Movie Title: Night at the Museum
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (6/10)
Year: 2006
Night at the Museum official site: http://www.nightatthemuseum.com/

Now… the line “where everything comes to live” have been so commonly use in some theme park ads, some roller coaster rides, some safari.. la la la… and the list goes on, this time, this movie is gonna tell you… they just ain’t saying it for the sake of saying it. They are gonna prove to you… it really does come to live.

Based on a children’s book, Night at the Museum centres around Larry Daley (Ben Stiller). Larry, a business minded person who always believe he is destined to do something great and comes out with great inventions but so far everything that happens to his life prove him otherwise. He kept trying until he have nothing left and at desperate measures to win his son, Nick Daley (Jake Cherry) support when he felt his position as a role model being threaten by Nick’s more successful stepfather. Larry is all set to look for a full time job that pays his bills.

He was sent to the Museum of Natural History where they offer him a night guard post replacing three old staff, Cecil (Dick Van Dyke), Gus (Mickey Rooney), and Reginald (Bill Cobbs). They gave Larry a quick tour and was kind enough to give him some tips such as “leave some lights on” , “read and follow the instructions on the manual” and “never allow anything in or out of the museum”. Thinking it was an easy job, Larry was simply playing around with the speaker phone and happily sleeping.

He finally woke up when he fall out from his chair to notice the T-Rex skeletons were gone. He then heard some weird noises and as he takes the corner, he got the shock of his life. Everything in the museum turns to life. All the wax dolls were walking here and there, even the miniature dolls we talking. While the T-Rex was attacking Larry, he managed to get Cecil where he once again reminded him to do as what the manual says.

Things was in a chaos.. but the worst was when Dexter, a monkey from the African exhibit simply rip his manual to pieces. He was quickly saved by a wax model, Theodore Roosevelt (Robbin Williams). He told Larry he would only help him this once. Theodore explains to Larry that ever since an Egyptian tablet was brought to the museum, everything comes to life at night. However, the exhibits will turn to dust if they leave the museum and failed to return before sunrise.

Just when Larry decides to leave this weird and life threatening job, Nick walked by the museum to say hi to him. Trying not to disappoint his son, he decided to give his job a second chance. Knowing that there is no extra copy of the manual, Larry takes up Cecil’s advice and learn the history of the exhibits. Getting to work fully equipped, Larry thinks it’s gonna be a smooth sailing night.

Little does he knows nothing got better, in fact things got worst than what he thought. The cowboy miniatures led by Jedediah (Owen Wilson) is always fighting with the Roman army led by Octavius (Steve Coogan), Dexter stole Larry’s key… and what’s worst, one of the caveman jumps out from the window Dexter have left open. It turns to dust right in front of Larry’s eyes when he failed to return to the museum before sunrise.

Looking at the mess created, Larry was fired by Dr. McPhee (Ricky Gervias) when later on Larry asked for another chance to mend his mistakes. Nick was disappointed when he saw his father got fired. Larry, on the other hand try to prove to his son there was something more than what it seems in the museum and decided to cheer him up by bringing him to the museum.

Just as he was about to close the museum, he bump into Rebecca (Carla Gugino). Rebecca admires one of the exhibits, Sacajawea (Mizuo Peck) and is writing a thesis about her. She got stuck half way and was in the midst of giving up. Larry thought he could help Rebecca out by telling her what’s happening to the museum and asked her to come during the night where he can introduce Sacajawea to her. She got angry thinking Larry was mocking her.

When the night comes, nothing moves. Everything just stays as it is. Thinking his father is lying, Nick decides to give up hope on his dad. Larry then explains to Nick and asked Nick to follow him to the Egyptian room only to notice the tablet that brings everything to live was missing.

Larry then realize that Cecil, Gus and Reginald was behind all this. Eventually, besides bringing the exhibits to life, it rejuvenates them as well. They are trying to set Larry up so that they could get their old job back. Nick quickly steals the tablet from them and turns one of the panel and bring everything in the museum to life. The trio then chase after Larry and Nick and soon lock them up in the Egyptian room.

When the Anubis tries to attack them, Larry have no choice but to release the mummy Ahkmenrah (Rami Malek). Upon releasing Ahkmenrah, he ordered the Anubis to break the gates. With Ahkmenrah’s help, Larry manage to befriend Atilla the Hun (Patrick Gallagar) and the others. Larry manage to gather everyone to get together to save the museum as they all know very well, without the tablet, nothing comes to live anymore.

Ah… the ending eh… hmm… happy comedy, based on children’s book, well what can you get? Nothing out of expectations will happen. Which well… in a way is good. Something cool and nice to watch for a good laugh. Er… too little time for character development. In a way, yeah… too many characters was introduced. But well, I sorta forgive them. A museum… if there are only like a few exhibits, I won’t bother to go visit.

Movie Title: 傷城 (Confession of Pain)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (6/10)
Year: 2006
Confession of Pain official site: http://www.confessionofpain.com/

From the director who brought you the highly acclaimed Infernal Affairs, Andrew Lau and Alan Mak is back. Oh yes… Infernal Affairs, a movie so great that it can be considered legendary movie. Being noted as one of the best movie ever produced in Hong Kong and many even agree without a doubt saying it probably is the one movie that saved the sagging Hong Kong movie industry. They have set the benchmark sky-high, so high that in comparison to Confession of Pain, it just shows that being better than one of the best is a hard thing to do.

Well, like what I said about Zhang Yimou… one can’t just ride on the success and think repeating it over and over again will make everything the best all the time. Fairly looking at the poster and trailer does entice enough people to go see it. In fact with the line ” from the director or Infernal Affairs” it will just get millions of people rushing to see it… now that includes me. I mean looking at the poster.. the pose… the colour scheme… to the dot, one can say it’s so Infernal Affairs like. And no kidding… I am expecting Infernal Affairs quality… in the sense of acting, soundtrack, cinematography and the best part… storyline. Noting everything down, Confession of Pain fails me terribly when compared to Infernal Affairs.

Yes, I saw a big surprising look at your face. Now… it’s not that bad if you just ignore the Infernal Affairs expectations. Okay… let’s start with the title, the Chinese title for Confession of Pain is 傷城 which translates as Wounded City. Now… relate the poster to the titles, it’s a movie that resolves around this two lead staying in the same city and both leading a painful life and of course looking at them facing each other back to back… one would already know their painful life is portray in a total opposite way.

The movie started of at this bar where Bong (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and his other colleagues were out on a mission with their team leader Hei (Tony Leung). Their prime suspect, a crazy and psycho serial rapist. Bong went undercover pretending to be a paying customer at the bar who doesn’t drink. The funny part, he orders alcohol saying that it would be obvious to people since he has been there for days but only orders juices. Hei then walk up to him and chatted with Bong a little telling him it is even more obvious when you order something that you don’t drink.

As their target leaves the place, everyone follows the suspect and finally arrested him. It was a “NOT TO BE MISSED” scene. So yes, in case you want to go to the toilet, no this is not the right time. Yes, this is one of the juiciest part of the movie as it disclose many dark side. One can feel the pain where Hei whack the rapist right before his entire police team. AMAZING! Yes, justice… legal rights… what are these behind closed doors when judgements are often clouded by experience, emotions and perceptions.

That very same night, Bong reach home only to find that his girlfriend, Rachel (Emme Wong) committed suicide. Bong partially blames himself for what has happened. Yes, the death of his girlfriend has inflicted a great deal of pain to him and getting drunk is the only way out for him. Not long after the incident, he resigned as he will never rest until he finds out why his girlfriend committed suicide. Bong then works part-time as a private investigator.

A few years later, Hei married Susan (Xu Jing Lei), daughter to billionaire Chau Yuen Sing (Yueh Hua). A few days after Hei was introduced to Susan’s father, Chau and his assistant, Uncle Man (Wan Yeung Ming) was brutally killed. The police thinks it was a robbery but Susan thinks otherwise and hires Bong to help to find out the truth as Susan noted that his father and Uncle Man will never open door to strangers. Thus, she believe the killer/robber is someone they all know.

Ever since his father’s death, Susan always think someone is stalking her and this leads to lots of argument between her and Hei. What is worst is when the rapist that Hei brutally whack at the opening shots was back and are playing this cat and mouse chase thing.

Meanwhile, Bong work together with Tsui (Chapman To) to investigate Chau’s death to only notice there were lots of clues not fitting in properly. On the side story, while getting drunk and investigating Rachel’s death at the pub, Bong stumbles upon Feng (Shu Qi), a happy go lucky bar girl who actually likes Bong. She constantly allow Bong to sleep over her place. In the midst of solving Susan’s case, he started to fall in love with Feng, who accompany him around and supporting him.

The peak soon came when Bong got hints that makes him suspect Hei is the killer. However, he still can’t understand why. Before Bong could get to the bottom of the case, Hei setup a perfect plan to kill Susan as well…and conveniently put all the blame to the rapist. When Bong, Hei and other fellow police colleagues were outside dining, Bong told Hei that Susan is actually not Chau’s daughter.

Bong finally knew that Hei is one behind all this. Apparently, Chau killed Hei’s entire family when he was very young. He witnessed how Chau killed his entire family and when he tried to run to the police station to report what he sees, he knows the police and Chau were buddies and no one would believe him. Being the only one left, he buried his pain and change his identity. He can’t let go of what happen and when one day, he coincidently notice some criminal name similar to his original name… he started to plan his way to murder Chau.

Hei thought by killing Chau, it would take away the pain from him. The revenge thing has got him so blinded. Looking at Susan lying on the hospital bed just make him realize that while he is revenging for his family’s death, he is actually killing his own family member (his wife Susan).

Bong also finds out that on the night Rachel commits suicide, she is actually waiting for her secret lover who failed to turn up because he became unconscious after a car accident on the same night. Bong originally thought that he would be angry at his girlfriend’s lover, but he ended up taking care of the comatose lover while he lies in the hospital.

Now… yes, notice how the story just didn’t flow in that well? I somehow thinks the story was not connected in a smooth flow way making it very much confusing and to me… it’s just bad. Some parts were too draggy while some part weren’t given much details. The by the way thing sorta kills out lots of the suspense.

Not to even mention the suspense was revealed so early ahead in the movie everyone would have known what actually happen and this makes the entire 1/2 of the movie boring and predictable. Of course, tony leung’s good acting skills manage to save a lot of it but the fact that it’s boring is still undeniable.

The point why this movie fails to be as good as Infernal Affairs is, they have such a wide scope of things to cover. Hei’s hatred, Hei and Susan’s relationship, Bong and Hei’s relationship, Bong and Rachel’s relationship, Bong and Feng’s relationship, Rachel and his secret lover, the rapist and Hei. It’s all just messed up. In the end, we just have a quick glimpse of everything with lots of questions.. why.. how… who..

The worst part, is when Susan was on a coma. The scene where Hei was at the hospital accompanying Susan took almost a good 10 mins… er.. okay.. maybe 7 minutes… and I can’t help to notice the bad editing when one can see Susan’s hand wrapped in bandage.. the next minute plastic.. then bandage.. then to plastic.. then to bandage.. then plastic. Why… why pour out such visible weakness and still showing it off for that 7 minutes. I can’t help but to laugh.

I don’t know… at the end of the day… is Bong and Hei that close? Were they close in the first place? It seems like the closer they get.. the further apart they are. Needless to say Tony Leung is great. I mean yeah.. Tony Leung… I won’t be surprised if he wins an award as Best Actor for this. Takeshi is okay.. good looking.. could never go wrong… however bad he is… just a little smile from him mends it all.

Xu Jinglei was an ultimate surprise for me. At first I sorta mistaken her for Rene Liu. I think they both looks and kinda have similar charisma. Her acting was way good than I expected. Shu Qi… what can I say, I see a lot of potential in her when she acted in City of Glass and Closer. I think she fits perfectly in the playing cool, rational and smart type of woman… but no… she keeps on playing this sorta crazy, naïve, jumping around like no one’s business type of character. It sorta irritates me seeing her playing this sorta role.

Movie Title: Eragon
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/10)
Year: 2006
Eragon official site: http://www.eragonmovie.com/

As everybody knows… I hate reading so.. Eragon was like an alien language to me when I first saw the poster. Which well… I think is a corny name (no offence to all Eragon fans). The first time I pass by the cinema and saw this poster coming soon, I just walk pass it without even wanting to take a second look.

It was one of those “ops… I did it again” poster. So overly used. Put it next to the “Four Brothers” poster and it just gives you the same look and feel. It was until someone pointed out it was some movies about this dragon which first thing that comes to mind… something like “Dungeons and Dragons”. Hmm… dragons eh?

Well… I sorta entered the cinema with a moderate expectation since… it was an adaptation from a trilogy novel. Hem… and yeah…. so I did get a moderate return. It wasn’t that great as what everyone was expecting to see. But I guess the only reason I think it was still okay was because I just came out from watching the “Curse of the Golden Flower” a few days ago.

Pretty self-explained title… replace the d with an e and you get Eragon. Everything in this dragon time started of with this young boy named Eragon (Edward Speleers) who supposedly is a farm boy go hunting in jungle. Instead of bringing back a deer, he brought back something more valuable. That’s right… a big blue colour egg which was teleported to Eragon when Arya (Sienna Guillory) was surrounded by King Galbatorix’s (John Malkovich) army and a powerful Shade, Durza (Robert Carlyle).

Of course the life of the young boy will never be the same again ever since he brings back this egg. Ever since his cousin Roran (Christopher Egan) left the town, his only best mate was Saphira (voiced by Rachel Weisz). Yes, you guessed it right, so much for wondering what’s in that big blue egg.

One day while hanging out, he accidently heard Brom (Jeremy Irons) telling stories about dragons and the dragon riders… which was a taboo thing to talk about since King Galbatorix was a traitor and he is the man who whipe out the Riders. He then went looking for Brom to know more about the dragons.

Unknown to Eragon, King Galbatorix has already sent lots of people and weird creatures looking for him to kill him. Why? Cause it is said that when the dragon rider dies, so does the dragon. So yes… kill kill kill. The only person who have a plan for this is Brom.

Brom is an ex-rider. His dragon was killed when Morza tries to hurt Brom. Brom tries to help Eragon as he is the only hope. Going through a big cat and mouse chase, Brom taught Eragon lots of spells and learn lots of stuffs. This has also strengthens Eragon and Saphira relationship.

Everything was going fine as Brom and Eragon is on their way to look for Ajihad (Djimon Housoun) as he is the man who is brave enough to lead his people to fight against Galbatorix. It was until Durza cast some spells on Arya and make her appear in Eragon’s dream asking him to look for her.

Being some typical movie, Brom dies in the process of trying to save the stubborn Eragon. Upon rescuing Arya, Eragon have to hurry as Arya’s life is in danger. He then met Murtagh (Garrett Hedlund). He leads Eragon to Ajihad only to find out he is Morza’s son.

Of course trilogy like this will have to have the “big battle” scene between good and evil. Eragon the mighty hero partner together with the mighty dragon. Looking good in the shiny armour.. hmmm… is all set to fight saving the entire community and killing Durza. *yawn*

Now… comes to the point where I can throw in my 2 cents worth of comments. From the starting… I think this movie was going at a too fast pace thing. It’s like a big rush… from finding the egg to it hatching.. to it growing to the journey to the ending. Not to even mention most of the characters were under developed.

Now… it then comes down to the casting. I can say they really didn’t do very well in picking up the main cast. I don’t know… he just seems so emotionless. It’s as if he is reading the lines and just couldn’t put himself to the position. Even towards the end when he acting is still lacking. I personally think the Rachael Weisz could be better. It was rather the same tone most of the time despite it was an exciting or just another boring scene.

Now talking some sense… I still don’t understand… it takes Eragon and Brom like days to reach somewhere near to the Ajihad’s. That is when Eragon decided to fly back to save Arya. I mean yeah of course he can reach in no time since he is flying. But Brom saving Eragon. How? He fly too? With AirAsia? The best part is, a dragon could not carry the weight of 3 person but can manage to fly wearing some funky armour and his rider who happens to wear some heavy armour too.

At least there is something I am happy about. The CGI for the dragon was amazing. The detailing was super cool. I just love it. Now… no matter how unlogic it turns out to be.. it is a way better plot than Curse of the Golden Flower.