The LEGO Movie

The Lego Movie. That's the name of the movie. Simple and direct. It's a Lego movie. Of course it's animated. It stars the voice of Christ Pratt, Will Ferrell, Elizabeth Banks, Will Arnett, Nick Offerman, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman and many more.
The movie starts with the evil Lord Business stealing the 'Kragle' from the wizard Vitruvius. It is said that the 'Kragle' will destroy their world. Vitruvius warns Lord Business of a prophecy that the 'Special' will find the Piece of Resistance and stop Lord Business.
8 and a half years later, we are introduced to Emmet Brickowski, an ordinary construction worker. He starts his day going through instructions; waking up, saying 'hi' to the neighbours, watch tv (Where's My Pants?), and yet talk to his plant which was supposed to be having fun with his loved ones. As he starts his day at work, the whole working community sings the same song..."everything is awesome!". He even said that he can sing it all day, which was what really happen about 5 hours later.
After work, Emmet wants to join the guys of the construction crew for some drinks but he gets ignored. He saw that there was someone (Wyldstyle) snooping around the construction site. He gets mesmerized with Wyldstyle's beauty and trip into a hole and gets visions. He awakens in a interrogation room with Bad Cop / Good Cop (split personality cop). Since it's Lego, the cop's head will spin to reveal whether he's bad cop or good cop. Emmet gets interrogated and found out that President Business is planning to destroy the world with the 'Kragle'. Wyldstyle enters and rescues Emmet. As they escape, Wyldstyle is able to build a getaway vehicle. Hence, she is one of the 'Master Builders'. Master Builders are those that can build anything without instructions, unlike Emmet. It is revealed that Lord Business has a vault of items that are alien to the Lego people. However, it's actually human items, such as plaster, diskette, coin, etc...The Kragle, you can see is actually smudged for 'Krazy Glue'. Lord Business uses it on Bad Cop's parents. Sticking them to their Lego pieces. And erases Good Cop, using a solvent and wiping Good Cop's face off.
Wyldstyle brings Emmet to meet Vitruvius. Vitruvius reveals the prophecy. There's a scene where they enter Emmet's mind and there was nothing. They realise Emmet has no creativity and not a Master Builder. However, they are ambushed by Bad Cop. As they escape, they are assisted by Batman, who's Wyldstyle's boyfriend.
They reach Cloud Cuckooland and gather the other Master Builders. As they meet, Emmet reveals he is not the 'Special'. And once again, gets ambushed by Bad Cop using a tracker on Emmet's feet. Cloud Cuckooland is destroyed with them narrowly escaping into the sea. However, they took damage and the ship exploded. They are saved by using Emmet's double bunker sofa. Something so simple and ignored by the cops. They are saved by Metal Beard (pirate). They regroup and realised that simplicity is the key. By following instructions, they would be regarded as just another Lego piece.
They plan the attack. Successfully enter Lord Business' building and just about to attached the Piece of Resistance, when the plan fail and they get caught. Vitruvius attempts to fight Lord Business but gets beheaded by a coin thrown by Lord Business. Vitruvius reveals that the prophecy was actually made up by him. Emmet is disappointed. Lord Business throws the Piece of Resistance to the edge of the universe (just at the bottom of his building). Lord Business activates the self-destruct button and unleashes the Kragle (Lord Business following the scene from Clash of the Titans, "Unleash the Kraken").
Vitruvius' ghost comes to Emmet and tell him that he still can save the world because it is through believing in himself that he can do wonders..."it's from a cat poster".
Emmet sacrifices himself and plunge into the edge of the universe and he is strapped to the battery that powers the self-destruct. The other Master Builders are freed while fighting off Lord Business. Lego people started to defend themselves by building creative weapons.
For Emmet, he enters the human world. He is just a Lego piece like what we see. Still, there's life in him. Of course he can't really move. If the Lego piece moves in real life, it would be freaky, yet, could be a new technology. Emmet sees that a boy is playing with the Lego pieces. And 'The Man Upstairs' is actually his father. The father tells his son that the Lego pieces are meant to be just the way they are. The son was being creative to build other things from the normal instructions of building Lego. The father ignores and wants everything to be as it is, just like Lord Business. So, the father starts to put everything back to its place and gluing them. In the Lego world, micro managers (which is actually human hands in real life) are putting everything back and gluing them down. Emmet, realising he needs to stop this, wills himself off the table and the little boy picks him up and puts him back on the Lego pieces (transporting him back to Lego world). As he enters the Lego world, he started to see visions of building structures. He started to build.
Emmet confronts Lord Business and tells him to end this. In mirrors the real life of the son talking to his father.
Emmet (son) convinces Lord Business. Lord Business (father) starts to realise that Lego should be played creatively. Lord Business uses the Piece of Resistance and plugs the Kragle. Lord Business unfreezes the Lego people (father uses solvent to remove the glue).
As the Lego world celebrates, so does the father and son playing with the Lego pieces. However, the father said, perhaps there can be another person joining them to play Lego...his sister!. In the Lego world, an alien race, Duplo is beemed down and tells the Lego people that they are here to invade them. So you can imagine a little baby sister coming to play with her big brother...disaster!
The movie was fun to watch. The graphics is great by using everything made of Lego. Even when Emmet was showering, the water were Lego pieces changing from blue (water) to white (bubbles). The movie has references to other movies and characters, such as "Unleash the Kragle", super heroes such as Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, etc...
A movie worth watching.

Here's the trailer:

Battle: Los Angeles

Battle: Los Angeles or World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles or Battle: LA (Battle: LA seems more nicer to say), is a sci-fi war film. In most sci-fi war film, the army have to be involved and this film follows the U.S. Marines.

Marine Staff Sergeant, Michael Nantz (played by Aaron Eckhart), just got his retirement approved, just to find that the aliens are invading. Hence, he joins in to fend of the aliens with the platoon. Throughout the war, they encounter different scenarios; finding people stuck and rescuing them, getting caught in the hospital, fighting on land in different landmarks of LA, and finding out the alien’s weakness; the supposedly area of the heart. There was a friction between Staff Sergeant and the platoon because one of the platoon member's brother passed away under Staff Sergeant's command and they blame him. However, as the platoon leader blow up himself to save the platoon and survivors, Staff Sergeant is forced to lead the platoon. He showed great dedication and told them that he did not forget everyone that died under his command, showing that he is blaming himself more than anyone else. The platoon soon respect him and follow his lead. As they are rescued by a helicopter, hovering over an area which was seen as having a weird blackout area, Staff Sergeant sacrificed his freedom home in order to recon the area. The platoon showed their loyalty by following Staff Sergeant to recon the area; the alien's command control. As they recon the area, they mark the area and have to fight off the aliens while air strike is on the way.

Overall, the movie wasn't that gross, as other alien films where you see bodies being ripped apart or alien’s head gets blown off. Although there are those occasions but it wasn't too much. In the movie as well talks about Sgt. Michael ability to lead the platoon because he wasn't the leader at first. There are other stars in the movie, Bridget Moynahan, Ne-Yo, Ramon Rodriguez (from Transformers 2) and Michelle Rodriguez. The film was good, but at times predictable as to what was going to happened next. It combines fighting the aliens and the story of the platoon growing as a platoon.

The ending? It was alright for an ending. Most films would show how the aliens were destroyed or leaving planet, but this one had a continuation. After finding the alien’s weakness, the platoon still want to fight on. I guess, once a Marine, always a Marine (even if you’re retired).

Transformers 3 : Dark of the Moon

Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon. It has been heavily promoted, change of stars, new stars, new cars, all action into the third installment of the Transformers franchise.

This movie starts from the Apollo 11 mission that was intended not to put the first man on the moon but to investigate an unknown crash on the moon. Although they say the name ‘Neil’, but it doesn’t imply it is Neil Armstrong. Even so, ‘first man on the moon’, it’s obvious. So, the astronauts went to the moon, found a wrack craft, take some samples home and keep it a secret til the day they die.

Moving to the present day, where Sam has a new girlfriend, Carly, and in dire need to find a job. How come he doesn’t get a job after saving the world? Because none of it never happened. His parents, however, is rich. The girlfriend works for a car collector and racer. The Autobots find Sentinel Prime, former Autobot leader. Anyways, to sum it all up, Sam stumbles upon Decepticons plans to use the Pillars from the space craft, Arc, to transport Decepticons to Earth. Sentinel Prime betrays Autobots because his intention is to preserve Cybertronian race. Carly’s boss is the human liaison for Decepticons. Conflict happens between Autobots and humans, Autobots get exiled from Earth. Somehow, they return, fight the Decepticons and win the war.

The movie packs a lot of action every now and then. However, I can understand why some Transformers fan didn’t like the movie. To me, one let down was when Optimus Prime uses armours from the trailer and it only last few seconds; after putting them on, slash some Decepticons and takes of the armour and continue killing some more Decepticons. The armour looks cool but it only lasted few seconds? This happens twice.

Besides that, was the battle at the end, where Optimus uses his full armour, including flight suit but got entangled in some construction wires. It was cool to watch and, yes, it lasted awhile. While his team gets trashed by Decepticons, he is still hanging on the construction wires. Until the last minute when Bumblebee was almost killed that Optimus comes to the rescue and kills most of the Decepticons.

The new squeeze, Carly. Indirectly, she was the one that wins the war. How? By being smart and telling the soldiers what to do and by telling Megatron that he should be ruler, not Sentinel. Kind of like a small little conscience to everyone.

For me, the whole movie is great in terms of being an action packed movie. However, story line wise, was kind of more action-ish. One point being, ‘Are there anymore secrets that Decepticons have that could possibly take over the world?’

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes

This movie’s title speaks for itself; Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes. The whole movie revolves around how the apes rise above all else to make ‘Evolution to Revolution’. Hence, the tagline.

The movie begins with Will Rodman (James Franco), a scientist finding a cure to Alzhemier for his dad, uses apes as the test subjects through the invention of ALZ-112. When an ape goes loose and create havoc, his research is shut down. However, the ape that created havoc was only doing it to protect her baby. The baby is smuggled out of the lab and looked after by Will. He named the ape Caesar after the dad was quoting from the literature of Caesar. After years, he learned that the virus introduce to the mummy ape is inherited by the baby making the ape intelligent. This prompts the doctor to try it on his dad. And it works…at first. The human antibodies reacts to protect the body (which is a good thing because at least we know our antibodies work). However, for the apes, they gain intelligence. With that, they aren’t pets anymore.

Then they went on a rampage to reach the woods but is stopped by humans. The whole rise of the apes movie revolves on the beginning of the rise. It ends with a possible sequel. One thing that was cool, the ape can talk, only Caesar though. The first words ‘NO!’. All they wanted was to return home; ‘Caesar is home’ (another word mentioned by Caesar).

Upon reading through websites,this movie was intended to be an alternative to the previous movie. To me, it’s kind of like the previous movie where the astronaut return to a different world. So, imagine this new movie as another alternative earth.

Overall, the movie displays a good balance that animals are not violent for the wrong reason, just based on instincts and some human touch to it. For human, a balance of not all are violent too. The movie is interesting to watch but it is a 50-50 decision if I want to watch for a second time because some movies is just suited to watched once.

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