Category: Movies

Last week, I got to watch John Carter with a long lost friend.  I entered the movie house not having any idea what the movie was all about.  It’s funny that I haven’t even seen the poster or the trailer that time.  I just went with it knowing that my friend wouldn’t have suggested it if it wasn’t any good.

After the first scene, I actually concluded that the movie was a comedy.  My friend laughed at me saying that John Carter was a science-fiction movie.  After watching the movie, even after realizing that it’s really more of an action-oriented science fantasy genre, I was laughing all throughout the movie!  I guess, the small jokes injected into the movie worked for me like a charm 😛  I enjoyed watching John Carter!

The movie was based on a series of novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs.  It tells the story of former military officer, John Carter (Taylor Kitsch), who has become a wealthy scholar-adventurer.  John was mysteriously transported into the planet Barsoom (Mars) when he encountered a white martian stern during a gold excavation hunt.  He became dragged into the conflict between the inhabitants of Barsoom including the red Martian cities of Helium and Zodanga and Green Martians of Warhoon.  However, in spite of that, John Carter learned his real purpose through his experiences in Barsoom and his love for Princess of Helium Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collines).

I loved the movie especially because I was glued to it.  The story just kept you wanting to know what’s next.  It was engaging!  I’m glad as well that the movie was successful here in Manila.  If you can remember, the actor Taylor Kitsch, who played the lead role in John Carter, has gotten lots of criticisms after not correcting David Letterman when the Philippines was wrongly tagged as the country where he experienced an airport incident.

And of course, Love being the main reason for a man to live and survive, made the movie a lot more meaningful.  Romantics will surely love this.

My Rating for John Carter: 4 out of 5 stars

Honestly, I usually shy away from any MWFF movies. I’m seriously getting tired of seeing Bong Revilla, Vic Sotto and Ai Ai delas Alas in the movies.  However, I haven’t seen any movies for a long time and I got curious after seeing friends tweeting about their viewing experience.

So I checked out the trailers of each of the MMFF entries on YouTube.  I came to the conclusion that Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow would be interesting.

I initially thought that the movie would be cut into three parts:

• 1st story starring Maricel Soriano, Gabby Concepcion and Carla Abellana
• 2nd story starring Solenn Heusaff, Dennis Trillo and Paolo Avelino
• 3rd story starring Lovi Poe and Jericho Rosales

Apparently, it was just one story.  The characters have some connection with each other.  If I have to narrate the story, I would still arrange them in a way that there would be three interesting stories within it.

Maricel is a strong woman.  Too strong that it caused friction between her relationship with her daughter as well as her marriage with Gabby.  After 10 years of annulment, she still had so much bitterness in her.  Gabby, on the other hand, is newly married to young Carla Abellana.  Carla is beautiful and gets along very well with Gabby & Maricel’s daughter.  The story revolves around those 4 characters.  One lesson we can take away from this is that we should learn to forgive and forget.  If we continue to hold grudges, it will affect not just yourself but also the people around you.

Solenn, on the other hand, is a very modern woman.  She’s liberated and extremely sexy.  She doesn’t hesitate getting what she wants and she doesn’t care what other people think.  She’s carefree, beautiful and super attractive.  Paolo is her boyfriend who’s a bit possessive.  Agot Isidro is her mom in the movie.  She’s having an affair with Dennis Trillo who’s her personal trainer.  Solenn upon seeing Dennis (not knowing about her mom’s affair) got attracted to the guy.    In spite of the sexy scenes, there’s still a lesson to be picked up there.  Loyalty, trust, love, resisting temptation and honesty are just some of those.

Jericho and Lovi are a happy couple.  They have a beautiful baby and have just started a family life.  Jericho is working for Maricel and due to work pressures, he has given less time and attention to his family.  Lovi, misses her singing gig which she gave up for a life with Jericho.  As the story goes, they eventually lost their child which was really sad.  It is in this story that I shed some tears.  Tons of lessons in this too – true love, forgiveness, responsibility and hope.

Acting wise, Maricel, Gabby and Jericho were excellent!  Lovi was good but there was a scene that was so funny!  When Lovi was crying over her kid, it was too obvious that the baby was just a pillow!!!  I felt bad for Lovi for trying so hard to act while we (audience) laughed as the baby was just a lifeless pillow.  Solenn, on the other hand, was perfect for her role!  She looked good on screen and was a perfect flirt.  I’m sure the guys would love watching her scenes in Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.

My Rating for Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow: 2.5 out of 5 stars

I’ve seen the trailer of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol before and I was really intrigued!  Considering how old Tom Cruise is, he looked so awesome still.  I wondered if he could still carry an action film with him top billing it.

I rarely watch movies these days.  So I was glad that the Smart iPhone 4S launch included a free screening of the 4th installment of Mission Impossible!

Tom Cruise plays Ethan Hunt, leader of the Impossible Missions Force (IMF).  He has to lead his team to track down a terrorist who has gained access to Russia’s nuclear launch codes.  They have to stop the guy from striking.  However, due to circumstances, the IMF has been disowned by the US government and Ghost Protocol has been invoked.  Now, the team has to find a way to stop the disaster without any help or support from the US government and at the same time, find a way to clear their name.

At the start of the movie, I saw a familiar face… a handsome hunk… and he is Josh Holloway of Lost!  If Tom Cruise has to stop doing the Mission Impossible franchise and there’s a need to continue it, I would definitely wish they would pick Josh to replace him.  Gosh, Josh Holloway is such eye-candy and he actually looked great for the part!  He can either be the next Ethan Hunt or James Bond for that matter.  Well, I don’t care!  I just wanna see Josh Holloway on screen again 😀

The movie has tons of action but I admit they are a bit impossible to happen in our world.  I guess we do know that it’s really just a movie.  But what the heck, I watched the movie to be entertained.  Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol has the right amount of action, suspense, adventure and even sense of humor.  I love that we were laughing the whole time.  I never thought they put in as much humor as action in Mission: Impossible – 4th Protocol but I truly welcome it.

Many people have been asking if they need to watch the first three Mission Impossible movies before catching the 4th installment.  I say it doesn’t matter as I myself have only watched 1 out of the 3 previous movies but I still understood Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.  So go on and watch as even though the movie wasn’t realistic, it was entertaining 🙂

My Rating for Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Last friday, I got to watch one of the most awaited movies this 2011, Breaking Dawn Part 1 (from the Twilight Saga).  I read the book so I was more of interested how the story from the book will be portrayed in the big screen.

I’m not sure I was impressed but I wasn’t disappointed either.  I guess the movie didn’t wow me that much.

Of all the Twilight movies so far, I’ve been looking forward to Breaking Dawn the most.  Because this is where we’ll see Edward Cullen and Bella Swan marry, Bella transformed into a vampire and their hybrid baby coming out.

The wedding was awesome!  I actually couldn’t stop checking out Bella’s dress, it was adorable!  She was wearing a backless dress, I wonder who made her dress.  I heard that it was made by designer Carolina Herrera.  So beautiful, really.

While I liked the wedding ceremony and the bride’s dress, I somehow didn’t like the gory dream that Bella had before the wedding.  It was kinda weird.  Red petals, blood, blood, blood and full of human corpses, uhmmm.. I don’t know, I felt they could have made it much better.  Instead of being scared by that scene, I ended up feeling “really?”.

Jacob Black’s heartbreaking scenes were a bit overacted.  Still, I guess in real life, we do tend to overreact too, especially when we feel strongly about someone.  Unrequited love is super painful.  I feel for Jacob.  Can I have him instead? 🙂

The honeymoon scenes, on the other hand, were well-made.  Wow!  I never thought they could make honeymoon scenes so kid-friendly!  Well, we don’t expect the usual intimate scenes as it was between a human and a vampire.  I won’t expound any further as I’d like to let you see it for yourself.

The most exciting part of Twilight: Breaking Dawn for me was the whole pregnancy story.  How Bella fought for her unborn baby, the way Jacob protected her and the Cullen family, the way Edward tried to save his wife and child, how Bella transformed from being a human into a vampire and how the Cullen family proved what the word, “family” really meant.

Overall, I liked the first part of the final chapter of the Twilight Saga.  Breaking Dawn has shown the story clearly.  However, it was a bit too cheesy.   There was a scene that I cannot get out of my head.  It was too funny.  Bella said when they were talking about baby names, “Let’s name our baby EJ if it’s a boy (EJ = Edward Jacob)”.  OMG, I laughed so hard that I forgot I was inside a movie house full of strangers :))

My Rating for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

After watching the trailer of Cowboys & Aliens for several weeks now, I had high expectations.  Imagine the 3 big stars-Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Daniel Craig (James Bond) and Olivia Wilde (Tron) are in the same movie!  

As soon as I got the invite of PLDT Watchpad for the movie premiere, I just couldn’t miss it!

In all honesty, I don’t know how we can mix cowboys with aliens.  It’s a pretty unusual mix of characters.  How can cowboys who are armed with only their horses and ropes beat high-tech aliens?  I was excited to see how the story unfolds in the movie. 

 The movie started in 1873 when Jake Longergan (Craig) awakens with a wound, a strange metal bracelet and no memory whatsoever.  After reaching the small town of Absolution, he learns from the town sheriff that he is wanted and is sent to jail.  The town’s ruler (Ford) who is there to retrieve his son who was also sent to jail saw Jake.  Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford) is to seek revenge on Jake from stealing gold from him in the past.  Then aliens started attacking the town and kidnapping people including Dolarhyde’s son.  Jake shoots down one alien ship with his mysterious bracelet.  That’s when he realized that his memory loss might be connected with the alien attack.  Jake then teams up with Dolarhyde and Ella (Wilde) and the rest of townfolk in fighting the aliens and rescuing their loved ones.

I don’t know why but I felt that the movie was boring.  I guess maybe because Cowboys & Aliens was too serious and there wasn’t any humor in the movie.  I do appreciate their different take on the aliens though.  We are really so tired of seeing Aliens just killing people.  This time, the aliens are more interested in gold as well as experimenting with people.

I also appreciate the human elements in the movie.  Things like: Father-Son love, Loyalty, heroism, humility and love.

Even though there wasn’t any chemistry between Ford and Craig, I believe that Cowboys & Aliens is still worth watching.  You’ll get tons of action and great effects, things people look forward to in a science fiction flick.

 My Rating for Cowboys & Aliens: 3.5 out of 5 stars.