Thursday, August 30, 2018

Siberia - A Very Disappointing Keanu Reeve's Romantic Thriller Movie

I saw the trailer to this movie last week and felt that it did not look very promising, but since the lead was Keanu Reeves, I thought why not give this one a try? As usual when in doubt of the movie's quality, I would see it by myself rather than asking my wife to accompany me to avoid any regret if she hates it. So here is more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Lucas Hill (Keanu Reeves - John Wick and its sequelThe Whole Truth etc) was a diamond trader and would go around the world making deals with various buyers and sellers, leaving his wife Gabby (Molly Ringwald - The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink etc) at home. One of the business transaction he was currently having was with a dangerous Russian mob led by Boris Volkov (Pasha D. Lychnikoff - Beyond Valkyrie: Dawn of the 4th Reich, Deadwood TV series etc). 

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Searching - A Unique and Wonderfully Done Mystery Thriller Drama Movie

After playing in Indonesian cinemas for few days, I finally got the chance to see this movie last night. We were doubtful at first whether we should go out and see this since my wife was not feeling really well from the day before. But she convinced me that she was fit enough to go to the cinema which was very near my home anyway. Well let's get on with the movie now.

Brief Synopsis

David Kim (John Cho - Harold & Kumar series, Star Trek reboot series etc) was a single father whose daughter Margot (Michelle La) was still in high school. One morning he was unable to get hold of Margot and realized that she was missing. Panic with the thought of losing her, David had to report the incident to the police. The lead investigator of her case was Detective Rosemary Vick (Debra Messing - Will & Grace TV series, Open Season etc) who was very dedicated in helping David. 

Friday, August 24, 2018

10x10 - A Surprisingly Better than Expected Psychological Thriller Movie

I found out about this movie from the social media of some Indonesian cinema chains, though it did not get a lot of buzz even until its premier day. Seemed like another movie got more attention as it had an Indonesian actor in it (Read: Mile 22). Anyway since the movie was a psychological thriller that may or may not be everyone's cup of tea, I decided to watch this by myself first (not sure if my wife would have liked it). Well we shall go on with the movie now.

Brief Synopsis

Cathy (Kelly Reilly - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Yellowstone TV series etc) was a regular woman whose life was torn apart when she was kidnapped by a mysterious man who would later on revealed as Lewis (Luke Evans - The Girl on the TrainMessage from the King etc). Cathy was brought into Lewis' house and put in a soundproofed cell the size of 10 x 10 square feet. She was stressed out and confused of why she was kidnapped by Lewis.

Thursday, August 23, 2018

(TV SERIES) 12 Monkeys - One of the Best Time Travel Series

I found out about this series (probably from my brother in law since I cannot remember who it was that told me) and watched the first season which I absolutely loved. But waiting for the future seasons that took a while made me forget most of the plot. So I waited for it to be concluded just last month to see the whole 4 seasons continuously. Now let's start with the series.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in the year 2043 where the world had been hit by deadly virus which killed 7 billion people. A team of scientists led by Katarina Jones (Barbara Sukowa - Rosa Luxemburg, M.Butterfly etc) had created a time machine to alter the history. They recruited a scavenger James Cole (Aaron Stanford - X-men: The Last Stand, Nikita TV series etc) to go back in time to the year 2015 and stop the release of the virus by an organization known as the "Army of the 12 Monkeys". Despite the objection from his best friend Jose Ramse (Kirk Acevedo - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Fringe TV series etc), Cole still insisted to go and face the danger. 

Mile 22 - A Badly Made Action Movie Salvaged Only by Iko Uwais' Performance

I had heard about Iko Uwais going to be in a Hollywood movie with Mark Wahlberg for quite some time. Not until few weeks ago that I finally found out the movie would be playing in Indonesian theaters in the month of August. I thought it would be playing at the same time (if not earlier) with the US premiere date but we had to wait for few days until it was finally shown on 21 August. Not sure of the reason behind the date chosen, but better late than never. So let us move on to the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Set in a fictional country in South East Asia, a US Black Ops group called Overwatch led by agent James Silva (Mark Wahlberg - All the Money in the WorldPatriots Day etc) with his team that consisted among others Alice (Lauren Cohan - The Walking Dead TV series etc), Sam Snow (Ronda Rousey - The Expendables 3 etc) and Douglas (Carlo Alban) were stationed there to retrieve some dirty bombs. An informant Li Noor (Iko Uwais - Beyond Skyline, The Raid etc) who claimed to have information on the location of all the bombs, came to the US embassy and asked for asylum in exchange for the info. 

However, the government of the country seemed intent on arresting Li Noor. So Silva's team was assigned to bring Li Noor to a location where an airplane would extract him, which was located 22 miles from the embassy. With the help from their mobile head quarter team led by agent nicknamed Mother (John Malkovich - Bullet Head, In the Line of Fire etc) who was giving the air support and intel, Silva and the rest of them went through the whole 22 miles with the chase from the endless army of the government. Things were further complicated by the mysterious presence of Russian army who were watching over them.

So could Overwatch finished their mission? Why was the Russian involved? Find them all in this action thriller movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well this movie did not really lived up to my expectations. When I read the synopsis of the story, I felt it was going to be a thrilling and suspenseful action movie throughout the whole duration, and filled with nonstop very cool action sequence. Unfortunately it only half delivered. The plot of the movie was totally confusing with a chaotic sense everywhere, and Mark Wahlberg's character here was very uninteresting. His constant use of rubber band on his hand really annoyed my wife, and getting angry all the time did not seem to suit him. Not to mention the under use of Ronda Rousey's fighting skill, although Lauren Cohan was surprisingly very agile and did not seem out of place. I guessed her years of experience battling zombies in The Walking Dead really played off.

The only thing that actually could salvage this movie was the appearance of Iko Uwais. His fight scenes (which I understand were co-choreographed by him and few other people) were all amazing. There might not be as much of these fight scenes as I would have hoped for since he had to share them with bigger stars, but he did have quite a lot of dialogues in here (a lot more than his previous Hollywood movies such as Beyond Skyline or Star Wars: The Force Awakens). I thought that Iko Uwais had made quite an impression in Hollywood and perhaps his appearance here would make him more renowned and he would get better opportunities in future.

The special effects, explosion effects and the violent shootout were mostly nicely done to my opinion (the movie had R rating so it should be for adults and not suitable for children). With the Dolby Atmos sound effects, the movie's action sequence felt more alive and really added to the suspense. I said earlier that the story was really a mess, which was something that I quite seldom complained for an action movie. Problem with this movie was because the pace did not feel naturally fast, in fact I felt that we were forced to feel rush by the constant angry complains of Mark Wahlberg throughout the movie. Plus the overly long & "trying too hard to make it sophisticated part" before the deadly 22 miles trip started was a bit too much and unfortunately made me a bit impatient. Even my wife felt pretty bored and felt sleepy in earlier part. It was very confusing seeing the director Peter Berg to make such a mess considering he had directed some good movies like Deepwater Horizon, The Lone Survivor, Friday Night Lights and few others. 

Again I do not mind seeing action movies with a bit underdeveloped characters but when you got too many of them, it begged the question why they were used in the first place since they would never leave an impression anyway. From what I read in the internet, Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg were thinking of making this into a trilogy (which explained the ending), but I sadly doubt it would happen since the commercial performance was not that extraordinary to justify it. And I think Indonesian audience who saw this movie most probably did only because there was Iko Uwais in it. I do not think they would blindly defend it as an awesome film either. Btw, there were quite frequent use of Indonesian languages here that sounded like fun and obviously to attract the Indonesian audience, although Uwais' character name of Li Noor did not sound native. Oh, there was no mid or post end credit scene in here in case you are wondering.

Anyway for an action movie really without thinking, this would definitely fit the criteria. But if you prefer a better action movie with a bit proper storyline or a bit more interesting character, then this might not suit you. The choice is yours.

Mike's movie moments rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Christopher Robin - An Adorable Adaptation of Pooh & Friends and A Beautiful Friendship Movie

After playing in the US cinemas for quite some time, finally this movie played in Indonesia. My wife who adored Winnie the Pooh had been eyeing to see this movie, so when it finally premiered yesterday together with another action movie, we opted to see this one first. Let's see if this movie really lived up to our expectation.

Brief Story Line

Young Christopher Robin had to leave his best friends from Hundred Acre Woods that include Winnie the Pooh & Tigger (both voiced by Jim Cummings), Piglet (Nick Mohammed), Eeyore (Brad Garret - Everybody Loves Raymond TV series etc) and the rest of the gang, for boarding school. Growing up in the "real world" made the adult Christopher (Ewan McGregor - Beauty and the Beast, Star Wars prequel trilogy etc) changed and forgot about his childhood friends. Working at Winslow Luggage under his boss Giles (Mark Gatiss - Our Kind of TraitorSherlock TV series etc) certainly did not help as it made him a bit depressed and even distanced himself with his wife Evelyn (Hayley Atwell - Captain America: The First Avenger, Agent Carter TV series etc) and his young daughter Madeline (Bronte Carmichael).

Monday, August 20, 2018

Namiya - A Chinese Adaptation of Popular Japanese Novel

It had been 2 Saturdays in a row that I watched a new movie on Celestial Movies cable TV channel. I was intrigued by the movie as it seemed to have a unique plot and it had my most favorite Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan. So what was the movie all about? Let us find out, shall we?

Brief Story Line

On the new year's eve of 2017, three young orphans consisted of Ah Jie (Dong Zijian), Xiaobo (Karry Wang) and Tong Tong (Dilraba Dilmurat - Mr. Pride vs Miss Prejudice, The Flame's Daughter web series etc) were taking shelter in an abandoned general store. Later they found a letter dropped through the door which said to be written from 1993 seeking advice from the store owner. When they wrote a reply to the letter and suddenly received another response, they realized that they have stumbled into something "magical" and decided to proceed with giving responses.

Saturday, August 18, 2018

Along With The Gods: The Last 49 Days - A Great Sequel to An Amazing Fantasy Drama Movie

Since few weeks ago, I saw the promotion from Cinemaxx cinema chain about this Korean movie coming soon in Indonesian theaters. It was sequel to Along With the Gods: The Two Worlds that was released in early 2018. Since my wife and I did not see that movie (we could not remember exactly the reason why), we watched it first through online streaming and we were so affected by it that we knew the sequel is a must see movie. Today, as we did not have any major plans, we have set the time to see it at 3.50 PM show at Plaza Semanggi. Here is more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Set exactly after the events of the first movie, the three grim reapers led by the calm & serious Gang-rim (Ha Jung-woo - The Tunnel, Nameless Gangster: Rules of the Time etc) with his two assistants, the playful Haewonmak (Ju Ji-hoon - Princess Hours TV series, Asura: The City of Madness etc) plus the passionate & young Lee Deok-choon (Kim Hyang-gi - Snowy Road, The Queen's Classroom TV series etc) had to assist the trials of newly deceased Kim Su-hong (Kim Dong-wook - The Concubine TV series). This would be the 49th soul Gang-rim's team would help in the 1000 years of their time being grim reapers, which would enable them to reincarnate. Hence the pressure was very high for them to achieve it.

DOA (Doyok Otoy Ali Oncom): Cari Jodoh - A Review by Yennymakanmulu

Yesterday was the Independence Day Holiday in Indonesia and my wife and I went to few locations to try some new places to eat & drink. After visiting those locations, we were thinking of whether to go home directly or we try and see a new movie. Ultimately we decided to watch a new Indonesian comedy movie which after watching the trailer few times, my wife was intrigued to find out if it was really that funny. Anyway, we managed to buy the tickets for 7 PM show and saw this together with other audience who filled half the theater. As my wife had already written a very nice review of this movie, I will be sharing what she wrote in her blog.



Review of the movie as written by Yennymakanmulu in Bahasa Indonesia

[MOVIE] DOA (Doyok-Otoy-Ali Oncom): Cari Jodoh – Kisah 3 Sahabat Koplak *spoiler alert*

Pada jaman dahulu kala *kesannya udah lama banget yak hahaha* setiap kali baca Poskota, gw selalu baca lembar bergambarnya. Ada 3 tokoh komik yang lucu banget, yaitu Doyok, Otoy dan Ali Oncom. Gak pernah ketinggalan deh pokoknya. Tapi terus terang gw cuma samar2 inget tentang mereka. Begitu tau ada film garapan Anggy Umbara tentang 3 tokoh komik ini dalam 1 film berjudul DOA (Doyok-Otoy-Ali Oncom): Cari Jodoh, awalnya gak terlalu gimana banget. Tapi pas liat trailernya, kok gemes liat karakter2 yang main. Dan di tgl 17 Agustus 2018 ini, gw iseng ajak hubby nonton, eh doi mau. Yawdah beli tiketnya deh nonton di Setiabudi One.

Thursday, August 16, 2018

The Darkest Minds - Probably not the Best Movie About Teenagers with Super Power, but Still Quite Entertaining

I saw from the cinemas schedule that there would be a new movie premiering in Indonesia on 15 August 2018 and I only knew it was a science fiction thriller movie. I got to admit though that I have absolutely no clue what the movie was all about except that it was telling the story of some teenagers with powers. Nevertheless when it did show for the first time, my wife and I went to see this last night to find out if the movie was good. So here is more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Story was set in the US where suddenly a disease referred to as IAAN infected only children and ultimately killed 90% of them. The surviving children were put in a camp where they were all being detained like prisoners, due to their sudden ability to have powers. They were all classified into colors, with green being the least dangerous (their powers were becoming highly intelligent) and orange the most dangerous one with ability to mind control.

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

The Equalizer 2 - A Good Sequel of the Violent Good Hearted Vigilante

This movie had been playing in US cinemas for a while and it was unclear why it only premiered in Indonesian theaters after more than a month. So we were pretty late in seeing this movie, but nevertheless I was still excited to see this as I had seen the first movie and quite enjoyed it. The movie oddly premiered on a Tuesday as opposed to the usual Wednesday probably due to another movie going to be released on that day. My wife and I opted to see this one at cinema nearest to our home as we could reach there by walking. We had difficulty in going to our favorite cinema with Dolby Atmos due to the vehicle restriction regulation in place in Jakarta for Asian Games purpose. Anyway, let's move on to the movie.

Brief Story Line

After the events in the original movie, Robert McCall (Denzel Washington - The Magnificent Seven, Training Day etc) now worked as an online transportation driver as his cover job while assisting people in desperate need, such as a woman whose daughter was kidnapped and so on. He was still in contact and got some help & information from his friend/former boss Susan (Melissa Leo - The Fighter, Louie TV series etc). They still got together with Susan's husband Brian (Bill Pullman - Independence Day and its sequel etc) in few occasions. Living in a small apartment, McCall befriended with few of the tenants and got quite close to a young high school student named Miles (Ashton Sanders - Moonlight). 

Monday, August 13, 2018

Operation Red Sea - A Very Long War Action & Second All Time Highest Grossing Chinese Movie Till Date

Few days ago I found out that this biggest Chinese movie of 2018 would be playing in the Celestial Movies channel, so I decided to give it a try. I read it was a war action movie so should be fun. It premiered for the first time last night at 9 PM and I was ready for it fifteen minutes earlier as I do not want to miss the beginning. Well we shall move on to the movie now.

Brief Story Line

The country Yewaire near Africa was on the verge of a potential civil war between the rebel group who were planning to coup and the official government and army. There were quite a number of Chinese personnel and workers in that country whose lives could be in danger. A small team from the Chinese Naval army called Jiaolong Assault Team led by Yang Rui (Zhang Yi) was assigned to infiltrate the country and evacuate these Chinese citizens to board the vessels outside the country.

Sunday, August 12, 2018

(TV SERIES) The Gifted Season 1 - An Exciting & Quite Suspenseful Series in X-Men Universe

I have been running behind in watching new series in the past few weeks as I was catching up on a series that just concluded 3 months ago after 7 seasons, i.e Once Upon A Time which last time I saw was only up to second season. So yeah I got to finish 5 seasons of 22 episodes each. Anyway I decided to watch a superhero drama series that I noticed was having quite high rating and only having 13 episodes in its first season. Now let's move on to the series.

Brief Story Line

Reed Strucker (Stephen Moyer - True Blood TV series, Detour etc) and his wife Caitlin (Amy Acker - Person of Interest, Angel TV series etc) were an ordinary couple whose life was torn apart when they found out that their high school daughter Lauren (Natalie Alyn Lind) and her younger brother Andy (Percy Hynes White) turned out to be having X-gene which made them mutants. With the existing law that made mutants life very difficult, Reed and Caitlin had no choice but to try and bring their children out of the country, and enlisted the help from Marcos aka Eclipse (Sean Teale) who was in a mutants resistance group called Mutants Underground.

Thursday, August 9, 2018

The Meg - A Jason Statham Vs Giant Prehistoric Shark Movie

When I first saw the title of this movie months ago, I was unsure what it was all about. Then a couple of weeks ago it was being promoted more heavily and I realized it was a movie featuring huge shark with one of the best (to my opinion) action hero Jason Statham. My wife and I had our eyes on the film once it premiered yesterday. I wanted to see this on a large screen with great sound system, so we chose to see it in Epicentrum. Though it was a bit of a challenge to reach the cinema now that there was a new traffic system in place, I still managed to get there on time. Let us get on with the movie now, shall we?

Brief Story Line

An underwater research facility in Shanghai called Mana One which was led by Dr. Zhang (Winston Chao - Skiptrace, 1911 etc) and financed by billionaire Jack Morris (Rainn Wilson - Smurfs: The Lost Village, The Boy etc) was performing an experiment to dive deep under the sea using a special vehicle. The team who went there consisted of Lori (Jessica McNamee - CHiPs, Battle of the Sexes etc), the Wall (Ólafur Darri Ólafsson) and Toshi (Masi Oka - Heroes TV series, Hawaii Five O TV series etc). But unfortunately they were attacked by something and were stuck down with little oxygen.

Sunday, August 5, 2018

Si Doel the Movie - A Movie Bringing Out Nostalgic Memories for the Fans of the Series

I have heard about this movie for quite some time now and my wife and I were pretty excited when they decided to make a movie based on the very popular TV series in the 1990s and early 2000 in Indonesia. When the trailer started to be shown in theaters, we noticed that the story was like a continuance of the series and not a new story or a reboot. We finally saw the movie yesterday after it premiered for 2 days and here are more on the movie.

Brief Story Line

Doel (Rano Karno - Gita Cinta dari SMA, Roman Picisan etc) who now worked as freelance technician and his uncle Mandra (played by Mandra) were asked by their old friend Hans (Adam Jagwani) to deliver some original Betawi traditional stuff to Holland to be used in a festival there. Doel had to leave his mother MakNyak (Aminah Cendrakasih - Habis Gelap Terbitlah Terang, Rumah Masa Depan TV series etc) who was now an invalid and blind due to her sickness in the care of Doel's sister Atun (Suti Karno) and his wife Zaenab (Maudy Koesnaedi - Garuda di Dadaku, Soekarno: Indonesia Merdeka etc).

Adrift - A Quite Amazing Survival Movie Based on True Story


This was 1 movie that I did not plan on watching, but when my wife and I got some free time yesterday at noon and wanted to see a new Indonesian movie, apparently the timing was just right to see this one first before watching that movie. We immediately bought our tickets and just missed the first 1 or 2 minutes of the movie. So here goes more on the movie.


Brief Story Line

Story was set in 1983, where Tami Oldham (Shailene Woodley - The Fault in Our Stars, Divergent series etc), a carefree young woman reached Tahiti for the first time and working odd jobs to self finance her adventures. She later on met with a British sailor named Richard Sharp (Sam Claflin - Me Before You, The Hunger Games series etc) who had experience going around the world using his own yacht. The two of them hit it off easily and later on fell in love with one another.

Friday, August 3, 2018

The Spy Who Dumped Me - A Hilarious Spy Comedy Action Movie

This was one movie which, oddly enough, I have not seen its trailer at all. There was no information when it would play in Indonesian theater (not even from the biggest movie database website), so it was surprising that the film suddenly premiered on Wednesday. It was even stranger when I found out that the movie only playing in 1 cinema chain (albeit the largest one). Since I saw another movie on its premiere day, my wife and I saw this one on the 2nd day in the nearest cinema to our home. So let us go into the movies now.

Brief Story Line

Audrey (Mila Kunis - Bad Moms, Oz the Great and Powerful etc) was just a normal woman who was feeling bad for herself after being dumped by her boyfriend Drew (Justin Theroux - The Lego Ninjago Movie, Mulholland Drive etc). Audrey's best friend Morgan (Kate McKinnon - GhostbustersFerdinand etc) who was a carefree but rather goofball person was always trying to cheer her up. Their normal life would suddenly be changed when they were informed by CIA agents Sebastian (Sam Heughan - Outlander TV series) and Duffer (Comedian Hasan Minhaj) that Drew was actually a spy.

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Detective Conan: Zero the Enforcer - Another Quite Enjoyable Conan Movie

Yesterday this new movie premiered in Indonesian theaters and as my wife and I are huge fans of Detective Conan series, we wanted to see this one at the earliest. It was rather fortunate that she was able to go to the cinema from after lunch time and managed to buy 2 tickets at the top row. The 6.25 PM show was actually a bit tight for me, but I was able to arrive there on time and even had time to have some dinner first. Well let us move on with the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Conan (Minami Takayama) and all his friends were playing around when they heard the news of an explosion on a new high tech building called the Edge of Ocean. The place was going to be used for a summit in few days time which made Conan curious of the timing. There also seemed to be an involvement of a person who worked at cafe owned by Kogoro (Rikiya Koyama) who was also the father of Shinichi's girlfriend Ran (Wakana Yamazaki). The person was known as Amuro (Toru Furuya).

Wednesday, August 1, 2018

Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again - The Lovely Sequel to a Lovely Musical Drama Comedy

Finally after playing in theaters for almost 2 weeks, my wife and I got the chance to see this musical drama movie. It premiered during our overseas trip and we were keeping ourselves up to date with the latest movies first, until yesterday we decided to see it before it stopped playing in the cinemas. With so many newer films playing, it was quite a challenge to see this since only few theaters still showing it. But lucky for us there was a 7 PM show in a cinema not far from our home. So let us get on with the movie.

Brief Story Line

Movie started with Sophie (Amanda Seyfried - Anon, Ted 2 etc) getting ready for the grand opening of the hotel owned by her mother Donna (Meryl Streep - Kramer vs Kramer, The Iron Lady etc) while her husband Sky (Dominic Cooper - Stratton, Preacher TV series etc) was working in New York. Her 3 fathers Sam (Pierce Brosnan - The Foreigner, Remington Steele TV series etc), Harry (Colin Firth - Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Love Actually etc) and Bill (Stellan SkarsgĂ„rd - Our Kind of Traitor, Good Will Hunting etc) were all very supportive of her works. Sophie was also very appreciative when her mother's 2 best friends Tanya (Christine Baranski - A Bad Moms ChristmasTrolls etc) and Rosie (Julie Walters - Billy Elliot, Brave etc) came for the grand opening.