Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Okay this review will look very depressing, because the movie is kind of disappointing. From the trailer, you can already see the whole picture – literary the whole picture; it didn’t give us a proper cliffhanger; there were things that the trailer said too much. I was already seeing another blockbuster downer – this happened with Terminator: Genesys (2015).

To the picture.

The movie is aggressive in many ways. The story, the characters, the tempo, the look, etc. It was dark and depressing. DC really likes the dark-themed of their products. Contrary to their adversary, Marvel. It was really their style of story. But, the most aggressive part of their franchise was their pride; they didn’t want to follow Marvel’s strategy of story and character building; instead they did it too fast.

The theme of the movie was really interesting. I really like the missconception of Batman and Superman. But, it wasn’t really engaging the whole thing, because of the weak character build-up and the slow-build story. Oh yeah, for the story, it was both too slow and too fast. Let me get this straight. Batman started this movie too old (that’s why it was too fast) and we didn’t see the whole picture of Snyder’s Batman. We need the standalone Batman movie first, then after that, we would really enjoy Batman v. Superman. More about Batman later. The slow part about the movie was the story build-up. They use some plot points for preparing Justice League, but they didn’t support the whole movie into something useful. I think they only tried to tease us. But, I’m not sure that I’m that excited of it. There should be more character build-up for Batman and Superman from this movie. Because both of their names appeared on the title.

The mise en scene were pretty amazing – the dark yet comical look. It was the main key selling point of the film. Snyder also used some symbolism in the movie and interestingly wasn’t hard to be found. But, what iritated me was the fact that they also destroyed a whole city for their fight. It was like Dragonball in the real world.

Ben Affleck’s Batman was the hype we were all waiting for. We would like to see how it compared with Christian Bale’s Batman. And I think, Ben Affleck’s Batman nailed it in his own way. But not in a very “Batman” way. Alright, I mentioned about “aggressive” earlier, right? Well Batman was very very aggressive. Oh man, seeing Batman killing guys was really a bummer. Batman, as I knew it, NEVER kills his enemies. Just look at The Dark Knight (2008), Christian Bale’s Batman didn’t kill Joker, even though he had killed his love intesrest; nor in the animated series. I was really shocked and not really thrilled. I thought, “Ohhhh.. so that’s why Superman wanted to kill Batman” – I wasn’t surprised. Batman’s character in this movie looks comical instead of realistic. Even his costume, gadgets, and WEAPONS looked comical.

As for Superman, well, as usual had to face an identity crisis – the theme which Man of Steel (2013) tried to explore. Superman was aggressive when he tried to levitate, REALLY, I hate it when he was going to fly. The sonic boom really hurt my ears and, literary, my heart. Why can’t he just levitated slowly in normal situations? I understand if he was fighting in a battlefield, but not EVERYtime. There’s also an awkward-fuuny-peevish moment near the end of the final battle scene; I’ll give you a hint, it had something to do with Lois Lane. I, Thaliya, Ricky, and Timo were laughing hard at this scene. You’ll notice it, if you watch the movie.

Jesse Einsberg was the BEST Lex Luthor I’ve ever seen. He played it as a fragile-but-full-of-evil-ideas Lex Luthor. Einsberg showed us the phsycology of sociopath people. Even his little actions were amazing. In this movie, they explored a glimes of his back story.

The most fun part of the movie was the scoring. Seeing Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL teaming up to create them was a dream come true for filmmakers. There was a chemistry going on between them. They both create entertaining scoring for great movies. Ricky even set their scoring for his phone’s ringtone.

Snyder’s visualisation of Batman and Superman wasn’t good. There were a lot of things which he tried to do in HIS own way. But, one thing I learned recently is that sometimes one’s ego had to be fought down so the people’s voices can be heard. Some of the people’s voices weren’t heard. Snyder’s ambition to always compare his works with Nolan’s had become his greatest weakness. He shouldn’t do things like this, WE SHOULDN’T DO THINGS LIKE THIS.

The verdict:

Batman v. Superman lacks the fun part of movie-watching; it builds too slow and too fast at the same time.

Kung Fu Panda 3

Poe’s back, with the introduction of the panda’s village. The premise was strong. The great choreography fight scenes returned. But, as always I want to warn the readers that I’m not an expert in 3D rendered animation and “if one wants to create an animation, he/she can create literary everything on the screen.”

The first I want to talk about is the concept. It had a nice concept and very friendly for anyone who consume it. The message of this film was simple, straight, and didn’t need anything complicated. But the simple message of this film effected the ordeal of the film – I’ll get back to this later. The Kung Fu Panda franchise was known to present a question which kept on repeating itself, “who am I?” It was the general concept of the franchise. Each installment only looked at it in a different way.

The antagonist in the film was pretty much like the first installment – works alone, scary, and powerful – I think him as the extreme version, but not yet fullfil my satisfaction. It was kind of disappointing to see the gap between the antagonist from the second installment. The antagonist from the second installment had EVERYTHING (including a whole army) which could conquer whole China. The concept of the antagonist in the second installment was pretty smart – fists v. guns. Whereas the antagonist in the latest installment only had DARK MAGIC. It didn’t look as massive as the second installment.

Poe’s journey was amazing. 3 installments in a row with great reception and fun concept is very hard to achieve. But, I don’t think there will be a 4^th installment. My feeling tells me, if they did a 4^th , it would be forcing.

The verdict:

Great concept and message for the audience, but the antagonist in the film needed to be more larger than its predecessors.

Room (2016)

I haven’t heard the title “Room” if not because of the Oscar and the SAG Award. Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay weren’t known as method actors before this film launched. Brie Larson even got her recognition on 21 Jump Street (2010). The poster of the film looked awesome though. It looked promising. And it indeed promising!

Room concentrated on 2 acts: life in the Room and life out of the Room. This isn’t a spoiler because you can see the 2 acts in the trailer. We weren’t suppose to concentrate on the whole act, but the filmmakers wants us to concentrate on the people acting inside the movie. It explored deeply on the possibilities of the emotions developed by the story.

But, don’t feel spoiled just after watching the trailer. Because the trailer is just a trailer – not the whole movie. There were a lot of surprises in the whole film.

Brie Larson were amazing in this film. She proved that research and experiment were crusial to build the foundation of GOOD acting. Preparing for the role was pretty hard for Larson; she had to locked herself inside her house without phone or internet; even though she consider herself as introvert, she cried at the very last days her own house.

And Jacob. He could be the next star child who we were waiting for all these years. He was amazing! He really knew what he was doing. I’m very excited to see his next movie.

The cinematography looked hard; tight space is a challege to all of us filmmakers. There can’t be so many people inside the set. When they started rolling the camera, I predicted it was only the cinematographer and the director who stayed behind the camera.

The set had a very great mood-building things. It didn’t create that awkward feeling which sitcoms or cheap drama have. I really like the look and the mood, especially in the Room.

The verdict:

The movie concentrated primarily on the emotions that the actors produced rather than the whole story, which was the key-selling of this movie.

Zootopia (2016)

WARNING-WARNING-WARNING: this review only revolves around the idea, concept, and story of this film. I can’t stress enough that I’m not an expert in 3D animation. But here’s my proposed idea, ‘if one wants to make an animation film, everything can happen in that film.’

Another roundup animation film produced by Disney. When I first saw the trailer of this film, there was something unique about it. They use smart phones, in such a way, it made the film had a modern feeling. But I was doubting it would do well, because the film had a bad premise - there was little information.

But..

When I finished seeing the movie, I was happy to see the noir genre was in the latest animation movie. There were only a few noir films in these recent years; some might call me old school, but the noir genre and style is one of the best thing that ever happened on the film history.

I’m going to talk about this film on the noir side.

The movie had a great concept. It was really nice to see an animation film that was aware of the modern globalisation. They really spoof the hell a lot of it into something fun. And Zootopia looked fun as a central city of all animals, but we mustn’t forgot one of the structure of noir genred film was the introduction of the “dangerous” city. In this case, it’s Zootopia.

Beside that, this film had a great story of diversity; it was for the recent awakening of diversity problems – in the US primarily. It was simbolised and great for young generations to consume. Parents, you don’t need to watch this movie first to check if the film is safe to consume. Just take your kids into the movie and you’ll teach more about diversity with this film.

Of course, the noir genre will always have mysteries and fragile main character(s). The characters were amazing in this film; we’re talking about catching your dream vs. your naiveness, redemption, and last but not least diversity. The chemistry of the two buddy cops were slick and smooth. The mysteries of the unsolved problems were really unpredictable.

Also I won’t forget to mention about the easter eggs and references about other things which you need to watch for.

The verdict:

This is a noir film! An animation noir film! I haven’t heard the word “noir” to mention a film – only in style. Noir genred films are hard to find these days.

Deadpool (2016)

Ryan Reynolds produced and played as a superhero again and it’s Deadpool! Deadpool is known as a character with a uniqueness: breaking the 4^th wall. I learned the character from the internet (from 9gag actually). The character became beloved by the internet – it became an internet sensation. Also, Deadpool has been part of the recent pop culture, so this movie was embracing the pop culture.

When I first heard this movie would get an R-rated, I thought that it was really for the best, because Deadpool was known as a psycotic person. You’re going to expect gore things in the movie, but not as gore as the Final Destination franchise’s.

Alright, this is a warning for everyone. I haven’t read the comic book. I only played Deadpool’s game, which was crazily funny. So I won’t compare the film with the comic book, but I will compare the film with the game and also the internet pop culture. So take it for granted.

Deadpool had a VFX test footage leaked back in 2014. The footage was amazing. So amazing, they made it again to feature in the movie… WHAT?! Look, I’ve watched the footage a hundred times on Youtube, 9gag, and many other website, so the movie hadn’t made something new. Instead they just recreate the scene, which was a downer when I first saw the trailer and film.

I want to talk about the highlight of this movie: breaking the 4^th wall technique. There were a lot of funny moments and inside jokes of the X-Men Franchise, which was hillarious. But it didn’t do as much as the game’s break the 4^th wall. In the game, there were a lot of breaking the 4^th wall which built half-part of the whole game. But for the movie, it wasn’t as good as the game’s. I even liked The Big Short’s breaking the 4^th wall moments more than Deadpool’s.

The story structure made me bored half of the movie. The exposition of the characters were too long and slow. I was expecting only 10 minutes MAX of exposition, but instead we have about 30 minutes of exposition. I mean look at The Martian, the exposition was more or less 5 minutes!

The characters’ arc were ridiculous. The main antagonist in the movie is a boss, which also is a doctor… What?! If I’m a boss of a rich corporation, I wouldn’t handle dirty jobs with my own hands. And Deadpool’s motivation wasn’t so “Deadpool”. I often see Deadpool as Ryan Reynolds, not as an actual Deadpool.

The action scenes weren’t so amazing. You can count the action scenes with your hand (not with an S) and all of it had been teased in the trailer. I wasn’t surprised at all with the action scenes. It was such a bummer!

Overall, this is a good starting point for Deadpool. The sequel is in pre-production. I would love if the sequel has a more Deadpool world than this film.

The verdict:

The movie lacks of the original stuff, which made me don’t want to watch this movie again, but there are things that made me entertained by the movie.