Saturday, March 28, 2009

KnoWing

The story begins with a little girl, Lucinda staring at the sun in the elementary school where she engaged in. It was 1959. She could hear people whispering to her all the time, making her sick but the mysterious whispering just could get lost. The scene then switched to her teacher, Ms Taylor, asking the students to draw the future they expected and the drawings would be put into a time capsule. The time capsule would be buried into the ground and shall be dug out again after 50 years later so that the next generation can appreciate it. However, Lucinda just wrote a series of numbers. Ms Taylor discovered the missing of Lucinda after the opening day. Ms Taylor eventually found Lucinda in a small room of the gym and all her fingers were bleeding badly. Again, she carved a series number at the door of the room…

In present, John (Nicolas Cage), an astrophysicist is preparing hotdog for his son but his son, Caleb then told him that he wants to be vegetarian. Caleb is actually wearing a hearing aid since he can’t hear properly. His son engages in the same elementary school. The scene then switches to the time capsule in the opening day after 50 years. The children are given an envelope containing the drawing of the last generation. Caleb accidentally took Lucinda’s. After reading the numbers, he starts to hear the mysterious whispering as well. At the same time, he notices that a strange guy staring at him from him who vanishes quickly. Caleb brings the envelope with the series of number back to his house. John becomes curious about the numbers after a coincidence. After dismissing the numbers, he finds out that the numbers are actually prophecies from Lucinda, accurately predicting the date, location and the total fatalities of the major disasters happened over the past 50 years. There are three disasters that predicted in the prophecies but they haven’t happen yet. They are all going to happen soon.

On his way to fetch Caleb, John is stuck in a serious traffic jam. When he makes his enquiries to the officer, a plane heads towards them and crashes in front of them, killing 81 people just the same with the total fatalities predicted in the prophecies. Caleb then has a vision of future global catastrophe from a silent man. John, who deadly wants to protect his son from the strange man, tries to approach Diana who is the daughter of Lucinda. For your information, Lucinda passed away a few years ago, making Diana the only one to get the answer. However, Diana treats John as mentally disturbed. John believes that there is reason that Caleb gets the prophecies. He then witnesses the second disaster which is the train crash in the subway. This disaster has made Diana to trust John. Abby, daughter of Diana confesses that she can hear the whispering as well. The doubt worsens.

Diana brings John together with their children to Lucinda’s place. After listening to Diana that Abby writes the numbers and letters backwards sometimes, John discovers that the last two numbers in the prophecies are actually “EE”. In the small cabin, they find a drawing of Ezekiel's Wheel. They find out the other carving in the bed of Lucinda writing the “EE” in full: everyone else. Outside the cabin, Abby and Caleb encounter the silent man again. There are three more this time but immediate action of Caleb manages to scare them away. John finally figures out that the last disaster is actually a massive solar flare that will demolish the life on Earth and there is no escape from it. John breaks in the elementary school to get the craving on the door of the closet as he wants to get the remaining of the prophecies. Diana doesn’t believe in John and bring the children to a cave that she believes that they are able to survive by hiding in it. However, the silent men hijack her car halfway. Diana chases after the men which eventually lead to her dead in a car accident. Back to John, he finds out that the only place that they can escape from the disaster is at Lucinda’s cabin.

Upon reaching the cabin, he follows the trace left by the silent men, bringing him to a spacious ground where he discovers that the children are safe. Caleb tells John that the silent men are actually trying to save them. They have already gotten a permission to bring the children to a safer planet. John is completely stunt when he sees a gigantic and artistic UFO appears in front of him and the silent men transform into aliens. They refuse to take John since he is not the chosen one. After saying goodbye to each other, Abby and Caleb leave in the UFO. The other UFOs are witnessed when the one taking Abby and Caleb passes the atmosphere. To my surprise, there are more chosen people. Afterwards, the massive solar flare strikes Earth and it washes off all the living creatures on Earth including John.

Despite the massive destruction, this is not the end yet. The UFO put Abby and Caleb in a weird and lifeless planet. The movie ends with both Abby and Caleb running towards a huge tree.

I guess this is the new beginning. In Bible, God creates Adam and Eve and they are the beginning of human beings. After all, I like the movie since it manages to put me into doubt and mystery and the ending is not what have I predicted. If you are not able to predict the ending, the movie can then be considered a success, I guess.

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Sorry everybody. I was overloaded with my documentary last week. However, you have no worry because I am back!!!

I went to Chang Win’s room after cutting my hair in one utama in the evening.

“Do you want to watch movie tonight? DRAGONBALL!” he asked me.

Even though I didn’t really interested in that movie, but I still agreed to join them (Shun Jing & little ghost). It’s time for me to relax after so much hard work and sleepless night. To me, the movie should something hilarious. I need laughter since it is generally known as the best cure.

We bought the 8.45pm session. Our seats were at the third row but I didn’t really care because I didn’t want to spoil their mood.

The story started with the main character, Goku practicing kungfu with his grandpa, Gohan. It’s a very simple and normal start. Nothing special.

Next, the acting skills of the actors and actress really sucked. They were just fooling around rather than acting. Their facial expression didn’t match with their dialogue. They looked pretty fake in acting. Stephen Chow was the only actor who was good at acting in that movie.

The movie was full of special effects. You might think that it’s better to have a lot of effect since the movie was supernatural in nature. However, too much cooks spoil the soup. Special effect should function leaving a strong impact in audience. In fact, too much computer effects made the movie looked so fake and untrue. Frankly speaking, I couldn’t feel anything.

Dragonball should be an action movie but in fact it didn’t. the fighting scenes were quite blurred and we hardly felt the tense of the atmosphere. The killing of the villain was quite easy. They only hit each other with their strongest ability and it ended in a few second. (Of course it was Goku killed the villain.) besides, the transform of Goku into a gorilla was quite blurred.

The plot of the movie also quite lousy. It didn’t leave any suspense in us to attract our direction. It was so direct and predictable. As an audience, I expected for suspense and surprise but I didn’t get any of them. The plot didn’t interested me a lot. I only realized the climax after I discussed with my friends after the movie. It was so unnoticeable.

Some of the computer effects were lousy as well. If you know dragonball, Goku can transform into a gorilla. He did transform but only a small one just like how power ranger transform. The “shen long” or dragon was also a small one. Instead of dragon, serpent was a better name for that. I was so disappointed with it. I expected a very hugh one , shining in the light.

As a whole, the movie was extremely lousy. I am not going to another edition if it comes out dragonball two!!