Movie – Hellboy II (The Golden Army) / Dragon Wars

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I had planned to watch Hellboy II: The Golden Army for quite a while. Unfortunately, my usual movies kakis have either fallen sick, too busy, or not interested in ‘demonic’ movies at all. That I actually watched the original Hellboy on my computer first (I failed to watch the first one when it was shown) before this, showed how much I wanted to watch it. It was rather disappointing that I failed to catch it over the last 2 weekends and I had finally decided to just go catch it on my own. on a weekday.

Here’s brief introduction for those who didn’t watch Hellboy: In World War II, a team of U.S. soldiers were sent along with Professor Broom to ruins on an island off the coast of Scotland to stop Nazi scientists led by Rasputin and his mistress, IIsa from opening a portal to another dimension and awaken forces known as “The Seven Gods of Chaos.”

The Americans successfully foiled the attempt to keep the gate opened, but as the gate was opened long enough, a creature got through. Professor Broom lured it with a candy bar and subsequently adopted it as his own child. They called it Hellboy and he subsequently grew up to become a part of the the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) which includes pyrokinetic Liz Sherman and an aqua empath known as Abe Sapien.

The story revolves around the BPRD efforts to stop Rasputin and his minion Kroenen from completing what they failed to do near the end of World War II.

Hellboy II’s story begin when an ancient truce between humankind and the invisible realm of the fantastic is broken. Prince Nuada decided that the truce with the humans should be terminated and return from exile to unleash the invincible and indestructible Golden Army to exterminate mankind.

Of course, Hellboy and BPRD stands in the way of the Elf Prince. A new character, protoplasmic mystic Johann Krauss was introduced in this movie and together they travel to the unseen magical world where creatures of fantasy become corporeal to stop the Prince.

I think, I liked the first Hellboy better than the second even though the computer graphics in the second one is much better along with the humor factor. But somehow I think movies with a ‘Save the World’ storyline is getting a little stale and boring these days. On a scale of 1 – 5, I’ll give 4 for entertainment, 3 for story and 2.5 for ending. I sincerely think the Princess (sister to Prince Nuada) do not have to take that step to stop her brother.

By the way, during the almost 3-week long cinema drought, I decided to watch some of the movies either friends lent to me, or VCDs I have bought in the past for reasons unknown. One of this movie is D-War (or Dragon Wars), which apparently was based on a Korean legend or story.

The storyline is about how one mythical giant serpent, called the Imoogi, will turn into the Dragon every 500 years when the bearer (always a female) of the Yeouijoo fulfills her role and give it up to the good Imoogi. However, the Dark Imoogi, Buraki covets to the Yeouijoo for itself and had seek to capture the bearer and kill her so it can get the Yeouijoo for itself.

500 years ago, the bearer of the Yeouijoo and her lover and protector committed suicide instead of fulfilling their duties to bring the Yeouijoo to the Good Imoogi (that’s quite a mouthful to say)… and so the Good Imoogi has waited another 500 years for it the next bearer to be born.

The story revolves around the minions of Buraki trying to capture the present incarnation of the bearer and her protector, which culminates in a huge battle between modern weaponry – M1 Abram Tanks and Apache attack choppers – against Buraki, flying drakes, lumbering creatures with 2x 3pod rocket pods complete with unlimited ammo, and medieval looking dino-raptor riders in the streets of L.A.

My personal opinion is that you aren’t missing much if you didn’t watch this, and perhaps that’s the reason why I don’t recall seeing it here on the big screen. But if you love to see state of the art helicopters ‘getting their asses kicked’ by drakes and modern armour vehicles getting trashed, then this is definitely the movie for you. Of course, to get there you will have to sit through at least an hour of boring storyline, and if you happened to have a VCD without subtitles, about 5 minutes or so of ‘Korean medieval drama’ .

On a scale of 1 – 5, I’ll give 2.5 for entertainment, 2 for story and 2 for ending. Verily, you aren’t missing anything if you decided to give this a miss completely.

iPhone 2.0

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Courtesy of dk99 of Blog2U, I was invited to a sneak preview of the iPhone 2.0 at iShop21 over at Cineleisure on Friday (25th July) night. These sets are not brought in for sale, but for the Bak2U to test their PhoneBAK mobile phone anti-theft software written for the iPhone. (Read more about PhoneBAK and which other types of phones it supports here.)

For those who read my blog frequently, they would know I am no fan of Apple. However I still had to see the phone for myself and see what so great about this thing every one is talking about. And now, this is not a review, just a write up on the parts I have tested.

Firstly, let me say I am not very familiar with the interface and Malique had to guide me on it. And for a first time user like me, it really isn’t too difficult to use at all once you get the hang of it.

Anyway, I am not too interested in all the features of the iPhone except the Safari browser since many of the other features – music player, phone, GPS etc – are already available in other phone. I did play around a little with the Wifi though once I discovered it’s connected, I decided not to make a fool of myself and left it alone. After all, the password for the connection has already been entered. I think I saw both Malique and Chillycraps took some pictures with the camera and they appeared to be pretty alright on screen.

Back to the browser. I must say I am damned impressed with it. The rendering is so much better than Opera Mini on the Blackberry 8820 and the touchscreen interface which allows me to expand a selected portion of the screen is wonderful. It is very fast and very responsive. (I guess all the Apple Fanbois didn’t need to be told this, but it’s for the benefit of those who never heard about it.)
Picture courtesy of Michael Cheng

However, I also discover that Flash media doesn’t work on it, and java applet support seems to be absent. I wanted to try out the Internet Banking sites to see if I can get as far as the login screen but to no avail because the applet didn’t load. I must say I am a little disappointed by that.

Anyway, since I don’t know if there are settings in Safari which I am unaware of (or whether it is possible for some add-ins tbe be installed), don’t start flaming me already, alright? Also, dk99 told me that Youtube videos plays natively on it and if that is true, then it’s browser is way better than the Blackberry. Still, that’s no way compare as the iPhone 2.0 I get to touch has a 8GB Flash Drive while most other mobiles usually comes with a pathetic amount of Flash memory installed.

Next, the physical aspect of the device. Sleek, light (I suspect it was even lighter than the older generation) and very elegant. It fits nicely into the hand. Unfortunately, everyone of us has a difficulty typing URLs into the browser and indeed like Xiaxue Xiasuay says, you can’t use your nails on the touchscreen to do it. I think Blackberry users will have no problem using it though, since it appeared to me – and confirmed by Paddy – that if you use both your thumbs to type, it is actually quite ok. It is slow only when you start using your finger to ‘poke’ at the on-screen letters one by one as if it is as stylus. On top of that, Malique pointed out that the difficulty to typing might not be the ‘fault’ of the interface itself but could possibly be the protective film applied over the screen to protect it. I agree with that view so should you get one, you might want to be careful about the screen protection you are going to use on the device.

Now, let’s move on to what I didn’t like. Just one thing: the battery. It is still built in which means you can’t buy a spare to go with the phone. While it maybe argued that the battery may last pretty long on its own, I still like the flexibility of using one battery and leaving one to charge.

Beyond that, I have nothing more to talk about, since I can’t hold on to the phone for long while other people are trying, but you can read up Wishbone‘s write up here.

Movies: Hancock & Wanted

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As I was on leave today, I went to watch “Hancock” at GV Marina. I would have watched it at GV Jurong Point, but the first show clash with my meet up with my friend (who is also my insurance agent), and the second one is at 10pm.

As we already know from watching the trailers, Hancock (Will Smith) is this drunkard, bad ass hero that goes around Los Angeles dealing with the crime and the problems. Unfortunately, when getting the job done, Hancock’s methods usually caused the city a large amount of money in damage. As a result, the people of LA are very upset with his vigilantism even though Hancock participation has kept the crime rate in check. The story revolves around how PR Executive Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), in gratitude of being saved from certain death by Hancock, take it upon himself to help Hancock remake his image.

To do so, Ray set up for Hancock a series of steps to take in order regain the trust and appreciation of the very people he is saving and protecting, and as a result also led Hancock to re-discover something about his true self.

How do I like the movie? Well, just like any movie where you get Morgan Freeman, most Will Smith movies can never be too bad. While I did enjoy the early part of the movie very much as it was quite funny looking, especially that part where the criminals Hancock put in jail confronted him when he went to prison. However, I felt it to be a little dry at the middle part when he became our usual prim and proper hero and I definitely didn’t quite like the ending.

On a scale of 1 – 5, I’ll give 4 for entertainment, 3.5 for story and 3 for ending. And yes, there’s a short “after credits”… if it can be called that as it is shown before the names of the cast.

And by the way, even though in the end Ray did achieve his objective into remaking Hancock, I doubt a real life Ray would have any luck in remaking the image of certain Community Managers Manglers. But what can be learn from the movie is Hancock’s moral courage – his willingness to listen to criticisms even when he didn’t like to hear them – and bravely do what is necessary to change for the better.

I watched “Wanted” two or three weeks ago, also at GV Marina with an old friend who didn’t have much time to meet up with friends ever since he has gotten married.

The story revolves around Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy), the rare mega-loser you probably won’t find among your acquaintance or in your office. Wesley’s life begin to change when he met Fox (Angelina Jolie), who inducted him into a Fraternity of assassins with special powers run by Sloan (Morgan Freeman).

Wesley was told of his real ‘identity’ and was subjected to a series of devilish training to succeed the position of and to avenge his father he never knew. As you have seen in the trailers, Wesley would ultimately learn the special skill – curve the bullet (sort of like Obi-Wan and Yoda training Luke Skywalker in the Force kinda stuff). He would then go on to meet his destiny – getting the mission to kill his father’s killer – Cross (Thomas Kretschmann), a former member of the Fraternity.

What do I think of the movie? Well, grossly over-hyped and too much blasted computer graphics! The only redeeming quality of the show, as I jokingly told chaosdingo some time back, is the view of Angelina Jolie’s back and butt crack as she comes out the bath (though I think the freaking tattoo sucks but I am not Brad Pitt so what the heck.).

Anyway, Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie more than make up in acting what is lacking in substance and it is not too often I see Morgan Freeman in the kind of role he plays in this movie.

On a scale of 1 – 5, I’ll give 3.5 for entertainment, 3.5 for storyline and 3 for ending. While there is an unexpected twist almost near the end of the movie, it wasn’t so much of a shock or a novelty. If you won’t consider it spoilers, I would like to say I considered it a tribute to Star Wars.

On thinking back, if there is anything to learn from this movie, it would be not to be too trusting to what is apparent or circumstantial and unverifiable. You won’t know when you might end up getting stabbed in the back or being used to further another person’s agenda.

Anyway, when one considers that tragic ending (watch it to find out!), it is certainly wiser for one to leave and to stand on one’s own principles, even if that means facing and fighting the very Fraternity he once believed in and is a part of.

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