Prometheus (Ridley Scott, 2012)

First thing first, let's lay the fact, Prometheus is a spin-off from Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979), a loose prequel if you insist. It is set in LV-223, a different moon LV-426 in Alien and Aliens (James Cameron, 1986)); a different derelict alien spacecraft; a different Space Jockey, but here they called it Engineer, in Alien (1979), it was a much bigger size and last but certainly not least, a different efficiency of director Ridley Scott. He returned to sci-fi  territory after lengthy absence from his influential haunted-house-in-space Alien.

Every time I re-watch Alien (1979), I always wonder what is all about with the fossilized creature with the elephant head, sitting eerily at a crashed cockpit spacecraft. Certainly I am not the only one who is curious about it. Well, the director Scott answered our query at last by expanding the back story of the Space Jockey in moon LV-426. Prometheus is set decades before the incident where Ripley and crews first discovered the fossilized spacecraft pilot. A deep space expedition funded by Weyland Corporation (later as Weyland-Yutani Corp in Alien movie series) set out looking for answers of who created human in the beginning and what is our purpose on earth. Darwinism, this is not.



















An Alien movie will not be without a strong female protagonist, Noomi Rapace fits the bill as one of the archeologist in expedition. Sadly, she is no Ellen Ripley, period. Even more so for an Alien movie will not be without a human-like android on board. As usual the one thing we need to find out is whose side he is allied to. Michael Fassbender really excelled to bring his android character to, should I say, to "life"? He is almost a child-like inquisitive machine, more human than another human on board, a calculative, icy Weyland Corporation representative played by Charlize Theron. 

Prometheus belongs to that type of flick which does not offer answers in many questions it poses. The plot holds back way too much without resolving many mysteries it put forth, perhaps it want to saves for subsequent sequels until it tie nicely to the original Alien movie, I do not know. But one thing I am sure is, I am not keen on watching something that requires me to make huge assumption about a lot of things, and that, is a MAJOR problem. Great movies sometimes leave space for viewers to interprete themself and I have no qualm accepting a little notion called narrative ambiguity. To make things worse as the plot thicken, the movie suffers from a absurd script to have narration move onward, the logic stretches beyond salvage, if not, how do you explain a pivotal moment in this movie where immediately after a Ceasarean section was performed, the character went up and running as if the wound is an insect bite?

If I knew Ridley Scott and co have made such a banal attempt of elaborating the back story of Space Jockey, I would rather have it remain mysterious fossilized. Basically, the sky is the limit for them to kickstart a new direction yet still set within the same Alien to Alien Resurrection (Jeunet, 1997) universe that we all familiar with. No Egg, no Facehugger, no Xenomorph, No Alien Queen, I am OK with none of that, perhaps some minor references to the Alien series here and there will be delightful for the buffs. What is in my mind now is, If the tagline of Weyland Corporation is "Building Better Worlds", perhaps Prometheus means "posing more questions" to us.

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = Excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? Only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

Eagle Eye (D.J.Caruso, 2008)

One needs to be prepared for familiar sights while watching Eagle Eye, thanks to abundant references to other movies. Some old school viewers will think of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest; Kubrick’s enthusiasts will recall HAL9000, the self-aware computer from 2001:A Space Odyssey ; or whether the Three Laws of Robotic in Asimov-inspired’s Will Smith starred I, Robot is relevant to this movie. How about me? I think the fast paced, fuel by paranoid ambience seems to be in the same mold of Tony Scott’s Enemy of the State. You may complain Eagle Eye borrows from other superior movies, but hey, don’t you have heard of the phase, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?

In this non-stop action techno-thriller, Jerry Shaw, a university dropout cum slacker (played by Shia LaBeouf) and a single mother (played by Michelle Monaghan) are threaten by an unknown female voice, by way of connecting to their cellphones, order them to carry out a daunting task, i.e. to assassinate the President of the United States. From there, the two strangers are thrown into a series of unbelievable metal crushing cum cling-clanging mayhems involving train, cars, crane, aircraft. They are often forced to do what they are told, the mysterious female voice (AKA Aria) seems to know everything happen around them there and then, literally forcing them to react swiftly. Example, an under interrogation Jerry was told to duck himself 10 seconds before a self-activated tower crane smashing into FBI office building. There are moments where Jerry refuses to board a specific train, and to his horror, the people around him instantly receive calls telling them about Jerry being a terrorist! Both of them are basically in You-are-damned-if-you-do, and damned-if-you-don’t-scenario.

Hot on the heels of the innocent duo is Billy Bob Thornton who play the role of Thomas Morgan, a FBI agent with ease, surely he was handed a handbook on how to do a Tommy Lee Jones together with the movie script. The wisecracking Thomas blurts out the most quotable lines in the movie, (to field agents)”If you're staring at me, it better be because I'm the suspect. If not, get back to work or I swear you're all demoted to something that involves touching shit with your hands!”

The movie does not reveal the protagonist until halfway through. But if you happen to know who it is prior to that, you will probably believe that our current advanced technology allow authoritative figure to tab on civilian in whatever methods we can think of: cellphones eavesdropping, bank accounts, computer’s files, GPS satellites tracking…. essentially whatever under the sun connected via networking and internet are expose to the surveillance of government. Call me a paranoid, call me a technophobe, but I think we are paying the price of heading towards the age of Big Brother. Besides, I disagree after reading some of the reviews that I came across, citing Eagle Eye as a dumb popcorn movie full of implausible scenarios. I admit that it contains some plotholes, but generally it is nothing too severe to throw off your interest in Eagle Eye.

***Spoiler ahead*** To me, Aria is not really a bona fide villain. We need to understand that the super computer ‘react’ based on the earlier pre-credit scene, where the US president misjudged an air strike target, which later causing a series of terrorist-style bombing in retaliation. Thus the head rolling operation of President and his Cabinet is deemed by Aria as justifiable. ***Spoiler end***

Lastly, the following are types of people who must avoid this movie at all cost:
- Technophobes
- Shia’s haters.

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (Jay Russell, 2007)

Free Nessie!

What are the resemblances between Water Horse and What Lies Beneath (2000), a thriller/ horror movie directed by Robert Zemeckis? The answer is….. they have a similar movie poster! See below, a white colour background? check! A same P.O.V. of bathtub? check! A main character is shown in the bathtub? Check! The said character’s hand / pectoral fins are holding the edge of bathtub? Check please! I suppose the tagline for Water Horse - “Every Big Secret Starts Small” can be applied on What Lies Beneath but sadly not vice versa.

There have been other movies and documentaries on the subject of Loch Ness Monster. For instance, there is a family-oriented flick starring Ted Danson aptly but dully named Loch Ness. Also I can recall in an episode of season 3 The X-Files TV series, where Agent Mulder and Scully try to track down a pre-historic creature in a U.S. lake town, after a several reported cases of death and disappearance.

The creature in Water Horse: LOTD is based on one of the most famous subjects in cryptozoology – i.e. Loch Ness Monster or affectionately called Nessie. The movie open with present day’s small Scottish village in Loch Ness, whereby a tourist couple discover a vintage framed photo on the wall of a pub, well known as “The Surgeon’s Photograph” (see left). An old man (played by Brian Cox) told them that the making of that photo is a prank, but there is indeed a plesiosaur-like creature living in Loch Ness. And there begin his story told on how a young boy, Angus stumbling upon an egg with the size of an ostrich’s egg near the shore. It was no ordinary egg of course; instead a cute slippery baby Water Horse named Crusoe (named after the famous namesake) was hatched and subsequently nurtured by Angus.

Angus has been in the state of lonely and somber due to his father being enlisted in the Royal Navy to fight in World War II. Angus spent vast amount of time alone by himself, counting the days of his father’s return from national service. We are shown several tender flashback scenes involving Angus and his father. His mum (Emily Watson) hired Lewis, a handyman (Ben Chaplin) with a mysterious past, to help out household work in their huge mansion. In the meantime, a troop of British troop led by Captain Hamilton (played by David Morrisey, somehow I cannot shake off his masochism expression from Basic Instinct 2) came and set up their defense base against a possible invasion from the German’s submarines.

Lewis eventually became a temporary father figured to Angus, helping him to hide his aquatic pet from his mother and the military troops. Bigger problem ensured when the bathtub is no longer able to contain Crusoe. It grew into a gargantuan creature and has to be set free into the nearby loch. Hostility erupted when Crusoe almost accidentally kill a soldier, in return, they retaliated with artillery weapons. Although in the end, the movie reaches a pleasing full circle, it perhaps paves the way for another adventure i.e. a sequel.


What I like about The Water Horse: LotD is the breathtaking scenery, the picturesque landscape, apart from actual Loch Ness, it was in fact, largely filmed in Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand. The setting of WW2 era in this movie is admirably fitted in this movie. Bizarrely, this family oriented movie (adapted from a children’s novel) sometimes can be unusually scary for small children’s viewing, namely, there is a time where the grown Water Horse - minus the cuteness, react uncontrollable, with full of violent anger after it was attacked with cannon bombardment, not to mention, it ate a British Bulldog!

The narration does not fully allow the boy to convincingly develop an affectionate relationship with the Water Horse. From the egg hatching moment to the effort of hiding the creature; from an adorable slippery baby transforming to a huge grunting beast. It should be a platform for the two of them to express their inseparable bonding, just like Jesse and Keiko the killer whale in Free Willy (1993), a movie with the same premise as this one, which managed to pose an aching catch-22 situation for audience: do we want them to be together, although the beast may have to forgo its freedom (or perhaps its life)? Or, hoping the beast to leap to its freedom, but abandon its friend?

1 star = Pathetic, SowYau feel ashamed of watching it
2 stars = Off the mark material, approach with caution
3 stars = Generally good, you should watch it if it's your favourite genre
4 stars = excellent, strongly recommended
5 stars = A classic status? only time will tell. But it is definitely in SowYau's Hall of Fame List

Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (Colin Strause/Greg Strause 2007)

Again, Our Earth Is Their Playground

The most significant discrepancy from the original AvP compare to this sequel is the added violence and gory elements. Also, we won’t have to suffer from the sight of the lead woman character and the Predator in AvP running together side by side in slow-motion. That scene show them sort of like "buddies" was plain pathetic, I mean what on earth are you thinking of, Mr Paul W.S. Anderson??! (of the original AvP’s director cum writer). By the time the predator show her how to use the Alien corpse’s head as a shoulder shield, I was about to cough green Predator blood.


Ok, let’s not dwell on the past, this time, Aliens Vs Predator: Requiem (abbreviation as AVPR), is no longer a pussified version, if you pardon my language. It’s full of violence and gore right from the beginning. The plot continue from the 1st movie where the Predator spaceship depart from earth to return to their planet, unknowingly to the Predators, their dead partner that they bring onboard was impregnated with Alien inside. Very soon a new hybrid species called PredAlien is born and burst from the corpse’s chest, start to kill off the Predator one by one. The spaceship is forced to crash onto a small town in Colorado, U.S. The dying Predator managed to send a distress S.O.S video call to his comrade in their distant home planet. The said comrade picked up the call and travelled all the way to our Earth to clean the mess by trying to stop the Alien infection which happens at an alarming rate.


Do you notice the movie title? The plural in Aliens and singular in Predator. It is refers to lots of Aliens who are slaughtered by the only one Predator. It was never meant to be a balance fight between these 2 creatures, Predator is the predominant species here, how about human characters, you may ask? Forget about them, I said. They are purely ornament in this fightfest. Anyone who is longing for extensive human characters’ development can look elsewhere.


The Predator is a kick-ass veteran warrior unlike in the first installment, 2 or 3 rookies Predators who took part in a rite of passage. He is affectionately named as The Wolf, as in Pulp Fiction, Harvey Keitel’s Winston “The Wolf” Wolfe. He is a 'cleaner', a specialist in cover up any extreme lethal threat. He needs to be relentless and often require quick thinking decision, although his target shooting rate leave a lot to be desired. He manage to kill a lots of Aliens but along the way, get rid of some stupid humans as well. With the aid from some magical blue liquid, he methodically carry out the task without leaving any trace. The new hybrid species, PredAlien plays the role of Mother Alien. Unlike the latter, it is capable of impregnated a host (human) to create its offspring without using facehuggers.


Basically, there are 4 things that I like about this movie:

- The violence and gore.
- The predator AKA The Wolf
- Earlier in the movie, we have the chance to catch the glimpse of what look like the original planet of predator.
- The cameo of Miss Yutani!! Nice to meet her at last and congratulate on her newly acquired extra terrestial technology. I dare you not to have a goosebump when you see her! If you don’t know what I am talking about, then I am wondering whether you should watch this movie in the first place.

If you ask me which AvP movies i like most, it will be like asking me which way I would prefer to die from, fall from 20 storey building head down? Or drown in the sea? I am reluctant to answer but for the sake of this blog, the answer is AVP:R by a nose. Although honestly i have read some home appliance DIY manual instructions that were far more entertaining than the dialogues in this movie, and the Dawson’s Creek-style subplot is a turn off for me too. But as a fan of both franchises, I felt AVP:R is still a serviceable movie compare to the awful first installment.