Reviews

First of all, I'm also one of the big fans of the "Goosebumps" novel out there. I basically grew up with it and these novel's have accompanied most of my childhood with cheesy (though there's a couple scary one too) stories written by R.L. Stine. So when I heard that Goosebumps will be resurrected to the big screen, I was super enthusiastic with this news.

The first Goosebumps from 2015, that's a much better quality movie and I totally love it (still do until now), though there's still room for improvement. With the great result from the first one in mind and also a hope that the sequel would be much, much better, I watched the 2nd one tonight...

...and I ended up DISAPPOINTED!!!

First, since we're talking about Goosebumps in general, this movie surely lack the element of surprise. And by surprises, I'm not saying the cheesy jump scare where you practically can see it coming from miles away, but more about the sudden appearances of certain monsters or creatures that made Goosebumps novels such a hit back then. In here, those creatures just appear TOGETHER! Are you making a halloween movie or a brawling movie, dear director???

Second, the main characters. Goosebumps 2 is really lacking the development and backstory of each characters here. It's like, you're suddenly presented with some random characters, give them some dreams and wishes, then throw them in into the story (imagine Interactive story book where you're presented with options in each pages) just as pawns of the sort to go through this scary town and experience the thrill. Oh, and you know what? The cameo doesn't help also!

Third, what the hell with the main villain? Yes, I know that "THAT GUY" is by far the most menacing of all. He got the brain, the power and even the magic in him. But why turn him into a super cheesy villain where his evilness is only to "hosed" people or make some things alive? Honestly, even though "THAT GUY" is around, but I couldn't sense the threat and evil in there... His intentions are like those coming out of children's story book.

Fourth, even though some of the special effects are great, but honestly speaking, it's not that great. In an era where movie producers can already create devastating tsunami coming, or earth cracking and splitting, or the epic fight between kingkong and T-Rex or dinosaurs roaming around earth without much problem, most the ghosts and ghouls of Goosebumps 2 really just looks like people cosplaying around while bullying the neighborhood to make a chaos (is that even a chaos?)

All in all, I'm honestly disappointed in this sequel. Feels like the director doesn't understand what makes the Goosebumps novel such a hit back there. Feels like, they are treating Goosebumps franchise as an easy money-milking property only...

I can only hope that the next sequel (if any) will be much better and darker in tone...

First of all, let me state this very clearly. I'm not DC fanboy nor Marvel fanboy. What I stated in my review is just a personal opinion from years of watching both DC and Marvel movies.

Now, let me first stated this. Suicide Squad has the potential to become a good movie, if only the director put more time on the production and not rush things. Unfortunately, it's the opposite that happened. The unpolished gem with lots of potential in it, has been wrongly polished into a flawed gem. For me, below is the main weaknesses of the movie: 1. Plot that was too thin, shallow and dense. I might say, it's just too dense and too random for me. There's not enough background story to actually support the movie. Sure there's a bit of explanation along the way, but that still doesn't help much, given how little information they give us so far.

2. Dialogues that don't make sense. For this one, I have to highlight the reasoning that were uttered by the outlaws. The reasoning seems unbelievably shallow and the action afterward also doesn't make sense. Another reason why the director should have taken his time to develop the story.

3. Overshadowed members of Suicide Squad. Given the name as a squad, you should at least tell the tale in a fair manner and fair portion, right? But throughout the movie, seems to me, only Deadshot and Harley Quinn get the spotlight. Meanwhile, the rest of the crew (Croc, Boomerang, El Diablo, Slipknot and Katana) were only there to make the actions more interesting. Too bad really.

4. Unnecessary appearance. Talking about this point, bring us to the appearance of Jared Leto as Joker. Sure, all fans have been waiting to see how Leto perform as Joker. While I'm pretty happy with his performance in Suicide Squad, I failed to see the significance of his appearance in the movie. Personally, I think even without Joker showing up, the movie could still progress smoothly.

5. Inspiration that came too late. I admit, this one point is a bit random, but I got my reason. Throughout the movie, I saw some resemblance with Marvel's story telling. In this case, I'm going to compare Suicide Squad with Guardians of the Galaxy which also consists of former outlaws and also used lots of classic songs and some dark humor.

Now, of course it's not fair if I'm only telling about the negative points. Let's see the positive points:

1. Will Smith and Margot Robby. Ironically, one of the down side of the movie, also serve as the savior for Suicide Squad. Both of these marvelous actor and actress are doing really good and (David) Ayer was lucky that these two can carry the flow of the story.

2. Non-Stop Actions. Without this point, Suicide Squad will turn into a very boring movie. Lucky for Ayer, this one point also managed to save the somewhat standard story out of the dark hole it almost fell into. Not the best one, but definitely enjoyable.

3. Jared Leto as Joker. While I lament the unnecessary appearance of Joker in the movie, I'm actually relieved to see that Leto has shown yet another interesting version of Joker. Leto's version in this one was shown as someone psychotic crazy and yet charming. Of course we can't just compare his appearance in this one to those of Heath Ledger's just yet, as Leto's total screen time is probably not more than 8-10 minutes. It's actually interesting to see what kind of Joker will come out later on to make Batman's life a living hell.

All in all, even though it's dense and shallow, but truth be told, it's still quite interesting to watch the action. At least the action is quite good (though some of it are unbelievable) and both Will Smith and Margot Robby have performed wonderfully as Deadshot and Harley Quinn.

If you're looking for a movie with complex and dark story, than this is definitely not for you. But if you're the type that can go easy on the movie and just enjoy what you see, you will not regret watching it. I give it 7/10.

Probably to almost anyone, seeing the trailer of Dragon Blade for a couple of times might piqued your interest, especially when you see a couple of A-list actors and actresses in it. Most notably are Jackie Chan, John Cusack, Adrien Brody and Choi Si Won (one of ex-member from K-Pop band, Super Junior).

While most of the review I've seen here is pretty much saying this one is an utter disappointment, I for myself personally don't think so.

To me, Jackie Chan along with Daniel Lee has managed to pull this out quite remarkably. Their choices for the actors are good, because each one of 'em could play the role nicely. They could get into their role so deep, you would think they were re-enacting a piece of story from their personal life.

Maybe there is a couple of flaws here and there, like the ruin in the very beginning of the show that's not old enough and for another keen eyes, this might kill the mood, because basically, we were promised a story that (might) happened thousand years ago. But truth be told, it was not really a problem, since the ruin itself is just a fake one, created to fit into the real story of Silk Road.

Story-wise, some of you might find it cheesy and predictable. Some of you might even say that the character Chan played (Huo An), was unbelievably too kind, like he was just character from a fairytale. Is it really like that? If you follow the story and try to delve into the character of Huo An, to every tragedy ever happened to him (told in the story), you might understand why he always talk about peace.

Or maybe how Cusack was not cut out for the role of Roman Empire general, Lucius? Don't think so. He actually played the role real good, he could showed how it feels to be betrayed, to hate and to trust. Brody as the villain Tiberius, has also done a very great job. You could see his character in a whole new way, the way he lust for power and ambitions. The twisted way of a mad man ready to betray (and kill, as already told in the trailer) his own family.

How about the fight and the war scenes or any other details? I won't go into more detail about those topics and it's best if you go watch it yourself. You should, because as predictable as it was, the morale of the story is very touching and heartwarming.

It's true, peace between races and nations might be a naive topic these days, but I honestly think, it is actually very nice. I think, this is how Chan convey his own ideal to the real world, about how all nations should be united and not be in conflict with each other.

All in all, I give this movie 10/10. A must watch!

The hype of Annabelle, the doll, started up when it showed up in The Conjuring for a couple of seconds long, a way for the director to say, "we're gonna make a movie about the doll." And in just a year time, more or less, we got the movie, Annabelle, acting as a prequel to The Conjuring.

So, maybe people would put their hopes up because The Conjuring was actually a success. And besides, we're talking about a possessed and really creepy doll. It should be good too, just like The Conjuring, right? Well, as much as I wanted to say that Annabelle is good, the truth is, it's just a mediocre horror movie, delivered to drive the curiosity in all horror movie-goers up, which for me is not that successful.

It all started with a collection set creepy doll (later on named Annabelle), was possessed with a supernatural power that was disturbing. From there, everything went awry, just like your typical horror-genre movie.

It's true, there's quite a lot of fear factor that can make you jump out of your seat at the time or even some scene that made you started to cover up your eyes in case something scary might jump at you. I have to say, PERHAPS, that's because people have watched The Conjuring and they expected the same thing to happen in Annabelle. For me, it's only that factor that actually makes me 'on-alert' with my hands.

Other than that, nothing. It's just your usual, day-to-day scary movie that will just go by and be forgotten, only to be remembered when you watch The Conjuring again. And MAYBE, just another speculation of mine, that's the reason why Annabelle was designed like that (the real Annabelle doll was just a Raggedy Ann), to make us remember Annabelle as shown in the movie. Just too bad, the director couldn't effectively make the best out of the creepy doll...

As for the script and actors + actresses, they are neither good nor bad. Just another so-so part from Annabelle that makes me rate the movie 5/10. Could be better.

Well, as a big fans of Nic Cage, I sure feel like he's been showered with bad luck. The last time I saw his movie and felt a trickle of excitement, was National Treasure 2.

So what went wrong with Tokarev? First of all, the dialog. Dialog was pretty much boring. There are some moment when Cage was trying to gave an impression and ended up silly. It looks like Cage was trying to deliver a mind blowing - one sentence - bad ass kind of pep-talk, but ended up uninspiring. Also, too much boring conversation that made me actually fell asleep during some part of the movie.

Second, the acting. Well, maybe the acting is okay, but still not good enough. Too many cheesy acts that actually don't fit in this movie. For a movie that was supposed to fill with action, this one got less than what I personally hope for.

Third and the last, the scenario. You got some twisted story, you got some gang-related rivalry and you got some revenge story. But the way Tokarev was brought to us, well, it's definitely boring. Perhaps with a little touch from other more experienced director, Tokarev could be a better movie.

Conclusion: Using Cage as the star in this movie definitely didn't help at all. Tokarev was just your average television drama that doesn't worth bringing up to the big screen... But I still go with 5/10 for the twisted storyline.

Back at the time, when I was small, I remember playing one of my favorite games ever, the marvel super heroes fighting game, and I usually use IronMan and SpiderMan as my team. They're as marvelous as ever. But still, as everyone know, IronMan is not as popular as Spiderman, or Wolverine, or any other super heroes character.

And here we are, watching one of the Marvel super heroes character being made into a movie, and I have to say, it turns out real great. Too great perhaps, thinking that this is one of the not-so-popular super heroes.

The story itself is about a millionaire (Tony Stark a.k.a Iron Man), who is an expert in building weapons for dealing (or people called it, weapon manufacturer). He is a genius one, I told you. And I will say, that he is a rather unique...

And the story about Iron Man, begin, when Stark was held captive by a group of terrorist, and in that event, he sees something, that make him realize, that what he's done this whole time, was not just for peace, but rather for war that ended up in taking a lot of casualties. After he realizes that, he then try to develop an armor suit (and later on, will be recognize as the Iron Man), and used it to do some protecting work for the people who suffer because of weapons (especially in this case, his own weapons, his own products) The story is well developed, and all of the actors and actresses are great. The visual effect is just like the mini version of transformer, although not as complicated as the transformer, but still a magnificent one.

A nice movie for kids, adults, and all super hero freaks. It got the action, drama, comedy, and some awesome fighting scene.

I rate it 10/10.