Koreans Have Conquered International Cinema With 'Take Point', A Rousing Action-Thriller With Korean & Hollywood Stars Working Together

TAKE POINT movie review

THE SOUTH KOREANS have really gone global when it comes to their filmmaking. The new movie, “Take Point”, is a Korean co-production with Hollywood, with a Korean director Kim Byung Woo, who is known for such acclaimed works as “The Terror, Live”, “Anamorphic” and “Written”. His new film is an exciting action thriller about a South Korean mercenary who works for the CIA and whose mission is to protect a North Korean leader who is defecting.

The movie has a well written plot, filled with astounding action choreography and even makes a valid analysis of the power struggles and political conspiracies transpiring in Korean politics in his day. Aside from top Korean actor Ha Jung Woo (best known for “The Handmaiden”), it also stars Hollywood actors like Kevin Durand and Jennifer Ehle for better international viability. The movie opened in Korea last December and was a box office success. It has also been released in the U.S., SIngapore, Taiwan, Hongkong, Vietnam, and now, the Philippines.

The story is set in the year 2024 and America is having a lot of problems. U.S. Pres. McGregor (Robert Curtis Brown) has lifted sanctions against North Korea while China helps North Korea beef up its businesses and this eventually leads to the collapse of the U.S. economy, plunging it into crisis.

McGregor is running for re-election and to help his campain, he wants to bring down the present leaders of North Korea. In charge of this mission is an astute spy, MacKenzie (Jennifer Ehle), who seeks the help of South Korean secret agent known as Ahab (Ha Jung Woo), a former paratrooper who lost his military career and one of his legs because of a jump exercise that went badly. He has since moved to America and is a man without any scruples. He just wants to get his mission done right so he can be paid and go back to Philadelphia where his first child is scheduled to be delivered soon.

the international cast of TAKE POINT

The operation is set up by Ahab in an underground bunker between North and South Korea where politicans from both sides can hold secret meetings. His order is to penetrate the underground complex and get a North Korean general, then take him across the border to accomplish his mission. But what’s supposed to be a piece of cake turns out to be easier said than done.
It turns out the CIA has bombed Seoul, giving the U.S. a reason to attack the North Korean capital of Pyongyang.

And Ahab’s problems get even worse when he learns that his target is not just an ordinary general but is actually North Korea’s top leader, King (Sun Wook Hyun). The pacing is very fast as all these details are revealed during the film’s first half hour. The buildup is very effective as we see Ahab exchanging heated words with MacKenzie on a call from Langley and so with the guys he’s supposed to be working with, Markus (Kevin Durand) and Logan (Spencer Daniels).

This leads to the movie’s first slambang action set piece with Ahab raging through the tunnels in the underground caverns to get his target, King. Things get from bad to worse when Ahab learns that King has been wounded and is bleeding profusely, which is bad since he’s supposed to get the North Korean leader alive so that McGregor will win favor from the U.S. voters in the coming election.

But surprise, surprise, there’s another twist. King’s supposed defection was also just engineered by other Pyongyang leaders so they can put the blame on McGregor for killing their president and then they can declare war against the U.S. that will surely trigger a 3rd World War.

Ahab’s problems multiply even more when the CIA itself withdrew its support from his team who are all unauthorized immigrants in America, which makes them all easily to dispose of. He now has to keep King alive and he has a North Korean medic to help him, Yoon (Lee Sun Kyun.) This gives the chance to Ha and Lee the chance to give effective performances as a South and a North Korean who are forced by circumstances to work together to help preventing an impending worldwide disaster.

Action lovers will surely enjoy the well choreographed action sequences with its precise camera work and persuasive special effects. The script is well written and the many twists and turns in the plotting are all done convincingly and with nail-biting suspense.
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The South Koreans are really world class in the way they make movies (and also TV shows) so we are not surprised that they continue to gain more respect and more viewers in the world market. This movie should be seen in tandem with the South Korean “The Spy Gone North”, another acclaimed espionage drama helmed by Yoon Jong Bin which was exhibited at the Cannes International Filmfest last year.

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Movie Review

Captain Marvel Movie Review: Fairly Good But Not As Well Made As DC's Wonder Woman

THERE HAVE been many Captain Marvels (he’s also been portrayed as a man) in the history of Marvel Comics, but the first one as a woman was written by the late Stan Lee and Gene Kolan appeared in 1967 as Captain Mar-Vell of the Kree Militia. The second Captain Marvel came in 1982 with a female cop from New Orleans named Monica Rambeau (who now appears as the black best friend of Captain Marvel in the new movie). There were four other variations until Carol Danvers appeared in 2012 as Ms. Marvel and this is now the character used in the first Marvel movie with a female superhero playing the title role.

The new movie stars Brie Larson (Oscar best actress for “Room”) as Carol Danvers and the movie sets up the forthcoming sequel to “Avengers: Infinity War” which is titled “Endgame”. The film starts in 1995 in the planet of the Kree Empire called Hala. Vers (Brie) is a soldier who has amnesia and can’t remember anything from her past. She has been trained by Yon Rogg (Jude Law), a Kree commander, to hone her abilities and powers. Their enemies in an interplanetary war are the Krulls, aliens with the ability to be shape shifters who can copy the appearance of anyone they fancy.

During a mission, Skrull commander Talos (Ben Mendehlson) captures Vers but she manages to escape in a pod and crashes down in a Blockbuster Video store in Los Angeles, where she meets SHIELD agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, whose looks are made much younger here through CGI). Vers recovers a crystal that contains her past memories and learns that she is a former U.S. Air Force pilot named Carol Danvers who’s been presumed dead for six years. She’s thought be dead after an experimental engine designed by Dr. Wendy Lawson (Anette Bening) went wrong and explodes.

Vers recognizes Dr. Lawson as the woman she sees in her recurrent dreams. She and Fury then go to visit her friend, Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), in Louisiana. Talos arrives and reveals that the Skrulls are actually refugees being persecuted by the Krees and they’re just looking for a new home. Carol got all her cosmic powers (her firsts can launch explosive bursts of energy) when Lawson’s plane developed for project Pegasus crashed and she absorbed its energy core during the explosion.

Talos leads them to a ship encircling the earth where they get the Tesseract, the source of the energy core which they hide inside a cat called Goose, who scratched Fury’s face causing him to be blind in one eye, which explains why he’s wearing an eyepatch even in previous Marvel movies to which this is a prequel.

Carol gets to master all her superpowers and even destroys the ballistic missiles fired by a Kree official known as Ronan the Accuser. She also uncovers all the secrets of Yon Rogg and has a final encounter with him. The end credits are then shown and, once again, don’t leave right away as there are two short previews.

In the first one, Carol as Captain Marvel is shown appearing to Chris Evans as Captain America, Scarlett Johanson as Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner/Incredible Hulk and Don Cheadle as War Machine. In the final short clip, we see the cat Goose on top of Nick Fury’s desk as it vomits out the Tesseract.

Marvel has been giving breaks to new directors like Taika Waititi in “Thor Ragnarok” and Ryan Coogler in “Black Panther” (both big hits). This time they give the break to indie filmmakers Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (best known for “Half Nelson”, a movie for which Ryan Gosling got an Oscar best actor nomination). Their assignment is actually quite tough because superhero movies are already a dime a dozen and it’s really now a very crowded field.

Besides, DC’s “Wonder Woman” is so well crafted in coming up with an origin story for a female superhero and is truly hard to follow with its well conceived back story and mythology. We’re afraid “Captain Marvel” offers no groundbreaking efforts and fails to top or even equal that. But in fairness, the special effects in “Captain Marvel” are similarly spectacular and the acting, led by Brie Larscon, Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law and Annette Bening who all have great presence, is quite solid.

Brie, in particular, gives a fully fleshed out character of intelligence, verse and determination. And yes, it pays quite a touching tribute to the late Stan Lee. Will this lead to a return engagement and a new franchise of money-making sequels? It all remains to be seen. Let’s see if “Captain Marvell” would be as big a hit in the box office as the other Marvel superheroes.

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The Favourite' Movie Review: A Must See For Lovers Of Historical Films About British Royalty

‘THE FAVOURITE’ is currently being shown in Trinoma and watch it now before it vanishes. It has won seven awards at the British Academy Awards, including best British film, best original screenplay, best actress for Olivia Colman and best supporting actress for Rachel Weisz. At the Oscars, it got a total of 10 nominations.

The story is about Anne (Olivia Colman), a little known queen who ruled for 12 years from 1702 to 1714. She had 17 pregnancies with her husband, Prince George of Denmark, but some ended in miscarriages and the others died as infants. She was the last monarch in the House of Stuart and since she left no heir, was succeeded by her cousin George I of the House of Hanover. She was plagued by bad health, especially gout, and grew fat.

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Movie Review: Happy Death Day 2U - Starts As A Horror/ Slasher Film Then Turns Into A Sci Fi Movie

WHEN ‘HAPPY Death Day’ was shown in 2017, it was surprise hit as it was made for less than $5 million but earned $125 million at the worldwide box office. So it’s not surprising that it now has a sequel, “Happy Death Day 2U”. The movie uses the time loop premise of “Groundhog Day” where things keep on happening over and over again, then added a slasher twist ala-”Scream” and “Halloween”.

It was done with a lot of shameless but witty style and a quirky sense of dark humor that underlines the absurdity of the entire enterprise with many blood and gore scenes and an amusing performance from a newbie actress, Jessica Rothe, who plays the lead role of Tree who gets to prevent her own murder.

The sequel again features Rothe as Tree. It’s meant to squeeze additional bucks from gullible viewers, who certainly won’t be disappointed because the sequel not only retains all the things that worked in the first movie but added some new wacky stuff that, even if you didn’t get to see the original, you will still have fun watching the goofy Part 2 where they once again do the same thing over and over and over again to show that sequels can actually work well.

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Cold Pursuit Movie Review: Remake Of A Norwegian Revenge Drama Laced With Dark & Twisted Humor

LIAM NEESON, still the late blooming action star at 66, stars in yet another revenge drama, this time laced with dark humor, in “Cold Pursuit”. He plays Nels Coxman, a snowplow driver in a resort town, Kehoe, in the Rocky Mountains. He lives a quiet life and was just awarded as Citizen of the year for keeping their snow-filled roads clear even during blizzards.

But his quiet life turns upside down when his son Kyle (played by his own real life son, Micheal Richardson, from his late wife Natasha Richardson) dies from drug overdose. He gets so depressed, thinking he didn’t really know his son.

He’s about to shoot himself when he learns the truth from his son’s friend, with whom his son worked as a baggage handler in the Denver airport, that his son was actually murdered by a drug syndicate. He then becomes a vigilante warrior who stalks and kills various members of the syndicate named Speedo, Limbo and Santa.

The leader of the drug cartel, Trevor Calcote aka Viking (Tom Bateman of the TV series “Da Vinci’s Demons”), thinks the killings were caused by a rival syndicate of Native American Indians led by White Bull (Tom Jackson). Viking kills White Bull’s only son and this leads to a gang war between the two drug traffickers, which escalates the film’s body count that is listed down on screen every time there is a killing, complete with little crosses as some sort of R.I.P.

When Viking finds out its actually Liam Neeson who killed his men, he tries to call off the gang war but White Bull is so bent on seeking vengeance by seeking Viking’s own son, Ryan, a smart little boy who loves classical music (Nicholas Holmes), to pay for the death of his own son. But Liam has already kidnapped Ryan and this leads to a climactic battle and showdown in the snow between the drug lords and Liam which, we think, could have been better blocked and executed.

The movie is the Hollywood directorial debut of Hans Peter Moland, a Norwegian who based it on his own Norwegian film, “In Order of Disappearance”. He treats the material with a wry and morbid kind of playfulness, making some of the killing even somewhat oddly hilarious, like that of a hitman named Eskimo who certainly deserves what he gets. There’s even unexpected homosexual romance between two thugs and a dick joke about another thug who exposes himself to chambermaids in motels and later gets the comeuppance he rightfully deserves.

Liam has perfected this kind of stoic hero role down cold after having developed a knack for playing action leads late in his career in 2008’s “Taken”. Bateman doesn’t measure up to him as the main villain but the death scene he gets will be truly satisfying for those who enjoy violence and vengeance. Laura Dern plays Liam’s grieving wife, but it really isn’t much of a role as vanishes quickly.

William Forsythe also has a short but decent guest role as Liam’s older brother, WIngman, who’s married to a cheap Asian masseuse, while Emmy Rossum and John Dornan provide some kind of comic relief as two mismatched law enforcers who are underutilized as they don’t really get to do anything.

Nicholas Holmes as the precocious Ryan is surely one of the most adorable kid actors who’ve appeared on screen for a while and the scene where he asks Liam Neeson if he has heard of the Stockholm syndrome is really so funny.

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Movie Review

The Kid Who Would Be King Movie Review: A Modern Retelling Of The Arthurian Legend & Excalibur

OUR GRANDCHILDREN thoroughly enjoyed “The Kid Who Would Be King” and we liked it, too, as it’s a well made fantasy-action-adventure flick for the whole family. The title roler is Alex (Louis Ashbourne Serkis, son of Andy Serkis who played Gollum), a boy who is bullied in school, along with his best friend, Bedders (Dean Chaumoo).

When the bullies chase them, Alex hides in a forsake construction site. There, he finds a sword stuck into a concrete block and he’s able to pull it out easily, just like King Arthur in the tale of the Camelot and the Knights at the Round Table, of which, this new movie is a modern retelling. Alex knows the story of King Arthur because of a book left to him by his father who left him and his mom (Denise Gough).

After he gets the sword, a strange teenage boy called Merton arrives in their school, Dungate Academy, to warn him about the dangers that might happen because of the sword. Merton is actually the wizard Merlin, the adviser of King Arthur, played as a boy by Angust Imrie and as an old man, by Patrick Stewart. He performs magic with his flashy hand movements and he can also transform himself into an owl.

Merlin says an evil sorceress, Morgana (Rebecca Ferguson), is brought to life to chase Alex and get the sword from him so she can rule the world. The movie is written and directed by Joe Cornish, who makes sure his contemporary interpretation of the familiar Arthurian legend.

Alex as the new Arthur has to knight his friend friend as Sir Bedders, and also the buillies, Kaye (Rhianna Doris) and Lance (Tom Taylor.) And they even have their own round table. They fight Morgana’s army of evil knights in flames, with their horses also burning as they chase the kids in the streets or in mountains and meadows.

Alex and his friends will have to become many
personal struggles as they fight Morgana. Alex will also learn the sad truth about his missing dad and see his mom and her own sacrifices in a new light. The cast, like most other movies these days, are multi-racial. Alex and Lance are Caucasians. Bedders is Asian and Kaye is African-American.

At one point, you’d think the film has already ended, but it turns out there is a much bigger climactic finale involving the entire school and its students in fighting Morgana’s evil knights from hell. All in all, this is a wholesome and exciting family film that will introduce a new generation of young viewers to the legend of King Arthur, Excalibur and the Knights of the Round Table.

The acting of everyone is fairly good, especially Imrie with his off-the-wall performance, and the production is well above average. The CGI special effects in that sequence where Alex and friends fight gnarled trees that come to life and in the final battle with Morgana and her henchmen are particularly well executed.

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Serenity Movie Review: Be Ready For A Wild Ride With Shocking Twists & Surprises Along The Way

‘SERENITY’ is one daring movie. Some viewers will find it nutty and crazy and say it doesn’t make sense, but the more adventurous ones would find it audacious in its unpredictable plot developments and in trying to be a very different film with shocking surprises.

What it conveys is rather elusive and the film later morphs into something that changes its perspective altogether. It’s difficult to describe in a review like this, but we’ll try. So be warned, if you intend to watch the movie, don’t read this review as there will be lots of spoilers!

Matthew McConaughey plays a fishing boat captain, Baker Dill, who lives in a remote island called Plymouth.  He and his first mate, Duke (Djimon Honsou), takes out rich men into the ocean to catch fish for a good price. But he is not really keen on conducting good business as he is more obsessed with catching a large fish that he calls Justice, feeling like Captain Ahab to Moby Dick, but some folks say the fish is just a figment of his imagination.

Dill’s life is pretty routine, consisting mainly of drinking, smoking and occasionally sleeping with a rich island woman, Constance (Diana Lane), when he’s broke. But then, his ex-wife, Karen (Anne Hathaway), enters the picture. They broke up ten years ago and she has since remarried to Frank Zariacas (Jason Clarke), a wealthy but abusive man who beats her up and is now threatening to also hurt her son, Patrick (Rafael Sayegh), whose dad is Dill.

Frank is powerful enough to get rid of them if ever they’d try to leave him. He is scheduled to arrive in the island the next day and Karen wants Dill to take her current husband on a fishing trip where her husband may fall overboard and die in a tragic “accident”. If this would happen, Karen would pay Dill a whopping $10 million! He refuses at first but eventually agrees to conspire to get Frank on his boat. And Frank turns out to be even more hateful than what Karen says about him.

This, of course, is a classic film noir set up like “Postman Always Rings Twice”, “Double Indemnity” and “Body Heat”, and you’d probably think you already know where it’s going, but writer-director Steven Knight (“Eastern Promises”, “Dirty Pretty Things”, “Locke”) has other things in mind and the narrative soon shifts in ways that you won’t see coming.

The twist is so jarring that it will either turn off the viewers who’ll say it’s preposterous, or it may fascinate them with all its weirdness and sheer insanity. Movies today can be so predictable and formulaic but ‘Serenity’, in comparison, will be amusing for those who enjoy the idea of not knowing at all where the film is going and whether all the dots will get connected in the end. It’s just so wild and strange.

One character will be a puzzle to viewers, Reid Miller (Jeremy Strong), a businessman who’s been pursuing Dill, who seems to have a telepathic connection with his son Patrick. Reid tells Dill that he is a salesman for a fishing equipment company. But then, he reveals to Dill that he is actually a character in a video game that Patrick is playing.

The real Dill is already dead and Patrick has just reprogrammed a video game to live out his own fantasy of murdering his abusive stepfather. The digital Dill is communicating with Patrick through the game’s code. After Dill kills the digital stepfather, Patrick in real life gets a knife and finally gets the courage to confront his real life stepdad who’s been beating up his mom for many years.

After this, Patrick programs himself into the video game to be reunited with his father. So did you get it? We won’t be surprised if you’d go out of the theaters feeling perplexed or even annoyed by what you saw.

Matthew and Anne play characters that are somewhat complicated as they can easily become caricatures, but somehow, they get to hit all the right notes. Matthew plays off his character as a problematic man who screams his lungs out into the vast void of the ocean. Anne plays the femme fatale trophy wife with elan and her scenes with Matthew really work well.

Director Steven Knight uses the film as his wildly imaginative playground to craft an unusual and odd concept and treats the story with a dirty but sexy undertone that’s slightly off the wall since the characters play beautiful people in an idyllic island about to do some criminal act. If you go for unconventional out-of-the movies that will challenge you, this one is definitely right up your alley.

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Movie Review

Alita: Battle Angel Movie Review: Exciting Big Screen Adaptation Of A Japanese Manga Series

“ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL” is an adaptation of the Japanese cyberpunk manga by Yukito Kishiro that came out in 1990 and has a devoted fan base, including “Avatar” director James Cameron who now produces and co-writes it for the big screen, directed by Robert Rodriguez who previously directed “Spy Kids”, “From Dusk Till Dawn” and “Sin City”.

The movie is set in 2053 in a dystopian world after the apocalpytic Fall. It starts with Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz)  finding the broken Alita in a junkyard in Iron City. He then attaches her head to the cyborg body he had made for his own daughter before she died. When the newly assembled android wakes up, Ido calls her Alita, after his own daughter. Alita doesn’t remember anything from her past and starts exploring the new world around her.

Iron City is in ruins and inhabited by the remnants of mankind. It lives under the last floating city called Zalem where the very rich lives. While out in the street, Alita meets a friendly guy, Hugo (Keean Johnson), who teaches her to how to play the sport called Motorball which she joins and where she quickly excelled.

The villain in the story are Vector (Mahershala Ali), who is actually possessed by a more evil Zalem character called Nova. Together with Dr. Chiren (Jennifer Connelly), they have a secret operation where they exploit some Motorball players to get body parts.

Alita gradually remembers her history as a courageous warrior from 300 years ago and she resolves to become a hunter warrior. This is actually a bounty hunter who fights evil elements, particularly the ruthless cyborg Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley).

As Alita gets closer to discovering the truth

about herself and Iron City, she finds herself fighting not only for her life but also for the lives of the people she has learned to care for, especially Hugo. Alita is a motion capture creation on screeen, just like Gollum in “Lord of the Rings”.

There is an actual actress on whom she is based named Rosa Salazar, the Latina girl named Lucy in Netflix’ “Bird Box”. She is then digitally altered to bring Alita to life and the combination of Rosa’s performance with the CGI work is quite astonishing. The human actors give competent performances, including Connelly, Waltz and Johnson, but the real star of the movie is the eye-popping visuals, especially in the Motorball race.

“Alita” is so well mounted on the big screen, with the robot designs quite imaginative.  We watched it on a regular screen but we’re sure it will be more spectacular on 3-D Imax, especially the rousingly staged climactic Motorball competition sequence which is full of adrenaline-pumping action scenes.

The movie is obviously an origin story that sets the stage for the titular heroine’s further adventures and clearly meant to be the start of a franchise. You can really feel that there will be a sequel, but that can only happen if “Alita” would really hit it big as a blockbuster world wide. It has yet to open in the U.S.A.

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ABS-CBN Films Releases Jackie Chan's New Action-Comedy-Fantasy Epic, 'The Knight Of Shadows Between Yin And Yang'

ABS-CBN FILMS and Star Cinema exec Enrico Santos invites the press to a special briefing of their new Jackie Chan movie, “The Shadow Knight: Between Yin and Yang”. The movie is opening in the Philippines, China and other Asian territories simultaneously on February 6 and they’re optimistic that it will attract not only the usual Jackie Chan diehards but all kinds of other moviegoers.

“I’ve seen it at maganda talaga siya,” says Enrico. “The special effects are spectacular and really mind boggling. Mage-enjoy lahat, for the whole family ito, lalo ang mga bata.”

They’ve released other Jackie Chan films before, like “Chinese Zodiac” and “Kung Fu Yoga”, and both are mammoth hits. “Malaki talaga ang audience ng movies niya and in this movie, he’s back in top form doing his own acrobatic action scenes and stunts. Pinakita sa amin ang the making of the movie na ‘The Shadow Knight’. It’s a very thrilling epic action-fantasy at si Jackie talaga mismo ang gumagawa kahit noong scenes involving special effects kaya hahanga ka talaga sa kanya.”

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The Possession Of Hannah Grace Movie Review: Tedious To Watch & Has No Really Good Scares

HORROR MOVIES these days are seldom really scary and a perfect example is “The Posession of Hannah Grace”, which starts with an exorcism that goes terribly wrong. The title character (Kirby Johnson) is seen tied to a bed with two priests praying and sprinkling holy water on her while her dad (Louis Herthum) is also standing by the bed. But the devil that has possessed her seems so powerful that it manages to kill one of the priests by lifting it up in the air then impaling it on some sharp object on the wall.

The other one is also in danger of suffering the same fate so to prevent this. the dad gets a pillow and smothers the girl’s face till she’s dead. This is a pretty compelling opening sequence that is never again duplicated in the rest of the movie. Three months later, we see a new character, Megan, played by Shay Mitchell, who just came to Manila to promote her Netflix show, “You”.

Shay is half Filipino and her mom is originally from Pampanga with Garcia as family name. Her dad is Canadian. She was first noticed in the series, “Pretty Little Liars”, and she certainly looks more Asian than Caucasian. Megan used to be cop who had a bout with substance abuse after she froze during a critical moment that resulted into the death of another cop. She’s now recovering, turning over a new leaf and gets to work as a new assistant assigned in the graveyard shift of the mortuary at the Boston Hospital where the body of Hannah Grace is taken.

It’s Megan’s responsibility to take photographs and fingerprints of the dead bodies that come in and she notices on the record that Hannah Grace’s eyes are supposed to be brown, but they’re actually blue. Soon, the dead body is sneaking out of her freezer drawer to wreak havoc on the people in the morgue, with the red haired security guard, Dave (Max MacNamara), who sneaks up on Megan, as the first victim.

This pivotal premise is probably promising on paper but the way it’s executed on screen by Dutch director Diederik Van Rooijen is just so tedious. The first unexplained thing is why the devil waits for so long before confronting Megan, who’s been told by the dead girl’s father that the best way to get rid of his daughter is by toasting her in the morgue’s incinerator.

It’s only towards the end that they have a
showdown and it’s easy to guess who finally gets fried and barbecued. Well, come to think of it, if the devil made Megan the first victim, then we would have no movie at all. The entire movie is set inside the hospital, with most of the action happening inside the morgue. They really scrimped on the budget when it comes to location.

The movie is derivative of many genre tropes and is actually reminiscent of similar horror flicks with confined sets, like “The Autopsy of Jane Doe”, “Devil” and “Killing Room”. But this one is just too cumbersome to watch and doesn’t offer any real good scares. You just do a lot of waiting for something to happen and when something finally does, it’s a helpless burst of considerable preposterousness.
#ThePossessionOfHannahGrace #ShayMitchell

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Movie Review

Replicas Movie Review: Even Keanu Reeves Charisma Can't Save The Shortcomings Of This Cheap Thriller

WE’VE JUST SEEN the trailer of “John Wick 3, Parabellum”, and it looks quite exciting. But it will open in May yet as a summer movie in the U.S. Meantime, we have Keanu Reeves doing a sci-fi thriller, “Replicas”, and you’d wonder why he did it, just like you also wondered why, last year, he did “Destination Wedding”, a romantic comedy with Winona Ryder, and “Siberia”, a romantic thriller with an unknown, Ana Ularu.

Both movies had limited theatrical releases and for an action star of his stature, it seems Keanu is not that choosy with his projects, unlike his contemporary Tom Cruise, who is more careful in selecting the projects he does. In “Replicas”, Keanu plays a research scientist, William Foster, whose project in a specialized biotech laboratory has him tampering with life and death. He wants to be able to transfer the memories of dead people into am android body or robot, but his experiments are often a failure.

Then, on their way to a vacation, his family meets a tragic accident where he’s the only one who survives. His wife, two daughters and son, are killed in a car crash. With the help of a colleague, Ed (Thomas Middleditch), he retrieves their memories from their remains then clone their bodies to bring them back to life. But naturally, theirs resurrection leads to a lot of complications, especially when the deceased family members who come back to life realized that one of them is missing.

This is the youngest girl, who wasn’t cloned because Keanu and his friend didn’t have enough resources to revive four people. Then, while they’re doing the cloning, which takes some time, they have to make excuses to friends as to why his wife and kids are missing. It feels like those complications in thrillers where the characters have to cover up a murder.

As Keanu’s wife (played by Alice Eve of “Star Trek Into Darkness”) tells him later: “You can’t keep bringing people back from the dead until you’ve work this stuff out.”  Exactly. You can really feel there’s something basically stupid about the whole premise that was not ironed out convincingly, especially when the movie suddenly becomes an action-thriller toward the end, complete with car chases and shootouts turning it from sci-fi to a disappointing B movie with cheap thrills.

Honestly, we’ve seen many movies in Netflix that are much better made than this sleazy one. Also, there was that better made movie “Ex-Machina” with Oscar-winner Alicie Vikander as the robot with human attributes. Keanu plays his confused and conflicted character with the familiar straight face and detached hero persona with which he did Neo in “The Matrix” series.

But even his charisma cannot save the shortcomings of “Replicas”, with John Ortiz as his evil boss with his own ulterior nefarious agenda helping ruin the whole thing completely. Well, we just hope that Keanu will be able to redeem himself when “John Wick 3” is shown.

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Glass Movie Review: A Mishmash Of Half-Baked Ideas With Long Boring Talky Sequences

WE’RE TOLD the theatre box office has been performing dismally since the Metro Manila Filmfest ended. Local films like “Boy Tokwa”, “Sakaling Maging Tayo” and “Alpha: The Right to Kill” came and went without moviegoers even noticing them. But even Holllywood releases are not lucky. Only “Bumblebee” did fairly well. Others like “Instant Family” with Mark Wahlberg, “Replicas” with Keanu Reeves, “The Upside” with Kevin Hart, “Mary Poppins Returns” with Emily Blunt and the horror flick “Possession of Hannah Grace” failed to attract audiences. Even the current number one movie in the U.S., “Glass”, is said not to be doing as well as expected locally.

“Glass” is from M. Night Shyamalan, well known for his twist endings, starting with “The Sixth Sense” in 1999 which even got several Oscar nominations. But his succeeding works were disappointments, like “The Happening”, “The Vilage”, “Signs”, “After Earth”, “Last Airbender”. In 2016, he was able to return successfully with the big hit, “Split”, starring James MacAvoy as Kevin Wendell Crumb, a kidnapper with 23 other split personalities.

The movie ended with the surprise appearance of Bruce Willis as David Dunn, the only survivor in a massive train crash which proved that he cannot be harmed in Shyamalan’s 2000 movie, “Unbreakable”, which also introduced the character Elijah Price (Samuel L. Jackson), who’s known as Mr. Glass as he’s the opposite of David Dunn since his bones are so brittle they break easily. Now comes “Glass” and the three films have suddenly become a trilogy.

Sadly, Shyamalan has failed to build a persuasive story around the three characters, biting off more than he could chew. He even tried to delve on themes about the variations between reality and fantasy in doing a superhero movie but it didn’t go anywhere. The whole thing comes across as mishmash of half-baked ideas with meta references that do not really jell into a satisfying whole. “Glass” is needlessly lengthy, making it tedious viewing with long talky sequences that just lack energy and help put you to sleep.

David has learned to accept his gifts and becomes a vigilante who, along with his son Joseph (Spencer Clark), hunt down criminals. With the help of his ESP (extra sensory perception), David rescues four cheerleaders who Kevin as his Beast persona has kidnapped in Philadelphia. He fights Kevin in a showdown in the streets, but they are both arrested and taken to a maximum security mental hospital where, it turns out, Elijah is also being held. But even the interplay between the three major characters doesn’t turn out into anything really exciting.

The head of the asylum, Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), a specialist in superhero delusions, is given three days to convince David, Kevin and Elijah that they don’t really have super powers but are just normal people. Actually, this Dr. Staple character is plain boring as she delivers her sleep-inducing monologues about the demarcation line that divides what is comic book and what is real. Aside from Joseph, the son of David, there are two other characters: Elijah’s mother (Charlayne Woodard) and Casey (Anya Taylor Joy), one of the kidnap victims of Kevin who was able to escape by appealing to his real persona as Kevin.

Even the action sequences are not very well staged and lacks the energy of similar movies. Since this is a Shyamalan movie, there are also twists but nothing really as earth shaking as “I see dead people”. It turns out Elijah or Glass has his own motives to manipulate David and Kevin. It is revealed that it’s Elijah who engineered the train crash in “Unbreakable” that caused the death of Kevin’s father, resulting into his abusive mother’s tormenting him which in turn led to the creation of Kevin’s multi-personalities. The angry Beast then breaks the backbone of Glass and throws David into a tank of water, the equivalent of Superman’s kryptonite or weakness for David.

And Dr. Staple herself turns out to be a part of a secret society that tries to keep the existence of supermen a secret, like the illuminati group in “Da Vinci Code”. She erases all the security footage that recorded her evil acts and declares her mission a success, but she doesn’t know that Glass has hacked the cameras and has been live streaming it. Elijah’s mom, Joseph and Casey then get copies of the recorded footage and release it to public to prove that superhumans do exist among us.

When it comes to acting, MacAvoy, even if he’s too buff to be believable in the role of a very disturbed psycho, has the natural advantage of playing a complex role with his multiple personalities. Just like in “Split”, he once again comes up with a gleeful over-the-top interpretation of them. Take note that he is better when he is interacting with himself and not his two co-stars, especially now that the usually flamboyant Samuel Jackson chooses to be more restrained and subdued as Glass, since he’s just confined in a wheelchair to look like a catatonic.

Bruce Willis is convincing as the tired and weary David, but Hugh Jackman has done it better in “Logan”. As for Shyamalan, looks like he has ran out of good ideas as filmmaker. But “Glass” is a big hit in the States, so for sure, he’ll get more investors for his next project.

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Movie Review

Roma: Alfonso Cuaron's Proust In Remembrances Of Things Past

ALFONSO CUARON is an acclaimed Mexican director whose breakout movie is “Y Tu Mama Tambien” in 2001, a road flick about two sexually obsessed young men that got several Oscar nominations. But before that, he has done more commercial projects in Hollywood like “A Little Princess” in 1995 and his own version of Dickens’ “Great Expectations” with Ethan Hawke in 1998 which he himself considers a failure. His other films include “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” in 2004 and “Children of Men” in 2006. In 2013, he became the first Hispanic director to win the Oscar for “Gravity” starring Sandra Bullock.

Cuaron’s latest film, “Roma”, won him the best director award at the recent Golden Globes and the movie itself won the best foreign language film award. It was first shown at the Venice Filmfest last year and won the Golden Lion best picture award. It had a theatrical release then was shown streaming on Netflix. When you watch it, it immediately becomes apparent that it is the director’s ode to his own personal experiences while growing up in the Roma district of Mexico in 1969 to 1971.  Cuaron is the true auteur here as he also wrote, produced, lensed and edited “Roma”.

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Pinoy Showbiz

MARY POPPINS RETURNS movie review: Emily Blunt is no Julie Andrews but she manages to come up with her own interpretation

JULIE ANDREWS started appearing in stage musicals at London’s West End in 1948. She made her debut in Broadway in “The Boyfriend” in 1954 and popularized the role of Eliza Doolittle in Lerner and Loewe’s “My Fair Lady” in 1956. When Warner Bros. made “My Fair Lady” into a movie, they bypassed her and got the more established film star Audrey Hepburn to play the lead role, using a ghost singer, Marni Nixon (who also sang for Deborah Kerr in “The King and I” and Nathalie Wood in “West Side Story”).

Most people sympathized with Julie, who was then tapped by Disney to play the title role of “Mary Poppins” after Walt Disney saw her performing on Broadway as Guinevere in “Camelot”. Both “My Fair Lady” and “Mary Poppins” were released in 1964. Julie won as Oscar best actress playing Mary Poppins, her very first movie. Audrey was not even nominated by the Oscar, but “My Fair Lady” won as best picture and the leading man, Rex Harrison, who popularized the role of Prof. Higgins on stage, won as best actor.

The next year, Julie shone even more in “The Sound of Music” as Maria (where she’s actually more deserving to win), but she didn’t win the Oscar, upstaged by another Julie (Christie, for “Darling”), but she did win the Golden Globe best actress award. “Mary Poppins” was turned by Cameron Mackintosh into a stage musical in 2004 and now, after 54 years, Disney has come up with a sequel in “Mary Poppins Returns”.

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Movie Review

Bird Box Movie Review: A Thriller Where You're Not Supposed To Look, Or You Die

NETFLIX started operating in 1997 as a company that offers online streaming services of their films and TV shows on a subscription basis. As of 2018, it now has a total of 137 million subscribers worldwide, with 58 million of them in the U.S. alone. It clicked as it made good in its promise to offer original content. As of 2018, they already have 700 original series for their subscribers.

Their hit TV shows include “House of Cards” and “Narcos” (our favorites), “Daredevil” with Charlie Cox, “Stranger Things”, “The Haunting of Hill House”, “Riverdale”, “Black Mirror”. Among their movies are “Bright” with Will Smith, Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” that just won best foreign film in the Golden Globes, “The Outlaw King” starring Chris Pine and the current hit, “Bird Box” starring Oscar-winner Sandra Bullock.

“Bird Box” is a suspense-thriller based on the novel by Joseph Malerman and directed by Suzanne Bier (who did the award-winning drama series, “The Night Manager”, starring Tom Hiddleston). It will surely be compared to “A Quiet Place” where aliens have invaded our planet and they hunt humans by the sounds that we make. This time, anyone who merely looks at the predators will quickly lose his sanity and want to commit suicide, something like what happened in “The Happening” by M. Night Shayamalan.

The lead character is Malorie (Sandra) and the story starts in the present when Malorie tries to travel down the river two days away from where they are to find a safe refuge for herself and her two children who have no names but are simply called as Boy (Julian Edwards) and Girl (Viviene Blair). In flashbacks, the film goes back and forth between their voyage on the river and how the story started five years ago.

Sandra as Malorie is a painter who is pregnant and not yet ready to become a mother when the story starts. Her sister Jessica (Sarah Paulson) accompanies her to the doctor and they see in the news on TV that there seems to be an inexplicable epidemic in Europe where people are simply committing mass sucide, throwing the world into chaos.

On their way home from the hospital, the apocalipytic epidemic has reached their place. Jessica herself sees the creatures and crashes their car. We ourselves, the viewers, don’t really see the entities and this kind of menacing situation is in line with the philosophy of Alfred Hitchcock that what is not shown is more scary than what is.

Sandra manages to pull herself out of their wrecked vehicle and is saved by a kind woman, who unfortunately, quickly becomes a victim herself and is instantly killed. The woman’s husband (John Malkovich) resents Sandra who cost his wife’s life, but Sandra joins him and other survivors barricaded inside the home of its Asian owner (BD Wong). There are other people in the house, including the elderly Jacki Weaver, another pregnant young woman, Danielle McDonald, and the hunky African American, Trevante Rhodes of “Moonlight”.

The survivors die one by one, especially when a stranger (Tom Hollander) with his own ulterior motive is allowed to enter the house at the time that Sandra and Danielle are about to give birth to their respective babies. This is a very gripping sequence where several characters perish. Five years then quickly pass by and Sandra and the kids end up as the only ones who survived.

Sandra learns about the sanctuary down the river from a walkie talkie and decides to take the risk of taking the dangerous wild river boat ride. She and the two kids have to be blindfolded all throughout the journey so that they won’t see the seemingly supernatural and very powerful creatures.

How the story would unfold in a believable manner is tough to pull off but it succeeds in sustaining our interest for two hours. We become involved the moment Sandra tells the kids that they will take a boat trip that “will feel like it’ll go on forever. You must stay alert and you must never remove your blindfolds or I will hurt you. If you see, you die.”

There’s even a Sophie’s Choice kind of moment where she has to choose between the two kids but this is not pursued. The feeling of claustrophobia manages to absorb us and we find Sandra and the kids totally sympathetic. We root of them and want them to win in their horrible ordeal and fight for survival. There are scenes that unfold from the characters blindfolded perspective and this is where the sound design adds up to the tension and atmosphere of paranoia and terror, aided and abetted by the truly disquieting musical score. “Bird Box” is really worth a look.

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Movie Review

Why Local Movies Are Flopping One After Another

THERE WAS a time when the playdate right after the Manila Filmfest was much coveted by local producers. It’s not surprising that they’re all scrambling to show their new releases right after the festival because moviegoers are eager to watch new local films. But lately, this is no longer sadly the case.

The last movie that did well right after the filmfest was “Bride for Rent” from Star Cinema starring Kim Chiu and Xian Lim in 2014.  Right after that, all the films shown immediately after the festival didn’t do well at the box office, starting in 2015 with “Tragic Theatre” from Viva starring Andi Eigenmann which really did tragically at the tills and “Edsa Woolworth” where the entry of moviegoers was as slow as the traffic at Edsa, from Star Cinema starring Pokwang (but at least, that’s where she met her partner and dad of her baby, Lee O’Brien.)

This was followed in 2016 by “Lumayo Ka Man Sa Akin” from Viva and the viewers really obeyed the title, lumayo nga sila sa movie. To think this is a star studded trilogy led by Maricel Soriano and Herbert Bautista. In 2017, it’s the sexy action comedy from Star Cinema starring Jessy Mendiola and Coleen Garcia, “Extra Service”, which had no happy ending at all despite the offer of something extra.

Last year, the movie that opened right after the filmfest was Regal’s “Mama’s Girl” starring Sofia Andres and Diego Loyzaga, a movie that proved to be a jinx for both of them since they’re now both out of circulation. And this year, the movie that did the honors to continue this trend is “Boy Tokwa” starring Jose Manalo. As of this writing, it has been pulled out from several theaters while, in a few remaining mall theaters, it’s now being shown with limited screening hours, alternating with other movies that attract more viewers.

But what do you expect? The movie was hardly promoted. It seems they made the shooting of the movie a big secret and everyone was just surprised when, one week before the playdate, they suddenly had a presscon to announce its showing. What were they thinking? That is simply not enough time to promote a movie.

Before, during they heydays of Regal, we remember Mother Lily inviting us to the first shooting day of her new movies. This is to foster awareness early on that such a movie is in the process of being made. Now, when we interview today’s stars and ask them: do you have a new movie? Their answer is: “Meron po pero hindi pa raw puedeng i-announce ang details. Secret pa raw po.”

Ha ha ha! Isn’t that a big laugh? Instead of promoting their movie, they’re keeping it a secret. We cannot understand the logic, honestly. Then they’ll hold a presscon for the movie about a week or two just before its playdate. No wonder local films are flopping one after another. Simply because they’re being released in theaters with moviegoers hardly knowing that there is such a movie that has been made. Isn’t that the height of stupidity? You all deserve to flop!

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Pinoy Showbiz

Bumblebee Movie Review; Exciting Prequel To The Past Five Transformer Movies

FIVE ‘TRANSFORMER’ movies were made from 2007 to 2017, all directed by Michael Bay. They were all critically panned but still made lots of money. We now have a new Transformer movie, “Bumblebee”, directed by Travis Knight of the acclaimed animated flick, “Kubo and the Two Strings”, in his first live action film. This is still produced by Michael Bay, but it’s definitely the one with the most heart of all the Transformer flicks which are mostly robot versus robot carnage.

“Bumblebee” is a prequel and set in 1987. It starts in Cybertron, the home of the warring robots, the Autobots led by Optimus Prime and the evil Decepticons. Optimus sends his Autobots to different places in the universe to establish future bases. Bumblebee is sent to our planet, Earth, with the aim of also protecting it from the Decepticons.

Upon his landing, he is attacked right away by a platoon of soldiers led by John Cena who orders that he be hunted and destroyed. As he tries to escape away from them, two bigger Decepticon robots who are pursuing him also apprehend him (voices by Angela Bassett and Justin Theroux) to ask him where Optimus is hiding.

He fights back, but they are able to damage his memory and also his voice box so he can no longer talk. He shuts himself down and disguises himself as a yellow Volkswagen beetle ala-Disney’s the Love Bug.
We then meet a human character, Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld of “True Grit” and “Edge of Seventeen”), an 18-year old who’s a social outcast still grieving from the untimely death of her dad from heart attack. She’s now somewhat alienated from her mom who has found a new boyfriend. She wants to have her own car and, in a junk yard, she finds the piece of scrap that Bumblebee is.

She is able to make the car run again and takes it home. While tinkering with it in their garage, Bumblee transforms into a robot and, although Charlie is initially aghast, this will be the start of a beautiful friendship. Charlie is a former diver who has lost her confidence and she is oppressed by mean girls in school. She gives the robot the name Bumblebee and he becomes the trusted confidante she needs.

But the Decepticons continue to look for Bumblebee and their friendship will be put to a big test. In the past Transformer flicks, the human characters are not that sympathetic, like Shia LeBeouf from movies 1 to 3 and Mark Wahlberg in movies 4 & 5. Here, Charlie comes out as a real, relatable person and you can really believe in the friendship that develops between her and the gentle giant that Bumblebee is.

Their friendship becomes the film’s central driving force and reminds you of similar friendships between humans and aliens in “E.T.”, “The Iron Giant” and “Starman”, an element missing in the Michael Bay movies. But since this is still a Transformer movie, you can still expect the same kind of fierce fighting between violent robots.

The production design is first rate. The 80s setting will make kid viewers then feel the nostalgia of the Transformers, harkening back to the time when fans of the Autobots were first discovering them as Robots in Disguise. And since it’s set in the 80s, there are no cellphones, no internet and TV sets look primitive compared to what we have now.

We hear vintage songs from Tears for Fear, The Smiths, Simple Minds, etc. The movie is paced briskly as an action thriller with elements of family drama, fantasy and a strong buddy flavor between Charlie and Bumblebee.

Hailee Steinfeld gives a symphatetic performance as Charlie and it becomes even more amazing when you consider that her co-star is actually all CGI and she’s registering all her emotions on a green screen. She does it all very convincingly. She’s given good human support by Jorge Lendeborgh as her neighbor who has a crush on her and helps her with Bumblebee. John Cena also does well in his supporting role as the army soldier who initially sides with the Decepticons but later on realizes his mistake and makes amends.

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Movie Review

AURORA movie review: a horror flick that fails to accomplish its intention to scare audiences

“AURORA” is a horror movie set in an isolated island. It was shot in Batanes but this is not really established as the movie’s setting. So we're wondering: why go to a remote, more expensive location and not even show that this was shot there? This could very well have been shot on any scenic beach town in Batangas or Zambales and it will not really make much of a difference. If they shot it somewhere nearer, Viva Films would surely have spent much less for the location shoot.

Instead of giving more weight to the location, the filmmakers should have focused more instead on the script and the way the narrative is developed. As it is, the “boringga” factor in the movie is so very high. There are just many tedious stretches that really test your patience. There is no doubt the movie has good visuals, but after a while, all those frequently repeated shots of the angry sea and its rampaging waves become cumbersome.

The musical score is also too loud, too intrusive, calling attention to itself instead of just subtly heightening the mood or atmosphere of a scene. It’s good for a movie to have superlative technical aspects, but if the storytelling itself leaves so much to be desired, then the movie will be such a big bore to watch, which is what happened to “Aurora”.

Aurora is the name of a ship that was wrecked near the island, killing all of its passengers. When the movie starts, the search for the missing victims has officially ended. You can see the shipwreck from the shore amidst the sharp rocks where the vessel crashed, lying on its side.
The bodies of many of the victims have not yet been recovered. Anne Curtis plays Leana, the keeper of the production designed inn where the relatives of the missing passengers are staying while the search is going on. Now that the coast guard has ended its search, the relatives requested Anne to continue the search and she’ll be paid P50,000 for every body that is recovered.

Only an elderly couple talked to Anne about this and made that offer. And they don’t even look like rich types who can easily afford to pay such a huge amount for every body that is recovered. Sa totoo lang, mukha silang poor. Anne agrees and later enlists the help of a boatman (Allan Paule) and her ex-boyfriend (Marco Gumabao) to help her in the search.

Soon strange things start to happen. There’s an apparition of a ghostly presence peering through the window and there’s another one who actually gets inside the inn through the window. Then Anne’s sister, Rita (Phoebe Villamor), also begins to act strangely, like she knows there are some unwanted ghostly tenants staying in the rooms at the upper floor of their inn which, when seen from the outside, is obviously just made of cardboard.

But for long stretches, nothing earth shaking is really happening. You keep on waiting for something exciting to happen, but it’s not worth the very long wait. The true measure of a good horror film is if it provides spine-tingling, lingering scares. “Aurora” doesn’t have that.

The real problem is that the material is really so flimsy, but they keep on stretching and stretching it and the bad fillers show. It turns out there's a survivor from the shipwreck, a character named Philip (Arnold Reyes), who’s a first hand witness to what actually happened inside the ship before it sinks, but his very vital testimony as a survivor is needlessly delayed until the very end.

And when finally, what transpired inside the ship is actually re-created on the screen, with Anne and her sister witnessing everything as they are suddenly transported there at the time the ship is sinking, the effect is very underwhelming. Anne learns the ship is overloaded. When she and Rita get back to the inn, all the bodies of the missing passengers are there, intact, good as new, not even bloated or disfigured at all considering they’ve been underwater for several weeks.

The movie cannot be saved even if they tighten the editing because of the badly written script. The suspense quotient is zero as tension is not even created while you’re watching, simply because the lives of the lead characters are not even threatened.

A horror film will be effective only if we emphatize with the lead characters totally and we become afraid for them that they might not survive the evil that is confronting them. But there’s a scene where Anne sees a woman on fire passing right in front of her, and it was not even terrifying at all as it just ignores her.

Yam Laranas first gained attention for his “Sigaw”, a 2004 filmfest entry that produced some genuine scares. But since then, he has yet to make another horror film that really works. His “The Road” hangs on an incredible plot contrivance. The character of Alden Richards, a murderous psychotic, finishes college and becomes a policeman played by TJ Trinidad who turns out to be a serial killer. We hope he will be more successful in scaring audiences in his next horror project.

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Pinoy Movie

Movie Review: 'Mary, Marry Me': The Winning Performances Of Sisters Toni & Alex Gonzaga Not Enough To Save The Film From Its Shortcomings

‘MARY, MARRY ME’ capitalizes on the fact that it’s the first movie together of sisters Toni and Alex Gonzaga. Toni is an established TV host who has done several successful romantic movies with Sam Milby and this is also the reunion of their love team after a long time. Alex has a huge following in her own youtube channel and her earlier solo movie this year, “Nakalimutan Kong Kalimutan Ka”, was an unexpected hit.

The script capitalizes heavily on their relationship as sisters. It starts by establishing how close their bond is, with Toni shown even personally cleaning Alex’ ears and the extracted earwax or tutuli is grossly exhibited on the big screen. Then their parents suddenly both perish in a car crash and Toni’s character, Mary Jane, is forced to give her younger sister, Alex as Mary Anne, to an aunt who lives in the U.S. for adoption.

It would seem that they have no communication through the years after that, as they drifted away from each other, even if Toni keeps on saying she loves and misses her sister so much. In this day and age of texting, email and social media, the long distance is no longer a problem as it’s so easy to maintain communication with your loved ones even if they’re abroad. So why did they not resort to that?

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Movie Review: Jack Em Popoy, The Pulis Credibles: Very Commercial But One Of Vic Sotto's Better Action Comedies To Date

VIC SOTTO’s filmfest entries before were all sloppily made fantasy comedies but still, people flocked to them. After Vice Ganda started eclipsing him at the box office, he’s been trying to come up with more sensible filmfest entries like “My Little Bossings” with Kris Aquino in 2013 and “My Bebe Love” with AlDub love team in 2015.

In 2016, he gave Enteng Kabisote one last try in “The Abangers” and it became obvious that Enteng has really lost its magic as it was buried in the avalanche of Vice Ganda’s highly successful “Super Parental Guidance”. Both films were rejected by Metro Filmfest screening committee so they were actually shown before the festival proper.

Last year, he did “Meant to Beh” that is a fairly entertaining family comedy with Dawn Zulueta but still clobbered by the entries of Vice Ganda and Coco Martin. His entry this year, which pairs him now with Coco and with Maine Mendoza, is “Jack Em Popoy: The Pulis Credibles”. This offers a truly different and fresh casting combination of stars from the two top rival networks.

It’s a case of “Eat Bulaga” meets “Ang Probinsyano”. It works even better than Vic and Coco’s entries in last year’s filmfest, “Meant to Beh” and “Ang Panday”, with its more engaging storyline involving the three leads as they engage in serious daddy issues about missing fathers and adopted babies which was well integrated into the narrative.

It’s still far from being perfect and flawless, but we’re glad that the use of senseless gags and silly off-putting jokes they rampantly resort to before in the “Enteng Kabisote” franchise have been consciously minimized. Vic plays his real age as the dad of Maine Mendoza, but there’s a twist here that gives him the chance to do some sensitive dramatic scenes that, in fairness to him, he was able to handle very well.

In the case of Coco Martin, he turns on his full star wattage with his charming and dashing best as a dedicated cop who fights a drug syndicate alongside with Vic and Maine. He also gets to do some pa-cute singing and dancing scenes when he joins a contest in the movie that’s a segment in “Eat Bulaga”. As an action star ala-”Probinsyano”, he’s given the chance to do many obligatory daring stunts and fight scenes in his many action sequences.

Maine is also quite endearing as the dutiful daughter and likewise gets to acquit herself in both her comedy and action scenes. She is without her perennial ka-love team, Alden Richards, in this movie and this certainly will boost her stock as a solo artist not depended on a love teasm.

Providing good support as the bad guys are Ronaldo Valdez, Tirso Cruz III, Ryza Cenon and Arjo Atayde. The movie will surely also cater to action fans as it tries to bring back the hard slambang action scenes done during the heydays of Lito Lapid (who makes a guest appearance) and the late FPJ where there is a big body count from all the gunfights.

It’s all very commercial, but thanks to Mike Tuviera’s fine direction, we can honestly say that is one of Vic’s better action-comedies to date.

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