Captain America: The First Avenger

I spent a wonderful day with some friends this weekend and caught the movie, Captain America: The First Avenger. To be honest, I'm looking forward to the upcoming Captain America in May 2012. :)

Steve Rogers makes many attempts to join the US military, due to his tiny built and health issues. But all these are just strengths to Dr Abraham Erskine, who is looking for the perfect test subject of his superpower serum. Unfortunately, he is assassinated after he has successfully experimented on Rogers.

Rogers then becomes Captain America, the one who sings and dances for the front-line soldiers. During one of his performances, he follows his heart and rescues 400 men who are captured by the Skull in one of Hydra's bases. Since then, it is his mission to destroy the Skull and Hydra.

There could be improvement to the special effect to make Rogers look more consistent in height and size in the first 20 minutes of the movie. The scene Colonel driving Rogers to chase the escaping Skull and good luck kiss from Peggy is redundant and unnecessary.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. It is an eye candy for the girls to see the innocent-eye blond cute hunky man in a rescue mission to save the war and the world from the Skull. However, I can't help thinking of the Matrix with Hugo Weaving saying "Mr Anderson" and Samuel L. Jackson offering the Blue and Red pills. Eek! Nevertheless, it is a good movie to watch.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2

It has been 10 years since we watched the first Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone on the big screen in 2001. It all ended in July 2011 with the final installment of Harry Potter's 7 year journey to Hogwarts and the fight against his nemesis, Lord Voldemort.

In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Harry, Hermione and Ron continue to look for the horcruxes. Following the dark journey, they find the remaining 3 items and successfully destroy them as well as Voldemort. Thus marks the end of the magical world of Gryphons, Pixies, Poly juice, Diagon Alley, Quidditch and many more.

The epic finale failed to match up to the imaginative world that JK Rowling has beautifully painted in our minds. The 3D effect is limited and it did not elevate the magical charm.

Rating: 4 out of 5 fairy clouds. Despite being a fan, I did not feel enthralled by the movie. For any Potter fans, this movie should not be missed. For non-Potter fans, try to catch up. For the others, I have no idea what movies you have been watching till now.

Beauty Kings

How far should one go for beauty? For who are you trying to impress? What would you do to win? Those are the questions swimming in my brain when I watched Beauty Kings at the Drama Centre this afternoon.

Beauty Kings, a play written by Dick Lee, is all about sex, scandals, secrets and of course speedos. Oh! I have forgot to mention the numerous strip scenes. :) Don't scream, it is just bare butts and nothing more.

Beauty King tells the story of the ugly truth of molest and sexual harassment of contestants by pageant organisers and judges. The play centers around 3 contestants. M1 Adam, aka Mr Potong Pasir, is an undercover journalist who is trying to dig up some dirty truth about such pageant. M2 Benny, Mr Aljunied, is a civil servant attempting to win the pageant to please his Kate Spade wife to be. M3 Don, Mr Marine Parade, is a part-time model who used to be a girl!

Put them all together, then you spice it up with the suicide story of Gary that happened 5 years ago with some lies and seductions. Enter into the world of beauty pageant and taste the sordid juicy scandalous play.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 fairy clouds. The screenplay and props are interested. The plot is twisted but the actors are not. You do get a see a lot of hotbots and yes six-pack! *drool! Overall, the play is quite dotted with cheesy jokes like "Glico, strawberry and chocolate". A little distasteful to be honest.

The saving grace is supposedly audience participation by sms-ing to vote for our favourite contestants. Sad to say, I was not an engaged audience today. I blame my stoned reaction on working late night.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (3D)

I have never been a fan of Transformers even when the cartoon was shown on TV many moons and eons ago. After watching the first and second Transformer, I thought it would be a shame not to watch the third edition.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon tells the story of a Cybertronian invention which can end the war between the Autobots and Decepticons. Unfortunately the Ark carrying the invention is destroyed and never found.

Sam Witwicky has graduated from college and living off his new girlfriend, Carly. Meanwhile, his Autobot friends are busy working with the humans to track down Megatron and his minions. The discovery of an alien technology in Chernobyl leads Optimus Prime to the lost Ark and the comatose Sentinel Prime.

The awakened Sentinel leads to the exile of the Autobots as he has a secret pact with Megatron to revive Cybertron. This sparks another war between the Decepticons, Autobots and Humans. And quite fortunately, I meant usually, the Autobots save the world and kill both Sentinel and Megatron. I guess that I won't be seeing Transformer 4.

The first movie is novelty. The second is still fun. The third time around, it becomes boring. It is another season of save the human, save the world... and I'm so not impressed. The special effects are the same in the first and second movie. You seen it once, you seen it all.

Perhaps the only difference is Megan Fox ain't in this movie. Then again, Carly is just a bimbotic replacement. Throughout the movie, all she does is strutting around to show off her curves and pouty lips.

Rating: 3 out of 5 fairy clouds. The movie spends too much time on showing off the effects of the robot transforming and becomes too lengthy at times. It is so not worth watching. Spare the money and popcorns for other movies, if you were to ask me.

X-Men: First Class

Last weekend, I managed a sneak a movie into my schedule. I went for the overdue X-Men: First Class. After so many seasons of X-Men, we are now going back into the past when it first started.

X-Men: First Class starts with the scene where Erik Lensherr (Magneto) bends the fence of the German concentration camp when he is separated from his mother. On the other side of the world, the young Charles Xavier makes friend with Raven (Mystique), a shape-shifter.

As young men, they come together to help the CIA stop a potential world war, mastermind by a mutant Sebastien Shaw. During which, Charles and Erik becomes good friends and works closely with other mutants to capture their common enemy.

Unfortunately the difference in life experiences and views of the world eventually cause a rift between the two. They split up to set up a brotherhood and X-Men school. This marks the beginning of the war between the two friends.

Rating: 4 out of 5 fairy clouds. Despite the warning and bad review from others, I had actually quite enjoyed the movie. I could see the development of a strong friendship and brotherly love between Professor X and Magneto and shared the sadly that they must part in such a way. Overall, it is still a nice movie to watch when you have some time to spare over the weekend.