(GALA PREMIERE) Galih dan Ratna - Re-imagining of A 1979 Classic Indonesian Movie

Last night, I was lucky enough that my wife had got access to the Gala Premiere of a new movie in Senayan City. Actually this was not the first time we went to such event, but it had been few years since the last time both of us attended a Gala Premiere of Indonesian movie. Anyway, by the time I finished dinner with my wife, we went inside the cinema to queue for registration and it was already filled with lots of people.  After having ourselves registered, we had to wait up to 7.15PM till the door to cinema 2 was opened. Then all of us went inside and chose the seats to our preference (yes, there was no seat allocation in this kind of event). My wife and I managed to get our favorite seats on the top row and we waited patiently till the brief introduction of the movie stars and crew and the film finally started at 7.45PM. So let us get on with the movie now, shall we?

Brief Story Line

Ratna (Sheryl Sheinafia - Koala Kumal) had to leave Jakarta and move to Bogor to live with her aunt Tantri (Marissa Anita - Selamat Pagi, Malam) since her father, Oka (Hengky Tornando - Saur Sepuh, Salah Bodi etc) had been assigned to work in Australia. Ratna had to adjust to a totally new environment of a different city and later on new school and new friends.

Doraemon: Nobita and The Birth of Japan - The 36th Doraemon Movie

My wife and I had known that there would be another Doraemon movie playing in theater since a couple of weeks ago. However, when the movie finally premiered on Friday, we were quite disappointed as it did not play in any of our favorite cinemas (the movie only played in 1 cinema chain in Indonesia so the theater options were limited). So we ended up watching another movie LION on Friday which happened to premier on the same day. But yesterday, we double checked the theaters playing the movie and to our surprise, there were additional cinemas then and we immediately plan to see it in the evening after my wife's food tasting event. Well let us get on to the movie now.

Brief Story Line

Nobita (voiced by Megumi Ohara) was being scolded by his mother (Kotono Mitsuishi) for getting bad grade at school. He was feeling so upset that he decided to leave home and be independent. Naturally he would request Doraemon (Wasabi Mizuta) to provide him with some help using any of Doraemon's equipment from the future to ease his plan of moving out. Nobita's good friends Shizuka (Yumi Kakazu), Suneo (Tomokazu Seki) and Giant (Subaru Kimura) all teased him as he would usually not complete what he started. But later on, due to various reasons, the 3 of them and even Doraemon also wanted to join Nobita and leave home.

GUARDIANS - A Russian Version of Superheroes Movie

Yesterday, this movie premiered for the first time in Indonesia. My wife and I were not too enthusiastic in watching it as it did not seem to be a very interesting movie. But since her plan of going out in the morning was cancelled and she would be free till 2PM, we decided to watch the movie at 11.45AM. So let us get on with the movie.

Brief Story Line

August Kuratov (Stanislas Shirin) was a mad scientist who created superhuman by altering DNA during the World War 2 period. When the Russian government found out about his intention of creating a clone army of super humans and also having equipment attached to his body which enhanced his power and strength, they had to do something to capture him.

Major Elena (Valeria Shkirando) was tasked by Major General Nikolai (Vyacheslav Razbegaev) to head the "Patriot" organization which would be to recruit the superhumans created earlier. They had all hid themselves for many years and therefore, Elena must find out the locations of all these people urgently.

LION - The Touching True Story of A Boy Separated from Family for Years

It has been a while since my wife and I saw a very serious movie together. She had recommended this movie to me as she said it was a good movie. I found out later that the movie was nominated for Academy Awards for best picture and best supporting actor/actress. At first I was a bit reluctant to see a very heavy movie as I prefer to watch lighter ones in the cinemas. But then again, since I had to be open minded when watching movies nowadays, I decided to see for myself what the movie was all about. So when the film finally premiered for the first time yesterday, we went ahead and watch it at 7.15PM show.

Brief Story Line

Movie started with the introduction of 2 boys living in Khandwa, India in 1986 named Saroo (newcomer Sunny Pawar) a 5 year old and his older brother named Guddu (Abhistek Bharate) who were very poor and had to look for various odd jobs just for bit of money. Guddu was tasked by their mother to always look after Saroo while she worked and taking care of the youngest child. One day when Guddu was going to work outside, Saroo insisted to go together with him despite Guddu's reluctance.  

VIRAL - Virus Outbreak Horror Drama

I have seen the poster of this movie in the "coming soon" section at the Cinema 21 website for a while. It came as a surprise to me when I saw a tweet on Saturday that the movie was already playing since the day before. As my wife and I had no plan to watch any movies on Sunday, we decided to see this one yesterday on a weekday. The movie did not get a lot of hype and I honestly don't think there was any trailer I saw previously, so I only know the very brief synopsis from the website. Without further ado, below is the background story before I continue with my views of the movie.

Brief Story Line

Emma (Sofia Black D'Elia - Project Almanac) was a good high school student, loves biology and just moved in new town and new environment. She seemed to have a crush on another student named Evan (Travis Tope - Independence Day: Resurgence) and was being teased by her best friend Gracie about it. Meanwhile there was a bit information in the background (news in television, or narration on the radio or video shared in internet) about some virus/parasites outbreak in China and seemed to be spreading around.

Journey To The West: The Demons Strike Back - Sequel to Great Comedy Interpretation of the Famous Chinese Literature

Few weeks ago, I saw in the various websites about this movie going to play in Indonesian cinemas sometime in February 2017. When I saw the very brief synopsis that it was a sequel to a Stephen Chow's movie, I immediately told my wife that we got to see this one. Lucky for us, the original movie was available through online streaming, so we could see it first before we watch the sequel (thanks to her who managed to find it). Well let us get on to the movie now.

Brief Story Line

The movie started with Monk Tang Seng (Kris Wu - xXx: Return of Xander Cage) who during his journey to the West had to endure the hardship and make some money by providing "show" in the circus which involved his three disciples who were actually demons that he captured earlier. The eldest was the mischievous rebellious Monkey King: Sun Wukong (Lin Gengxin - brief role in The Great Wall and God of War, Zhao Yun TV series). The second was the pig demon who adored and loved women, Zhu Bajie (played by Duo Wang in demon shape and Yang Yiwei in human shape). And lastly the water demon Sha Wujing (Mengke Bateer).

SPLIT - A Thriller of a Man with 23 Multiple Personalities

This movie had garnered a lot of attention in the past month or so and created a good vibe as well in Indonesia. My wife and I were also interested to see this movie and were even considering to watch it at midnight last Saturday. However, we decided to just wait till the movie premiered today, which happened to be the governor election day and a public holiday in Indonesia. After we cast our votes and had a family lunch celebrating the birthday of the youngest niece from my wife's side, we went to see the 2.25 PM show.

Brief Story Line

After a birthday party, Claire (Haley Lu Richardson - The Edge of Seventeen) with her best friend Marcia (Jessica Sula) and another girl named Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy - The Witch, Morgan etc) were getting ready to go home, but were kidnapped by an unknown man. All of them woke up in a closed location underground and were getting restless and worried. Claire who seemed to be the courageous one, wanted to fight the kidnapper but Casey did not approve to it.

The LEGO Batman Movie - The Other Side of Batman, Like You've Never Seen Before

I had another night of enjoying the premier of new movie yesterday with my wife. It was originally intended for us to see this movie today, but since I was able to finish my meeting earlier than I anticipated and my wife also finished her trying of new places quite fast, we decided to go for the latest show at 9.25 PM at Setiabudi XXI, the cinema nearest to our home. The really funny trailer to the movie was the main reason why we were really interested to see it as soon as we get the chance. Anyway, I won't be writing too much on this part and get on to the important part, i.e the story line. Be warned though that this time around, I am unable to write the brief story line without revealing some of the plots since that trailer only revealed very little information. So for those who prefer to be completely surprised, then you can skip this part and go straight to my views below.

Brief Story Line (warning possible spoiler)

Gotham city was under attack by Joker (Zach Galifianakis - Hangout trilogy, Keeping Up With The Joneses etc) with the help from his sidekick Harley Quinn (Jenny Slate - The Secret Life of Pets, Zootopia etc) and lots of Batman's enemies such as Two Face, Riddler, Scarecrow, Bane , Catwoman, Poison Ivy and Clayface. Joker was very sure that this time around he would be able to capture Gotham since he got a whole army with him plus a large amount of bomb that were put underground of the city. To Joker's surprise, Batman (Will Arnett - The Nut Job, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows etc) showed to the location of the bomb to fight Joker's army all by himself. As usual, Joker and team were able to escape from Batman as he had to choose to save the city. Joker was very disappointed though, since Batman never considered him as his greatest enemy and ran away with his heart broken.

John Wick: Chapter 2 - The Cool Retired Hitman Returns

This movie just premiered in Indonesian theaters yesterday and I did not realize it till my wife informed me. From earlier information I got, I thought it would only premier on Thursday (which I already thought was kind of odd since usually a new movie would premier on Wednesday). Anyway, I was very impressed with the original movie 2 or 3 years ago and was looking forward to see the sequel. Since my wife did not join her noon food tasting event, she could buy the tickets for us and still do some blogging. The movie's playing time were rather odd as there was no 7PM show. That's when I realized that the movie was having a duration of > 2 hours. So it should be very exciting to see. Well let's get on to the movie.

Brief Story Line

Movie started immediately with the heavy car chase, guns blazing, crazy stunt fighting scenes between John Wick (Keanu Reeves - The Matrix trilogy, Speed and many more) and Abram's goons (Peter Stormare - 22 Jump Street, Fargo etc) who was holding John's car. This was directly linked with the first John Wick movie where his puppy left by his late wife was killed and his car was stolen by Viggo, Abram's brother. John managed to get his car back though in rough condition.

Monster Trucks - A Story of Weird And Lovable Monster in A Truck

After playing in Indonesian theaters for quite some time, I finally got the chance to see this movie with my wife. We did try to see it on the 3rd day of playing (on Sunday, 29 January) but when we got to the cinema 1 hour before the scheduled time, the theater was already half filled and no more nice seats available. And later on we never got the chance to see it until yesterday. Even then it was also rather last minute. I got lucky when trying to get compliment from Samsung for the ticket voucher of CGV Blitz last week and the final voucher validity happened to be on 7 February. Fortunately there was still the 9.10 PM schedule for the movie, otherwise we would be seeing other newer movies which would have longer playing time. Ok, let's get on to the movie.

Brief Story Line

During a drilling activity at a large oil reserve location, the workers found some huge amount of water underground which led to the assumption that there might be an ecosystem down there. The major oil company's leader Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe - St. Elmo's Fire, The West Wing TV series etc) did not want to risk the location become preserved which would endanger the large investment his company had made. He convinced their lead scientist Dr. Jim Dowd  (Thomas Lennon - The Odd Couple TV series etc) to agree to his logic and to continue the drilling. When the drilling was forced, a high pressure occurred and resulted to some explosions at the location where some kind of monsters came out of the land. Reece tried to avoid any publication, so he enlisted the help from Burke (Holt McCallany - Jack Reacher: Never Go Back etc) to capture and get rid of these monsters. They managed to capture 2 but 1 escaped and hid in a damaged car that was going to be towed to a junk yard. 

Kungfu Yoga - Treasure Hunt Jackie Chan style

After our weekend staycation, my wife and I decided to watch a movie which had been playing in theaters for more than a week. Since both of us are big fans of Jackie Chan, we would not want to miss the chance of seeing his latest movie. So even though we were tired from our 1.5 hour trip from the hotel we stayed the night before, we were still excited to see this film. We watched it in the nearest cinema to our home at 7.15 PM. The movie only played in 1 cinema chain in Indonesia, so the options are not too many either. To our surprise, the cinema was still quite packed for a movie that has been playing for over a week. Anyway, we shall go on to the story now.

Brief Story Line

Professor Jack (Jackie Chan whom need no introduction) was an expert in ancient history of China and also India. Jack had 2 assistants who helped him in his lectures. They were Xiao Quang (Zhang Yixing - member of EXO group band) and Nuomin (Miya Muqi - Monkey King 2). Jack also working in the Terracota museum with a sophisticated equipment to analyze ancient artifacts. This was the reason why later, a professor from India named Ashmita (Disha Patani) asked Jack's help to research on Magadha's lost treasure using an old map. They were able to identify that the most probable treasure location.

Sleepless - Unusual Story of Corrupt Police in Vegas

After more than 1 week of not able to see a new movie in theater due to combination of busy work days and other activities plus the Chinese New Year holiday, I finally got the chance to see a new movie on Friday. My wife surprisingly was free on that day so she was able to buy the tickets for me. She had some doubts of which movie that we wanted to see as there were 3 movies which we have not seen, but we decided to see this one which just premiered on Friday. I never saw the trailer to it before, but according to the category, it was an action thriller movie starting Jamie Foxx who had been nominated for numerous awards and even won Oscar one time. Should be interesting, right?. Btw, I am also writing this review while having my usual weekend staycation with my wife, in a hotel in Karawang. So here is how the story goes.

Brief Story Line

The movie opened with scene of a high speed car chase between 2 men wearing masks and two other guys who were delivering cocaine in large volume. After some heavy shootout, and police siren started to be heard, the robbers managed to escape with 25 kg of cocaine. These robbers later on were revealed to be corrupt police in Las Vegas Police Department (LVPD), i.e. Vincent Downs (Jamie Foxx - Collateral, Ray etc) and his partner Sean Cass (T.I - Ant-man, Roots etc).