The Last Air Bender (2010; Genre: adventure, family, fantasy) Rating : 1 / 5 "What the. . ."

Studio                       Nickelodeon Movies


Distributed by          Paramount Pictures


A film by                   M. Night Shyamalan


Release date            30 June 2010  


Running time            103 minutes


Language                  English


Starring                     Noah Ringer
                                  Nicola Peltz
                                                                                               Jackson Rathbone
                                                                                                  Dev Patel

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Quick Synopsis
Four nations "Air, Water, Fire and Earth" is living in peace until Fire nation started the war. It is the job of Avatar to keep the nations in balance and peace, however, when the Avatar is needed, he disappeared. 100 years later the Avatar "Aang" is found by Katara and his brother. Aang soon discovers that he has been trapped under water for a century. Realizing that it is he is responsible in keeping the world balance again, Aang has to learn how to bend the three other elements "Water, Fire and Earth".

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Review

It is sad just looking at the cast but it get even sadder watching the whole movie ruined by incompetent blunt action sequences with a big failure character execution and bad casting. For anime fans, this is the biggest disappointment of anime adaptation this year. Mr Night just getting worse since the master piece of Sixth Sense. Unbelievably, the cast just can't even pronounce the main character right. It should be "Aang" not "Oong". 

The special effects is okay but the action shooting technic is a big throw down for the movie. Moreover, the storyline is rushed thus neglecting the most important part of the anime which is the character building of Aang that is developing it from ordinary child to an avatar. Well, come on Mr. Night. This is what the fans is looking for, the great story of the Aang adventure, not the special effects. 

On the other side, the casting seems like a eeny, mini, miney, moo picking. From the picture at the left side, you can see what's wrong with it. Personally, I quite agree with the Aang casting but the rest of the character is just super dumb. Especially the fire bender cast, Prince Zuko should be tough with a deep voice character but turns out in the movie, Zuko just another teen with soft voice which like to nag around. Well, I guess its the story line fault "lacks of character building" which makes Zuko looks like a pampered prince. 

Here is the video of fans voicing their disappointment :

On the bright side, you have to give a praise for this Noah Ringer acting as Aang. Noah did a good job for his first acting career rather than the other casts. If I may say, its the lack of character building which makes Noah executed the Aang character badly. If Mr. Night just put a bit more attention on Aang character development, the movie might turns out to be a bit better. 

Overall, there is a little chance for the sequel of this movie. 

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Trailer

Killers (2010; Genre: Action, Comedy, Romantic) Rating: 1 / 5 "Neither fun nor action""

Studio Katalyst Films

Distributed by Lionsgate

Directed by Robert Luketic

Release date 4 June 2010

Running time 100 minutes

Language English

Starring Katherine Heigl

Ashton Kutcher

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Brief Synopsis

Jen Kornfeldt (Katherince Heigl) has just recently broken up with his boyfriend and decides to go for a vacation with her parents. On the way to her hotel room, she meets a guy named Spencer (Ashton Kutcher). Then it cuts to the scene where Spencer as a spy is completing his tasks but before he managed to ask Jen out for dinner. Afterwards, both end up having a good holiday together and start to build up their relationships without Jen noticing that her soon coming husband in three years time is actually a spy that work with "bla bla bla" and given a license to "bla bla".

Three years later, Spencer is under a hit list with bounty of $20 million and afterwards the secret slowly evolving. Spencer will then try to run away and deal with those bounty hunter involving Jen which later in the scene announced that she is going to have a baby. Spencer regrettably keep his previous Job before marriage a secret and the drama emerge with happy ending.

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Review

The great premise of the movie if executed well in high level of cinematic art by getting rid of the comedy element and starts moving towards hardcore cinematic art could have been a fantastic movie. However, fact did not say so. Killers is neither funny nor intense with the drama is not fully developed, action is flat and romantic is dull. Killers is just like another TV movie to waste your time.

Getting inside the movie,

Killers has a 45 minutes of nonsense, boring and flat character building. Fortunately, for the audience the action starts to emerge after a long 45 minutes waiting. Yet, it doesn't help in rebuilding the audiences interest about the movie as Killers story line flows flat to the end of it. Moreover, the characters of the movie is not very well executed. It might seems that Kutcher is better staying in drama genre rather than in action genre.

Comparing previous movie with the similar plot "Knight and Day" and "Date Night", Killers is far below than any of those two movies. Perhaps, if Killers was out first before any similar plot movie like K n D and Date Night, it could have received some interest in the audience. However, with all those similar plot flooding the cinema from beginning of 2010, I guess audiences has quite fed up with similar story line.

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Movie trailer

24 Series Season 8 (2010; Genre: Action, Drama, Serial) Rating : 1 / 5 "Unbelievably disappointing "

24 Finale season is a big disappointment. Not only it lack of surprise element, but also a whole boring season. It seems, the writer has run out of idea by twisting the plot, story line and the character so many times in this season 8 of 24 episode.

What's GOOD?

Charles Logan (Gregory Itzin)

First appearance on Season 4, this character continue to strives to Season 8. Surely he makes the story interesting with his bad-ass and stubborn character.

His appearance on the last few episode of season finale definitely has given the blunt season 8 a slight return after boring 20+ hours episodes.

Chloe_O Brian ( Mary Lynn Rajskub)

This brilliant character has been staying low in season 7 and make a brilliant return on the season 8 as one of the main character rather than in previous season, Chloe was written of for several episodes.

As usual, Chloe is the complement of the mission. Without her, Jack won't be able to finish even a single mission. As can be said, she is the best Jack's sidekick.

Omar Hassan (Anil Kapoor)
The first appearance of this character is not bad at all. Not only, it provide more elements but also a greater potential of conflicts that results in an exciting story line in some of the episodes.

Well, unfortunately, the live of the character is short. The great adventure of this character has to end at episode 16. The interesting new character Omar Hassan fooled me several times thinking that the season 8 is going to get interesting and exciting.

What's BAD?

Renee Walker (Annie Wersching)

The first appearance of Renee on season 7 is spot on. Purely great and exciting character that always do things according to procedure and rules.Yet, Renee made a poor return. This character is not interesting anymore but instead frustrating. A depressed and mentally not well Renee is brought in at episode 4 to help CTU to retrieve the material and then shot dead by a sniper at episode 17.Renee has done nothing good to the story line besides making Season 8 as frustrating as the character.

Dana Walsh (Katee Sackhoff)
Dana Walsh is the biggest disappointment here. The nature of the character is twisted several times. First few episode, Dana is a good agent that is about to get married. Afterwards, in the middle of the season, Dana changes to a character that going to get a revenge and finally at the end, it turns out that Dana is a mole planted on CTU. ????

I can only say, Dana is terribly developed. It just like eating sugar, salt and lemon, then, being asked what do it taste like.

Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland)

Without Jack, 24 is not 24 anymore. This character has been appearing from the first to the finale season. It seems like 24 is born in this character.

Unfortunately, Jack is not the members of CTU in season 8.

Jack get himself into a trouble despite his early appearance on the first episode clearly stated that he will not land his feet or even touch anything about CTU again a.k.a retired.

However, season 8 seems to be running out of idea with Jack constant decision to go away from CTU but the faith eventually run him back to CTU again. Jack appearance in season 8 is not what I have expected on season 6. Perhaps, the twisting plot and lack of near misses scene has made this five stars character boring and predictable.

Overall

Season 7 is bad and Season 8 is worse. Season 7 at least still appealing to me but season 8 has purely make me disappointed and angry that I have wasted my precious 24 hours watching it.