CITY UNDER SIEGE (2010)

RATING: 2.5/5

When comes to sci-fi action drama, everything that is made from Hong Kong are mostly terrible results. Take the recent Wong Jing's painfully laughable FUTURE X-COPS for instance, and you'll get the idea that Hong Kong film industry still have a long way to go to join the same rank of the Hollywood counterparts. But that doesn't stop writer-producer-director Benny Chan from trying to beat the jinx of that particular genre, and the result is CITY UNDER SIEGE, which also heavily touted as one of the highly-anticipated Hong Kong summer movie blockbusters of the year.

The story centers on Sunny (Aaron Kwok), a circus clown who dreams of being a famous knife thrower ala "king of flying dagger" like his father. But nobody has ever take him seriously, and he's often a subject of bully by his fellow circus performer, Tai Chu (Collin Chou), who is a highly-popular "king of flying dagger". During a treasure hunting trip in Malaysia, Sunny, Tai Chu and the rest of his gang (Zhang Bao Wen, Tie Nan) accidentally released a bio-chemical toxic that gradually mutates them into super ugly beings. Sunny, in turn, becomes mutated into a grotesquely fat person and subsequently finds himself drifting away back to Hong Kong. He is fortunate enough to encounter a kind girl who is willing to give him a lift back home. The kind girl turns out to be his favorite idol named Angel (Shu Qi), a highly-rated beauty of CSS news anchor. Meanwhile, the highly-mutated Tai Chu and the rest of his gang are now terrorizing the street of Hong Kong and embark on a series of crime sprees, thanks to their newly-gained superpowers. Enter Mainland supercops Sun Hao (Wu Jing) and his soon-wife-to-be, Hua (Zhang Jingchu), who are both specially assigned to deal against the super criminals. Sun Hao has promised to Hua that he will marry her once their assignment is done. On the other side, Sunny finds himself transforming back into his original slimmer self but also gains unexpected superpowers as well, including sharp vision and quick reflexes. He becomes an instant media sensation when he helps rectifying the hostage situation in the police headquarters. Thanks to Angel who becomes his agent, he is subsequently enjoying a taste of fame and success via commercial and such. When Tai Chu finds out about Sunny's existence, he is determined to avenge him for causing his brother's death and wants his blood as an antidote.

Likewise, Benny Chan loves to take things into overblown proportion as in his recent movies. The plot is heavy-handed and overlong with too many subplots that frequently drags the movie into a bloated mess. The horrendous love triangle between Sunny, Tai Chu and Angel is especially unconvincing, while the movie's cheesy moments (usually involved with Sunny's dim-witted antics) are mostly embarrassing results.

The cast, in the meantime, are strictly caricatures at best, even though there are times Benny Chan tries hard to put more effort on some of his characters to make them multi-dimensional, only to fail miserably. Despite in his 40s, Aaron Kwok still has the boyish charm to carry a dim-witted role convincingly, but his character is mostly annoying and it's really hard to take him seriously especially when he tries to emote a lot. Collin Chou plays a typical villain we have seen him countless times before, and he simply excels when comes to action sequences but looks terribly awkward when he is required to emote as well. Same goes to Wu Jing, who is best left off as an entertainer with martial-art skills rather than a dramatic actor himself. Equally wasted as well, are Shu Qi and Zhang Jingchu who both reduced into underwritten roles. Still Zhang Jingchu deserves a little praise for doing her own stunts in her convincing action-packed role.

CGI and make-up effects are average at best, and it's no surprise anyway. But the movie remains a fairly entertaining mess. Benny Chan is a skilled action director and that helps quite a lot to distract us from all the major setbacks. Thanks to Li Chung-Chi and Ma Yuk-Sing's dazzling stunt choreography, the action set pieces are spectacular and exciting. Among them are of course the stylish fighting sequence between Collin Chou and Wu Jing.

While this is hardly Benny Chan's among best movie by any means, CITY UNDER SIEGE is at least marginally better than FUTURE X-COPS and most of the like-minded genre that came before.

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SALT (2010)

RATING: 2.5/5

Believe it or not, SALT was originally intended to have a male lead in which Tom Cruise was approached to play the title character. Unfortunately, he declined the offer and the script was subsequently rewritten with a female lead instead. On the bright side, the movie is a typical summer action extravaganza that is pure formula and little innovation. Blessed with a fast-paced script and an intoxicating lead by action-ready Angelina Jolie, SALT looks destined to be a surefire winner as the best action picture this lackluster summer where movies like THE A-TEAM and KNIGHT AND DAY has previously failed.

The movie begins with a bang where we witness top CIA agent Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) was being captured in North Korea and held her for interrogation, while subsequently endured in a painful torture. But thanks to her mentor, Winter (Liev Schreiber), she manages to be set free and returns to her country safely. Two years later, Salt is looking forward to celebrate her second wedding anniversary to arachnologist Mike (August Diehl) but she finds herself in an unexpected situation when she is accused by a terminally-ill Russian defector Orlov (Daniel Olbrychski) of being a Russian spy. She keeps telling to her fellow colleagues that she is innocent, but CIA agent Peabody (Chiwetel Ejiofor) beg to differ. Even Winter is hardly convinced as well. Salt has no choice but to escape, as she is desperately trying to clear her name and protect her husband from harm's way. As she goes on subsequently outrun and outwit both the Secret Service and the CIA, the story also subsequently revealed a twist involving a high-profile assassination against the President of the United States that re-ignites the Cold War paranoia.

On the surface, the story sounds intriguing enough that keeps the viewers on the edge of their seat determined whether Salt is innocent or just a manipulator after all. The subsequent revelation about the whole agenda and Salt's true identity as well as the movie's final third-act surprise twist are nicely played out altogether. But shame about the logical explanation though, in which the movie is packed with a whole lot of suspension of disbelief that the viewers are clearly needed to have an open mind to enjoy it.

In the meantime, director Phillip Noyce who last helmed a major studio picture in 1999's THE BONE COLLECTOR before subsequently laying low with a string of independent movies, still has what it takes to make a blockbuster extravaganza. He certainly knows well when comes to elicit suspenseful, edge-of-the-seat moments while the action set pieces are equally captivating. Too bad he's hardly an accomplished action director. The more the movie moves on, the more the action has quickly becomes apparent that Noyce have to resort into lots of close-ups shots and inevitable shaky-cam style which are rather annoying most of the times.

Still the movie remains a guilty-pleasure fun, thanks to gamely entertaining performances by Angelina Jolie, Liev Schreiber, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Daniel Olbrychski. Jolie, in particular, is a magnetic screen presence as always. Like her previous action-packed role in TOMB RAIDER (2001) and WANTED (2008), Jolie is natural when comes to handling physically-demanding performance.

SALT remains a half-baked espionage thriller that the shamelessly open ending intended for the filmmakers to build a potential franchise a la THE BOURNE IDENTITY, doesn't seem to be convincing enough for a launching point. Perhaps the best is yet to come, if there's really a sequel highlighted in the future.

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THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE (2010)

RATING: 1/5

Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has done the impossible before. And that was PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, in which he and Walt Disney Pictures studio managed to turn that theme park attraction into an unlikely billion-dollar movie franchise. This time, he hopes the lightning will strike twice with THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE, which is inspired by a 10-minute animated sequence from 1940's FANTASIA. He enlisted director Jon Turteltaub and actor Nicolas Cage, in which both of them collaborated successfully before in 2004's NATIONAL TREASURE and 2007's NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS. No doubt it almost certain that this is a foolproof plan THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE is bound to be a phenomenal box-office hit-in-the-making. But sadly, the movie falls terribly flat as a cinematic failure that is both lazily-constructed and uninspired altogether.

The premise of the movie is actually potential, but shame about the poor execution: It begins with a lazily-narrated, quick prologue set in 740 A.D. where we learn about a centuries-long feud between Merlin's (James A. Stephens) three chosen apprentices - the good-hearted Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage); his ill-fated lady love Veronica (Monica Bellucci); and the evil Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina), who is particularly jealous of his two fellow comrades and eventually joins the dark side. All hell breaks loose when a powerful witch named Morgana (Alice Krige) takes over the body of Veronica, and battle ensues until Balthazar has no choice but to trap the whole lot of them into a nesting dolls known as grimhold. Soon we move on to the second prologue set in the year 2000 where we first witness the fateful encounter between Balthazar and his destined apprentice, a 10-year-old kid named Dave Stutler (Jake Cherry) who is somehow stumbled into an antique shop. While Balthazar wants to get something for him to see, Dave has accidentally smashed the grimhold and unleashed Horvath out. Again, battle is ensues that freaked Dave out of his mind. Dave manages to survive while Balthazar and Horvath fight against each other until both of them trapped inside a vase. Ten years later, Dave (Jay Baruchel) is now a college student wanted to live a normal life. But the past quickly catches up on him when Balthazar and Horvath are set free again. While Balthazar is determined to take Dave as his apprentice, Horvath is hellbent to unleash Morgana from her porcelain tomb so they can raise the dead and set an apocalypse.

No doubt the story sounds like there's too many things happen for a two-hour movie, and it's sad to see that screenwriters Matt Lopez, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard chooses heavy exposition to tell the story from point A to point B rather than showing us the cinematic gesture. Actually the entire plot is more like an afterthought, while the characters are strict caricatures.

Nicolas Cage seems like a shoo-in favorite to play the kind of role like Balthazar but his typically wild-eyed acting feels really nothing to write home about. Jay Baruchel is forgettable as the nerdy Dave, while the always-reliable Alfred Molina hams it up with his typical villainous role. Equally wasted as well, is Teresa Palmer as Dave's love interest and a quick cameo appearance by Monica Bellucci.

The action, in the meantime, are fairly exciting if not tedious. The special effects are anything but surprisingly charmless and lacking that certain aura to make all the magic sequence all the more fascinating experience to watch for. Potential scenes like the attack of a Chinese paper dragon that transforms into a real one and a car chase through the streets of New York City that finds Dave and Balthazar entering and exiting panes of glass, are executed in a generic way possible.

Everything about THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE is simply lackluster, and no doubt this is among the worst summer movie blockbusters of the year.

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PREDATORS (2010)

RATING: 2.5/5

Forget about the god-awful AVP: ALIEN VS. PREDATOR (2004) and its equally cheap-looking AVPR: ALIENS VS. PREDATOR - REQUIEM (2007) -- both movies that turned the once-lucrative franchise into cinematic embarrassment. Thanks to maverick producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimrod Antal, PREDATORS is something of a real deal for die-hard fans have been waiting for -- a direct sequel to the 1987 original that cleverly ignored the event of 1990's PREDATOR 2 and two aforementioned spin-offs

The movie opens immediately with a bang: a Special Ops commando (Adrien Brody) wakes up and finds himself free-falling through the sky, and he is dropping fast. He struggles to open the chute, only to have it automatically unfold at the last minute before he hit over the branches of the tree and lands onto the ground of a thick jungle. As he regain from his consciousness, he finds more humans falling through the trees. First person he encounters is a a Los Zeta drug cartel enforcer from Baja named Cuchillo (Danny Trejo), before he subsequently meet the others -- Nikolai (Oleg Taktarov), a Russian Special Forces soldier; Isabelle (Alice Braga), an IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) sniper; Edwin (Topher Grace), a physician; Stans (Walton Goggins), a famous mass-murderer who was on the FBI's 3rd most wanted list; Mombasa (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), a RUF (Revolutionary United Front) death squad officer from Sierra Leone; and Hanzo (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a Yakuza hitman with few words. These motley group claim that they had previously encountered a blinding flash of light that ultimately brought them here in this nowhere jungle. Even for Isabelle, who claims she has seen a lot of jungles during her tour of duty, has never seen anything like it before. As they begin their treacherous walking journey along the jungle, they soon discover they are actually landed on a distant planet's game preserve where there are no escape in sight. Adding to the danger, is a small group of ruthless alien hunters eagerly to hunt them down.

From the jungle setting to its copious memorable score previously composed by Alan Silvestri (who was actually scheduled to join the crew but unable to do so, due to his scheduling conflicts with THE A-TEAM), PREDATORS is clearly a loving homage to the original movie that at times it feels more like a reboot than a supposedly direct sequel. Nevertheless it's a respectable approach but the movie also suffers from its inevitable flaw of hitting too many familiar notes from the series while lacking fresh ideas on the other side. Another major problem of the movie is its inconsistent flow of the plot, written by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch, which has particularly stop cold in the middle part once the scene focuses on Noland's (Laurence Fishburne) character.

Still PREDATORS is a solid, action-packed movie with director Nimrod Antal particularly knows how to orchestrate action without relying to jerky camerawork. No doubt the action set pieces are entertaining and suspenseful enough to keep the viewers hooked on the screen, especially in the well-crafted first half of the movie.

The characters are equally captivating, if not as memorable as the ensembles in the original movie. Among the unexpected cast that I'm sure many never see it coming is Adrien Brody. A thin and lanky actor who is not particularly known for action-hero type, Brody manages to break the odd and somehow convinces with his no-nonsense, tough-guy role -- complete with cleverly restrained voice and an impressive six-pack. Though he is clearly not as memorable as Arnold Schwarzenegger's iconic role in the original, he remains impressive enough. Alice Braga, who is the only female actor in the movie, delivers an engaging performance as a sniper with a conscience in what could have been a thankless part instead. Topher Grace is another surprising revelation. Those who have condemned his miscast performance as Venom in the much-maligned SPIDER-MAN 3 (2007), will probably have to eat their words out judging by his wickedly sneaky role as the mysterious Edwin who is actually more than just a physician himself. Last but not least is Laurence Fishburne, who made quite an impression as the mentally unstable Noland. He's actually fun to watch for, though there's no denying the static flow during the introduction of his character that crippled the fluidity of the movie. It's a shame that the filmmakers could have boost the role for Danny Trejo a little bit more credit than just a mere cameo.

The other good news about this movie is its clever use of practical FX work -- something that is rarely seen in such genre nowadays. Thanks to KNB EFX, the effects team have certainly does a great job continuing the late Stan Winston's legacy to create those bad-ass looking Predators and a few gory scenes worthy of praise. The only downside is its somewhat inclusion of badly-rendered CG moment (which involves the explosion between a character and a Predator), which is questionably out of place especially with all the practical FX works are done here.

Not a great or particularly memorable movie by any means, PREDATORS remains an engaging cinematic experience that will satisfy (most) of the die-hard fans. If that's not enough, there's an open-ended finale that suggested a sequel might be in the works.

(An interesting trivia: producer Robert Rodriguez has actually approach Arnold Schwarzenegger to reprise his role as Dutch in a cameo appearance when he began writing the first draft for the movie. He even go as far as willing to stall the movie's production start date until after Arnold had vacated the Governor of California's mansion. But in the end, Arnold declined to do a cameo. A sad case, indeed, in an otherwise worthy addition to this movie).

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LOVE IN A PUFF (2010)

RATING: 3.5/5

Pang Ho-Cheung's first Category-III movie, LOVE IN A PUFF, is something of a fascinating little premise. I mean, who could have guess that a movie about a small group of people smoking around garbage cans in Hong Kong's back alleyways (also commonly known as "hot potting") after the government has implemented an indoor smoking ban in 2007, is compulsively watchable?

After the Hong Kong government has implemented an indoor smoking ban in 2007, people are forced to carry on their smoking routine somewhere in the back alleyways. They are all come from all walk of professions, from office executive to hotel bellboys and pizza deliveryman. These smoking group (Cheung Tat Ming, Miu Fei Lam, Vincent Kok, and among others) spends time sharing crude jokes, horror stories and some gossip. Among them all, are these particular two people, Cherie (Miriam Yeung), a beauty product salesgirl and Jimmy, an advertising executive four years her junior. After they start exchanging each others' contact number and e-mail addresses, they slowly find themselves in a whirlwind of romance.

At the first glance, Pang Ho-Cheung's original story is pretty much sketchy and fairly thin at best. Everything in the movie is more like a series of loosely-connected vignettes. Fortunately, thanks to Heiward Mak's screenwriting contributions, the free-flow rhythm of the narrative structure is consistently entertaining and fascinating. The movie's highlight is no doubt its often hilarious, profanity-fueled dialogues that will keep the viewers enlightened with its playful Cantonese banters. Apart from that, Pang Ho-Cheung also successfully captures the realistic feel and look of contemporary Hong Kong's everyday life that is all socially relevant. Speaking of socially relevant, the movie feels very involving with today's average Hong Kong twenty something -- people are mostly fond of communicating each other via networking sites (e.g. Facebook, text messaging) and its kinetic portrait of fast urban romances.

Of course none of the movie might have work if not for its equally playful cast. No one could have thought that Miriam Yeung manages to land into something of a character that is almost out of her usual norm. Gone are her fluffy and immature role she has known for. Instead, she delivers her most mature romantic lead yet and her acting this time is certainly worth a praise. Shawn Yue is similarly credible as well, and watching them collaborating together is simply delightful.

While the movie does feel patchy at times, LOVE IN A PUFF remains one of Pang Ho-Cheung's most entertaining efforts, and it's highly recommended for those viewers looking for something out of ordinary.

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