function as a disposable platform for the writers to throw in a couple of mild jokes but are actually driving the story forward. The writers are brave enough to introduce and clever enough to delicately manage some pretty mature themes (pregnancy, questions about abortion, marital problems etc.). At the same time, they never abandon the film's persistent spirit of comedy.

More importantly, anyone who's been in a relationship would appreciate and understand how the film deals with both the male & female perspective without seeming biased towards either, and it's interesting to see such things dealt subjectively for once. Likewise, none of the characters are written to be more or less favourable but are three-dimensional. This stands in contrast to how certain comedies tend to label 'good' and 'bad' characters from the get-go. As a result it's not only an immensely enjoyable comedy, but an intelligent story that encourages the audience to think and participate, as opposed to simply turning their brains off the whole time.

Not to say it doesn't stumble a couple of times. For one, all that realism preceding the final 20 minutes is ultimately phased out in favour of a sweet ending that I would personally change. Katherine Heigl has the smile of a goddess but overacts a little and it would've been terrific to give the film a good soundtrack. And I would give Micheal Cera a small cameo at least (as if the fact that half of the now all grown-up cast of Freaks & Geeks is in there isn't cool enough). But those are strictly minor complaints and there were plenty of times I had to catch my breath from laughing so hard. Certainly one of the best comedies I've seen in a long, long, long time.

Jay: I'm going to be there to rear your child.
Jason: You hear that, Ben? Don't let him near the kid, he wants to rear your child!
.....
Ben: Do you want to do it doggie style?
Alison: You're not going to fuck me like a dog.
Ben: It's doggie style. We don't have to go outside or anything.
.....
P.S: Don't try googling 'Knocked Up' without safe search on, unless you have a fetish for pregnant women.

KNOCKED UP is already on release in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia and Singapore. It opens on August 19th in Russia and on August 17th in Estonia, Norway and Germany and on Augsut 24th in Germany, Mexico and the UK. It opens in September in Denmark, Brazil, Finland, the Netherlands and in Iceland. It opens in October in Hungary, Poland, Belgium, France, Argentina, Italy, Turkey, Egypt and Spain.

P.P.S. Bina007 totally agrees with everything here except that she LOVED the sound-track - chock full of The Fratellis and Mika!

Early review from Al - TRANSFORMERS

This review is by guest reviewer, Al, who can usually be found here....

I've never been a fan of TRANSFORMERS, but since the first trailer debuted couple months back I promised myself I would watch it. It comes out in Asia/Aus before anywhere else, so there haven't been any reviews to provide me anticipation of what the film would be like. Let's cut to the chase - TRANSFORMERS was just really disappointing. The special effects were predictably impressive and the larger-than-life robots left me gawking in awe like a child - but once the amazement and fascination wears out, I start wanting more Unfortunately beyond the robot huha and grandiose CGI, the movie just has little else to offer.

The biggest problem I had was with the script. Historically, one of the worst. Most of the lines/phrases are so ridiculously dumb and banal it's not even a laughing matter. You just have to witness it for yourself to truly experience the sheer nightmare that the script is. A couple of times one of the robots (usually Optimus Prime - is this misspelled Who gives a damn) launches into some preachy monologue that's so cheesy, cheap and Hallmark-ish, I feel like ripping my gums out.

Moreover, Megan Fox can't act for nuts - the whole way she was pouting with this bimbotic blank face like she was permanently stuck in a Revlon commercial. Shia LaBeouf fares a whole lot better, but once the focus shifts completely to the conflict between the two robot clans, Shia's character gradually phases out of significance and becomes ornamental (aside from having to run endlessly and protect the cube on which the fate of the planet rests on, but I can't hardly give a damn about). The final street battle scene starts off grea but quickly becomes unfocused and messy. It starts and ends repeatedly, to the point where it becomes anti-climactic and I'm just done with the damn thing. With the material, they had the potential to invent something imaginative, new and possibly groundbreaking, and it's obvious the special effects team worked their butts out to ensure things looked perfect on their part. But in the end, the mediocre, uninspired story and shit stain of a script brings the entire film down.

*Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 100% rating (although I'm sure the figure will go down as more reviews come in). What a joke.

**I know noone gives a shit, and even IMDB doesn't acknowledge this - but there's a part in Transformers that plays homage to Jet Li/Kill Bill.When Bumble Bee changes from the old Chevrolet to the new one, which is yellow and has two black stripes in the middle (the same pattern on The Bride's suit in Kill Bill Vol. 1/Jet Li's old movies), the song that comes on is the song used in Kill Bill Vol. 1 when Oren Ishii and the Crazy 88 is first introduced at the House of Blue Leaves.

TRANSFORMERS is on release in Australia, Italy, Malaysia and Singapore. It opens on July 4th weekend in New Zealand, Austria, Denmark, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Russia, South Korea, Sweden, the US, Israel, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Spain and Turkey. It opens on July 20th in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico; in Belgium, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the UK on July 27th. It opens in Estonia, Japan, Iceland and Slovakia in August.

Bina007 adds: I was really interested to read Al's review, because like him I'd been taken by surprise at how cool the ad campaign looked. I have to say, though, that I'm not entirely surprised it sucks. Apparently, like Pirates 3, this is a movie who's release date was set BEFORE they had a cast or script. So it's another case of getting a product - any product - to justify the marketing. Does anyone else think the PR goons have taken over the asylum?