American Sniper

Based on a true story, American Sniper is a good movie. In fact, this movie is better than Taken 3.
In the beginning of the movie, it was exactly same as the movie trailer. So no surprises there. However, after the movie trailer part, for about 15 - 30 minutes, the movie went back to USA and told the story of how the main character ended up in Iraq.

During that story, I was quite shock at how long they did not show the war part especially because I expected this movie as action and drama movie but action heavy movie not drama heavy movie. I was wrong. This movie is drama heavy movie with a bit of action. However, it was a good quality action. The gun trigger sound was so real and the camera angles were so close to the character that I sometimes closed my eyes as I felt I was the one who was pulling the trigger or getting shot.

The ending was an absolute shocking. I never expected that ending and it was even a shock because it was based on a true story. I felt so sad for the wife and also quite angry at the psychopath. I mean, he served his country and he did save a lot of American soldiers so why would American ex-military man kill the hero? What is wrong with him? I mean, Chris Kyle was trying to help him. HELP him!!!! argh so frustrated. Because ending was absolutely mind blowing for me personally, I like this movie. I ended up Googling Chris Kyle to find out how he died and whether the psychopath has brought justice.

Bradley Cooper is such an amazing actor in this movie. He does look similar to the actual character but man, he acted goooood. I mean GOOD. I failed to acknowledge that his guy is the same guy from Hunger Game. He is a keeper in Hollywood. Also, Sienna Miler was so pretty and she acted good too. She was very committed in her character. All the actors in this movie were good and helped the audiences to focus on the storyline.

The movie clearly illustrated Chris Kyle's struggle of getting use to the reality life when he was deployed back to USA. Bradley Cooper acted really well as I was tensed when I saw him in the movie. I felt like he was going to break down. I can clearly tell that he is not used to the real life. He even looked calm and "home" when he went back to Iraq. Then the turning point was definite - when his friends were begin to die in Iraq - it was clear that Chris had enough of the war and that he wanted to change and get back to his family. The way the movie portrayed this emotional change was amazing, thanks to Bradley Cooper with strong acting, Clint Eastwood with good camera angles, and writers of the movie.

Now the product placement in this movie was decent. I saw Toyota car in Iraq scene - where the Iraq soldiers were driving Toyota's truck during fighting scene. I also noticed that the phone that Bradley Cooper used in USA was Motorola. The brand wasn't shown but the shape of the phone was the popular Motorola folder phone. Then during the car garage scene, I noticed several brands on windows but it seemed it was there on the scene, not on purpose. Other than Toyota (which I found it quite random as the brand name just stood out), none of the brands stood out and ruined the movie setting. Oh, the beer that the characters were drinking in the movie was all the same -budweiser.

Overall, I would rate this movie as 4/5. Strong acting, good camera techniques, good graphics and good sounds. Also, fabulous storyline.

Big Hero 6

In New Zealand, this movie was released on boxing day - 26th December 2014.

I watched this movie on 13th January 2015. So it is a bit late movie review but I had to write this because it is now one of my favourite movie !

It didn't have any product placement so I was glad since product placement in animation is really really weird - some might say that having a real brand in the animations might bring more reality feeling but seriously, it's an animation. It is not real.

This movie is supposedly set in San Francisco but has Tokyo name too - which makes that in future, Japan and America somehow shares a country - making the city name as San Franciskyo. It is quite difficult to say but smart for producer's perspective. It is also interesting why producers chose Tokyo - I mean, we have China, Korea, Singapore etc. Maybe simply because the author of this Manga is Japanese? Why Japan?

One thing that I liked about this movie is that this movie has Asian characters. Not just one, but several. In fact, the main character, Hiro, is Japanese (as he has Japanese name), an Asian. I have never seen Asian as main character in Hollywood movie except Mulan, which is Disney and is set in China. So it is really intersting how Hollywood acknowledged the importance of different races - maybe. Maybe they saw that Asian population is actually large and can become their target audiences or maybe because one of the producers is Asian and took his idea of having an Asian character. Who cares right? this movie is really really well made and fun. 

One strange thing about the movie is that it is quite long compared to other animation movies. The average animation movies are usually 90minutes. This movie is almost 120minutes. It felt quite long too. They have several fight scenes (against the "monster" who stole main character's genius scientific machine) instead of one, which is usually what the movie has - one fight scene.

One thing I did not except was that the Big Hero 6 will continue to do hero works. I excepted that Hiro will recreate Baymax and also create bunch more to accomplish his brother's dream. But noooo, he created Baymax and that was it. He did not create more of Baymax. He only wants to have Baymax to himself !!!! that selfish boy - I want it too.

I will rate this movie 4.5/5 because I did feel that the movie was quite long and I did wonder for a second about "when is this gonna end?". It was really really good movie - if you like animation movies like Frozen, go to cinema and watch Big Hero 6, or download it on iTunes and watch it. You won't regret it. 

You will say "ahh" or "awh" or "OMG so cute" and laugh out loud like "hahaha" or "hehehe" or "umhahaha (maybe)". It has funny moment, cute moments. It also has sad moment at the end but I did not cry so it is not that sad - you can hold on your tears on other movies. 

One was word - I WANT BAYMAX and Hiro has the tech that Iron Man has in his garage.

sex tape

I personally enjoyed watching Bad Teacher where Cameron Diaz and Jason Segel were both starring. They were funny and really cute together in the movie. ONLY IN THE MOVIE. So when I saw the trailer of Sex tape, I didn't really care about the storyline and the inappropriateness of butt showing, I just cared about how these two are acting together again.

So I decided to pay for the movie and watched it in cinema.

Turns out, whoa. When I say whoa, I mean, I did not expect this much level of sex scene plus, the number of product placement, particularly Apple, shown and spoken in this movie.

1. As the trailer showed, it was VERY obvious that the whole accident began by iCloud and of course, iCloud is Apple's technology that allows each devices to sync together so users can access to all their files on different devices. In this movie, the reputation of iCloud was not that great considering how it synced the sex tape and brought catastrophe in this family. However, the movie literally taught the movie audiences about what iCloud is, what it does, and even how they can delete the files that were synced in one computer. They literally say the steps of how to delete the file that were synced to all devices - because that is how the characters deleted their sex tape.

2. When the movie is about iCloud's syncing skills, it is obvious how much and many times Apple products will appear in this movie. It starts of by Annie typing the blog by using Mac, Apple product number one. Then, Jay buys iPad, Apple product number two. They say iPad so many times, and the product it actually the centre of the movie --> Annie and Jay drive around, knocking their friends and family's house door and ask for their iPad back so they can delete their sex tape that was synced by iCloud. There. There is the whole story plot. seriously. This is it. But they did a good job of trying to cover the Apple logo, although everyone knows the design of Apple by now so when they look at it, people automatically knows that the brand is Apple.

3. Verbal product placement - Bed bath and beyond and Project runaway.

4. So, what transportation did they use when they retrieved their iPads? good question! GMC car. They own GMC car. They drive around with their kids, they use it to break the garage and enter the porn company - and yes the car is completely fine. No damage at all.

5. Then again, the centre of this movie- pornsites. They mention so many porn sites where I am shocked of how many there are. I have never heard of them and  I was just like whattttt did they just make it up? but I think they just googled them?? But omg, they mentioned more than 20 pornsites.

6. It seems that when people listen to music or wants to wear earphone or earplugs, they just happen to use Beats by Dr. Dre and this movie is not an exception. Jay wears Beats earphone and if you know this brand, you will automatically notice it like me.

One last thing to say, I personally think this movie should be rated more than R16 judging by the number of word "sex" and "porn" mentioned, appearances of naked butts, and other other things that I cannot possibly type. But I kind of understand why the movie rating was R16 and not R18 because to all of us, R18 is like super super adult movie. But this movie was funny and inappropriate. So I understand the struggle of how to rate this movie but if I were the movie rater, I would rate as R18.

2/5 but product placement, 4/5.

Gravity

I have been waiting for this movie for so long because of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. Yet, with my high expectation, this movie has certainly exceeded my expectation and blowed my mind.

1. Some point of shoot camera technique to make audience feel like we are Sandra Bullock, who is lost in the universe for about five minutes, was breath-taking. I heard few people gasping while they were watching Sandra Bullock spinning and getting far away from earth and one of those people was me. It was amazing. spinning made it a bit dizzy that I was glad for a few seconds that I didn't watch this in imax. But having said that, it would have been amazing if I watched this movie in Imax. Beside the amazing camera angle, the graphics were breath taking too- earth, sunrise, green lights, explosion. Thanks to the amazing director and amazing actress and supporting actor, the quality of this movie is just amazing. When George Clooney sacrifices himself to save Ryan (Sandra Bullock), it reminded a little of Day After Tomorrow's scene (I don't know why). I was nearly crying and I had to physically stop my brain from thinking about what's happening to George Clooney right now when the movie was focusing on Ryan.

2. Even though the movie was well made, I am personally not sure of the whole explosion. I think it was a bit too much. When Ryan was about to take a breath, there was a fire, then her spaceship had no fuel, then she had to fly to Chinese's spaceship etc. It was happening so much at once, I got frustrated. Perhaps a bit of normal casual life in universe in first scene (ie Ryan floating on the spaceship, eating and sleeping) may be nice as I wanted to see what it's like to eat, sleep and play in spaceship. Also, it would have been nice to see Ryan actually getting rescued at the end.

3. When I saw the trailer of this movie, I thought this movie will have some flashbacks of what they were doing on earth. So I initially expected to see some product placement. However, there was no flashbacks. There was no eating. There was no normal casual life. There was no product placement. It was fully about explosion and Ryan trying to going back to earth. 

4. 3D was amazing. Some scenes, I closed my eyes and moved my head to get away from the explosion particles flying towards me. It was real and it was scary, which makes it awesome to watch it in 3D. It would have been an absolute beauty if I watched this in Imax. I think it's the second best movie to watch in Imax, first being Avatar.

Highly recommend you to watch this in 3D, and if you are interested in space/universe, maybe watch it in imax too. 4.5/5

Turbo

Product placement in animation movie. Here We Go !!

1. It's an animation movie. Obviously. and just like any other animation movies, it is targeted towards kids. obviously. Then it is funny. obviously again. But, it is good. it has good storyline and have some themes about family love, friendship, hope and dream, which plays well all together in this one 1.5hrs long movie where kids can really enjoy it. I would recommend to watch it with kids. But, I personally don't think adults and teenagers will enjoy it. I found myself thinking "oh my god, this is so childish" while I'm watching this movie. Normally, I like Shrek, Despicable Me and Meatball movies, and I don't usually think of those movies as childish since I enjoyed it very much. But somehow, Turbo, I found it childish. Maybe it's because of the ending scene when Turbo wins the race (spoiler alert) and how he wins the race is a bit too obvious. 

2. Good music and good strong unique characters. They used very famous songs and also created really really good music. I think it's because Snoop Dog was in it, so the stuff he said in his character was somehow rhymed really well (although it was weird his voice was in pink snail). It is the first time I ever felt like I want to buy animation movie's music album. It was THAT good. 

3. YES. It has product placement !!! Even though the movie is about snail, it is set in modern time (ie right now). Hence, all the brands that are shown is used by humans. But still, there are product placements (yes, I mean plural !) in this movie. This means that they are all paid placements since animators have to add those brands in when they create this film. But it could be seen necessary for some to increase the realism because normally in our lives, car racing have millions of sponsorships and the racing car usually contains multiple sponsored brands. So to show this, maybe this animation movie have used product placement. They had Chevrolet car logo, hp laptop, AAA, and Verizon multiple times that it was not hard at all to find them in this movie. I just wonder why they haven't used the sports drink as a product placement in this film when they used all these other product types? For example, Adrenalode drink could have been a real product such as Mother, or V or even a Powerade. Why did they decide not to use this when they have consistently showed this brand more than other product placement? Interesting..

Overall, 3/5

White House Down

Watched this movie as a celebration for father's day. It was also on an advanced screening with a special price of $10 !!  Here we go go go

1. This movie is once again related to USA's white house falling apart and USA in crisis where hundreds of army officers can't do anything and yet here is one man. one single man. who happens to be in the white house when crisis happened, is saving the president and is saving USA. I'm not talking about Olympus has Fallen. I'm talking about White House Down. and yes. This movie is exactly the same genre, same scenario and same plot as Olympus has Fallen (except that this movie is USA vs USA, not North Korea vs USA). So if you enjoyed watching Olympus Has Fallen, definitely watch this. This one is exactly like that movie but funnier. However, if you thought Olympus has Fallen was waste of money, then don't watch it. You will waste your money on this movie too (unless you are a fan of Channing Tatum or Jamie Foxx).

                      

2. Action. A hard core action movie. Lots of fighting and killing and explosions. This killing scene is not as real and cruel looking as Olympus has Fallen. But, it's definitely more funny compare to Olympus has Fallen. Lots of chuckle jokes that made everyone laugh in the cinema except my parents who didn't understand the jokes.

3. So unrealistic in terms of how president survives from a gun shot because of a watch and how Cale doesn't get shot, not even once when he is fighting against heavily armed men by himself. Another unrealistic thing is the character Emily. Her character just ruined everything for me in this movie but I see how important her role is in this movie. I mean, who waves the flag and to stop the missile from bombing the white house and people's reaction towards her was hilarious (in terms of how they wowed and well-done her and how she suddenly became a hero).

 

4. Not surprising, there was some use of product placement. Starting from Two News, Robitussin (verbal placement), Chevrolet, Sony, Nike Jordan and Kleenex. As I am a Kleenex user, I immediately recognised the brand when I saw the box of tissue. I definitely think the phone was product placement too but I don't know the exact brand. It's definitely not Samsung or iPhone. It's either Motorola or Nokia or HTC.

 

Conclusion,  I personally liked the action scenes and straightforward storyline. Nothing confusing even though they tried to make it confusing, it was just so obivous (as I watched hundreds of movies like this). 

3/5

Elysium

This movie I watched last week as well. This movie was way BETTER than The Mortal Instruments. I can't even compare the quality of this movie with that movie.

1. I LOVE Matt Damon. He is hot, cute, good actor and good personality too. He played the role so well and I just completely thought of him as the character. He made me connect to the movie itself and that was brilliant. Using him instead of other action actors was a brilliant job because there is not other action actor who can act and do good action scenes like him. 

2. I like the storyline and the message of how he sacrified himself to save his first lover's daughter and to bring justice for earth people. It was sad that he had to die but I understand his choice. The movie had the theme of betrayal, sacrifice, power corruption, discrimination and all other serious themes and all of these themes were portrayed and played out really nicely and made the movie really good. It was also interesting to see how political people treated earth people, especially the people with criminal record. It was like if you have criminal record, you are a criminal. That's it. You cannot be a changed person. You are still a criminal. Also, how political people are all living in Elysium and uses robots instead of real people on earth. So instead of real police men, its the police robot. Instead of real stuff on government office, its the robot who don't listen to people's story. It's also interesting to see how this movie was based on South America. For example, they speak Spanish or Portuguese. All the people on earth was not European white people. Those people are living in Elysium.

3. The animation of the movie was well created. Elysium was so well portrayed and looked so real. Also, the action scenes and all the gun fighting and explosions looked real and well filmed. It was definitely a cinema movie where big screen and good sound system were necessary to  100% enjoy this movie. It was very creative as well in terms of how they created the structure Elysium.

4. The movie made me think. It made me think where I would be if I was living in that period. Would I be classified as a high living class and hence will be living on Elysium? or will I be living on earth? Also, how expensive was it to live in Elysium? how much high class does people have to be to be eligible to live in Elysium? Why isn't Elysium people not care about people on earth? Why is Elysium people do not send their first aid robots on earth to help the sick people on earth when they have all the equipment? Is it simply because they don't want to help them out because its not a good "investment"? do they really all just care about profit and money? So what happens now? Who is going to rule Elysium and Earth? There was so many questions and possibilities, I loved it. All the questions were not directly connected with the movie and instead, the questions were just "side" questions where I think in depth to make this movie more realistic in my head. If this was like Star Wars and has sequels and hence be more depth in terms of illustrating the life in earth and Elysium, it would have been perfect. I would pay to see more. However, this movie was just created for once. It wasn't created for a sequel purpose and hence, my questions cannot be answered.

5. I could notice some of the product placement. For example, Adidas shoes, GMC car, Bugatti, Bulgari and so on. I personally think it was unnecessary to show the brand in this movie as this was equivalent of post-apocalyptic movie. Yes, some people still live in earth, but they are all poor. So showing the car brand may be okay as it could have just been "stolen" or just using the existing car and that car happened to be GMC, but showing Adidas shoes and Bulgari was a bit too much in my opinion. Where did Matt got money to buy Adidas shoes? and where is Adidas shoes stores? Where is Bulgari, high class luxury brand on earth? if it was not on earth, is there Bulgari store on Elysium? the movie didn't even show Elysium people more than five minutes. So personally, this movie doesn't really need product placement to show the realism of the movie. 

6. you can also definitely tell that this was directed by District 9 director. A lot of similarity between these two movies in terms of big guns, camera angles and how camera moves and doesn't hold still, background colour (dustry, dirty, brown and dark), and setting of the movie.

Overall, 4/5. Good movie as it had good actor who made me connect with the character, solid storyline that made me think about the movie afterwards and kept me concentrated for two whole hours.