Third Toy Story is Pixar's Best

Toy Story 3
Directed by: Lee Unkrich
Voice cast: Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Joan Cusack, Michael Keaton
Written by: John Lasseter, Andrew Stanton, Lee Unkrich

We all know that Pixar has been making some of the best movies of this generation. To me, Toy Story 3 is at the pinnacle of their aesthetic success. It's a perfect blend of comedy, action, and sentimentality. Let me review all these aspects in detail.

An animated feature is always naturally filled with slapsticks and laugh-out-loud moments. Toy Story 3 had a few scenes that got me (and the crowd) laughing my ass off along with plenty other smaller gags throughout the movie. The slapsticks felt fresh and it has many cute characters that would keep you smiling for most of the time.

As for action, Dreamworks has been stuffing us with many action-filled kid-friendly animations like Monsters vs. Aliens and the recent How to Train Your Dragon (which I sadly haven’t seen). Even all Pixar’s movies have elements of suspense. But believe me, the escape scene of the movie passes itself as the most ingenious action scene to ever happen in a cartoon. It’s really smart, genuinely thrilling, and hilarious. As a comparison, I did laugh at the escape scenes from the recent flick The A-team but the laughters were rather condescending because of their deeply-flawed logics. In this flick, I laughed out of pure joy and amazement.

Toy Story 3 has one of the best endings any filmmaker could come up with (think of City Lights). To be honest I did cry out of sorrow at seeing these beloved toys (supposedly) for the last time. Anyone who has been enjoying the first movie 15 years ago would feel the same way I did too. The movie also has a scene towards to end that had me holding back tears as well.

Oh, and while kids are enjoying themselves, grown-ups may appreciate many adult themes such as immortality and unflinching love. In addition to the already perfect movie, Pixar (as usual) includes an entertaining animated short before the real movie starts and a feel-good ending reel alongside the closing credits. I say again, it’s Pixar’s best, it’s definitely the best animated picture I’ve ever seen, and the Toy Story trilogy has definitely become one of the greatest trilogies in movie history. This new decade has its first classic!

P.S.: I hope I haven’t set your expectations too high.

My Rating: 9.5/10

New Karate Kid is Boosted by Leads' Performance

The Karate Kid
Directed by: Harald Zwart
Starring: Jaden Smith, Jackie Chan, Taraji P. Henson
Written by: Christopher Murphey

Will Smith, the box office king of Hollywood, has bred a newborn star. Jaden Smith superbly displays his inherited acting talents by showcasing a wide range of emotions: from frustration and anger to sympathy. As a big fan of Jackie Chan, I'm also pleased to see his best screen performance to date in this movie. It's quiet a refreshing experience to not see him performing his trademark death-defying stunts and does his true job as an actor which is to bring dimension to his characters.

Smith stars as an American kid moving to China while Chan stars as his reluctant kung fu master with a traumatic past. I haven't seen the original Karate Kid and so I'm not in the position of making comparisons. I just think that this movie also works well as a travelogue; many of Beijing's (and China's) most famous landmarks make purposeful cameos.

In terms of plot and story, abandon any hopes of twists and surprises; I bet you already know the entire story even without watching the original movie. We can therefore delight on Dre's process of growing from zero to hero. This is the biggest problem I have with this movie. I've seen so many movies with similar plots that when the audience is supposed to cheer for the final fight, I found myself jaded because I've seen the outcome even before the movie started and because it's hard to find pleasure from kids beating up each other.

Although Karate Kid has its moments of comedy, it's lifted from being a clichéd and redundant reboot by it's main actors.

My Rating: 6.5/10

The A-Team deserves only a B

The A-Team
Directed by: Joe Carnahan
Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, Sharlto Copley
Written by: Joe Carnahan, Brian Bloom, Skip Woods

The Summer has finally spawned a mindlessly fun actioner in The A-Team. It has the right amount of explosions (both on the ground and in the air), right duration, and a charming cast to keep us involved. To ensure utmost enjoyment, please check your brains at the door; we don’t wanna try to figure out how can a US Army Ranger drive a Gallardo around in Mexico, or how another Ranger manages to barrel-roll a chopper because the more we try to be a smart-ass, the more we’ll be unable to follow the frenetic action scenes. Nevertheless, even after leaving my brains outside, I still spotted some incredibly preposterous plots that became a distraction. The story is dumb, but the screenwriters seemed to be trying real hard to come up with clever plots.

The A-Team boasts some ingenious action scenes, most notably the “flying tank” scene. The movie, however, is equally mired by incomprehensible sequences due to choppy editing. The comedy is pretty juvenile but still managed to draw several laughs from the audience. I wasn’t born yet when the TV show was aired and so I think old fans of the show would find this movie more amusing and entertaining.

The main problem of this movie is that the final act could not really top up the movie that had been filled with some spectacles worthy of the ticket price; the climax felt worn-out and redundant. Transformers 2 faced a very similar problem: compare the forest fight scene with the desert battle. Despite this, The A-Team will shift the still-slow summer up a gear with its charm and lightheartedness.

My Rating: 6/10

Hola

So I've decided to create this blog to document all my movie reviews, recommendations, lists, opinions, whatever. I'm a moderately avid moviegoer and my love for movies has driven me up to the point of counting the number of movies I've seen my whole life (576 ATM). I have also posted a few movie reviews on Yahoo! Movies.

I watch whatever good or decent movies I have access to. I don't go blindly to the cinemas - I always check movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes because I hate to be disappointed after paying the ticket price. I have also begun to watch classic oldies and I've gone as far back as Chaplin's The Gold Rush.

So from now on, I will post reviews and recommendations of movies I find memorable or worth-seeing. I will also post lists like "My Top 10 Favorites" or "5 Most Underrated Movies I've seen", and things like that.