Movie Review: Source Code

My family really wanted to watch this movie, but we couldn't watch it until last night because it wasn't available until then.
The premise of the movie is that a soldier who has died in war in Afghanistan has had his brain kept alive and the rest of his body on life support to participate in a program called the Source Code. Basically, it allows a person to relive the last eight minutes of their lives in different scenarios — essentially, parallel alternate realities. While it is initially established that said people can't change the past, they can search for information in the past to change the events of the future. This soldier is being used to find a bomber on a Chicago commuter train who first blew up said train and then plans to follow that up with an even more devastating bombing in the city center. After several tries, in which the same final 8 minutes before the train explosion (in which the soldier supposedly dies, after which the soldier comes back to "reality" inside an odd pod-like room) repeats while the soldier finds more clues and uses elimination to find the real bomber, the soldier finds that he can actually alter the course of reality and make the bombing not happen at all.
This movie was basically a cross between The Matrix (for questioning the nature of reality) and Groundhog Day (for repeating the same scene over and over again, though admittedly, I have not watched that movie yet). After about 15 minutes, the course the movie would take became entirely predictable. Furthermore, it was pretty easy to see that at the end, when the soldier's life was terminated, it would turn out that he could continue living after all. Finally, the circular reference at the very end was just silly and needlessly confusing. In short, I don't recommend this movie, though I did appreciate the inclusion of one of my favorite comedians, Russell Peters.

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Movie Review: The Adjustment Bureau

A few days ago, I watched this movie with some family members who were over. I meant to write this before, but didn't because of the other posts I put out.
The basic premise of the plot is that the main character played by Matt Damon is in love with the main girl, and an organization called the Adjustment Bureau which controls all human actions is tasked with keeping them apart at all costs. Their distinguishing characteristics are wearing hats and (while wearing said hats) being able to essentially teleport from one location to a totally separate one through a door.
The whole movie just fell flat for me; it seemed like a bad mashup of The Matrix and a rom-com. The only part that made me smile was when Matt Damon's character goes on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (with Jon Stewart actually playing himself in that movie); as an avid fan of that show (and, by the way, of The Colbert Report), I was pleasantly surprised to see just how far that show has come in popular culture, to the point where it is portrayed even in movies on the same level as news behemoths like certain programs on NBC and CNN. One other thing that amused me was that the warning for its PG-13 rating told of sexual themes and "a violent scene". I believe the former referred to the romantic overtures between the two main characters, while the latter referred to the brief car accident where there is a quick shot of a bloodied survivor who helps Matt Damon's character go where he needs to go. Otherwise, I don't think this deserved a PG-13 rating. Either that, or I have been desensitized to violent imagery and sexual themes.
Overall, this movie doesn't do it for me, and I don't recommend it.

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Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2

Yesterday, I went to see this movie with my family. I hadn't been to a movie theater with them in a long time, so it was nice to go like that.
I have to say that as someone who read all the books and watched all the movies (I consider myself more than a casual fan but less than a die-hard fan), I was generally underwhelmed by the movie. All of the battle scenes were too short and underdone. I would say the most egregious scene in that sense was the final scene between Harry and Voldemort, because for a climax, it was totally anticlimactic, especially the way Voldemort just disintegrated; combined with the lack of a cool celebration scene at the end, I felt like the whole movie ended with a whimper instead of a bang. The two redeeming scenes were the Pensieve and limbo scenes; those were really well done, and they both brought Snape and Dumbledore out as the spectacularly done characters of the movie. Overall, I'd recommend that people watch it just for the purpose of closure, but prepare to be somewhat disappointed. Then again, my impression of Part 1 has waned as well as I've come to realize that it wasn't much more than the trio just running around in big fields trying to figure out how to find and destroy that locket.

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Movie Review: The King's Speech

Last night, I got to watch The King's Speech with my family. The plot is basically about how King George V (or "Bertie" to his family and speech therapist) of the United Kingdom struggles with his stutter (or "stammer" for those of you across the pond) and seeks the help of a speech therapist named Lionel Logue, and about how that relationship evolves and how the therapy ultimately culminates in an important wartime speech.
I think Colin Firth did a great job acting as Bertie, and he really makes the daily struggle believable. Personally, though, my favorite character was Lionel with all the silliness and fun he injects into Bertie's life. The scenes of Lionel peeking out sideways from the doorway as well as his utter lack of reverence for the high position of the king are moments from that film I won't forget.
Although there are many swear words throughout the film (hence its "R" rating in the US), I would highly recommend that anyone see it.

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Movie Review: Chak De! India

This evening, in my dormitory hall's multipurpose room, a visiting scholar who lives on the same floor as me showed us the movie Chak De! India (and had great Indian food catered from a restaurant as well).

The premise of the movie is basically that the former Indian field hockey captain who was disgraced and branded a traitor after a Hockey World Cup (he shook hands with the Pakistani captain, but due to deep mistrust in each country of the other, Indian media outlets took this to mean that he purposefully threw away the match, which people believed also because he is a Muslim) chooses to coach the women's field hockey team. He and the members of the team have to face sexism, while the team members' own egos and past team loyalties get in the way.

I really liked the movie not just because it touches on so many different issues, like racism, tribalism, extreme nationalism, sexism, misogyny, and egoism, but because it does so without the song-and-dance numbers (in fact, I only heard two songs sung consistently through the movie, aside from the instrumental-only background songs) stereotypical of Bollywood. I used to not like Bollywood movies (and other Indian movies) because of that, but I think Bollywood is getting better. Shocking, isn't it? In any case, I highly recommend this movie, but if you are planning to watch it, please buy the official edition; I say this not because of any legal/moral reasons for buying a legal copy, but because the legal copies have good English subtitles, whereas in all likelihood unofficial copies will have hilariously bad English subtitles.

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Movie Review: The Social Network

Yesterday night I watched the movie The Social Network with my family. It's basically a dramatized documentary about the history of the founding of Facebook. Although the main people in real life were OK with this movie, as far as I know, this was not an officially-endorsed documentary, so there was a lot of dramatization especially where details were few and fuzzy. (On the other hand, things like the instant messages and emails, which have been published by Facebook, are real.) Plus, I think it's fairly well-established that Mark Zuckerberg in real life, while certainly blunt and introverted, is much more approachable and definitely not as much of an [expletive] as he was portrayed in the movie; similar things can be said about the other characters. Finally, based on Wikipedia's article about Sean Parker, the founder of Napster, the movie's snippet of text at the end about him retaining 7% of the company seems wrong; at least according to the Wikipedia article, Sean Parker was kicked out of the company immediately following his arrest for possession of cocaine and he lost all his shares.
Other than that, it's a fairly good movie. The plot never gets boring and it always stays engaging. I would recommend it to anyone who's looking for a good docudrama, although I will ask those who watch it to not rely on it for actual historical information.
On another note, I was pleased to see the presence of KDE 3 on Mark Zuckerberg's computer; the window decorations and the bottom panel with a virtual desktop switcher all scream "KDE 3". Yay! This was shown in the trailer, but many writers online suspected this computer would be replaced with an Apple Mac computer. Thankfully, that didn't happen (although there were a plethora of Macs used by other people throughout the film).

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Movie Review: Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Yesterday morning I watched the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It's a movie that I've wanted to watch for quite a while now, more so because last year my AP Physics C teacher kept talking about how much he loves that movie and because our high school senior class T-shirts had the famous Ferris Bueller quote on the back: "Life moves pretty fast; if you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Unfortunately, for every bit of the movie shown, there were bits of advertising that seemed to be at least as long.
The movie itself was great, and I'm glad I finally got to watch it. The premise is fairly simple: a high school senior named Ferris Bueller elaborately fakes an illness (replete with a dummy in his bed and a tired recorded voice activated whenever someone rings the front doorbell, among other things) to take a day off from school and brings his friend Cameron and his girlfriend Sloane with him to see stuff in Chicago and evade the school principal. I found the part of Ferris's absence count dropping before the principal's very eyes ironic, considering that when I was in high school, due to glitches in the attendance system, I was occasionally marked absent even when I was clearly in class. I was also a little disappointed that the movie never shows what happens to Cameron and his father at the end. Other than that, the movie is full of laughs from start to finish, and it's really sweet and family-friendly; I would highly recommend this movie to anyone.

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Movie Review: Liar, Liar

Yesterday night I watched the movie Liar, Liar on DVD with my family. The plot synopsis is fairly simple: Jim Carrey plays a lawyer who succeeds in life by lying not just to his clients and coworkers but to his family as well. When he promises to show up at his son's 5th birthday party but fails to do so, his son makes a wish that his father can't tell a lie for a day, and it comes true; from that, hilarity ensues.
I thought the movie was full of laughs from start to finish. It's family-friendly, and never once is it truly raunchy (save of course for the sex scene with Jim Carrey's character's partner, which is the reason why he can't make it to the birthday party). I did think the ending with him driving the airplane staircase next to the airplane was too exaggerated and overwrought. Other than that, though, it's a movie I would recommend to anyone.

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Movie Review: 2012: Doomsday

I have to confess that (1) I'm not a huge fan of apocalypse films and (2) I had some preconceived notions of the movie before watching it. The entire premise of the movie is based on the Mayan "Long Count" calendar ending on 2012 December 21, but the truth (according to the Mayans) is that when the calendar reaches its end a new era begins and the calendar will restart (i.e. the world won't end) and that the date isn't actually 2012. I felt like this would destroy the premise of the movie, leaving in its wake just another generic apocalypse movie. However, my family really wanted to watch it, so I gave in and watched as well.
2012 is 83 minutes long, and thankfully no more; it was pretty bad. For one, the dialogue was some of the cheesiest trash I've ever seen, and this especially comes out when some of the characters vocalize the conflict between their newfound faith and their aversion to faith. But then, people don't generally watch apocalypse movies for the dialogue, so I figured there would be some awesome whiz-bang special effects to make up for the utter lack of dialogue.
I was wrong on that count as well. The rain and snow effects were some of the worst I've seen. When snow was falling in central Mexico, it looked like it was falling on a screen placed in front of the rest of the characters and scenery. Furthermore, it seemed to stick to the characters' hair but not to the surrounding fauna and flora, which makes no sense considering the characters' hair is probably a lot warmer than the surrounding plant life. The rain effects looked like they came straight out of an Indian movie from the 1960s (they were that bad). KDE 4 (or even TWM in Slackware) has better rain and snow effects than that movie.
Finally, all the preaching and talk about the anointed messengers (who, except for the indigenous girl and her baby, were all white Americans) of Jesus was a bit uncomfortable. I strongly suspect that this was actually a Christian filmmaker that made this movie (evidenced by the production group "Faith Films"), which also accounts for the pathetic effects and garbage dialogue. I'm surprised that such a niche movie made it into mainstream movie theaters.
In short, don't watch this movie (unless you're into preachy Christian films, and if you are, I have nothing against you).
(UPDATE: It turns out that I watched the wrong 2012. The real 2012, based on the Wikipedia article, is nothing like this. What I watched was some poorly-done evangelical knockoff. Wow! (UPDATE: As it turns out, my family bought this from Wal-Mart, explaining the emphasis on Christianity. Also, the title of this movie is 2012: Doomsday (which would probably have avoided trademark issues with the real 2012). I've updated the title accordingly.))

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Movie Review: How To Train Your Dragon

Two days ago, I watched How To Train Your Dragon with my family. We had rented it from a RedBox for a gathering at our house, but no one at the gathering watched it, so we decided to watch it before returning it that night.
It's a great movie, and I would even say it was better than Toy Story 3 (which I reviewed just over a week ago). Unlike that movie, this one didn't have any gimmicky political lines or plot. It was a fun, lighthearted movie that also had a surprisingly complex plot (for a children's movie), as there were at least 2 different subplots going on at one time (for example, the continuous switching among the main character's dragon training classes, his time spent with the dragon he caught, and his father's expeditions that aim to find the dragons' lair). There were quite a few funny lines that didn't also try overly hard to appease the adults in the audience, which I appreciated. In all, I think it's a great movie for kids and their families, though I missed the extra splashy 3D experience because I watched it at home (and no, I don't have a TV capable of producing a 3D experience).

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Movie Review: Toy Story 3

This evening, as I am back home, I got to watch Toy Story 3 with my family. (On a side note, the DVD seemed pretty badly scratched as there were many parts that jumped and skipped around, but it was tolerable.)
I had heard from many of my friends over the summer that this movie is an exceptionally good movie, and to be honest, while I think it's a good, clean, family-friendly movie, I don't think it's anything to rave about. I found a lot of the political themes (e.g. "we are in control of our destiny") a bit off-putting for a kids' movie (though Barbie delivering the "power of the government derives from the consent of the governed" line was priceless), though I guess it's more to please the parents who are also probably watching. Other than that, aside from a few other funny moments (like Mr. Potato Head replacing his body with a tortilla), it wasn't anything truly special. All in all, I'm not really sure what all the hype was about (other than Andy going to college, and even then, I found his actions at the end when playing with the little girl and his old toys simultaneously funny and disturbing).

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Movie Review: Die Another Day

Last night, I watched the movie Die Another Day with my family. Interestingly enough, we tried watching it on an older DVD player hooked up to the TV; we were able to hear the background music but not the foreground dialogue. When I was told that this happened with other movies as well, I concluded that the DVD player was dying, so we watched it on a laptop.
It was an entertaining, typical James Bond movie but it wasn't anything special. Having watched the two newest James Bond movies and seeing how awesomely cold and efficient Daniel Craig's James Bond is in those movies (without all the techno-wizardry), I can't help but think that all the gadgets in this movie is covering up for some merely OK acting on Pierce Brosnan's part.

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Movie Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Yesterday I got to see an advanced screening of this movie with many other MIT students. It was a lot of fun, though there were a couple mishaps regarding getting there (for some reason handicap-accessible taxis can't be counted on to arrive at a specific time, according to one company), but that's all fine now.
The movie? It was great! The only thing I will say is that the director overdid the relationship between Harry and Hermione (because in the book that was solely a figment of Ron's imagination).

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Movie Review: Talledega Nights

I'll say it up front: I only watched about the first 20 minutes (or maybe a little more). The primary reason for this is that I'm a little busy (and writing this is my short break). This is why I didn't feel uncomfortable leaving so soon. The secondary reason is that it just wasn't all that great. Sure, it seemed to have a few cheap laughs here and there, but the story just didn't seem to get anywhere. It just seemed like one of those cheap comedy flicks with lots of stupid jokes and boobs. If I had more time, I would have probably sat through the whole thing, but I don't imagine that I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more.
On the upside, the pizza served at the movie was amazing. In fact, I would call it the best delivery pizza I have ever had. It's from a local restaurant called Figs, and the pizza I had was rather flavorful, especially for not having any vegetables on top; instead, it had olive oil, oregano, and parmesan instead of regular cooking oil and mozzarella. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good pizza place in Boston, though as I just saw online, it's a tad on the expensive side.

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Movie Review: Hackers

I just watched this in my dormitory auditorium with a bunch of other freshmen. One of the graduate students introduced the movie by saying that it's hilarious for its absolutely outdated technology. I wondered before if it was supposed to be funny, if it was considered funny in its own time, or if it's only been funny since recent times.
After watching the movie, I think it was supposed to be semi-serious, but I think even movie watchers of that day would have called it "so-bad-it's-good". To call the acting in the movie poor would be to insult poor actors (and that was how Angelina Jolie acted way-back-when!?). Also, 28.8 Bps (along with all the other made-up pseudo-tech jargon they made up)? I can only laugh.

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Movie Review: Inception

This is the first time that I've watched a movie in a theater in a while. I had a really nice time watching the movie.
The story itself was really imaginative and creative. It may initially seem like a generic sci-fi action thriller, but I really like how it involves ideas which people frequently experience (e.g. dreams within dreams, lucid dreaming). I'm still a little confused as to whether Fischer finally does dissolve the company (I guess it's implied), but that's OK.
Yeah, even though I enjoyed the movie, I don't have a whole lot to say about it. Even so, I highly recommend it for anyone to watch (aside from young children).

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Movie Review: 3 Idiots

I watched this movie a week ago, but I haven't been able to write this review until today.
I really enjoyed the movie just as a funny little film. I also appreciate its attempts to touch upon the controversial subject of stress levels in the Indian educational system.
At the same time, however, I feel like the message (which is to focus more upon learning than upon rankings and to enjoy life a little more) is too muddled through the movie. Rancho, who supposedly loves learning, isn't shown to be very studious at all and is shown to be enjoying life more than he is studying. Furthermore, while it is true that ViruS's teaching methods aren't quite the best, Rancho does not need to talk back to him, humiliate him, and tell him to his face that he is a horrible professor. I love learning. It is hard. It definitely doesn't involve just sitting back and letting everything just come naturally.
That's all I have to say about it. I guess I'll just say that it was a more entertaining typical Hindi movie about a more realistic subject matter.

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