Trance

Watched: September 27, 2013
Rating: 4.3
Duration: 1:41:49
Genre: Thriller / Suspense

“A hypnosis movie that can hypnotize the viewer”

Movies with multiple timelines and dimensions tend to confuse the audience, and they felt that they have to back out a little to understand what’s going on. When we watched Vanilla Sky, we had the same reaction of confusion, but at the end it was satisfactory to know that the confusion paid off with a nice, subtle, unrevealing ending

Back to Trance.

The CONS

The movie starts strong. We get hooked almost instantly. We do not have certain fondness for art and paintings, but with Trance our interest soared. James McAvoy is narrating onset. This can be fun. Mysterious perhaps. We start imagining how it sounds like it’s the movie Wanted, with McAvoy narrating and all. The interest heightens; we know we are glued to the screen. We cannot miss a scene, even if we feel like going to the john, we have to stay put and watch what’s going on
Then we learn where the movie’s heading. The story starts unfolding, and we realize…. Wait a sec, that’s it??? That’s the conflict? You want us to buy into that problem? He forgot where he placed it? We do that too, we do that every day with the remote. We can’t help but rationalize: there is no actual conflict in this film. It’s like everything is imagined, and it might as well be

The PROS

You might think we’re contradicting ourselves. First, the CON that we mentioned is the conflict presented in the film, the driving force in the plot. We do not buy in to that. We are not convinced. However, the movie, in its entirety, is awesome. The shifting from one timeline to another is mind-boggling but fun. The movie is highly entertaining. Every scene is a puzzle, we have to stick around

When the story unfolds, we get excited, we anticipate what’s gonna happen, and we expect that we are wrong. So many things going on, reality and hypnosis are presented in the same platform, so the audience is given the freedom to decide and choose. Because of the film is multilayered we are forced to make a guess, forced to take a shot of knowing the unknown. The scenes toward the latter part came as a surprise, and we feel we have to engage in a surprise, and make our own guess on what is real, and what’s the truth. Of course we are wrong, and when the truth is revealed on the last part, we feel cheated, we feel we are misdirected, but still, we are satisfied. It is like we are put in a trance, and we just go along with it

VERDICT. 4.3 rating. It’s this one movie where you would feel that owning an iPad is the coolest thing

Riddick

watched: September 17, 2013

rating: 2.8

duration: 1:59:57

genre: Action / Thriller

image courtesy of collider.com

“you keep what you kill… but if time is killed for wasted movie, afraid you can’t keep that”

Vin Diesel is the perfect cast for Riddick. Hell, I think the Riddick franchise was created for the sole purpose of giving the man a role to portray, where he could be mean-looking, ruthless, and a real badass. On the last scene of Chronicles of Riddick, when he sat on the throne, I knew there would be a third installment, and I knew it would be something big. But I guess the production peeps were on regression, and got stuck to the Pitch Black ensemble.

Back to Riddick.

The CONS

There are great movies. There are good movies. Bad movies. Baaaad movies. Horrifyingly baaaad movies that are created to insult the intelligence of a small portion of moviegoers. And then, there are movies that have no reason to exist. Riddick is one of those movies. Riddick is highly entertaining, but unlike Chronicles and the Pitch Black, it didn’t retain the legacy and tradition of the true Riddick adventure. On the crucial moments of the movie, Riddick managed to escape by getting extra help from outside forces. This is not the Riddick I know, he shouldn’t be reliant for him to survive, as it makes him weak. The movie appeared to be just a prelude to the actual third movie, like a transition phase. Because “nothing” actually happened in Riddick. He got stuck on some planet and got out on a ship, that’s it. Maybe he’ll fly off to Furya, Helio, or better, bump into a Star Trek Enterprise ship, we’ll never know, until we see the equivalent movie to the third act of the Riddick saga

The PROS

I did say that Riddick is highly entertaining. It may have no reason to exist, but since it’s there, might as well enjoy it. Anyone would enjoy the impressive visuals. Since the setting is an unknown exosolar planet, filmmakers had to be creative and come up with alien life forms and weird looking animals. The fight scenes are mediocre, but I particularly liked the one with Santana on it, with enough gore for the audience to pick up from possible boredom

One more pro – Riddick’s awesome sunglasses. I know they’re rare and may be auctioned on eBay for gazillion dollars, but I would wish to have a pair, even if I have to shave my head to complement the look

VERDICT: 2.8 out of 5. Watch it when you’ve got free iMax tickets. If you have to pay, well, better just save those for badass Riddick sunglasses