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.