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The Warlords (DVD) Rating: B- Just as those time travel blockbusters of the 80s are now read by some film scholars as America's unconscious desire to turn the clock back on the Reagan years, the ongoing spate of Chinese period epics, to whose tradition this Golden Horse and HK Film Award winner belongs, would probably be interpreted as anxiety over Chinese power. Whatever. The Power-grapple = Tragedy formula is getting tired, and Peter Chan should go back to working on a more intimate level, where his strengths as a filmmaker so clearly lie. Ploy Rating: C- Not as bad as 'Invisible Waves', but that's the nadir. I don't know. Maybe it takes a genuine talent to stretch what is essentially a mood piece into 105 minutes of nonsense, suspended in a narrative vacuum that even the director appeared to be bored of, as evidenced by a late, abrupt sequence involving an improbable homicidal rapist. Pen-ek fans may call this style slow-burn, but to me, it is all smoke. Claustrophobia Rating: C+ I admire the challenge Ivy Ho has set up for herself in this debut as a writer-director; her narrative, like a Rachel Whiteread sculpture, is cast out of a negative space. In this case, it's one created by an illicit relationship – neither of the lovers speak of or even acknowledge their relationship, and we never see what they do as lovers. Unlike sculpture however, film is light and shadows, and having a narrative that runs backwards in time, provoking questions about what constitutes a relationship, its beginnings and endings, only underlines the inadequacy of what we're shown. Monsters vs. Aliens Rating: C+ As compared to 'Kungfu Panda', so many of the gags in this one are lame (too many play off on the 3D effect), its action sequences unimaginative (you have a giant woman fighting an alien robot on the Golden Gate Bridge, and the best you can come up with is this?), and its characters insipid (banking on the audience to like your lead solely because she speaks with Reese Witherspoon's voice is plain lazy). Star Trek Rating: B Has the summer blockbuster become so numbingly dumb, that anything with a modicum of intelligence is lavished with critical love? For this non-Trekkie, the movie could do with a little streamlining (the monster-chase sequence strikes me as particularly gratuitous), and the time-warp component unnecessary and over-complicating. But to give J.J. Abrams his due, he did so many things right. I especially like that he did not update the overall retro quality of the series; the last thing Trekkies want, I suspect, is for him to boldly go where no Star Trek has gone before. The Forbidden Kingdom (DVD) Rating: C Not content with making a monkey out of Jackie Chan, Hollywood decided to make Jet Li one too, literally, by casting him as Sun Wukong in his first film with Chan (yes, only a mountain made with angmoh money can house two tigers). Unfortunately, two monkeys are not necessarily better than one. And being self-consciously cheesy is still cheesy, when you're not creative about it. And the dialogue, a rojak of Mandarin and heavily accented English, has to be heard to be believed. Post a comment in response: |
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