The So-So Reviews

DRILLBIT TAYLOR

Genre - Action, Comedy, Fat Boy Jokes

Is Like - Daddy's Day Care, RV, The Pacifier

Thumbs Up - 1 Hour 45 mins of Owen Wilson Hysteria

Boo! - As the movie title says, You Get What You Pay For. Sigh.

Magical Moment - Fat Kid and Skinny Boy punching each other.

Rating - 1.8/5

WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS

Genre - Romantic Comedy

Is like - 27 Dresses, How to lose a guy in 10 days

Thumbs Up - Easy going, fun filled ride with Cameron Diaz

Boo! - No chemistry between the leads. But I suppose that's the point.

Magical Moment - Ashton's bald friend. His character is actually funnier than him.

Rating - 2.7/5

LARS AND THE REAL GIRL

Genre - Slow Depressing Romantic Comedy

Is Like - Juno, Indie Movies

Thumbs Up - After a while you will actually start to like the doll.

Boo! - Unless you've fallen asleep. Very very slow.

Magical Moment - The doll goes out without him. HaHa.

Rating - 3.2/5

Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull

Venue: Seri Q-lap Cinema
Show: 9.30pm screening
Snacks: Bottle of mineral water and some gum

Hmmmmm.... where do i begin?... Let's start off with WTF? Haha.... Oh mannnn, i'm gonna be honest with you guys, i was really looking forward to this movie,i mean as soon as i heard that they were gonna make a 4th Indy(ie?) movie, i was stoked! I didn't care that Harrison Ford would probably be 70 or whatever he is now, (he's like 66 now btw), I mean c'mon the last Indy movie was in 1989! That's like Star Wars the prequels style anticipation for me!... Haha, which obviously was another George Lucas/Harrison Ford partnership (plus since the Indy movies are directed by a certain Mr. Spielberg, one could argue that Indy movies are better than Star Wars movies, hahaha, but i didn't say that and i don't wanna make trouble!)


Anyway, back to the movie, it stars Harrison Ford as Indy (obviously), Cate Blanchett as Spalko the 80s Russian baddie, Shia LaBeouf as Mutt the hotheaded sidekick/offspring/future Indy, Ray Winstone as Mac the friend/traitor/friend again/traitor again/friend again?, and other acting heavyweights like John Hurt and Jim Broadbent. The movie basically starts off with Indy being "forced" into a new adventure to look for his friends and the treasure (i.e. The Crystal Skull).

The Director with the cast... note the lack of eye candy

Somehow, the premise seems a bit formulaic, the storyline is basically the same, Indy is "forced into looking for the treasure by the bad guys, but also at the same time try and rescue his friends, they discover the treasure and treasure turns out to be pandora's box... to see what i mean watch the other Indy movies, and also see the recent pretenders to the Indy throne such as Sahara and National Treasure, but hey why mess with such a tried and tested formula eh?...

Indy and Indy Jr.

Mr. Spielberg please leave your aliens out of the Indy series,I mean you've had them in E.T., Close Encounters and War of the Worlds, did you really need them in Indy? I mean sure, you could have hinted that aliens were involved or whatever, but did you really have to actually show them?... Damnnnnnn..... and thanks to Aprilsky for reminding me, what's with the 13 crystal skeletons combining to form the alien? Whattttt?.... :-p


I honestly love the Indy movies, i mean, what's not to love right?, adventure, treasure, awesome hero, etc, and this 4th instalment has all those things AND MORE!... but let me just say this, Mr. Spielberg/Lucas, sometimes less really is more...

"If Willis and Stallone can still do it, so can I!"

Please don't think that i'm saying that i didn't like the movie, because i did like it, but it could have been so much more, if only it didn't have so much "extra" (haha, geddit?) in it... The action sequences were still pretty awesome, Harrison Ford can still kick ass, though i would have liked to have seen more of his trademark sense of humour and one liners, although maybe there could have been a bit more action in the movie, but i can understand, as Harrison Ford really isn't as young as he used to be! but the fedora hat and whip are still iconic aspects of the movie... Shia LaBeouf was pretty good too, i'm definitely thinking there's more to Even Stevens than Meets the Eye (hahaha... i did it again!), Cate Blanchett was good as usual, but i couldn't help thinking that the Cold War was over, and so i had to remind myself that the movie was set way back then, poor russians, hahaha... but hey at least the baddies aren't muslim extremists this time eh?

Indy Icons - This picture got all the fanboys giddy with excitement

Personally i'd like to give this movie 2 ratings:

Rating before all the "extras" - 4.5/5

Rating after all the "extras" - 2.5-3/5 (Did they get the endings for Indiana Jones 4 and X-Files 2 mixed up?)

21

Venue: Hoyts Melbourne Central
Snacks: None (no cash at the time haha)

Ok, it's been awhile since i wrote my last review. After king shen decided to write both the reviews for Iron Man and then Speed Racer (it only comes out in Melbourne-land next month) so i'm left with this movie called 21. Sigh. This movie has been out in the states for awhile now but it just reached Aussie shores last week. While waiting for Indy Jones 4 that'll be out this Thursday (22nd), me and my mates decide to watch 21! How fun! A movie about blackjack! and there's Kate Bosworth too! Cant go wrong with that right? Think again...

Obviously, if you've heard abit about this movie you'll probably know that it's mainly about blackjack. If you dont even know what blackjack is then probably this movie is not for you. So yeah, the premise of the movie is simple - it's about a group of students from MIT who "counts" cards in blackjack tables all across Vegas. Apparently counting cards is not illegal, it's a beatable system in casinos although you need to be a super genius to pull it off. Heh.

The movie starts off pretty well i guess. It introduces the lead guy who's a MIT student trying to get into Harvard Med school. He's short of cash, and the only way he's gonna get in Harvard is via scholarship. So, being a geek that he is, he impresses his professor in math class and soon after, he gets an invite to become a member of the MIT "Secret Blackjack Society" team! Led by none other than Kevin "keyser soze" Spacey - he then goes off on a thrill ride to Vegas to win loads of cash on blackjack tables. Oh, and you also get to know stuff on how they count cards and how they 'work' tables which is quite interesting.

"mmm-hmmh you smell just like Lois Lane.."

Sadly, it all goes downhill from there. After about half and hour i'm pretty much bored of the movie. There's seriously nothing new going on. The scenes are repetitive throughout the movie and you can sort of tell what's going to happen next. Plus, this movie tries to steal alot of ideas from other movies (Ocean's 11 is a good example) but the execution just falls flat. Cliche after cliche's are apparent in the movie, and soon after you can't be bothered any more. My friend CK said "theyre counting cards in the movie, we're pretty much 'counting' the movie's plot" which is quite spot on since we were able to predict what's gonna happen next. Haha!

All in all, its a super average movie. I know some of you might kinda like this movie, but I didnt. This is the sort of movie you wouldn't mind catching it on TV when it comes out on HBO. Skip this, watch Indy Jones 4 instead.

Stars: 21+4 divided by 10 = 2.5 / 5 stars

Speed Racer

Location - Cineleisure

Drink - Coke

So I got in pretty much on time for this movie, being a Sunday and about 5 hours till the Man Utd vs Wigan game (ITS LEGENDARY). Expectations for this film was pretty low cause after all, it was a kids cartoon show back when I was 10 and only followed it cause I thought it was quite similar to Whacky Racers.

Story starts off with the main character Speed and his attachment to his brother Rex, who is a racing driver and pretty much his idol in life. Things start to change when Rex decides not to drive for his father’s team and switches to another. Tragically Rex dies in a car accident racing in a very dangerous cross country rally circuit. Fast-forward and Speed has taken over where his brother left off except this time he stays true to his father’s team. This is until the whole family gets a pretty generous offer from Royalton Motors.

Taejo's Halloween parties were usually under strict invites only

You get heck of a lot of Matrix type shots (the slow-mo kung style) in this movie for starters. Then you feel it’s starting to turn into bit of an adult film but wait, there’s that annoying kid with the monkey again. I suppose that is exactly the problem with this movie. It’s almost half kid and half grown up. You can feel that the makers were trying to stretch out of the kiddies’ genre and venture into the middle age youth market with its effects and general awesome camera shots. Do constantly remind yourself that it is a FAMILY film. You can’t go in thinking, “nah wait that don’t make sense man”, it never will especially since our hero does wear a male scarf.

Mach 5 - a very fast car

Still, the movie was pretty well done. It’s almost kind of like a Cat in the Hat meets the Matrix kind of movie. Most people will actually like this film cause its immensely light hearted. Plus, there’s even Rain in this movie. Good thing he didn’t sing the theme though.

Stars – 3.8/5

Non-shock of the hour – Rain can't speak Engrish.

Nothing Like – RV starring Robin Williams.

TRAILER UPDATE: The Dark Knight

a

The latest trailer for The Dark Knight is officially online.


Check it out at http://www.whysoserious.com/happytrails/trailer.htm !!
or you could just youtube it at a lower quality. (boo for that)


While watching the super-kick-ass trailer, here are some latest posters for THE movie of 2008. Enjoy guys! :D

IRONMAN

Venue - GSC Pavilion

Food - Popcorn and Coke

My dear movie fans.... THE BLOCKBUSTERS ARE HERE. Like most things in life, good things come to those who wait. Or in this case, it comes in an Iron suit. As excited as i was about this movie, i was definitely cautious not to over hype my own expectations. Most movies just fail to deliver after much promise and only and handful stand out among the rest.

Story revolves around a billionaire playboy scientist named Tony Starkes (sounds like a pro skater huh?) whose company manufactures weapons to the US army so that it can fight for freedom on behalf of the whole world. Tony's life takes a turn for the worse when his convoy is ambushed and he is taken a prisoner while on a routine sales presentation in Afghanistan. His captors demand he make a missile for them and will pretty much kill him if he doesn't. So being the genius weapons inventor that he is, he decides to bugger it and make a pretty awesome metal suit instead to escape. While escaping, he notices that the militants have in their possession weapons that have been manufactured from his company. Upon arriving back in the US, Tony is a changed man and doesn't want to have anything to do with weapons technology. He then starts to work on a new project using the suit that he made to escape as his outline. Needless to say, the story starts to get very very interesting from then on.

By the power of greyskull...

Just where most movies fail to pounce on the cool factor from comic book adaptations, Ironman excels at it. The selling factor of this superhero is that he wasn't bitten by anything radioactive or born with superhuman strength, he is marely a smart guy who has alot of money and time to make a really cool body armor suit. Anybody can be like Tony Starks. Plus the sight of Ironman powering up during the first few scenes will have you drooling more than Scooby Doo begging for Scooby snacks.

When the going gets rough, the tough looks good in gold and red

Overall this movie delivers on all fronts, action, women, explosions, militants, fancy camera shots and flying super sonic. Whenever we start to wonder where this movie is going, they ultimately swing into another scene with Ironman in it. Hurahhh.. Like all comic book adaptations, it takes up quite a bit of time to explain the origins of Ironman. With all that time there could have been more shots of Ironman blowing things up or showing off his capabilities. For 2/3 of the 2nd part of the movie to be taken up with how Tony constructs his Iron suit while only 1/3 is spent kicking ass is fairly dissapointing. I suppose this is where the hype for the movie plays its role. You can't promise the audience steaks but only serve out cheeseburgers. But i suppose that's one way in getting the studios to agree on a sequel.

Stars - 4/5 (Revised)

Cool as - ZKZ's shoe collection.

Is Nothing like - a G2000 suit.