Warcraft: The Beginning - Another not so Successful Attempt of Video Game Adaptation to Movie

I have heard about the news that the Hollywood wanted to make the movie adapted from 1 of the great games in PC from few years ago, i.e. Warcraft. As I have previously mentioned, I was a bit skeptical when it comes to movies adapted from video games. However, when I saw Angry Bird movie (which I have reviewed before), I changed my mind a bit and wanted to give this one a try.

Unfortunately, when I saw the trailer to this movie, I became less excited since the movie's CGI seemed too obvious for my taste. I felt that I could be watching the cinematic scene from the game itself which I think should not be the case for a US$ 160 million budget movie. Nevertheless, I still want to give it a chance. So when I have the earliest opportunity to watch it, I went to the theater and see it.

Brief Story Line (warning possible spoiler)

Movie started with the scene of Durotan (played by Toby Kebbel - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) an Orc chief of the clan Frostwolf having a chat with his wife Draka (played by Anna Galvin) who was pregnant with their child. They were worried about their child's welfare since their world were almost destroyed. The warlock chief Gul'dan (played by Daniel Wu - Hong Kong actor in New Police Story, Shinjuku Incident etc) wanted to bring the horde (the Orcs people) to a new world, through the portal that he would create. That new world happened to be the seven kingdoms of humans. Gul'dan always used fel (a magic that can bring extra power to the orcs and even bring the dead to live) to increase his power over the orcs.

When the portal was opened, the majority of the Horde led by Gul'dan and their warchief Blackhand (played by Clancy Brown) and his right hand man Doomhammer (played by Robert Kazinsky) together with Durotan, Draka and a half Orc-half human prisoner named Garona (played by Paula Patton - 2 Guns, MI:Ghost Protocol etc) came to the humans' world. Draka delivered her baby during the process. Once they came to this world, the Orcs started to invade the villages and take humans as prisoners. These humans would serve as the source of fel magic for Gul'dan.

Meanwhile in the humans world, Anduin Lothar (played by Travis Fimmel - Vikings tv series) who was a famous knight and the brother in law of the king Llane (played by Dominic Cooper - Howard Stark of Marvel's comic book movies & TV series) got the news of these attacks by giant creatures riding on big wolves. When he returned to the palace, he was informed of a mage named Khadgar (played by Ben Schnetzer who looks so much alike 1 of my colleague at the office. LOL) going through the corpses of the orcs attack. He informed that the fel magic was used in this attack and informed the Guardian must be summoned.

Due to the critical matter, Khadgar and Lothar went to the place where the Guardian, Medhiv (played by Ben Foster - Contraband, The Finest Hours) had been staying for a while. Medhiv was a very powerful warlock and when he was informed about fel magic, he immediately agreed to look into these attacks. Khadgar was very amazed with the huge collections of magic books in Medhiv's place and located a book that could give him a lot of information later.

Medhiv, Khadgar and Lothar met with the group of orcs who wanted to attack the village. They had a major fight where with the help from Medhiv, all the orcs who have been fed with fel magic could not survive and only few were able to escape including Durotan. He later released Garona from the chain and head back to orcs' base. The humans were able to capture 1 of the orc and Garona and return to the palace.

Finally the humans were able to understand the purpose of orcs invasion to their world. Few of the humans army led by Lothar, accompanied by Khadgar and also Garona went to investigate the portal and to find the way to fend off this invasion. Durotan who felt that Gul'dan was not the right leader to give orcs a new place to stay and bring peace, wanted to bring down Gul'dan. However, since Gul'dan was too powerful, he wanted to seek the help from the humans and asked Garona to mitigate this "peaceful" cooperation.

So can this cooperation be successful and bring down Gul'dan? Or will it go wrong and make the hostility be even worse? Will Garona be helping the humans due to her feeling towards Lothar, or would she choose to fight for orcs whom she had been living with all her life as prisoner? Find them all in this 2 hours movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well after watching it till finished, I cannot help but feeling the movie was good, but not that great. To my surprise, when I finally watched the full movie, the CGI did not seem so obvious like in the trailer. It was a little bit better. But it might be because I saw it in a large theater. Not so sure if I saw it in the usual smaller theater.

Anyway, I enjoyed this movie but not as greatly as I would hope for. However, it was not that bad either. There were few fighting scenes (not brutal ones), some good special effects on the magic of Medhiv and Gul'Dar, plus some better fights usually involving Lothar (which made me tempted to watch the Vikings TV series where he was the main character). There were also few brief touching moments but not the tearful ones.

There was also 1 scene that I felt like a story of Moses from the bible when Durotan's child was put in a basket and put into the river, and funny enough the person next to me said the same thing to her company about similar Moses scene.

For a video game adapted film, this one was only a so so movie. I was truly hoping the fighting scenes would be a spectacular one, but somehow it lacked that touch. Again it might be due to the special effects of the orcs that were not so satisfying to me.

Btw, I believe the title had the word "Beginning" since they wanted to do a trilogy of this one.

If you want to enjoy the special effects of great fighting scenes between humans and orcs, I strongly suggest Lord of the Rings trilogy or The Hobbits trilogy to be your better choice. However, if you want to enjoy the nostalgic feeling when you play this famous video games created by BLIZZARD, where you can choose to fight as humans or as orcs, then this movie could satisfy you.

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

My Stupid Boss - A Fun Way to Have Few Laughs on an Absurd Boss in Office

Finally, the first ever "Nonton Bareng" (a gathering of a group of people from same hobby/organization that is held to watch some special event in sports or movies together in 1 place) was held by our company and what better way to do it than watching the movie that would surely lift our mood as we could see a lot of ourselves and maybe even our boss in this film?

It was decided that we would watch it in the theater nearest to our office which was just around 15 minutes of walk. So most of us went to the theater by walking at around 6PM as the movie started at 7.15PM, while others went by personal vehicles.

At around 7.30 PM, the movie finally started (which was rather odd as this cinema usually started on time). Anyway, here goes the story line.

Brief Story Line

The movie started with the narration of our main character, Diana (played by Bunga Citra Lestari - Habibi & Ainun) who had been following her husband (played by Alex Abbad - Halfworld series) staying in various parts of the world. The latest one being in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Due to his work as a consultant for oil & gas company, he could just work from home.

Diana who had 3 neighbors that she used to converse with (read: gossip) felt the need to work again. So based on the info from her husband that his old friend from California who had his own business in KL had a vacancy, she decided to have it a try, even though her husband actually reluctant as he thought he might be caught in the middle of his wife and his best friend (and he could never have been more wrong). Felt excited to work again, Diana put on her working dress (which was tighter than usual) and went to go for the job interview.

After some funny scenes from the other candidates, finally Diana met with her future boss who called himself "Bossman" (played by Reza Rahadian - Perahu Kertas, Habibie & Ainun etc). She was accepted as head of administration (or called as "kerani" in Malay) even though she had a very bad feeling of her boss who could not stop talking from beginning. 

Diana had 4 co-workers in the office, i.e. Mr. Kho - the marketing guy who loved to sleep in office (played by Chew Kin Wah), the secretary Norah Sikin (played by Atikah Suhaemi), Adrian who love to flirt with Norah (played by Bront Palarae) and Azhari who loved to pray (played by Iskandar Zulkarnain). All of them have been working for Bossman for years and already experienced personally the antics, the craziness and the absurdity of their boss. This was not helped by the constant use of Indonesian and sometimes Javanese language by Bossman to his Malaysian staff, including his factory/auto shop workers who could only understand English/Malay/Chinese & Indian.

Diana also had to endure all the various miseries, like being called to setup in a meeting at 2AM in the morning, received complains from vendors, fulfilling the absurd requests from her boss including accompanying him to meeting with customs officers. After working for short time, Diana concluded that "Bossman is always right", and no matter how hard she and her co-workers tried to talk sense to Bossman, it would always be useless.

Since Diana had signed an employment contract and could not leave before contract expired without paying penalty, Diana decided to keep on working with Bossman. Her only stress relief would be to complain all night to her husband up to the point that he felt a little bit tired and gave Diana the spirit to "fight back" and not to give in.

So can Diana fight back Bossman? Or will she give up and leave the work place? What other crazy things that Bossman would do again? Find all of them in the various hilarious scenes in and outside the office.

End of Brief Story Line

I had a good moment watching this movie. It was real fun to see the film actually made fun of the things that I believed happened in actual life in actual work place. I get the feeling that this movie was so successful not only because of the great characterization by Reza Rahadian of Bossman, but also because we get to laugh at the miseries of the staff & workers and could not help feeling connected to those employees.

In addition, there were a lot of funny scenes in the movie involving mostly Bossman, and Kerani (Diana's nickname by Bossman). This movie was an adaptation of the novel written by Chaos@work. You can read her books and also view her blog: http://blog.chaosatwork.com .

My most memorable scene would be the hilarious time when Bossman had to return home to have dinner with his wife together with all his 5 staffs.

Anyway, the moral of the story I believe is, you can find a lot of things that are really sh*tty about your boss, but ultimately there is always something good as well. Just like what Bossman motto is: Impossible We Do, Miracle We Try! which I actually believe is truly a very good motto. 

Have fun watching in the theaters near you. Personally I think it's better to watch together with your colleagues from work. Btw this movie is still playing in all major cinemas in Indonesia and it's also playing in Malaysia, Singapore & Brunai.

Below is 1 of the picture of our companies staff gathering in the theater after the movie finished (forgive the quality as it was taken with little light)...

Mike's Movie Moments rating: 4 out 5 stars

X-MEN: Apocalypse - 1 of the Best X-Men Movies I Have Ever Seen

This is definitely the one that I never thought I would be wowed. I know this is the 3rd film of the trilogy of younger X-Men and I did not have very high expectation. The first trilogy was spread between year 2000 - 2006 which started with X-Men, followed by X-2 and ended with X-Men: The Last Stand. Well the second trilogy started with X-Men: First Class, followed by X-Men: Days of Future Past. I was a fan of Days of Future Past as I believed the director managed to combine the 2 story lines from the older X-Men and the younger X-Men into a believable and quite easily understood movie. That is until I saw this one which totally blew me away. Anyway, let's get on to the story line, shall we?

Brief Story line

For those of you who I believed have watched the previous X-Men and saw the end credit scene, would know there was a mutant that helped build the pyramid. After the usual comic book flipping scenes of Marvel comic adaptations, scenes move to Egypt 3600 BC, where the Egyptian were worshiping a "God" whom they called En Sabah Nur (played by Oscar Isaac - Star Wars: The Force Awakens). He and his 4 disciples were entering the pyramid, where there was a person who was having ability to heal himself, and they wanted to transfer the ability to the "God". This intended ceremony was interrupted and En Sabah Nur was buried for thousands of years. 

Later the scene would moved to 1983, 10 years after the incident from Days of Future Past. We would be introduced to several new X-Men characters in this movie, like the young Scott Summers aka Cyclops (played by Tye Sheridan), young Jean Grey (played by Sophie Turner - Sansa Stark of Games of Thrones), young Kurt Walker aka Night Crawler (played by Kodi Smit-McPhee - Dawn of the Planet of the Apes). They all were part of the school for gifted (mutants school) managed by Charles Xavier aka professor X (played by James Mc Avoy) and he was helped by Hank McCoy aka the Beast (played by Nicholas Hoult). 

Erik Leshner aka Magneto (played by Michael Fassbender) who managed to escape earlier has moved to Poland and now married with 1 daughter. Meanwhile Raven aka Mystique (played by Jennifer Lawrence) has gone rogue and travel around the world to assist other mutants escape from the spotlight and manipulated by bad people. 

En Sabah Nur who was awaken from his long "sleep" was really surprised with the condition of the world now. He met young Storm (played by Alexandra Shipp - Straight Outta Compton) who was amazed with En Sabah Nur's ability and chose to follow him after her power was raised significantly by him. CIA agent Moira McTaggert (played by Rose Byrne) who witnessed this awakening process, was approached by Charles Xavier to bring him up to speed on En Sabah Nur's history. Since the very beginning, he was always having 4 mutants to assist him. And now he started to look for other mutants to be recruited and be the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse. After various manipulation and convincing, he was able to get Psylocke (played by Olivia Munn - Mortdecai), Angel (played by Ben Hardy) and last but not least Magneto. 

With such power and strength by his side, En Sabah Nur intended to wipe out the whole population of normal people of the earth where they would lead the only survivors, i.e the mutants.

So can professor X and the young X-Men fight against such incredible power? Can the apocalypse be stopped? Will the young X-Men be able to control their powers and use them to fight En Sabah Nur? Find them all in this latest super hero movie of 2016.

End of Brief Story Line

As I already highlighted in the beginning, I was truly wowed with this movie. One of the best moments I enjoyed watching movie. The opening scenes were quite intense. The introduction to the new generation of X-Men were very smooth and did not felt forced. The action sequence were great. Special effects were also great. Even the sound effect felt very realistic and add to the element of intense (I watched this in Dolby Atmos and I really was satisfied). 

In addition to the above, I also felt that the ultimate fighting scene was amazing! Prior to this movie, there were 2 movies which pitted 2 super heroes or team of super heroes against each other. I cannot help have a feeling that there is this kind of similarity in this movie as there was also fight between super heroes (mutants). Only difference is, in "Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice", there was a feeling of slow pace before the final fight, while in "Captain America: Civil War" (both I have reviewed earlier), the ultimate fighting scenes were not exactly what I was hoping for. This, on the other hand really satisfied my hunger for major fight between heroes against the main villains and the pace was quick enough.

There were also some other mutants appeared in this movie, such as Peter Maximoff aka Quicksilver (played by Evan Peters - American Horror Story), Alex Summers aka Havoc (played by Lucas Till - Hannah Montana) and few others to add the elements of satisfaction. In short, there were enough X-Men to be the ultimate finale to this trilogy.

This is really a recommended super hero movie. However, be warned there were some bloody violent scenes and very brief "strong" language not for the young kids. There was a little of more adult feel to this movie, unlike "Civil War" which was really family friendly. There were some serious moments, little humor here and there and few cheesy moments.

Oh, in case you are not in a hurry, you can wait for the end credit scene to see hint to the next/future Marvel films.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

The Angry Birds Movie - The Famous Game Character Comes to Live

I have seen the trailer for the movie few times earlier while I was getting ready for other films in theater. Even though I heard about it before, I was doubtful if this could be interesting movie, coz sometimes movie adaptation of games were not really successful. But when I saw the trailer, I thought this could be fun. The premises seem to be simple enough and quite similar to the story of the game itself.

Anyway, I saw this one on Saturday together with my wife since her previously arranged trip was cancelled a day before. This time, because of other arrangements, we chose to watch it at the nearest theater from home. So what was the movie all about? You can read them below.

Brief Story Line

Movie started with the scene of our main character named Red (voiced by Jason Sudeikis - Horrible Bosses, Epic etc) a bird who was unable to fly and had to run around bringing an egg all the way to his customer and becoming a clown on a "hatch day" occasion. since he was too late, the family who ordered his service was very upset and unwilling to pay. Red who had short fuse immediately became very angry and things totally got out of hand.

Because of this anger problem, Red who had previously been exiled to stay outside the city near the shore of Bird Island, got an extra punishment by the mayor to go for anger management class. In few scenes earlier, it was shown why Red could become such bad tempered bird and easily got mad over almost anything.

During this anger management class, Red would meet fellow birds who were also punished by the mayor, such as Chuck, a very very fast moving bird (voiced by Josh Gad - the voice behind Olaf in Frozen), Bomb, a bird that can have his body exploded (voiced by Danny McBrida - Pineapple Express etc) and Terence, a very big bird who looked very scary (voiced by Sean Penn). The class was taught by a very patient lady named Matilda. Even though in earlier sessions, Red was really not in the mood to get to know his fellow "classmates", later on they would built their relationship after a while. 

One day, a huge ship came to Bird Island, which was led by the green pig named Leonard (voiced by Bill Hader - Men In Black 3, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatball etc) where he informed all the birds that they came in peace with Ross, the only other pig accompanied him. He brought various gifts to the birds and claimed that they were to build good relationship with the birds. Red who was very upset since the anchor of the pigs' ship was thrown to his house, truly distrust the pigs, but he went along with the other birds anyway.

While having a party to honor the pigs, Red went to the pigs ship with Chuck and Bomb and found out something that raised his suspicion even further. Unfortunately, because of Leonard's tricks and smart talk, the birds instead believed the pigs rather than Red.

Felt disappointed, Red decided to look for the protector of the Bird Island, called the Mighty Eagle who was the only bird that can actually fly. Together with Chuck and Bomb, they embarked on an "adventure" to locate Mighty Eagle and request his help to convince the birds that the pigs have some bad plan to the birds.

So can Red, Chuck and Bomb find the Mighty Eagle? Can they expose the pigs' true plan? Will they be able to fight the pigs from getting their hands on their main target?

Find them all in the various hilarious scenes involving all the birds and the famous slingshot scenes of birds thrown to bring down the pigs' houses.

End of Brief Story Line

The earlier scenes of this movie felt a little bit so so to me. i.e the humor and jokes were just OK and not spectacular. However, as the movie continues, the 3 major characters start to grow on you. I personally really enjoyed the movie starting from the so called "adventure" which were very funny and there were few dramatic/touching scenes in the end as well, involving the very cute birds babies/children. Of course the ultimate part would be the scenes of the fight between the birds and the green pigs just like in the game. 

Finally, I can say that this was one of the movie adaptation of games that I can picture to have a success in future. This movie has a very simple idea and quite strict to the games. It's generally simple enough for kids to understand. You can bring your children to watch this one, and adults can also enjoy as I mentioned earlier, there were quite many hilarious scenes

Btw, I also believed that this one has a lot of good scenes if you see it in 3D. But if you don't really like to be bothered wearing 3D glasses, then you can watch it normally. It's still good enough.

Before I forgot, the 80s/90s generation can also have some nostalgic feeling as some of the songs in this movie were from those period. 

Happy watching!

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

(TV SERIES) Daredevil - Dark Portrayal of A Marvel's Superhero

I have actually seen the first season of this TV series last year, and just watched the second season during the past super long weekend. So it does not feel right if I go direct to the second season without providing some insights of the first season.

Well this is a series about Daredevil, 1 of the quite famous superhero from the Marvel comic books. It was already made into a movie many years back with Ben Afleck playing as the blind lawyer by day and crime fighting superhero by night.

The first season consisted of 13 episodes with duration ranging from 45 minutes to 1 hour plus (not sure why the length is not standard like other series). But the good thing about it was each episode just felt sufficient, not too short to fit into 45 minutes.

Brief Story Line of Season 1

The series introduce us firstly to Matt Murdock (played by Charlie Cox - The Theory of Everything) as the blind lawyer who formed a law firm together with his best friend "Foggy" Nelson (played by Elden Henson - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay). Their very first case was about a secretary named Karen Page (played by Deborah Ann Woll - True Blood series) who was framed for the murder of her colleague, since she found out about a scheme in her company to corrupt the pension fund. In one moment at her home, she was going to be killed by the bad guys before being saved by Matt dressing as vigilante. Later, Karen would be working as the secretary to Nelson & Murdock law firm. She would also seek the help from Ben Urich (Vondie Curtis-Hall), a reporter who was experienced in exposing crimes of high publicity.

While working on saving people from various thugs, bandits at night, Matt was frequently injured and she would be helped by a nurse working at night shift named Claire Temple (played by Rosario Dawson - Unstoppable etc). We would also be shown how Matt was able to have heightened senses when he lost his sight as a young boy. He was being taught martial arts by a blind person, simply called as Stick (played by Scott Glenn).

The main villain of season 1 was Wilson Fisk aka Kingpin (played by Vincent D'Onofrio - The Judge, The Jurassic World etc). He had a strong personality and very fierce who led by force and joined forces with the Russian, the Irish, the Triads, the Yakuza. There was also the love of her life named Vanessa (played by Ayelet Zuyer) whom Wilson would do anything to protect.

Season 1 basically introduced us to the various characters that would be involved in Daredevil's life with so many action sequence involving Matt and the various villains in each episode. In addition to the action scenes, there were also various dramatic events involving the clients of Nelson & Murdock and Kate and some flashbacks of the younger Matt & Foggy's days. We would also be shown slowly the rise of Daredevil (or called as the "Devil of Hell's Kitchen) which culminated at the 13th & final episode of season 1, where he would start to wear the red suit and would be putting up the fight of the season with Kingpin.

Brief Story Line of Season 2 (Spoiler warning on season 1)

Season 2 started with the Hell's Kitchen already aware of the devil's presence and were appreciative of his helps to capture the thugs of the street. Foggy who also have found out about this in season 1 can only asked Matt to be very careful.
However, the so called peace in their city would soon be gone with the "war" declared by someone who started to shoot and murder the Irish mob, the motorcycle gang Dogs of Hell. It was obvious that the person was only killing bad guys. Matt who always believed in justice system did not approve of this method as he trusted that there is always good in people even the bad ones. So they have to be sent to prison instead of being killed.

We would later find out that the killings were actually done by Frank Castle (played by Jon Bernthal - The Wolf of Wall Street, The Walking Dead series etc). He was later nicknamed Punisher. Needless to say, the way Punisher killed was always so brutal and later there would be some major fight with Daredevil as well.

In addition to having the Punisher in season 2, we would also be introduced to Matt's long time girlfriend Elektra Natchios (played by Élodie Yung). She had a very mysterious background and actually had a very big influence in the younger Matt during college years. She was also very good at martial art skills and later on we would be shown some background stories describing how she would be the Elektra now. The appearance of Elektra in Matt's life now would also make things complicated for Matt, as she would bring out the best and worst of Matt at the same time, not to mention relationship with Foggy &  Kate.

Some of the characters in season 1 also appeared again in season 2, such as Stick, Melvin Potter (the person who made Daredevil suit) and Wilson Fisk. There would also be notable new character, i.e. Blake Tower assistant District Attorney who would later be assisting Daredevil in future.

The second season would focus more on the relationship of Daredevil and Elektra, plus the trial of Punisher. We would also see the development of Kate into more like an investigative reporter. And the change of Foggy's view towards his partnership with Matt in their law firm. Also there would still be the various fighting scenes, particularly with the ninjas under the "organisation" called "The hand".

The ending of season 2 would provide us two shocking moments which would truly make season 3 becomes very interesting.

End of Brief Story Line

Well, I got to say, watching Daredevil series, you cannot help but feeling sorry for Matt especially in season 1 when he got kicked/punched and all sorts every time he fight with the villains. At the same time we could understand his difficulty in juggling the balance of his day life as lawyer and night life fighting crimes.

This is one of the series involving super heroes where I think is rather dark. This is not the average Marvel movies. People are really getting killed and the violence are quite strong. The topics are also quite heavy and the relationships are complicated. Even if there is humor, it's rather dark and not a lot of them.

Action sequence is top notch. The fights are generally great. I especially love whenever Daredevil is fighting many many people at the same time to fight his way out (or way in). The first season was very interesting and more of introduction. The main star I believe would be Wilson Fisk character. Meanwhile in second season, The Punisher was believable but unfortunately I don't feel Elektra is great enough. Sorry but this one I have to disagree with the critics saying her performance was very good. Although her fight scenes were coreographed quite well.

Anyway, if you want to enjoy watching a dramatic, violent Marvel version of Daredevil, you surely have to watch this TV series. It is much better than the movie version. The season 2 just aired in year 2016. So we have to wait until 2017 before we can see season 3.

Oooh 1 final thing, there was a scene in season 2 where the name Jessica Jones was mentioned. This is also another Marvel character that has been developed into a TV series also consisting 13 episodes. I will review that series later, so wait for that one in the very near future.

Enjoy watching!

Mike's movie moments rating: 4 out of 5 stars

FOCUS - Will Smith the Genius Con Artist

I did not have the chance to watch this movie in theater last year, or it never played at all? Can not really be sure as even if it really played last year, then it did not make a wave of audience flocking to the theaters. Anyway, I watched this in HBO last night as it premiered for the first time on TV (they usually showed new movies every Saturday night at 8PM Indonesia time. So if you are not having any plan on Saturday night, and if you subscribe to cable TV, then it might be good for you to watch a "not so old" movie such as this one. 

Brief Story Line

Movie started with the scene of Nicky (played by Will Smith - Independence Day, Men In Black, etc) who was being seduced by a lady named Jess (played by Margot Robbie - The Wolf of Wallstreet, Suicide Squad) and "found out" by her "husband". Apparently Nicky knew from the beginning that he was being conned, so he even advised Jess to always focus during a con. Later, Nicky provided some inputs to Jess on how to be a better pick-pocket and also informed her that in this line of work, they must be ready for any kind of situation. Even Nicky's father during one of his con did the surprising thing by shooting his own father during a con gone wrong, to avoid them being caught. It was called the "Toledo Panic Button".

In next scenes, Nicky went to New Orleans and had big plans to score during a major football game. He was accompanied by Horst (his 2nd hand man) and Farhad (1 of his best partner). Jess who already made up her mind that she wanted to be part of Nicky's crew, tried to convince him that she was good enough. So as a test, Nicky asked Horst to see if she was able to pick pocket people which Jess successfully done so. With Jess becoming the newest member, Nicky soon felt emotional attachment, which was actually not a good idea in their line of business. Hence after finishing their biggest score and con together, they went on their separate ways.

Three years later in Buenos Aires, Nicky was being hired by Garriga (played by Rodrigo Santoro - 300 and others), a wealthy business man who owned a racing car team with a very good computerized racing system which all their competitors wanted to get their hands on. As part of the con, Nicky would sell a modified system to Garriga's fiercest competitor, McEwen which Nicky would keep the money, on top of what Garriga would pay. By doing so, Garriga wanted to get rid of his competition. In the con, Nicky would act like 1 of Garriga's disgruntled technician and to convince McEwen, they would do a dramatized "fight" during a party. However, all the plan go haywire as suddenly, out of nowhere, Jess showed up and kissed Garriga. The con also became more complicated with the extra suspicious Owens (played by Gerald McRaney), Garriga's head of security. 

So can Nicky go through with this con when his previous love interest showed up again? Is Nicky going to try win Jess' heart again? Find out all the cons until the end of the movie.

End of Brief Story Line

Well, I personally quite enjoy the movie. As usual movie involving cons always intrigued us in the sense we are always kept guessing which one is a con and which one is real. We will never know who ends up being conned in the end. 

Even though the cons in this movie are not at the highest level but in the end, there were still plenty of twists and surprises to make it interesting.

I also found the supporting character Farhad (Adrian Martinez) fun to watch and Nicky's relationship with Jess interesting as well.

So if you happen to like this kind of genre, then maybe this one is an option for you to watch. As I said in the beginning, the film is playing in HBO and you definitely can watch it at least once a day during this whole week. It could be fun...

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

(TV SERIES) Sherlock - Season 2 and 3

After watching the first season of Sherlock (which I happened to reviewed earlier before), I could not stand not to watch the second season after that. So once I got the chance, I immediately start watching season 2 and continued to season 3 in less than a week time.

Brief Story Line (spoiler warning, particularly with reference to season 1)

Season 2:

If you already watched season 1, you would know that by the season finale, Sherlock and Watson were threatened Moriarty's men and Sherlock threatened back by aiming his gun towards the bomb near Moriarty's location. The 1st episode of season 2 continued where it left off. Moriarty got a phone call and decided he would not kill Sherlock and Watson after all, leaving both of them relieved. Later, Mycroft requested Sherlock to acquire "indecent" photos of certain high powered political person in England from a dominatrix lady named Irene Adler. She was portrayed as a very smart woman and seemed able to match Sherlock's brilliance through her wit. I felt this episode was funny and enjoyable to watch, with Sherlock seemed to be a little bit attracted by Irene, even Watson and Mycroft can also sensed about this. The ending provide some shocking scenes as well.

Second episode titled "The Hound of Baskerville" was inspired by the same novel published in 1902. However, they made it into the modern world. Story was about Henry Knight who brought Sherlock the mystery about a giant hound that murdered his father when he was a young boy in a small town near Dartmoor where a military base called Baskerville was located. This story was different from other Sherlock's stories as it had a few element of thriller and suspense. The brilliance of Sherlock was not shown too much but it also showed that Sherlock was a human being after all as for the first time ever, he doubted his own mind. 

The season finale again pitted Sherlock with Moriarty. In this episode, Moriarty once again showed his brilliance by getting himself captured by police only to show Sherlock that he was capable of found not guilty during trial. This is where it gets interesting as Moriarty was able to put doubts in the eyes of police and press about Sherlock's ability. The doubts were so high that Sherlock had no choice but to run away from police hands when he was suspected of coordinating all crimes for him to solve in order to bring fame to himself. The episode ended with very very huge surprise and upset for the audience. Once again, I felt the thrill and excitement watching this episode and could not wait to watch the 3rd season.

Season 3 (spoiler warning)

The 1st episode of this season happened around 2 years after the supposed "suicide" of Sherlock Holmes, where he was finally asked by Mycroft to return to England to solve a possible terrorist attack. Watson who never knew about the fake suicide had finally returned to 221B Baker Street to meet with Mrs. Hudson and informed her that he was going to get married. Sherlock wanted to surprise Watson during the time when Watson wanted to propose to his girlfriend Mary which of course became hilarious as Watson understandably very very upset and angry for being kept in the dark more than 2 years. However, after Mary convinced Watson, he was of course coming back to help Sherlock on this case. I enjoyed this episode particularly seeing Watson's expressions when he found out Sherlock still alive. The case itself felt a little bit like background in this episode.

The 2nd episode was about Watson getting married to Mary. Before the wedding party, Sherlock and Watson went to help a British soldier who felt like being stalked and finally found dead when he was taking a shower in a locked bathroom. This was told through a flashback by Sherlock during his wedding speech as a best man for the wedding. Sherlock was unable to solve that case apparently. Later on, he also told another case involving some women who felt they were dating a ghost of a deceased man. This case was not able to be solved by Sherlock as well. When Sherlock finally wanted to put up the toast, he realized that there was going to be a murder during the wedding. So the wedding ceremony became like a "performance" by Sherlock. I enjoyed this episode a lot and I felt that this was a very touching episode. It truly showed the affection of Sherlock to his only friend while Watson also really loved Sherlock as his very best friend.

Finally the season finale. This episode introduced us to a new villain who was very obnoxious and snobby named Magnussen, a newspaper mogul who was able to know every dirty little secret of all powerful people in England and possibly the world. Sherlock who was asked by 1 of the person blackmailed, wanted to retrieve the letter consisting incriminating information which supposedly locked in the room of Magnussen's office. This episode also showed Sherlock having a relationship with Janine, Mary's bridesmaid from episode 2. When Sherlock and Watson was trying to locate the letter, there was a shocking moment when Magnussen was under threat and later Sherlock got shot by that person. Ultimately there were lots of twists and brilliance of Sherlock and of course Magnussen as the main villain. I also enjoyed this episode a lot and was amazed that I could still feel surprised on the story lines and the ending.

End of Brief Story Line

After watching 3 seasons of this TV Series, I felt that the 2nd and the 3rd season was exciting, a little bit darker, but also had some touching moments compared to the 1st season. However, even though they were still very very good seasons, I still feel that the 1st season was the best of them all.

Of course, if you are a fan of films where the detective is as smart as Sherlock Holmes, this TV Series still is a very recommended one to watch. My suggestion is to watch 1 episode a day or maximum 2, so that the episodes can be better absorbed by our mind, coz I personally felt a little bit overwhelmed when trying to watch 3 episodes in 1 night.

Btw, till now the 4th season has not aired yet. So at the moment, the season finale of 3rd season was the last episode that we could watch of this series. I hope they won't suddenly cancel it as it would leave a huge cliffhanger.

Mike's movie moments rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

CRIMINAL - The Mission is in the Memory

During the past weekend and this super long weekend in Indonesia, there are not a lot of options for movie enthusiast like me. Between Captain America: Civil War and AADC2 which are occupying most of the theaters in the 3 major cineplexes, there was a new Hollywood movie released on Wednesday titled Criminal.

It is surprising to see such a large ensemble cast in a movie which did not have a lot of hypes when it was shown in Indonesia. Even to watch this movie, it takes a bit of an effort since there were only like 11 cinemas showing it in Jakarta. Ok, so let's move on to the movie itself.

Brief Story Line (warning some spoilers, so you can skip this part if you are not interested)

Movie is about a CIA agent named Bill Pope (played by Ryan Reynolds - Deadpool etc) who took a bag full of money and passport from some place. He then called his wife Jill (played by Gal Gadot - FF5 & 6 and as Wonder Woman in DC movies) and his daughter Emma before noticing he was being chased by a group of bad people.

In the CIA headquarter in London, their leader Quaker (played by Gary Oldman - The Dark Knight trilogy etc) was worried about the safety of Bill so he sent a team to assist Bill. However, the main villain Heimbahl - an anarchist who did not trust governments was able to intercept and caught Bill. He wanted to find out where Jan Stroop aka Dutchman, a hacker who managed to have the wormhole to the weapon/missile system was hiding. If the codes should fall into the wrong hands, this would potentially create chaos and war.

When Quaker's team finally able to track down Bill's whereabouts, they were too late and he was found dead at the scene. Later CIA looked for the help of Dr. Franks (played by the veteran Tommy Lee Jones) to retract Bill's memory from his brain and put into someone else which was basically what Dr. Franks 18 years research all about. Though this was never experimented on actual human beings, but it appeared to be the only option then to find out Dutchman's location. However, the trick was to find the person able to receive Bill's memories. It should be a person whose frontal lobe brain not properly developed. The best available candidate was a psychopath who did not have emotion and could not differentiate between right and wrong, a criminal named Jericho Stewart (played by Kevin Costner - The Bodyguard, Dances with Wolves, Robin Hood etc).

At first when the operation was done, it appeared unsuccessful and Quaker was very upset. So he instructed Jericho to be returned to prison. But apparently it was successful as Jericho started to have some of Bill's memories and feelings coming to him piece by piece. Unfortunately one of the thing he remembered was the bag full of money which for him was very interesting. Hence, start his mission to look for the money by looking from various places, starting from Bill's home where Jill & Emma still staying.

This act was found out by Quaker's team and they realized he started to have Bill's memory. And Heimbahl also managed to learnt about this info. Hunted by Quaker & his CIA team and also Heimbahl's assassins, Jericho tried all his best to avoid them while looking for the money. This was also made complicated with the feelings he started to have from Bill's memory, especially for Jill and Emma.

So can Jericho outrun all of them? Can he get the money he wanted so bad? What will happen to him and will he be having Bill's memory permanently or will he lose it? Find them all in the movie.

End of Brief Story Line

To all of you looking for something different than the 2 biggest movies playing in theater now, I believe this can be an option. It is not a spectacular action movie. It is not a pure science fiction either (even though transferring brain memory to another would classify as that). I think this one is more like a thriller, with some actions but not special effects kind/cgi kind.  

Of course there were certain parts where I felt a bit unrealistic (the ending part) from my opinion. But hey, this was not supposed to be that kind of movie. So just sit back and enjoy the show. Btw, if you are a big fan of Kevin Costner, this would feel a little bit different from his other films, coz he has to be a psychopath in this movie, so his actions were sadistic, but somehow it made him likeable to us audiences as well. 

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