Movies: Madagascar 3 Europe's Most Wanted

Movies: Madagascar 3 Europe's Most Wanted

Its already the third installment of the Madagascar series and to be honest, i wasn't really expecting too much from this show. Like many people, there is a common understanding that when a movie gets to the third installment many of them become very rehashed and boring. This is what you expect to be seeing....

And here is the proper poster

So as you can see, as usual the cast of Madagascar is huge and colorful and even more then that they are in a circus! So will you, the audience be as entertained in the movie as you would when you see a real circus? Or is the movie just 3 times too many...Read on to find out!

Storyline 3.5/5


The storyline is pretty simple, but it is entirely usable and coherent with their aim, which is to entertain audiences in how these animals try to return back to their home zoo. It is simple as it is not complex and super easy to follow, but a pretty high score is deserved because the entire storyline is suited for their tale of making friends, building trust, and working towards the same aim together.

Now if the above statement is a bit to cheesy and mushy for you... you are probably an action fan and you will not like this show. The show does have action, but its those typical chase scenes that are there to make you laugh and smile. Its nothing too serious. Which is advantageous because there are many things in the movie that don't make sense and I honestly didn't have any clue what the significance is. For example watch out for the singing police woman....


Characters 4/5


Continuing the idea of fun, there are many colorful characters and maybe possibly too much. With so many characters all whom have their own distinct personalities there is a little bit too little screen time for a few of them. Notably the penguins.. who sometimes goes missing and just appear as and when they are needed.

Still, based on the fact that all the characters can be seen as distinct with unique personalities, they are pretty well done. Still... too little of this....

Especially private...

Cinematography 4/5


There is pretty good shots all show round and the circus portion is actually pretty well done. Their focus is really on entertainment factor and this shows via the more close up comedic shots as compared to epic scenic shots. So overall the cinematography does a good job in making the show a lot more enjoyable and shows us the beauty of what teamwork can do.


Music 4/5


It is a typical Dreamwork movie complete with all its musical score from Hans Zimmer. Music from all these movies are always very well placed and well paced to further improve the movie entertainment and enjoyment value. You will notice the music in this show and see how it nicely fits into the movie.


Spectacle 3.5/5


In all honestly, this movie did a pretty good job in following up what was portrayed in the first two shows. But still.. in some way or other it wasn't entirely a refreshing experience. It is fun and enjoyable, but I cannot really say that it has reinvented or stuck out from the genre too much to be anything entirely unique.

Overall


Storyline               : 3.5 (A above average storyline that provides the basis for entertainment)
Character             : 4 (Many many characters, all are distinct)
Cinematography   : 4 (Good shots to improve entertainment value of the movie, good laughs)
Music                    : 4 (Good music from a well known composer for this genre of movies)
Spectacle              : 3.5 (Overall it is above average in the genre, but using the same forumla, it can't really stick out much from all the previous animated movies.)


Overall : 3.8 (Overall, animation fans and lovers of the series will definitely be entertained. In fact, if you are looking for a bit of simple happy time wasting fun, this is the show for you. Just don't expect a great complex plot with over the top action scenes. Probably best for a weekday time waster for best economical value given the 1.5 hr play time)


So seen this show? Any comments? feel free to share :) BTW The i like to move it song is kinda getting irritating already :P

Movies: Prometheus

Movies: Prometheus

There has been many space movies in the past, where by people get sent to far away places for reasons such as looking for a new inhabitable place, or running away from a destroyed earth, to mere science discovery. This  movie is titled and pictured to be something to that effect, with nothing more to reveal except this in the poster

Yep you see it is nothing more then a giant head. The vagueness of this movie helps to keep the entire movie fresh and allows you to see the movie in all its innovation and creativeness without any prejudice... at least till the end of the show where you will see something pretty interesting, and for many, it will mean little, but for a select few, you will know what i mean. Either way here is the review that I would say stands alone for this movie with no outside prejudices or biasness or influences.

Storyline 3/5


Like I said earlier this genre and the general storyline has been explored pretty extensively with most of them sharing a common storyline i.e. Have some reason to visit another planet, suddenly meet with issues on the new planet or on the ship itself, crew starts to get killed due to various reasons, some fine character will survive and solve the issue of people dying.

So this show does nothing extra ordinary as it really follows this line pretty closely. It also seems to be closer to the sci fi thriller genre as compared to an action flick as there is generally not too much action action as most of the kills or deaths are clearly one sided. So read... THIS IS NOT STAR WARS... there is no light saber no beam rifles that kinda stuff ok!


This show also does not feed you information and keeps many things ambiguous for your own creative juices to keep flowing. Up to the end, there is still little information on what exactly happened. Cruel in some way but if you really understand where they are coming from you will be able to appreciate the whole thing. Furthermore, this should be the reality of sci fi where by you might not always get answers because we don't really have all the answers in the first place. Of course whether this makes for a more enjoyable show is however pretty debatable.


Character 3/5


It is pretty clear during the show which are supposed to be the important characters.... and then they start to kill off characters and suddenly even the seemingly thought to be important character dies. This is the advantage of this kind of show being that it can be more realistic in the body count.

There are also some characters who from the beginning to the end stay very mysterious. There are many other supporting characters that are averagely distinct from each other but due to their short screen time, it is understandable that many of their backgrounds are not very well introduced. I guess this would be because the real focus of this show is not the people, but rather the introduction of a new notion of possible outer space life and what it would possibly be like.

There are also several things that happen to particular characters throughout the show that people might find somewhat impossible or at least improbable. So this detracts slightly from full immersion into the show due to the sense of things happening just for story sake.


Cinematography 4/5

This is one section whereby this show does very well actually. In fact at the beginning it could even double out as a tourism advertisement given the grandeur of the shots. However, as the show continues to go on, the show loses focus on trying to give the audience improved perspective and loses the chance to add immersiveness and overall enjoyment of the show which i feel is a waste. But overall, the epic shots in the show are still pretty good, and the CGI are done pretty well to give the sci fi feel about the show.


Music 4/5


This is another surprise for the genre in that music is actually pretty prevalent in many scenes of the movie, and even plays a single major part in the plot of the show. As a result the immersiveness is somewhat increased in that knowing that it is a completely different environment within the confines of the space ship as compared to when you are really out there on another planet.


Spectacle 3.5/5


With regards to spectacle, this show does pretty ok when you look at the other movies of this genre.Then later when you reach closer to the end, you realize a sudden bigger picture that will probably impress you if you understand it. As a result the true score should be like a 3 for those who won't get the full picture, and the rest who see the big picture would probably rate is a 4 or a 4.5. I would say that it is still better to not spoil the story and to watch it yourself because it will help to view this movie independently as a sci fi exploration movie which is what it is supposed to be in essence. Unfortunately, this would mean that fans of the action genre lover would not be as entertained by this movie.

Overall


Story                    : 3 (Storyline is generic, but it is really an introductory piece if you know what i mean)
Characters           : 3 (Character development is tiny, and some stuff are a bit out of place but like what i said, this is probably not the focus of this movie in the first place)
Cinematography  : 4 (Good shots all around, but can be improved)
Music                   : 4 (Good use of music to add immersiveness)
Spectacle              : 3.5 (In between depending on whether you can understand the whole story of the show)


Overall                 : 3.5 (Overall this show is hard to advertise because of the fact that people who know the bigbig story of this movie are probably the only people who can really understand this. If you don't understand the main story or overarcing story, this will merely be just a simple space exploration show with just a bit too little action then usual. Overall I would say the best way to enjoy this is just go there and expect to be introduced to a new notion of space and planetary life of the future. Don't be expecting anything too much besides then. Then when the show end and if you understand the whole context, then it is just a bonus for you.)


Seen the show? Any comments? Don't hesitate to share it :D

Movies: Snow White and the Huntsman

Movies: Snow White and the Huntsman

Snow White, apple, evil witch, charming prince, dwarves.. checked! These are all the elements that you will always see in all the snow white movies so far, from mirror mirror, to once upon a time and now onto Snow white and the hunter.

This show tries to do things differently, not only by fleshing out the huntsman character into the show, but also by telling the story in a far different tone from the previous ones...

Heres the poster and if you compare this with the mirror mirror one.. you can see the difference.

Compared with this

See the difference? See the angst and fierceness in the poster? See the lack of a smile? That is the angle that this movie is going. So read on to think whether this is the movie for you... and also.. your children...

Storyline 3/5

The story of Snow White has been retold again and again, but this is probably the 2nd time i heard that there was this huntsman character inside this show, the other being in once upon a time which is a TV series. Never heard the whole story with regards to the huntsman and this is probably true for many of you also. Thus we could say that there is a bit more "originality" to the storyline with just slight twists here and there. But all the other traditional elements are there from magic to snow white to the dwarves. (Although it seems that it is not 7 dwarves for this show)

Because of that however, some of the content will be unfamilar and some viewers might not understand or comprehand this new story angle... so its pretty hard to judge conclusively if the storyline is in fact good. At best, I would say it is merely just different....

It also doesn't really help that we all already know how the story ends, thus the only thing most people can derive joy from the show is when we see something that we know is a integral part of the story... like the apple.

Character 2.5/5

To be honest, this show gives the main characters pretty fine screen time, but everyone else is completely similar and very unimpressive. For example the dwarves, there are 7 of them, but what this show does is give them very short bits of screen time, which does not do anything to distinguish one from another. Then the subordinates of the queen are given screen time like they are supposed to be unique... but the show script doesn't give them any unique actions and no one has much idea where they come from and what they are doing here.

Even more unfortunate is the huntsman... that is really cliche, but the things that happen to him and the resulting choices he makes because of that seems to be really unrealistic and are there merely to give the movie something to talk about. So is the prince too.. sure he has more screen time, but the things he does is so generic and unimpressive that this show could honestly work even without him. Yep it is that bad...

Of course Snow and Queen do have the majority of the parts, only the queen struck an impression within me  while snow just prances around looking all angsty and giving a random uninspiring speech.

Cinematography 4/5

This is one section of the show where we did see the effort placed in cinematography. There are alot of epic shots used appropriately to highlight importand events, and like how they probably have too many supporting characters for their own good, they also have that many shots of more random fighters just to lend some more immersiveness into the show.

They also have alot of other perspective shots to try to add more fun and entertainment to the show and to be honest this is still done relatively well even though the shots serve very little to improve the show.

Plus points however is that the actress for the evil queen, does the character very well... very quickly you will grow to dislike this evil queen and yet also feel a bit of pity towards her when you see her end. Sadly though, the forgettable acting from the Snow white herself marred the show from doing better, I aint sure why but to me it seems like that actress is only able to exhibit angst or frustration or anger of some sorts.

Music 3/5

Music was forgettable, but not a hindrance. So I will rate it right there smack in the centre.

Spectacle 3/5

Ok over here is where the lack of a clear direction of the movie shows. Through out the show you would be thinking what exactly is this show's focus... is it on the storyline?? is it on the epic fights?? is it on the one to one fights?? is this an action movie?? Sadly, all the possibilities that could be what this show should have focused on was not well done at all. As a result, every field where you expect to see more will be abruptly ended. Epic war fight going on,... suddenly zoom back to someone else's view and suddenly hey the focus is no longer on the battle. Add to this some real little bits of supposedly comedic moments and you end up in a state of confusion and dissatisfaction.

Of course it is not fair to say that it fails in any of those areas but merely it is a probably of not being focused enough and leaving all fans of various aspects feeling just that tad bit lacking.

Overall


Storyline             : 3 (Same story but has a very very slight twist to it)
Character           : 2.5 (Too many characters, but they didnt even make their main character interesting)
Cinematography: 4 (Its obvious that they focused quite a bit on this aspect)
Music                 : 3 (Generic type of music)
Spectacle            : 3 (Too many audience it is trying to cater to, but not really achieving.)


Overall                : 3.1 (Its really a fair show to see if you have nothing to do better and want to spend some time in a stationary position. Fans however who expect to see major action or a nice story line type of movie will not really be entirely satisfied given how things have went. This is also not a very happy show and in fact the entire movie atmosphere is pretty dark. Hence I would not really recommend you bring your kids to see unless they are fine with what ever violence they might see in the show. Try perhaps to really expect nothing  too much and perhaps you might be able to find a bit of pleasure in the show.)


So tell me if you seen the show yourself and never be afraid to comment :)