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like, what is legit anymore?

Mad Max: Fury Road

Jun
02

I’d never seen the original 1980s Mad Max, and only watched Mad Max: Fury Road because I had some time on my hands. The following 120 minutes after that was just pure cinematic poetry in non-stop action.

To say that Mad Max: Fury Road is a 2-hr car chase is not in any way an exaggeration. The fact that it’s directed by a 70 year old man, who’s last 3 films in the last 17 years included Babe: Pig in the City, Happy Feet, and Happy Feet Two is just unbelievable.

Although this is technically a sequel, there’s no need to be aware of any backstory. As the film opens, civilization has collapsed due to a nuclear fallout, and the world largely becomes a desert wasteland. Survival is the name of the game, and before we can say “Ew, did Max just eat a two-headed iguana??” he’s captured by a group of pasty teens called the War Boys, and brought back to the Citadel led by cult leader Immortan Joe, to be used as a human blood bank.

But none of this matters as Imperator Furiosa (Charlize Theron), Immortan Joe’s trusted lieutenant, has betrayed him and made off with his five (really hot) wives!

Mad Max Fury Road

Presenting… the 2015 Spring Summer Derelict Collection!

Max gets strapped to the hood of the car (continuing to supply blood) and flung into pursuit, and here we begin what’s possibly the greatest car chase ever seen in history. The action never lets up, and the visuals are simply exhilarating.

George Miller first had plans for  a mad max sequel in 1998. It’s since been mired in development hell due to various circumstances (Writer’s strike, September 11 attacks, other projects coming up), but he’s never given up, and thanks to that, we’ve been given this insanely awesome film.

He’s announced that a sequel is already in the works, tentatively titled Mad Max: The Wasteland. What a lovely day that will be!

Rating: 10/10

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Edge of Tomorrow

Jun
14

Live. Die. Repeat.

Sounds like  something a FlappyBird player goes through every other minute. But this is the tagline for Tom Cruise’s latest sci-fi actioner Edge of Tomorrow. Playing against stereotype, Cruise stars as Major William Cage, a United Defense Forces PR man, who spends his days speaking and recruiting young men to join in the 5 year fight against an alien species known as Mimics.

A coward at heart, he tries to excuse his way out of combat duty when ordered to cover Operation Downfall (their latest and final salvo against the aliens) from the frontlines.

Forced into combat, he dies within minutes of being airdropped, right into a mimic ambush. Right before he dies, he kills an unusually large Mimic, in the process getting acidic Mimic blood all over him. Instead of reporting to the Pearly Gates, Cage finds himself waking up the morning before, and having a really dreadful sense of de javu.

He tries to warn the rest of the soldiers of the ambush, fails and dies. He tries to save another soldier from being crushed by a plane, succeeds and dies. He does this a few more times, getting the hang of rebooting each time he dies, gets a little farther each time, and comes into contact with Rita Vatraski (Emily Blunt).

edge of tomorrow

even though we’re in the midst of losing a 5 year battle with an alien species, my hair still looks perfect

She seems to know why he is afflicted with this ability, and they start training, making use of his new found ability against the Mimics.

Just like playing a game, they learn things the hard way, and improve stage by stage until they complete the tasks required. And just like playing a game, many times when we get to the end, we go “that’s it?”.

Yes, unfortunately, this rather awesome film has a super “meh” ending, which mars an otherwise enjoyable flick with great pacing, humour and action sprinkled throughout.

Rating: 8/10

He ain’t heavy, he’s my battle suit

The battle suits you see Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt wear, weigh an average of 39kg! Between takes, the actors needed to be suspended by chains to help take the weight of the suits off their shoulders.

edge of tomorrow

You don’t happen to have a kitkat, do you?

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Godzilla (2014)

May
24

I’m a huge fan of monster movies. Cloverfield, loved it. Pacific Rim, stupid actors, awesome sequences, loved it. The trick to watching these kaiju films, is really to just embrace the fact that there will be things out there that we can’t explain, and when the time comes when these things come out of hiding, run.

There is no explaining, there is no plotting, there’s just enjoying seeing what monsters do best. Destroy stuff. Stomp on stuff. Without a care to any humans whatsoever.

There are times in the movie where you’ll feel like it doesn’t make any sense. Questions like “Why does Godzilla not eat the MUTOs?”, “Wait, is he really just killing them for us, and then jumping back into the sea?”, and “Is he the… hero?”

There are no heroes and there are no villains. There are just… monsters. And watching it this way makes the movie better.

godzilla attacks

Sorry, need to floss

Watch Godzilla like we’re ants watching a dude hunt a lion

Now let’s put us into the perspective of ants. There we are, walking in and out of our ant mounds, doing what ants do all day to keep busy, harvest nuts and food and aphids, and basically going about securing the mound from what we ants call “floods”. Now, all of a sudden, a monster appears, galloping at high speeds, and destroying many of our surrounding and cities. It bellows a deafening roar, shakes its monstrous head, plonks it’s huge mass of a body down, and destroys 3 more mound entrances. The science ants nickname it a “lion”.

Us ants are all panicky, and totally out of our depths in dealing with this disaster. We can only run and burrow and hope our loved ones somehow make it, and we’ll find one another someday. When from the distance, we spy another strange monster, this one with only two legs and taller. It approaches pointing a long antenna at the “lion”. The antenna emits a searing blast, and the “lion” falls on its back, grunting its last breath.

The new monster doesn’t come forward to eat the “lion”, but instead utters a triumphant roar. It then proceeds to turn its back, make its way into the mouth of yet another mechanical looking monster with round shapes for legs, and goes off into the distance together, never to be seen again.

See, it didn’t make any sense to the ants neither.

Would have loved for it to have more Bryan Cranston though.

Rating: 7/10

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