CinemaShafiq

The long awaited 2021's The Batman trailer was finally released at the DC Fandome Event and fans around the world cheered for it. There are also some voices questioning concerns as to the slight differences of this Batman's interpretation compared to the previous Batmen that we had. Robert Pattinson is our new Batman, and when he was announced to be the new Bruce Wayne, not everyone exactly was happy with this news. Probably because he is mostly known for his Twilight role, a franchise that is not known for being highly rated or praised for its acting, rather the opposite so of course, people would not associate the lead actor from this cringy vampire franchise to be the next face of the most popular superhero. However, having watched several of Robert's recent works, I did not share the same concerns. If anything, his acting from Good Time (2017), High Life (2018) and The Lighthouse (2019) not only assures me that he is going to do fine, but to be fair his performance ...

  I am going on a daily marathon of Martin Scorsese's films, and I would say that this film showed just how versatile Scorsese is. From releasing a mafia story in 1990, to thriller in 1991, then to a good 1800s New York romance drama in 1993. The Age of Innocence felt like it's one of the classic 1920s-50s Hollywood films that was set in the pre-war or 1800s America, and the performances of Daniel Day-Lewis and Michelle Pfeiffer added strongly to this effect. It's hard to believe that this film was released in 1993 when the settings, costumes and prop were all nicely polished and set as in the 1800s. This film also showed just how powerful Daniel Day-Lewis' acting is and just how great and a versatile actor he is. I watched this film after watching Gangs of New York, and it's hard for me to believe that the brutal racist gangster in Gangs is the same actor that portrayed this calm and composed soft-speaking gentleman in Age of Innocence. This is definitely one of Sc...

  Mehh it's alright.  You can definitely expect that it would not be a smart movie or a well-choreographed practical action movie, but the chemistry between The Rock & Statham was fine. And I like the unexpected secret cameo. Still, this film was really not in league with other films in the Fast & Furious franchise, it was filled with crappy CGI, overly used cheap humour, too much slow mo and illogical action scenes (yes, even for Fast & Furious standard). 6/10

The last time I watched this film was back in 2009 at my school, when my replacement teacher showed this movie for us on a projector in a science lab. So my memory about it was very vague and upon a proper rewatch, I am actually slightly disappointed. The first film was a classic, and the second & third installment were basically good, enjoyable 80s action popcorn movie. 20 years later, after Rambo III, we found out that Rambo is now living in Thailand, isolated and far from his old life. I expected more from this as it was directed by Stallone himself, but sadly a lot of aspects of this film were a failure. The story was simple, not a problem but damn it, the casts, everyone basically besides Rambo were annoying, miserable and badly written. The cinematography was nothing extraordinary, and the CGI was hideous and notably bad on a lot of action scenes.  Eventhough the music scores by Brian Tyler was good, as well as the gruesome realistic potrayal of the Burmese civil war was ...

  A very good feel good film. It has been such a long time since a film gave me such good vibes and made me happy after watching it. Also my mouth was watering seeing Jon Favreau sizzling, sautéing, and frying stuffs in the kitchen. And now I'm curious on how a cubano tastes like. That little unexpected cameo was also fun. 8/10

  Chris Hemsworth's new Netflix film Extraction turned out to be worth the watch.  It is a good action-packed popcorn film and this film showed that Hemsworth is the one amongst the OG Avengers who has the most diverse acting range and also a bright career post Endgame. 6/10

  Just what the fuck. This was easily one of the worst action films I had watched in years. It was cheap, poorly written, edited and even poorly acted. Liam Neeson is the kind of actor that works best when he is an addition to an ensembled movie, but oh boy cannot really hold a movie with him being the titular hero. This movie was an easy cash grab with the quality of a B film or a Diva channel film. The only good thing about this film was that at least now the franchise is finally over but Liam Neeson still however keep on doing the same type of films over and over for the past two years. 4/10

  Garbage. This film was just a clear cut copy and paste remake of the famous cult classic 2002 straight-to-VCD Momok. M Jamil must be thinking too highly of himself and his telemovie that he thinks people would highly anticipate and really love to see each scenes, one by one, being remade. Making Faizal AF4 who cannot act as the main cast definitely didn't help this film. Nabil was hyped on the poster but he was in for like 10 mins. Better watch the old VCD one. 3/10 

  Well, it was a better improvement over the first one, with new casts; and adding The Rock definitely improved your failing franchise. The action scenes were much better, more logical and enjoyable rather than the first film over-the-top cheesiness and those were definitely thrown out of the window in this one. Removing Stephen Sommers as the director and hiring John M Chu was clearly a good decision. You can see the movie was directed by a different director for the sequel and it was a good decision. Still, this movie was riddled with a lot of campiness, and a plot that seems to be taking inspiration from Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. The funny thing that I noticed while I was watching this movie is that how the plot was really similar to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. An evil organisation who everyone think is dead but actually is running behind the scenes and slowly planning for a world domination, with the final act involving weapons of mass destruction that can ta...

Upon watching it, I bet it was not well received when it was released, and I was right. Turns out the film becomes a cult classic a few years after its release and it was not hard to see why. With an interesting premise and a strong acting by Christian Bale, together with its early 2000s leather-punk-rock-music campyness, it was a good dystopian sci-fi film; and the only thing that bugs me was how cheesy the "gun-kata" was. Obviously it drew inspirations from The Matrix, George Orwell's novels and also Chinese kung-fu films and everything was mixed in a blender and blended. Still, it's Christian Bale. 6/10

The first film by Martin Scorsese that showed Hollywood his entrance for him to become one of America's best film directors. Also an early entrance for Robert de Niro and Harvey Keitel in their career. 46 years later, they were reunited in Scorcese's The Irishman. It was fun watching them back in the days when they just got started. Also in this film, Keitel liked girls with poking nipples idk 8/10 

  A mess. And I don't even feel like reviewing it. I watched it with a student discount for the ticket price and I watched The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi with IMAX screening(s). Just tells how much I didn't care anymore. If anything, it clearly shows that Disney totally have no plan whatsoever since the beginning on the "sequel trilogy" and George Lucas was right that he sold Star Wars to "white slavers". 6/10 but most marks are for the impressive visual effects only.

  A masterpiece by Bong Joon-Ho. He brilliantly crafted a thriller/drama film that has some dark comedy bits and most importantly a deep social satire at its core.  The social commentary was a reality check and gut-wrenching; and is very relevant for 2019. Well-casted and visually beautiful with brilliant cinematography that brought its smart screenplay to life. Definitely one of my top 5 films of 2019, and one of top films of the decade. 9/10

This film in a nutshell: "Sob sob look at me I'm an opressed woman and all men are evil but btw! Let's dress up like hookers and kill innocent people on our rampage because that's women empowerment!" Seriously nothing works in this. The story and acting was messy and cringy, music was out of place, and the characters are nothing like their counterparts in comics or TV series. Huntress and Black Canary in Arrow are hundred times better. Black Mask was a disgrace. Seriously why did Ewan even agreed to this. After many achievements by DC in 2019 with the Oscar-winning Joker, a fresh and unique take on superhero lives by Doom Patrol, HBO's Watchmen, and the TV mega-crossover that is Arrowverse Crisis on Infinite Earths and a good family movie Shazam, Birds of Prey was a bad way to start 2020. Ah, maybe 2020 is so jinxed by it that is why this year sucks so much. But I think Wonder Woman 1984 would be good. Hopefully. 4/10

A brave Malaysian political thriller but can do so much much more. It had a strong premise; basically a story of political maneuver after a big conservative party lost a GE. Sounds familiar huh? *winks However sadly, I think the film did not deliver very well. The film started with the introduction of the political titans & their plans to retain their positions. One party wishes to form an alliance with an Islamist party to make a comeback, and another leader, DS Anw-ehem I mean Ali, is trying to ensure that the current PM, Tun Maha- I mean Malik, is going to hand him over the PM-ship. Now all premises were set nicely. And we're gonna see these players play their game, right? Sadly, we didn't really got that.  Surely Mahsuri, Vanidah's character played her game well, and Tony Eusoff's character, but overall it is not truly Machiavellian enough like it's being promoted & not all characters engage in the game as they should be. Tun Malik and DS Ali...