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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

By on Wednesday, June 24, 2009

I’ll have to say that I’ve been waiting for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I also have to say I’m a bit disappointed. But then what do you expect from sequels, right?

Story? Not much there. It’s not well thought out and things at times seemed pointless. Revenge of the Fallen, started off where the previous Transformers movie left off. Megatron and his robots have been destroyed but Decepticon incursions remain a part of daily life. Responsible for countering these attacks is a combined unit of  Autobots, old and new, and up-armed Earth special forces.

Apparently, the Decepticons were trying to locate a fragment of the “allspark” to be used to revive Megatron. The good guys , on the other hand, had to revive Optimus Prime, who was conveniently killed by the revived Megatron, and stop the Decepticons from activating a star-destroying superweapon.

All these happened in an overly long, LOUD, action-packed sequence that tended to be confusingly fast and yet managed to be dragging at the same time.

The titular The Fallen was totally unnecessary and was onscreen only a few minutes. He didn’t even last long in the final fight considering so much time allocated to battle scenes.

Rating: 3/5

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General

Terminator: Salvation

By on Monday, June 1, 2009

Terminator and Terminator 2 were pretty good science fiction movies. At the time of their release, the concepts were still pretty far fetched. But things are different 20 years ago. Robots are here and very much active. In Afghanistan, unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs which are essentially flying robots are busy assassinating suspected terrorists. In Iraq, small robots called TALONs are doing highly-dangerous bomb disposal. And the US army are thinking of arming the TALON and converting them into SWORDs. Terminator still far fetched? Definitely not.

And so the newest Terminator movie, Terminator: Salvation, is less of a science fiction movie and more of an action movie. This nature is further reinforced by the use of some current day weapons and vehicles. The action is nothing special but at least it has an epic storyline that ties up neatly with the previous Terminator movies.

Rating: 4/5

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Star Trek vs Star Wars

By on Thursday, May 21, 2009

Star Trek vs Star Wars. This has been a long running debate. But regardless of the arguments Star Trek has always been the more scientific and, I dare say, more intellectual series. In short, more mature. Star Wars has always been more kid-oriented. Every succeeding release sees more and more characters destined for the toy store. Still, a lot of people, including yours truly, watched it because of the action. Mindless action but, hey, it’s fun!

With the latest Star Trek movie, they reinvented and modernized Star Trek.  They added flash and bang demanded by the new generation of viewers. But the best thing is that they managed to do this without dumbing it down… too much. And guess what? It’s all good.

Star Trek is a restart. The movie takes us back to when the USS Enterprise and its intrepid crew were just starting off. Of course, to put continuity into things, there is a link to the previous Star Trek movies and TV shows, which in this case is not really previous but from the future.

And since this involves time travel, as you have guessed, everything got mucked up good. A peace-loving turned vengeful Romulan villain got warped into the past and in an instant almost aborts Kirk. But Star Trek won’t be the same without Kirk so he was allowed to escape impending doom.

Soon after, a geriatric Spock arrives, also from the future, and was instantly captured the the waiting Romulans who then use the technology in his ship to destroy, of all planets, Vulcan. Star Trek without Vulcan?!? I guess Star Trek is still Star Trek without it. But what about the younger Spock?

Thankfully, Spock is already by then at Star Fleet where he embarks with Kirk and the rest of the gang on the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Their first mission was to stop the Romulans and, as expected, they did. How they did, is a really good watch ;)

Rating: 4/5

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Murder In Broad Daylight

By on Thursday, May 14, 2009

I just learned that Beng Liwanag, who was a supplier to my previous company, was brazenly shot while driving to work,  in broad daylight, and in a busy street intersection at that! It’s quite clear that criminals these days are not afraid to commit crimes because law enforcement is so ineffective.

Reminds me of when I was at the canonical interview. The interviewing priest, upon learning I hale from the south, commented how dangerous it is there. I wanted to say that the city is just as if not worse but I held my tongue. But yes, it is.

My condolences to Beng’s family.

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