The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)

After a scandal with Kristen Steward, Ruper Sanders was replaced by his co-worker, Cedric Nicolas-Troyan, the visual effect of the previous Snow White and The Huntsman (2012). The movie basically added another fairy tail into the franchise, “The Snow Queen” by Hans Chritian Andersen – the fairy tail which also inspired Frozen (2014). Also with a shift focus of characters.

Before you want to go to watch this film, please ask yourself: are you still a child? Would you want to enjoy a bedtime story with a PG-13 rating with unnecessary sex scenes that would eventually be cut by the cencorship organisation? Would you want to watch Frozen on cocaine?

Well if the answer’s yes, then watch this film. If no, don’t watch this film.

This film proved itself as the most not-interesting-thing this month. There were a lot of story which was too easy to be processed. It didn’t have a perfect chatarsis to be remembered as a film that will change my life… or any other form of life. This film was another remark of the film industry’s demand that they think they could make some money from it (it turned out to be a flop).

On the bright side, Thaliya noticed something incredible in the film. She said that the wardrobe for this film was very detailed and pretty hard to make. So I hope this bright side can be the only reason for someone to watch this movie. Other than that, I prefer to watch Frozen and sing like Elsa.

The verdict:

A fairy tail which only a child could withstand.

10 Cloverfield Lane

The next ‘installment’, or should I say ‘the cousin’, of Cloverfield franchise. Production was made and executed in secret. Only when the trailer came out, we knew what was going on. It brought some excitement in me when the trailer came out. I like what J.J. Abrams did with the first Colverfield. It brings sci fi into this whole new dimension of filmmaking.

The film had a low budget; so the story was simple… but it created a whole new experience. In theory, the film only had three active characters in one set. But there were some amazing things happening in that set, it thrilled the chills out of me. The thrilling thing about this movie was the intense feeling and the ambiguous character of Howard (John Goodman) – oh my, the comedian was amazing in the movie.

John Goodman is a comedian, which was contrary with the character he played in the movie. He was the highlight of the movie; playing it with such tense even I didn’t know what he was up to. When I saw him in the frame, I was guessing his actions ALL THE TIME. I don’t need to mention the other two, because the other two were also well-build characters; especially Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead).

It was Dan Trachtenberg’s directing debut film. He made a short film for the Portal game francise from Valve, you should see it free on Youtube. He didn’t know what J.J. Abrams up to when he was given this project. When he finished shooting, only then, Abrams told him it was part of the cloverfield franchise. It was rare to see a producer hid the true purpose of his/her project; J.J. Abrams really nailed it!

I consider this an independent film, because it had the spirit of it – small but felt big. The ambition of each cast and crew could be felt when you watch this movie. This is truly a cinematic experience.

The verdict:

Full of spirit of the previous installment, 10 Cloverfield Lane is bad ass with great-intensed chatarsis.

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.