Pineapple Express

Location: Hoyts Melbourne Central
Date: Sometime Last Week...

Hello again peeps. It's been a long time since I last wrote a review on comedies, and since I just saw one last week (yeah sorry for posting it late) I thought this might be a good time to introduce you to... Pineapple Express!

Again, it's from the same guys who brought you Knocked Up, Superbad and Forgetting Sarah Marshall. This time around, instead of dealing with pregnant chicks, fake-id's or shameful breakups - it focuses on... Weed! (or pot, ganja, reefa, marijuana, spliff, or whatever you wanna call it) Billed as a "stoner-action-comedy", you probably can expect what you're gonna get when watching this movie. The story revolves around 2 potheads, Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) and his dealer Saul (James Franco). One day, Dale witnesses a murder while smoking up outside a house... the perpetrators realized that Dale saw the whole thing, and so.. the chase begins.

Stoner-friend to the rescueeeeeeeee!

This movie is a departure from the "realism" approach that a lot of the previous Apatow-produced comedies have been. (eg: 40-year old virgin, Knocked Up) This one feels more like a b-movie comedy - intentionally being over-the-top and cheesy in a lot of their scenes. Not to mention, the action scenes are a bit jarring and it feels a little bit out of place at times. However, I guess you gotta throw logic out of the window to really enjoy this one.

Surprisingly, James Franco was the livewire of the show. His scenes and dialogues are genuinely funny - it really is cool watching him play a pothead since you're so used to see him in the Spiderman movies. On the other hand, Seth Rogen's Dale is borderline funny/annoying to me. Also, lookout for Dale's girlfriend played by Amber Heard. She was also in "Never Back Down" not too long ago. I'm telling you, she's gonna be the next big thing! :D

Getting high in the woods was way too freaky for Dale

This show is certainly not bad, but definitely not great either. There are a lot of pot-related jokes in here, so in all honesty, it could either be really-really-really funny to you, or just plain annoying. I'm on the fence in this one. However, I did find some scenes really hilarious, and there are a couple of quirky characters that's worth a mention even after the show has ended.

To sum-up this movie, it's really like hanging out with a bunch of stoner-friends. It's cool and fun, but if you don't get high together with them, you probably won't enjoy it as much. And so, do smoke-up if you can before watching this movie, it'll definitely be way funnier than it seems. :)

Stars: 3/5 (Add one more star if you like to get hiiiiigghhhh)

WALL-E

Location – Cineleisure

Food – Absolutely Nothing

After having weeks and weeks of mind numbing, action splitting, body aching, dragon breathing, car exploding action and fun filled adventures, its time to slow everything down with a Walt Disney Animated Feature courtesy of Pixar. Once you hear the opening of any Disney film (“when you wish upon a star”) you’re automatically transported to a world of make believe with endless joy and fun. There’s always something magical about Walt Disney films as it brings out the child in most of us. Is this latest instalment worth our magical time or not?

Rubbish game from the 80’s

The movie revolves around a robot named Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth-class) who by the looks of it is the last remaining robot on Earth. Few 100 years into the future, Earth is in a complete mess and is littered with rubbish. Mankind has decided to go into space while these Wall-E robots start the massive cleanup operation. In the first few opening scenes, we see our robot hero single handily clean up all the garbage that is lying around. He is completely alone (he does have a pet cockroach though) and goes about his daily job diligently day after day. The fun starts however when he starts to fancy a robot named Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) that lands on Earth in search of something deemed classified.

Getting to 3rd base was always going to be difficult

Wall-E pushes the boundaries in terms of animation as well as social humour interaction (is there such a thing?). As there is very little dialogue involved, the bulk of the humour comes from Wall-E’s interaction with his surroundings. This is the same type of humour that you can probably get from a Mr Bean boxset. There really doesn’t need to be any dialogue for slapstick and visual humour. In that sense, I’m pretty sure most people would enjoy this movie.

Every thug needs a lady

From watching his favourite movie to staring at the sky, we start to feel more compelled to follow Wall-E’s journey into the unknown as the movie progresses. After a while, we start to develop a soft spot to Wall-E’s situation, in the sense that nobody really wants to be alone. In some respect, it is almost a naïve and youthful way to how most people view love and social acceptance. Cue Aww machine now. Awwww.

Is it any better than previous Pixar movies? It might not be able to surpass Finding Nemo or Ratatouille in terms of humour and story telling, however the lovable character that is Wall-E is a good enough reason for watching this movie. This robot is probably more memorable and a lot more charming compared to a lot of other Disney characters in recent time.

Ratings – 3.5/5

Is kinda like – Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. Remember that film?

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Venue: The Mall Cinema, Gadong

Show: 9.40 pm screening

Snacks: Orbit whitening chewing gum?

The third instalment of "The Mummy" franchise opened this week, to be honest i wouldn't say that i'm a big fan, but i will admit that the first two movies and the "Scorpion King" spin-off were fun and pretty enjoyable. I do have to say say that this movie is THE type of family movie to bring the kids to go and watch as was evident by the number of toddlers and little kids in the cinema during the movie, but thankfully, they weren't being restless and noisy, which i guess goes to show you that kids will be entertained by this movie, thankfully for the duration of the entire movie.

The movie still stars Brendan Fraser (in his second family adventure movie of the summer) as Rick O'Connell, Jet Li as the Emperor, Maria Bello as Evelyn O'Connell (Yup it sucks not having Rachel Weisz, (Dato) Michelle Yeoh as Zi Juan, John Hannah as Jonathan, Luke Ford as Alex O'Connell (the son all grown up now!), Isabella Leong as Lin (Hot!) and Anthony Wong as General Yang (Hong Kong Heavyweight Legend from Infernal Affairs and Initial D among other movies). The movie was directed by Rob Cohen (he of "The Fast and the Furious" and "Stealth" fame).

Honestly, when i saw the trailer for this movie, i wasn't too impressed, firstly i don't really dig Rob Cohen as a director (more style than substance), secondly i was a bit put off by the whole "China" theme, i guess i'm a bit bored of "Chinese Epics" and anything vaguely similar, and lastly, NO RACHEL WEISZ!, she dropped out of the movie apparently due to problems with the script.... Haha, i guess that tells you something else about the movie eh?

The movie opens up with Rick and Evy enjoying their 'settled' life, away from all the action and adventure, peaceful and homely, but evidently boring and lacking excitement. I'm not quite sure how old they're meant to be in this movie, but by the looks of the son, who's supposed to be 20ish?, i'm guessing they're supposed to be at least on the wrong side of 40?. I have to point out that the dude playing the kid looked a bit too old for the part, and everytime he was on screen and spoke, i kept thinking of how much he reminded me of Johnny Knoxville!. Anyway, the O'Connells are 'persuaded' into going on one last 'mission' to return an artifact to the Chinese Government, where they bump into their son, who's dropped out of yet another college and seems to have followed in his parents footsteps as an archaeologist/tomb raider. As you can guess things don't go according to plan, and somehow a mummy is raised, this time in the form of Jet Li. The rest of the movie is basically about how they have to stop Jet Li from gaining his full strength and raising his army.

George of the Jungle was still trying to get used to swinging without vines

I thought the movie was so-so, i didn't think it was rubbish but i don't believe that it will leave viewers with a lasting memory of the movie, the storyline was alright, i guess that since the winning 'formula' of the first two movies worked, "why fix it when it ain't broke" right?. Wrong. I believe that they really should've tried to introduce something new to this movie and the franchise, i'm not quite sure what, but it all seemed a bit 'too formulaic'. I guess the problem is that with the recent summer blockbusters like "The Dark Knight" and "Iron Man" blowing my (and i'm sure most viewers) expectations, i guess this movie was always gonna be a downer in comparison. However, having said that i guess it is unfair to compare this movie to the other movies this summer, so viewers should just compare it to the previous "Mummy" movies.

Some people have said that there was too much CGI in this movie, but i have to argue that it's a movie about mummies, how can there NOT be enough CGI? But i guess what they really meant is that it all looked TOO CGI, and i guess that some people may have wanted it to look more 'realistic'?. I think that yes, perhaps they could have made the movie look more 'real', somehow the CGI gave the movie a too 'cartoony' feel, especially when Jet Li transforms into all the different creatures. That said, i do have to say, you'd think that a guy with all this power, who could transform into any creature or monster that he wanted, could he really get beaten by a bunch of adventurers?. The movie did have its enjoyable moments, fight scenes with Jet Li do always kick ass. Another plus point for the movie was that despite the lack of Rachel Weisz (and her chemistry with Brendan Fraser in the movie), we do get Isabella Leong.

Isabella Leong = Yummy in "The Mummy: Tomb yada yada yada....

Rating: 3/5

Last Say:

Not bad, not great either, a movie that you should just enjoy for the whole adventure theme, i'd say that this movie was probably as good as Indie 4, thank god that this movie didn't have aliens in it, or the rating would have dropped to 1/5.

Switch off and enjoy.