Saturday, December 18, 2004

Catching up on movies

I've been catching up on the movies which were released while I was away in Japan.

First, caught National Treasure at Suntec Eng Wah cinemas. I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: Digital Cinema is really great! As I sat there watching NT, I'm just awed by the sharpness of the picture, the cleaness of the image (no scratches or funny wriggly lines) and how vibrant the colours were. Even the subtitles are sharp! I don't know how anyone can choose to watch normal film over the digital versions. For those of you who aren't too sure what Digital Cinema is all about, you can take a look at this link: http://www.dlp.com/dlp_cinema/dlp_cinema_digital_cinema_101.asp

Back to National Treasure. Before I say anything else, I have to say, I enjoyed the film. It was nice to watch a treasure-hunter-type show pretty much in the same spirit as the Indiana Jones series. There was sufficient action and the special effects were ok. However, I find it a little hard to accept Nicholas Cage as an Indiano Jones type character. The downside of this film is that it's pretty obvious that it's a Da Vinci Code rip-off. It's trying to capitalize on the current craze over the Da Vinci Code book. There are references to conspiracies, cover-ups, and of course ancient groups of people like the Knights of the Templar and the Free Masons. It's all loosely tied together with a flimsy storyline, but like I said, it was all a pretty good package. Watch this film.

The other film I'd watched was Ocean's Twelve. I had high expectations for this film as I had thoroughly enjoyed Ocean's Eleven. With the same cast and the same director, I'd thought things would probably be at a similar standard to the first movie. On the upside, watching the cast interact was fun. This big cast really do have chemistry working together. You can see that they are having fun throughout the movie. I was however, disappointed with the story. It didn't have the slick heist in the first movie and the twist at the end of this one was really quite contrived. Kinda like an easy way out to tie everything together at the end. There wasn't really any major heist through this movie too. Just a few small ones which aren't really impressive to watch. Don't watch this film if you expect a smart storyline. Watch it to enjoy the chemistry of the cast.

That's it for now. I'm looking forward to catching Blade Trinity, Alexander and The Phantom of the Opera over the next few days.

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