Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) 4/5 Stars

Rise of the Planet of the Apes starring James Franco as Will Rodman, a brilliant scientist who is researching for the cure to Alzheimer disease.

At first the test of the cure was done to Bright Eyes, who was showing advanced improvement in its intelligence and become smarter. Because of an incident , the company was shutting down the research, calling it a failure. Will who himself has a father with Alzheimer (Charles played by John Lithgow) was sure that his cure is useful brought home Caesar, Bright Eyes’ baby Chimp.

Caesar inherited the intelligence her mommy chimps gained after being injected with Will’s cure.

After another 5 year, Will watches as Caesar shown increasing intelligence even surpassing human kids. As his father Charles worsened with the Alzheimer, Will decided to inject the cure on him. His father was temporary cured and worsened later on after the body immune system fight off the cure. Will is then rushing to make a more powerful cure.

Caesar who is an adult chimp were caged at the primate centre owned by John Landon (Brian Cox) and his son Dodge (Tom Felton) after he defended Charles from Will’s neighbor Hunsiker (David Hewlett).

In that Primate Centre Caesar who was used to affectionately taken care of by Will, Charles and Caroline (Freida Pinto) has to faced a harsh treatment from Dodge and the other caged Chimps.

He then after feeling left and disappointed with his intelligence made the decision to free all the apes from the human.

The Rise of the planet of the apes is a pretty good movie with a decent casting. Although the actors did not get to do too much for the roles except James Franco who is the main character. This is one apes movie indeed.

The Chimp Caesar was really nicely made. The eyes expression, the sign language, shows that every creature not just human longed for care and acceptance.

If you like this article by Marlina Koh, you might want to check these articles as well:

• Water for Elephants Movie (2011)
• A Beautiful Life 不再讓你孤單 (2011) a Captivating Modern Day Chinese Movie
• 500 Days of Summer (2009) An Upfront Movie of Expectations and Reality of Love.
• Fast Five (2011) A Worth Waiting Sequel to The Fast and Furious Innstallments.
• TV Series: MODERN FAMILY (2009) A One Big (straight, gay, multi-cultural, traditional) Happy Family

Fast Five (2011) 4/5 Stars

The Fast and Furious movie franchise has been a hit since its first movie in 2001. Focusing on a street racing, the series has the whole element of action and thriller on it.

After fascinating the adrenaline of the fans with the 4 previous installments, Fast Five is like the sequel that is being put on the top of the icing.
In this last series, directed by Justin Lin, the characters are nicely developed with a subtle twist in the plot here and there. The nice cars, their whole plan of robbing the number one mob in Rio de Janeiro will put your heart pumping and excited with it.

The former undercover cop Brian O’connor (Paul Walker) is teaming up again with Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel). They are being helped by Dominic’s sister Mia Toretto (Jordana Brewster), and they also call in a team of street racers that has previously appear on the last 4 sequels.
The team includes The Chatterbox Roman Pearce (Tyrese Gibson), tech guy Tej Parker (Ludacris), Han Lue (Sung Kang), Gal Gadot (Gisele Harabo), Tego Leo (Tego Carderon) and Rico Santos (Don Omar).
They plan to rob off Hernan Reyes, the mob type businessman in Rio to get out for good and find a country with no extradition.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson also join the cast as FBI agent Hobbs who is hunting on Brian and Dominic with a super Hummer tank look alike car.

The cast delivered best acting so far for the series and the humor and storyline in this last installment is much more engaging.

Even at the end of the credit there is a teaser for the next Fast and Furious.

It is a worth waiting movie with all the hype about the whole installments.


If you like this article by Marlina Koh, you might want to check these articles as well:

• Water for Elephants Movie (2011)
• The Lucky Ones (2008) Inspiring Movie That Captured Common Americans' Lives
• A Beautiful Life 不再讓你孤單 (2011) a Captivating Modern Day Chinese Movie
• 500 Days of Summer (2009) An Upfront Movie of Expectations and Reality of Love.

500 Days Of Summer (2009) 4/5 Stars

SPOILER ALERTS starts from here.
Do not continue reading if you do not want to get any spoilers.

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel this movie shows upon reality in about that delusional relationship most people have even experienced before.

It is a story that shows us in some relationships they do not always have a good ending. That in some baseless love stories, one person always love more than the other.

Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a guy who worked as a greeting card writer. He has actually always fancied the matter of architecture but never really pursue it. His whole life, he always have a perception that love is beautiful, love is grand, he watched “The Graduate” when he was a kid and therefore he has a strong believe in love and the idea of a soul mate.

When Summer (Zooey Deschanel) the new staff walked in the office where he worked, Tom felt instantly (love at the first sight) that Summer is the girl that he has always dream of meeting aside from her average looking posture.

This movie get a top-notch grasp of some love stories that do not told a lot in movies. We always believed in this fantasy that when we meet our “the one” it will all be like the Cinderella story or at least like Titanic. But no, sometimes we want to believe so much in love that we become delusional and biased, and that is where reality of love is laid down in front of us.

Unless you are a sucker over a total happy ending story, this movie is highly recommended. It has a good script, good actors, nice directing.

It is easily one of the best movies of 2009.

4 out of 5 Stars

Formal article : HERE