This evening I saw the movie Mamma Mia! at AMC Theater, Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong.
I had not had much expectation for this movie. I didn’t even had it in my Must See Movies list. But I was presently surprised.
I believe much of my enjoyment was the direct results of the actors in the movie. They sure went all out and included some of the biggest in the industry: , and even Tom Hanks pitched in as one of the Executive Producer for the movie.
Reportedly the female lead, Amanda Seyfried had never heard any of ABBA’s songs prior to staring in the movie.
I went to the record store prior to going onto the theater to see if I recognize any of the songs. Since I was of that age (grew up in the 80’s), I did recognize most of the songs, but I did not find any of the songs that good. My opinions changed during and after the movie, where I found most of the songs to be catchy and enjoyable.
Like in Music and Lyrics and all musicals, the actors in this movie sang their own songs. Not that any of them were any good, but you will hardly notice as the lyrics become part of the dialogues.
The multiple Oscars awards actress, Meryl Streep was no exception. She was her typical but much much older self.
Overall this is a very enjoyable movie with a present mood throughout the movie, if you want to feel all happy coming out of a movie, then this is definitely the one to go see.
Like movies that came before it, Julia Roberts‘ Runaway Bride and My Best Friend’s Wedding it had the hero not realizing the best thing he has is right in front of him. So the plot of the movie tells the story of how the hero tries to win the heron over.
If there was more to the plot I would have given this movie more penguins. In either case, it is an enjoyable women’s movie.
This evening I saw the movie “Get Smart” at AMC Theater, Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong.
It was not one of the movies very high up on my Must See Movies list, but since there was a typhoon in Hong Kong and there was nothing else to watch other than the 2008 Olympic games
on TV.
Of course talking about Maxwell Smart, aka Agent 86, one cannot forget his partner, Agent 99, in this movie played by Anne Hathaway. Who did a great job in bring the character that Barbara Feldon had made famous from the 60s TV show.
All in all, for the Get Smart fans, I believe this is a good tribute to the 60s character. The writers, Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember had set up the movie to have the potential to become yet another franchise if the box offices show good results.
This evening I saw the movie “Walle” at AMC Theater, Pacific Place, Admiralty, Hong Kong.
Again Pixar did not disappoint.
Pixar’s typical smart intelligent humor was prevalent throughout the movie. After several minutes into the movie the audiences has forgotten it’s an animation, understood the background of the story, and all without a single word being spoken.
Without much dialogue the director, Andrew Stanton (who in this case was also the writer) was able to capture the audiences’ attention while delivering an intriguing and timely story about the importance of taking care of our environment and planet.
I always like Pixar movies: Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters, Inc., Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Cars and Ratatouille. and this one was no exception. They always contain what I call smart-humor, where the audiences would need to give it some thought to realize how funny a particular dialogue or scene was. They often made me want to watch the movie again to catch all the things I missed the first time.
I am glad to have placed this on my Must See Movies list and definitely one not to be missed for fans of Pixar Animation Studio.
Finally, for those Macintosh fans among us, the animators at Pixar left us an easter egg. See if you catch it in the movie as I did?
Give it a miss even if you don’t have something else better to waste your time on.
I never like the movies that Brendan Fraser is in, with the latest version of The Mummy that further proves my feelings.
I always say how sequels needs to keep the ties between episodes, the worst thing a sequel does is to change the main characters in the story. This episode, they went and change the female lead character, Evelyn Carnahan O’Connell from Rachel Weisz to Maria Bello.
Although, they have movie industries big wigs like Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh.
The short but significant appearance of my friend’s, Michael Wong brother Russell Wong was a present surprise. Mainly because I did not read the credits before attending the movie.
This evening I saw the movie “Penelope” at UA Cinema, Time Square, Hong Kong.
I was presently surprised by this movie. I went into the movie thinking it was just going to be another lesson-learned movie. It did have the black-swan element to the movie that one would come to expect. The several twists in the story were nice touches to give it the unexpected elements.
I don’t normally enjoy this sort of movies; I am more of the action adventure, thriller kind of a guy.
The acting was fair, but I think the story has much to convince me to give it a 3 penguins rating. If you were looking for a light hearted entertainment for a present afternoon, then do give it a try. Of course, as my rating states, if you can rent it even better.
This evening I saw the movie “The Heartbreak Kid” at Time Square, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong.
Ben Stiller always plays a character in his movies: “Meet the Parents“, “Meet the Fockers“, “Along Came Polly” and alike. Where his character is the underdog, started out a good nature hero and then forced into situations that makes him appears to be the bad guy, as a result the heroin misunderstands him. This movie was no exception.
So if you are a fan of Ben Stiller, you will not be disappointed. If you’re looking for something different and original, you will need to look elsewhere.