Movie Review: Doomsday

There are numerous movies with post-apocalyptic settings. Such as Independence day, 2012, day after tomorrow, 28 days later.. the list goes on. Doomsday, is a 2008 British sci-fi movie, set in futuristic Scotland. I guess I will say right at the start of this review that, if you can, avoid this movie at all cost, because it is probably one of the most boring and disgusting movies I've ever encountered!

The movie is pretty much a rip off of 28 days later. The story of Doomsday goes like this: In the future, a deadly virus outbreak in Scotland caused most of its inhabitants to die, there is no cure for this virus. As a preventive measure to stop the virus from spreading into the rest of the country, the British government decided to build a massive wall that segregate Scotland from the rest of the UK. Leaving all the inhabitants to die. The main Protagonist in the movie was a little girl who made it pass the wall just before they closed the wall off, all citizens in Scotland were presumed dead. 20 years later, the deadly virus was found again in London, and through satellite images, the government found survivors in Scotland, so they thought the survivors in Scotland must have found the cure. The government sent a team of special force agents into Scotland, the goal was to investigate and attempt to obtain the cure, lead by the main Protagonist. As the team made their journey to discover the mystery, a series of shocking events unfold...

So here you have it, a standard sci-fi story with inspirations from 28 days later. It would have been an average film, but there are so many things in this film that made it really bad. Firstly, there was a 5 minutes scene of cannibalism, where the camera showed a man being roasted alive, and then a bunch of savages started to cut, tear and eat flesh from the charcoaled corpse, all depicted in painstakingly great detail. It was really revolting, I remember I was sitting on my couch eating dinner when I watched this, and I almost vomited. Secondly, despite all the actions, this movie is terribly boring, as the plot unfolds it becomes more and more ridiculous and makes no sense. Thirdly, there is just too much unnecessary violence in this film, it's almost as if the director derives joy from torturing the audiences with overwhelming scenes of decapitated head, flying limbs and splattering of blood on the screen. Fourthly, there is nothing to think about after you watched the movie, all you get is a sick feeling in the stomach from the overdose of unrealistic blood and gore.

I think you get the picture now..

Score:

Story 1/5 - The story is a rip off of 28 days later, but at the same time it is so boring, sickening, flat and all in all uninteresting. Heck, they even use the soundtrack from 28 days later. Personally, I could not see any thing worth reflecting about from the story.

Cinematography 3/5 - In terms of colour and contrast, the cinematography is all right in this film. However, in terms of blood and gore, it is way over the top and extremely graphical.

Sound 2/5 - The sound effect is quite good, the volume for the dialogues are crisp, sharp and easy to listen to, but using a soundtrack from 28 days later? I mean, come on, they could have been more original than that!

Violence Extreme - To summarise the level of violence and gore in this film: I felt like becoming a vegetarian for a week after I endured this 2 hours long visual torture.

Sex/nudity medium - there was a frontal nude scene of a woman at the beginning of the film and that is all.

Final verdict 2/10 - Personally, I really think this is one of the worst movies I've seen in years. It will be on my chart as one of the worst movies ever made, just after John Travelta's Battlefield Earth and Edwood's plan 9 from outer space. Yep, it is that bad! There is just nothing in this film that can redeem itself from being horrendous and ridiculous. Strongly NOT RECOMMENDED.

Movie Review: The Book of Eli

Imagine this, it is the post apocalyptic world. Most of the books/records about our past and history have been destroyed, it is a Godless society and most people are illiterate. However, you have the last copy of the Bible and you are a Christian!

This, is the setting for the Huges brother's 2010 post-apocalyptic action film, Book of Eli, starring Denzel Washington. Set in the futuristic post apocalyptic world, Denzel Washington plays the character of Eli, who is said to have heard God's voice, telling him to bring the last copy of the Bible in the apocalyptic world to a safe location on the west coast of USA. In the post-apocalyptic world, morality amongst people is practically non-existent, the society is extremly depraved, and most people can't read because most of the books were destroyed during the apocalyptic event. Eli travels on foot, and on his journey he demonstrated unparalleled survival and fighting skills. He arrived at a town where the main villain of the movie Carnegie (Gary Oldman) is trying to collect certain books where he thinks he can use to control people's minds and therefore, bring him power. After Carnegie found out that Eli has the last copy of the Bible, he went out of his way to try and take the Bible from Eli so he can use it, twist the words to bring power to himself. Without spoiling too much of the film, this is basically the plot of this movie. Quite interesting and original.

I don't think this is a Christian movie, but this is a movie that contains a lot of Christian values. For example, there is a scene in the movie where Eli realized that although he knows the Bible text by inside out, but he doesn't really put the words of God to practice and he needs to change his ways, and he taught a girl who can't read how to pray. Another theme is that Eli shows a lot of perseverance, he trusts that God will deliver and provide for him not matter what the situation is like in his whole journey. Also, the final narration of Eli at the end of the movie is really moving and really shows that Eli is a Godly man who serve the Lord whole heartedly. I was really surprised that such a movie came from Hollywood production, and I really enjoyed the film.

Final verdict:

Story 8/10 - The story is straight forward, but it is very original and contains great Christian themes, where Eli's character shows that he loves God with everything he has, and also the theme of how important it is that Christians should put the words of God into daily lives, instead of just treating it as an academic, intellectual exercise.

Cinematography 7/10 - The environments and design of the post-apocalyptic world is very well done, it really brought the feeling of decay and brokenness into the atmosphere of the movie. However, I didn't like the color and contrast as I thought a lot of the scenes were either too bright or too dark in color and light.

Sound 6/10 - The sound effect was great, but when the actor/actress were speaking the volume is very small, so I had to turn up the volume to hear the dialogues, but when the action scenes start the volumes become too loud and is really annoying.

Violence: Strong - The violence level in this movie is very strong, there are numerous scenes of decapitated limbs and such. It is definitely MA rated.

Sex/Nudity: medium

Final verdict 7.5/10 - Personally, I am NOT sure if Eli doing things because he thinks he physically "heard" God speaking to him is a good example for Christians to follow or not. But we do known that God speaks to us through the Bible, if we read, understand and want to put the words of God into practice with a heart of wanting to love/obey God then we can live according to Godly wisdom. There are great Christian themes in this movie. It's refreshing to see a Hollywood production that portray Christianity in the positive light for a change. But it has its flaws, mainly in the color contrast of the pictures and the soft dialogue volume. One must also be warned that the violence level is quite high. However, if you are over 16 I would recommend this film.

Movie Review: True Grit

" You pay for everything in this world, there is nothing free, except the grace of God". This sentence, was at the end of the opening narration in the latest Coen Brothers movie, "True Grit". The first truly great movie of 2011, and probably one of the best and most meaningful movies in recent years.

True Grit, is an adaptation of the 1968 novel of the same name. The first film adaptation was in 1969, starring John Wayne. "The Duke" (John Wayne's nickname) won the Oscar for best actor in 1969. I have seen the John Wayne version when I was a child, but can recollect very little of the film. However, the 2011 version, is a solid film in all aspects. From the casting, directing, cinematography, script, to music soundtrack and production value are all very well done.

The story starts with the narration from Mattie Ross, as an grown adult telling the audience about a story that happened to her when she was 14 years old. Mattie's father was murdered by one of his hired hand, Tom Chaney. Mattie went into the town to take care of her father's business and through trading some of her father's remaining properties, made some money. Then she proceeded to hire "Rooster Cogburn" (Jeff Bridges), a fearless US marshal to track down Tom Chaney and bring him to the law, she told Cogburn that the condition for this job is that he has to take her with him to track down Chaney. Along the way and through circumstances, a Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon) joined the hunt and the trio set out on this improbable quest to bring Chaney to the law.

The story is straight and simple. However, having said that, the story of "True Grit" focuses alot on character development. This is the one thing I liked about this film, Coen brothers told the story in a way that made the audiences think about the meaning/moral of the story, rather than trying to impress the audiences through the flashy, overly complicated and bizarre philosophies so common in many modern day films. The movie started with a quote from half of Proverbs 28:1: The wicked man flees though no one pursues... Personally, I think if the movie maker had quoted the entire verse: "The wicked man flees though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion", it would have fitted the movie a lot more better.

The central theme of this movie is in the opening narration of Mattie Ross, when she said nothing in this world is free except for the grace of God. As a 14 year girl who lost her father, Mattie had to bargain, negotiate and fight for her rights against adults who constantly tried to rip her off. One gets a sense of her absence of innocence throughout the entire film because she never smiled, and also her meticulous ways of dealing with day to day transactions in life. On her quest to bring her father's murderer to the law, she witnessed a lot of death and harms that happened because of the quest. In other words, Mattie Ross learnt the price for vengeance during her hunt for her father's killer, she even landed up paying this price with a part of herself (literally, watch the film to find out what it is). It is a journey for her to discover that nothing is free in this world except the grace of God. One can say that although Mattie is a Christian, her sense of biblical justice is twisted because she does not show forgiveness. Now, I may be way off, but personally I think this is what the Coen brother envisioned the film to be, the journey of a 14 year old headstrong girl who insist on having revenge discovers that vengeance comes with a great price, and only in the grace of God can she be really find peace and love.

In the movie, Mattie witnessed the repentance of a criminal who is about to be hanged begging the crowd to have mercy on his family after his death. All in all, this movie will make you think about the meaning of things such as: justice, grace, trust in God, and redemption because these are the main themes of the story.

Jeff Bridge's portrayal of Rooster is solid, Matt Damon put up a strong performance as the supporting actor. The background music is an old hymn (leaning on the everlasting arm), which fits the theme of the film very well. The cinematography and the visuals are stunning, on par (if not better) with "the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford".

Verdict:

Story 10/10: The Coen brothers masterfully told a great tale of adventure in a very simple and clear way, the story is well knitted, with memorable and interesting characters that will make you reflect on a lot of Christian values, especially the grace of God.

Cinematography 9.5/10: Crisp and beautiful imageries, it is a visually stunning film.

Music/sound 9/10: The main soundtrack "leaning on the everlasting arms" suits the movie really well. Although I was wondering why the Johnny Cash soundtrack from the movie trailer wasn't in the movie.

Acting/production value 9.5/10: I really liked Jeff Bridge's portoryal as Rooster Cogburn, I hope he wins some award for his role in this movie. The support actors and actress put on solid performances as well.

Sex/nudity: none

Violence: The movie is "M" rated, there are some pretty violent scenes, there is one slightly disturbing scene of a man's fingers being chopped off.

Final score: 9/10 - As I said at the beginning of the review, this is one of the best and most meaningful movies (not only from a Christian sense, also in general) I've seen in recent years. Amongst the vast amount of Hollywood media entertainment, I can truly say that I was not only entertained, but this story also directed me to re-think and reflect on how Jesus has paid the price of sin for us, and because of that we can have the free gift of grace. In our world where seemingly nothing is free nor unconditional, God's grace is free, all we have to do is to accept it and loving Him back.

Video game review: King Arthur - The roleplaying Wargame

Do you like roleplaying games (RPG)? Do you like strategy games? Have you ever wanted to play a game that has both elements incorporated? No, I am not talking about Spellforce, this is called "King Arthur the roleplaying wargame".

"King Arthur Roleplaying wargame", as its title suggests is a blend of RPG and real time/turn based strategy game. Released on PC by a Hungarian company called Neocore in 2009. It features the player to play the role of King Arthur on his quest to build Camelot. This game has beautiful graphics, atmospheric soundtrack, interesting quest/plot system and is a very "hardcore" strategy title.

Set in 500AD, the story starts just after Arthur Pendragon pulled out the excalibur from the stone to became the king. The story is loosely based on the traditional Arthurian legend, where the players will engage in famous events such as Sir Gawain and the Greend Knight, Tristan and Iseult, Balin/Balan and the cursed sword etc..

Gameplay:

This is a title that blends strategy and roleplaying. For the campaign, the player will take on the role of King Arthur, and the game and its micro-management (money, food, movement of armies etc..) are controlled on a big map of Britain, in turn based style. When in battle, the gameplay switches to real time strategy.

The ultimate goal is to take over every province in Britain. The campaign story is divided into four chapters, and quests appear sequentially as the game progresses. As King Arthur, every choice the player makes will affect the storyline and will determine the quests you will be getting later in the game. In addition, the roleplaying aspect of the game is based on a morality compass. The choice that the player makes during the game will slowly define King Arthur to two different types of rulers, i.e. either tyrant or rightful, and also his inclination to religion, i.e. Christianity or Old faith. Depending on the morality of your King Arthur, you can unlock different units and heroes.

The questing system plays out like 1980's adventure book, it is text based and you need to use the heroes (i.e. knights of the round table) to activate them. The quests makes the campaign very story driven, and can be very immersive and will drag you into the fantasy world of Arthuraian legend, packed with adventures and chivalry.

Furthermore, recruiting the knights of the round table is when the game really gets in touch with its claim to RPG. In this game, you cannot have an army going around without a hero leading it, you can recruit up to 11 knights/heroes at King Arthur's famous round table, and the heroes are divided into three classes each has unique skills and abilities. As they complete quests, and fight in battles they can level up, there are also weapons and armours you can get from doing quests, and you can equip your heroes with them. Some heroes will be loyal to you if their morality is similar to yours, and you can have ladies in your court to marry them to improve their loyalty. Another feature is you can assign your heroes to be the governors of different provinces.

The battle system is both the strength and the weakness in this game. The battle takes place in real time, and is highly detailed. Things like terrain and weather are the key factors on how you plan your battle strategy. There are three types of basic units: archer, cavalry, and infantry. You have to utilise all three effectively to win battles. However, the key to winning battles usually lies with the hero's skills. Combining these items the battles are really rewarding and satisfying. However, the battles are very hard, perhaps too hard sometimes that can be a bit overwhelming. Also, some of the army units are too powerful, especially the archers. Towards the end of the campaign there are just too many over challenging battles and that will have even the most die hard fan of strategy game holding their heads in frustration. The game can certainly use some better balancing.

Besides the campaign mode, this game also offers skirmish and multilayer mode.

Graphics:

The graphics in this game is great, the design is beautiful and really gives the player the feeling of the world from "The Once and Future King or Le'Morte d'Arthur .

Sound:

The sound effect is pretty good, the soundtracks are of course, medieval style music to suit the game's environment and atmosphere.

Final verdict:

Story 8/10 - The main campaign is very story driven, while the story deviates from the traditional Arthurian legend, it is still very interesting because of the quest system in this game is very well done.

Gameplay 6.5/10 - Like I said earlier, the gameplay is great, but the battle system can use a bit of balancing. The battle involves the player to actually use strategies based on terrain and weather, like in a real war, and it can be really rewarding and satisfying, but the battles in this game can get very, very difficult half way into the campaign mode. Be prepared for many cries of frustration.

Graphics 8.5/10 - The graphics is pretty good, but the frame rate can be choppy sometimes when you zoom in, especially in massive battles. The design is very beautiful and captures the essence of King Arthur world.

Sound 7.5/10 - Good sound effects, appropriate soundtracks.

Replay value 8/10 - If you are not scared by the game's difficulty, you can replay the main campaign again after the first play through, make different decisions the second time to unlock different heroes and see how the story evolves differently. The skirmish mode adds replay value as well.

Sex/Nudity: none, I mean, pretty much every character in this game is wearing a bulky massive metal armour. There are no sex scenes nor suggestive scenes.

Violence: Well, this is a war game, meaning you fight battles and kill enemies by the hundreds. There are no blood splatter effects in the game. When a character die in the battle, he just lie down on the ground... a bit unrealistic but it does reduce the violence in video games a lot.

Conclusion:

I actually really liked King Arthur the roleplaying wargame, this is a solid blend of RPG and strategy genre, and many aspects of this game makes it really fun and will keep you coming back for more. However, the difficulty of the game is too high and it can become a very frustrating experience when you loose 10 battles in a row because of the unbalanced gameplay and some overpowered army units (hmm, especially the archers). The unbalanced gameplay is what is really hindering this title from becoming a really great game.

Final score: 7.5/10 (good)

Movie Review: Ring of the Nibelungs

Do you like Lord of the Rings? If you are a fan, then you would be interested to know the source to Tolkein's inspirations to the forging of the world of Middle Earth. J.R.R. Tolkein was a fan of Norse mythology, and he drew inspirations from various materials such as Beowulf, and some of the epic sagas from the old Norse world. Such as the Völsungasaga and Nibelungenlied (the two are actually parallel to each other, while the Nibelungenlied is pretty much the German version of the Saga of Volsungs).

Nibelungenlied, is the story of Siegfried the dragon slayer and Brünhild (the Queen of Iceland). It is epic, beautiful and tragic. A story about love, greed, friendship and betrayal. The movie, Ring of the Nibelungs is a TV mini-series based fantasy film made in 2004. The story is based on the Saga of the Volsungs and German epic poem Nibelungenlied. It is a 2 parts film that contains parts of the stories from the Völsungasaga. I watched it on home video just a few days ago, and I think it is one of the most faithful film adaptations ever made.

The story of Ring of the Nibelungs is about the rise and the fall of Seigfried, a hero whose fame was built after he slew a dragon. The DVD version of the film is 177 minutes, and has two parts. Part 1 focuses on Seigfried's rise to power. Part 2 is portrays how greed, jealousy and betrayal brought doom upon the main characters in the story. I do not want to spoil the story here, so all I am going to say is that the story is one of the most intriguing tales in Norse mythology.

The movie itself is well made, one must remember that this is a low budget, direct to TV film, so it does not have the Hollywood standard production values. However, the cinematography is very well done. The acting is medicore, while the lead characters did a good job, the supporting actors/actress are less expressive. Part 1 of the movie is a bit cheesy, but part 2 is when the movie really gets interesting, where the characters and the story really start to develop.

The central theme of the story is about the consequences of greed, but I have to put up warnings here, unlike Hollywood productions where most stories have happy endings, the ending to Ring of the Nibelungs is tragic, but this is a faithful adaptation to the original poem, and I thought the director did a good job at keeping the story original and resisted the temptation of altering the story to make an "Americanized, general film". Ring of the Nibelungs is like Lord of the Rings, the differences are that it is much darker and is set in the ancient Norse world.

Overall, I really liked Ring of the Nibelungs, not only because I am a fan of the Völsungasaga myself, but more so because this movie is a great adaptation. If you like Tolkein's Middle Earth mythology, and like the movie Lord of the Rings then I think you will like Ring of the Nibelungs.

Ratings:

Story 10/10 - faithful to the original Völsungasaga and Nibelungenlied, the story is epic, beautiful, dark and tragic.

Video 3.5/5 - this is a low budget direct to TV mini series, the production value is not on par with the Hollywood ones, but the visuals and cinematography are great.

Sound 3/5 - The music is good, but the sound effect for the fighting scenes are over done.

Acting 3/5 - the lead actor/actress did a good job, but the supporting actor/actress are somewhat mechanical in their portrayals, expressions and emotions.

Violence - The level of violence in this film is not very high compared to most of the Hollywood movies. Most of the death scenes only contain blood, and no decapitation or amputation of limbs on human. There is a scene showing the head of a dead dragon, but I think most audience over the age of 13 should be fine with the violence level in this movie.

Sex/nudity: There is one sex scene earlier in the movie and contains partial nudity, there are no frontal nudity scenes.

Final score: 7.5/10 - A good and enjoyable movie, if you like Lord of the Rings then don't miss it.

Book Preview: Hrolf Kraki's Saga by Poul Anderson

The Saga of Hrolf Kraki is one of the Norse Epic Saga, originally composed in approximately 1300 AD, the saga of Hrolf Kraki has many cross references to "Beowulf". The story is about a Danish King, Hrolf Kraki and his path to become the king of Denmark. In this book, "Hrolf Kraki's saga", novelist Poul Anderson has crafted a re-telling of the epic saga in prose translation. Published in 1973, the novel was nominated for the British Fantasy Award in 1973, and was general well received by the public. With stories involving giants, elves, magical swords wielding Norse warriors and background in Norse mythology and much more, this is exactly my cup of tea. The book is currently out of print, and with no small efforts I finally tracked it down on ebay and received it recently.

I am reading it now and a review will follow soon.

Book Review: Soon I will be Invincible

Two years ago while I was browsing through the bookshop, I came across "Soon I will be Invincible", a novel written by author Austin Grossman. I had never heard of Austin Grossman at the time, but the superhero comic style cover was capturing. I read the summary at the back of the book, and the description says: "This morning on planet Earth there are 1,686 enhanced, gifted, or otherwise-superpowered persons. 678 use their powers to fight crimes, while 441 use their powers to commit them, 44 are currently confined in Special Containment Facilities for enhanced criminals. Of these last, it is interesting to note that an unusually high proportion have IQs of 300 or more - 18 to be exact, including me...".

The book seemed interesting so I decided to give it a try to find out what this is all about.

The way the story is told in this book is in first person narrative. Although this is a book about superheroes and super villains, but the entire story is about the super villain Dr. Impossible, a mad genius with Malign Hypercognition Disorder who has attempted to take over the world 12 times, but all his attempts failed due to the effort of a team of superheroes, the Champions. Without spoiling too much story, the plot started with the team of superheroes pursuing a mission to search for one of the greatest superhero "CoreFire", who had been missing for a few month. All the while, Dr. Impossible escaped from the prison and started to plan for his 13th attempt to take over the world. As the story unfolds, the readers find out more and more about Dr. Impossible, such as his motivations and a more in-depth view of the live of a super villain. In the book, it is interesting how Dr. Impossible reflected about his own life and wondered what would have happened if he had used his high IQs for the benefit of mankind, but it is his own impulsive behaviour of trying to take over the world (possibly due to his mental illness) that prevents him from ever living a happy existence. This brings up a very interesting theme of actions induced by mental illnesses V.S. personal choice and personal responsibility. I got the feeling that the author was trying to convey that Dr. Impossible's actions are due to his mental illness, and therefore his is not solely responsible for his actions because it is not "him" who made the choices of being an evil genius. This is a very post-modern concept, and is something worth pondering about. Personally, I think mental illness or not, every one is still responsible for their own choices and actions.

Another unique component of this book is, because the story is told in first person narrative through the eyes of Dr. Impossible, the author let the readers decide the nature of Dr. Impossible.

Overall, this is not a bad book, the story is original but some parts of the plot doesn't really connect very well.

Rating: 3.5/5 (Good)