Just Notes: 50,000th viewership and it's thanks to Jeremy Renner :)

wow.. i never knew that you guys like him so much. yar, the viewership has been slowing, trickling, just shy of the 50k mark that it sort of puzzled me a bit. but then, after i posted Hansel and Gretel review, the statics seem to jump start.

you love Jeremy Renner, don't you all? hahaha, i like him too. even though he's probably not coming back as Hawkeye in the Avengers sequel. what a shame but i think he's a good actor and he's moving to greener pastures if he doesn't get to reprise the role.

so.. as a small token of thanks, i'll do a review of the Bourne Legacy next, ok.



see, like i said, he's a dead ringer somewhat to Mr Craig :)

Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters - blerghh!!

the Poster:
 

the Plot:
Abandoned by their father deep in a forest, young Hansel (Cedric Eich) and Gretel (Alea Sophia Boudodimos) enter a gingerbread house and are nabbed by the old witch who resides in it. The witch forces Hansel to continuously eat candy while making Gretel prepare the oven, but the siblings outsmart her and shove her into the fire. Throughout the fifteen years after the incident, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) become famed bounty hunters dedicated to mercilessly eradicating witches. Their work is relatively easy because, for an unknown reason, they are immune to spells and curses. Hansel, however, is diabetic as a result of his ordeal and needs to take a regular shot of insulin every few hours.

One day, in the town of Augsburg, Hansel and Gretel prevent Sheriff Berringer (Peter Stormare) from executing Mina (Pihla Viitala), a young woman accused of witchcraft. Mayor Englemann (Rainer Bock) has hired the siblings to find and rescue several children abducted by witches. Berringer hires trackers for the same mission, hoping to regain the respect of the townspeople.

However, all but one of the party are killed that night by the powerful grand witch Muriel (Famke Janssen), who sends the surviving member back to the town tavern to explode as a warning to the locals.

Hansel and Gretel, with the help of the Mayor's deputy Jackson (Bjørn Sundquist), capture Horned witch and interrogate her. They discover that the witches are preparing for the ritual of Blood Moon, which requires sacrificing six boys and six girls, each born on a separate month.

No sooner than after they found out that the witches are planning to abduct an April-born girl, Muriel with the help of a Redhead witch, and a troll, Edward (Derek Mears), attack the town and abduct the targeted girl. Gretel is knocked unconscious but is brought to safety by a teenager named Ben (Thomas Mann), their local fanboy and an aspiring witch hunter; Jackson is forced to kill himself with his shotgun while being controlled by Muriel. Hansel grabs a fleeing witch by her broomstick, but becomes lost in the forest.


The next morning, Hansel is found by Mina, who takes him to a spring to heal his wounds. Meanwhile, Gretel enters the forest to search for him, but she is assaulted by Berringer and his henchmen for luring the witches to their town. She is rescued when Edward intervenes to kill the men and mend her injuries.
When Gretel asks why he saved her, Edward answers that trolls serve witches and walks away.

Hansel and Gretel reunite at an abandoned cabin, which they discover is not only their childhood home, but also a witch's lair. Muriel appears in front of them, telling them the truth of their past. She reveals that Hansel and Gretel's mother was a grand white witch named Adrianna (Kathrin Kühnel), married to a farmer.

On the night of the Blood Moon, the heart of a white witch is needed to create a potion that makes witches impervious to fire. As Adrianna was too powerful, Muriel targeted Gretel, who was revealed to be a white witch herself. Muriel spread a rumor across the village about Adrianna. To keep the siblings away from the mob of villagers, their father left them in the forest before he was hanged, while their mother was burned at the stake. Following this revelation, the siblings battle Muriel before she stabs Hansel and abducts Gretel for the ceremony.

Hansel wakes up to the sight of Mina, who reveals herself to be a white witch. After Mina uses a spell to bless the siblings' arsenal, Hansel, Mina, and Ben head to disrupt the Blood Moon Sabbath. Whilst Mina mows down dozens of witches with a Gatling gun, Hansel squares off against Muriel's minions and frees the children, while Edward defies Muriel's orders and releases Gretel before Muriel throws him off the cliff. Muriel attempts to flee, but Ben shoots her off her broomstick.

On her way to meet up with Hansel, Gretel finds Edward and uses her stun gun to defibrillate him back to life. Meanwhile Hansel, Ben, and Mina follow Muriel's trail to the old gingerbread house.

During their confrontation, Mina and Muriel battle as Ben and Hansel are knocked to the ground. Muriel fatally stabs Mina. Gretel arrives to find Hansel in battle with Muriel. The siblings then engage in a grueling fight against Muriel inside the gingerbread house, until they behead her with a shovel.

In the end, Hansel and Gretel collect the rest of their reward for rescuing the children before embarking on their next hunt, with Ben and Edward joining them.


the Review:
i found my concentration simply strays during this movie. somehow it lacked the pull of Van Helsing. despite both GA and JR are eye candies, their lack of chemistry on screen as well as questionable weaponry simply unable to draw much enthusiasm for me to continue watching. there wasn't even sense of humor injected in and you find even the evil characters boring.

weak scripts, some say. weaker character development i would add. Mina is forgettable, even though she stripped bare to seduce Hansel.

entah le. bosan nengok citer ni.

Two Similar Mousedeers: Jeremy Renner vs Daniel Craig

... TSM or in its original language: Pelanduk Dua Serupa.

this is simply a Malay simile to describe 2 person who is a spitting image of each other.

i was watching Jeremy Renner in the Ghost Protocol and was acutely reminded of Daniel Craig in Casino Royale.

which prompted me to watch Casino Royale again, for the sake of another Slow-Pokey post. and made me somewhat impatient for the Avengers film to come out on the Net, JR is cast as Hawkeye in the movie.

yup, one of the reasons for my tardiness in reviewing fresh-from-the-oven movies is that i'm not allowed to go to the cinema to catch up on the latest flicks. i had to settle by waiting oh-not-so-patiently for the DVD version to be available on the Net.

me = LAME.

anyway, back to TSM, i had this uncanny feeling that these 2 guys are sort of look alike. perhaps they should be cast as brothers? :wink: :wink: hollywood people, do take note!

Jeremy Renner

Daniel Craig

maybe it was the nose, the complexion or the square cut face. oh well, maybe it was all me.

do you think that JR is similar looking to DC? let me know by dropping your comments ya.

Mission Impossible 4: the Ghost Protocol

the Poster:

the Trailer:


the Plot:

In Budapest to intercept a courier holding Russian nuclear launch codes, IMF agent Trevor Hanaway (Josh Holloway) is killed by assassin Sabine Moreau (Léa Seydoux), who is working for a person code-named "Cobalt" (Michael Nyqvist).

Soon after, the other members of Hanaway's team — Jane Carter (Paula Patton), and newly promoted field agent Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg) — extract Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and Ethan's source Bogdan (Miraj Grbic) from a Moscow prison.

Ethan is assigned to lead Jane and Benji in infiltrating secret Moscow Kremlin archives to locate files identifying Cobalt, who is known to be a Russian consultant with a goal of detonating a nuclear bomb.

During the mission, someone broadcasts across the IMF frequency, alerting the Russians to Ethan's team.

Although Benji and Jane escape, a bomb destroys the Kremlin, and Russian agent Sidorov (Vladimir Mashkov) arrests Ethan, suspecting him as responsible for the attack.

The IMF extracts Ethan from Moscow. In the mean time the Russians have called the attack an undeclared act of war, and the US president activates "Ghost Protocol", a black operation contingency that disavows the IMF.

Ethan and his team are to take the blame for the attack, but will be allowed to escape from government custody in order to track down Cobalt. Before Ethan can escape, the IMF's secretary (Tom Wilkinson) is killed by Russian security forces led by Sidorov, leaving Ethan and intelligence analyst William Brandt (Jeremy Renner) to find their own way out.

The team identifies Cobalt as Kurt Hendricks, a Swedish-born Russian nuclear strategist who believes the weak must die for the strong to survive, so he plans to start a nuclear war to initiate the next stage of human evolution. Hendricks bombed the Kremlin in order to acquire a Russian nuclear launch-control device; however, he now needs the activation codes from Moreau in order to launch a nuclear missile at the United States.

The exchange between Moreau and Hendricks's right-hand man, Marius Wistrom (Samuli Edelmann), is due to take place at the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

There, Ethan's team members separately convince Moreau and Wistrom that they have made the exchange with one another.

However, Moreau identifies Brandt as an agent. While Ethan chases Wistrom — only to realize that Wistrom is actually Hendricks in disguise, escaping with the codes — on the other hand, Jane detains Moreau.

Moreau attempts to kill the inexperienced Benji, and Jane kicks her out a window to her death.

Brandt accuses Jane of compromising the mission for revenge against Moreau, but Ethan accuses Brandt of keeping secrets from them, as he has displayed fighting skills atypical of an analyst.

While Ethan seeks more information from Bogdan, Brandt admits he was assigned as security detail to Ethan and his wife, Julia (Michelle Monaghan), in Croatia. Brandt says that while he was on patrol, Julia was killed by a Serbian hit squad, prompting Ethan to pursue and kill them before he was caught by the Russians and sent to prison.

Bogdan and his arms-dealer cousin inform Ethan that Hendricks will be in Mumbai. Hendricks facilitated the sale of a defunct Soviet military satellite to Indian telecommunications entrepreneur Brij Nath (Anil Kapoor). The satellite could be used to transmit the order to fire a missile. The team heads to India to prevent Hendricks from using the satellite, which can be controlled from computers at Nath's home.

While Brandt and Benji infiltrate the server room to deactivate the satellite, Jane gets Nath to reveal the satellite override code.

But Hendricks has anticipated Ethan's plan and uses a virus to turn off Nath's servers before sending a signal from a television broadcasting tower to a Russian nuclear submarine in the Pacific to fire at San Francisco.

Ethan pursues Hendricks and the launch device while the other team-members attempt to bring the broadcast station back online. Ethan and Hendricks fight over the launch-control device before Hendricks jumps with it to ensure the launch.

Benji kills Wistrom, allowing Jane and Brandt to restore power to the station and enabling Ethan to deactivate the missile, while the fatally wounded Hendricks witnesses the failure of his plan just before he dies. Ethan is then confronted by Sidorov, who sees Ethan has stopped the missile, proving the IMF is innocent in the Kremlin bombing.

The team reconvenes weeks later in Seattle. Ethan introduces the team to longtime colleague Luther Stickell and then issues new assignments. Benji and Jane accept, but Brandt refuses.

Ethan reveals that Julia's death was staged, as he knew he could not protect her, and used her death as a pretext to infiltrate the prison, where he believed he would find men associated with Cobalt. Relieved of guilt, Brandt accepts his mission while

Ethan watches Julia from afar. She spots him, and they share a smile before he embarks on his next mission.


the Riviu:

what i love most about this movie is the solid team of protagonists that seem to have a lot of chemistry together. i particularly love Brandt's character. and the best scene that wins hands down would be when Jane kicks Moreau out of the tall Burj Khalifa. yup. the BEST!

and the twist at the end regarding Brandt's absolution of guilt is very nice indeed. to reveal that Julia is still alive and living a separated life from Ethan would be enough but the storyline gave the unnecessary emphasis by showing their exchange of smiles before Julia walked away. i mean, is there no more passionate love and longing? korang tak rindu ek laki bini?

as for the antagonists, i think the scriptwriter gave too much emphasis in making a credible action sequences and how the good guys struggle one after another slip-ups in their planning. that should explain as to why i would feel that the villains are too distant. the motivation of the major antagonist that is Cobalt in wrecking a nuclear war to help civilisation developed further is lame. i mean, what drives and motivates him so much that he'd risk his life for it?

and Moreau's character was so sullen in silence that her good looking presence doesn't have that lasting effect.

Nath, another villainous technopreneur does not seem bad. randy though he really is. the pure lust he supposedly have for Jane is blatantly missing. why? because Jane painfully looks unsure of her spell as a woman over man. what we are looking for here is a teanspoonful of confidence oozed by Miss Angelina Jolie in "the Tourist" to make us viewers really buy into the idea that Jane is so breathtakingly desirable for Nath to fall into her.

in conclusion, this movie is a definite fave and is up for another round when i'm free. yup. it's that good minus all the peeves that i've ranted earlier.

go watch this one!