Review Bodyguards And Assassins

Bodyguards and assassins centers around a period in china's revolution in history when the Tang Dynasty collapsed and China was in a movement to tear down feodalism. Sun yat sen was one politician figure involved much in such movement. The movie was about protecting him by creating a diversion in order to protect his secret meeting in British occupied Hongkong in 1905. Then the movie gives us some fictional tale of ordinary people who live in the era surrounding that historical event.

It's been a while since i watch a mandarin film (The last one is in 2004, Kung Fu Hustle). When i saw that this film was playing in the cinema, with no further hesitation, i went to check it out. Turn out to be a very funny movie as i laugh several time on some scenes. That said, the movie is suppossed to be serious because of the nature of its subtle dark tone that involves history of revolution in china. It is indeed a serious action drama. So what to laugh about?

Ok. Here is the list of scenes i thought hillarious:

1. when Donnie yuen's character recklessly went on one-to-one collision with an ample horse.
2. when the tallest man character was able to resurrect himself despite of having been stabbed with knives several times from many directions in his body.
3. The appearance of actor Leon Lai as the beggar. I thought this was so extremely funny, because when i was little with friends and brothers, i persistently said things about Leon that he might just be the poorest (financially)actor in Hong kong due to his underappreciated style and appearance. So this scene is sentimental for me .
4. The main villain's character exposing his dreadful vengeful yet tickling face when he is about to summon his throwback to his enemy.
5. and many more

There were several things which i though to be ridiculous in our world nowadays but might be so common back then. One of them is when the businessman "buy" his collie a woman to marry. All and all, i think the movie is ridiculous despite of its serious intention to chronicle back an important historical event. It did make me laugh, however i was not supposed to, because this is indeed a serious drama. So , it's a mild thumbs down from me for the movie.

"Bodyguards And Assassins", a Media Asia releasing is unrated by MPAA, but containing gory action violence. Running time: 105 minutes. Two and a half stars out of Four (C+).

-Mulyadi Tjoa, MIS Officer @ P.T. Freeport Indonesia-

Review Avatar

James cameron is a director of vision. Ever since he made movies, his movies were always about human's interaction with technology. He was an inspired film-maker who left his job as a truck driver about three decades ago after amazed by Star wars films. His overachiever attitude in the filming location drawn subtle hatred from his fellow crew and casts. Nevertheless, the result is always breathtaking. From terminator, aliens, true lies and of course the oscar-winning Titanic, jim never show a bit crack in unseriousness in making movies. He always push the envelope when it comes to leveraging groundbreaking technology in cinema. His latest narrative feature, Avatar is one of the most anticipated movie of the year. I just saw it and i thought it was magnificent though inherently not without flaw.

It chronicles human in a not-a-distant future living in a place called Pandora where human race try to claim the land from to the native Na'vi. Several human race were sent through a "projection" in a machine called Avatar in order to blur with the natives only to have them changing side due to symphaty and one of them falls for a beautiful na'vi woman The movie has recently pick up golden globes nomination for best picture and best director for Jim, and now it is considered to be a front runner for best picture and best director in oscar race next march. It is a rare achievement for a science fiction genre. Watching Avatar is like experiencing somthing new because nobody has ever leverage the technology Jim uses solely in the purpose of filming this film. He even stated that sharing this experience with other people is how the business will slowly show success. "When people have an experience that's very powerful in the movie theatre, they want to go share it. They want to grab their friend and bring them, so that they can enjoy it," Jim said. "They want to be the person to bring them the news that this is something worth having in their life. That's how Titanic worked".

Avatar is so luxurious in its picture. The gung-ho surrounding its implementation of technical aspects of the film especially the special effect and the groundbreaking stereographic projection to create a live felt motion picture is once again justified itself that he would never have to care too much about others' negative doubt. I admit that the story and plot itself is actually not too compelling but cameron was able to concoct a reality on the big screen that matters. This is the man who in a way has surpassed a lot of many master director in Hollywood like Stanley Kubrick, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in creating a magical masterpiece that is not just another popcorn flick like Transformers which i hate.... so much due to its perpetual "pots banging" and the ineptitude of its director to create an extravagant masterpiece like Avatar.

"Avatar" a 20th Century Fox releases, is rated PG-13 for intense epic battle sequences and warfare, sensuality, language and some smoking. Running Time: 160 minutes. Four Stars out of Four (A).

-Mulyadi Tjoa, MIS officer @ P.T. Freeport Indonesia-

Review Inglourious Basterds

If you read my review on the movie "Surrogates", you will notice my anxiety anticipating for the movie Inglourious Basterds, a new film from Quentin Tarantino, one of my favorite Hollywood filmmaker since Pulp Fiction in 1994. This is a movie created by Tarantino where most of its character and events are purely fictional albeit set in world war II, because Tarantino would just love it to bend history only to tell the audiences his own wacky version and also as a template of reason to display a series of stylish action violence. Though the main reason i would avoid this movie is due to Brad Pitt's participation, he turned out to be just alright and though i don't quite like him, he certainly has a gift in convincingly playing psychotic, sassy and wacky characters like those displayed in Twelve Monkey(1995), Kalifornia(1993), and Fight Club(1999) and of course in this film. Now back to Quentin Tarantino. Quentin has an intesting journey to become one of the most notable moviemaker in Hollywood. He didn't actually have a formal filmmmaking education like other common directors. He, Paul Thomas Anderson, Kevin Smith, and Richard Linklater are examples of notable Hollywood directors who develop their skill of moviemaking NOT by attending school, instead they gained it by watching literally thousands of video in their adolescent years. One of tarantino's trademarks is the interesting dialog between the characters, and they are smart ones in most of his films. Things, that we normally know by heart or even unconsciously but never fully realize it, and when the moment of realization is unleashed as the film is unfolded before our eyes, we know that we are experiencing a smart film. Having said that, I realize that there are a lot of people out there (including you) who don't share my views of the importance of having clever and smart lines or dialogs in a movie to be more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, the film while still enjoyable lacked that smart dialogs i was talking about. In this film, they are rather boring, not really interesting and contribute a little part or almost nothing to the plot of the film as a whole. In Pulp fiction, the dialogs seemed random but they are actually pertaining to the story or at the very least they are interesting. Here, Tarantino brutally injects thousands of random outbursts going nowhere. Unlike Pulp fiction where the dialog is as exhilarating as the action, in this movie I can't help myself to uncomfortably move a little part of my body in discomfort due to seemingly never coming action part of the film. But when it did come, I was satisfied, it is typical stylish and gory Tarantino violence (exemplified by the vicious Nazi killer, played by Eli Roth) mixed with stylish action sequences. By the way, Brad Pitt's character in this movie seemed to have more enjoyable lines than the others, they are rather funny in a dark way of course. Not to discriminate, but it is a relief to have Americans character in a film mainly centers around Europeans. One big clap is for Christopher Waltz playing the German high officer, Col. Hans Landa. It was a brilliant performance. Once, Tarantino had a plan to cast Leonardo Dicaprio for this rather eccentric and evil character, but I am glad he canceled it because, despite being a character-based actor, Leo would have a hard time to pull it off like Chris does. He should merit a consideration for best supporting actor award.

Another notable trademark about Tarantino’s films is its female characters. Female characters in Tarantino’s movies are always depicted as being tough, macho, mean, and sometimes deadly. He doesn’t seem to be interested to portray female as a weak, sensitive, and lovely character, instead he would just go ahead and really treat women like men in Tarantino’s world of emancipation. One particular female character, Shosanna Dreyfus, played by the beautiful and sweet French actress Melanie Laurent is an esthetical relief for a film with blood and guts. Despite that, she is a vicious and vengeful young lady who would stop at nothing to accomplish what she wants including terminating the very life of a man who naively had a crush on her. This film contains a lot of violence toward female and it immediately really reminds me of his other movie which I love to death, Kill Bill and a mediocre Death Proof section of The Grindhouse. Unfortunately, they were not strong enough which is understandable since this is a movie based on world war II where level playing field is mostly occupied by men. All and all, this is still a very good movie to see though I am disappointed by the fact that it really could be Tarantino’s masterpiece (like the lines Brad Pitt’s character uttered at the very last violent sequence of the movie) if it were not due to those unnecessary rubbish dialogs in the middle.

“Inglourious Basterds", a The Weinsten Company and Universal Pictures release is rated R for strong graphic violence, language, and brief sexuality. Running Time: 152minutes. Three and a Quarter stars out of Four (B+)

-Mulyadi Tjoa, Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta-

Review Surrogates

Ok, here’s the deal. The power went off. There was fire on the power station. Every household in this city needs to take on turns to get the electricity distributed in their house during the fix and hence the power needs to be taken off on turns with allegedly fair schedule. So, off to the movie theatre I went. I was disappointed that the movie Inglourious Basterds hasn’t played yet. It has been playing everywhere on the globe except in few countries including ours. It is one of my most anticipated movies of the year, since it was directed by my favorite filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, the same dude who made Pulp Fiction in 1992 and Kill Bill in 2003. So I have to wait and be satisfied by the now playing features that is this movie.

Well for a start, this movie sucks on so many levels. It sucks on the action, it sucks on the special effect, it sucks on its actors’ performances, and most of all it sucks on its plot. The basic premise is actually quite intriguing. Having an artificial robot taking your form to perform most of your daily activities on account of avoiding unwanted self accident and contamination as well as avoiding ominous threat seems not bad at all, in fact it’s kinda cool. Like Minority Report, I like a movie that projects what future would be like before the audiences, what advance technology would evolve and be probable to exist in the future, what cool gadgets and how they would impact our social layer in a global scale has always intrigued me. If I would not be able to live long enough to see it, at least I can still sense it thru movies. Minority Report does just that and even give us more, unfortunately that’s not the case for Surrogates. The artificial robot is so kinky suggesting that the creator has strange fetishes. But as I sit thru till the end credit rolled, it is not the case. He is just a sick old man with no clear idea as to why he created it in the first place and how it would do any good to the society. Even it does good thing for the society he nevertheless broke his own integrity by trying to obliterate his own brainchild with no acceptable reason. His character is like a stupid psycho creating a great product only to despise it himself and is a reminiscent of the real life Albert Einstein who regret that he found the basic formula for atomic bomb, but at least Einstein would not have defy his own E = mc^2 formula. By the end, all of them robots were destroyed immediately and simultaneously throughout the land of America. In short, the plot is ridiculous.

The action is too standard. Bruce willis is well … just Bruce Willis. The 54-year old actor seems to have hard times to do all the action scenes in front of the camera that I suspect there were a lot of scene where the stunt replaces him. Generally, he is good playing action hero or tough character, so it’s not him to blame but the people behind the movie should dodge the bullet for creating and selling a rubbish entertainment to us and hence insulting our intelligence and self awareness of good movies. On strong point is that the plot seems intriguing at times and hence igniting anticipation for us audiences, but it never really take off and the filmmaker or the screenwriter were not audacious enough to explore the intensively dark side of the society during the said age. So instead of watching this crap, it’s better to watch Minority Report all over again because it is worth your time more to see one great film over and over again than to see a bad one even only for once.

“Surrogates,” A Buena Vista Pictures release, is rated PG-13, for intense sequences of violence, disturbing images, language, sexuality and a drug-related scene. Running time: 104 minutes. One and a half stars out of four (C-)

-Mulyadi Tjoa, Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta

Review Up

When I was little, like most children I loved animation. Animation, unlike live action feature, escorts your mind into the other dimension. All of what you see do not have any counterparts in the real life, as opposed to live action which presents you with on-again off-again journey to the other realm. As a little child, our mind was not a full fledge awareness machine in regard to what is real and what is fantasy. As we grow up, we tend to appreciate reality more because our sense of thought accrues along with our sense of the real world where we live in. But of course that experience as a little one wanting to take a foray into the other dimension to briefly forget all burdens you get to carry over as responsible grownups in your otherwise mundane life is surely not just a good treat. It is plain necessary every once in a while.

After two great films in a row, Ratatouille and Wall-E in two consecutive years, 2007 and 2008, you would be tempted to think that the next feature from Pixar would be nothing but a turndown despite of the title. In the contrary, Up is with no hesitation simply the best compared to the other two, and the best film I have seen so far this year, and it should merit a serious academy award consideration for best picture not just for best animated feature, which I am sure it will win one. It never cease to amaze me how those folks at Pixar keep creating something original, creative, surreal, great and wonderful such as this one. It is a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful and magnificent achievement not just in animation industry but in the overall movie making. The movie never fails to amuse me in every scene, the scenes are so ubiquitous notwithstanding. It is in the context of the story, these frames of moving pictures add up to a perfect movie that entertains very exquisitely well from the very beginning to the end. With its Disney Digital 3-D format, the movie has a greater and livelier look.

The story began with a small boy inspired to be a great adventurer befriended a quirky little girl of his age. They would play together and swear that one day in their life to explore the paradise falls in the exotic South America and move their club house there. Then it fast forwarded to times they got married, living life together, when the man worked as a toy balloon vendor and his wife as a zookeeper, saving their money so that one day they will have enough ammunition to fulfill their wildest dream, and finally they got older and the wife’s passing before achieving what they have waited for. This 10-minute non dialog scene was very warm, witty and uplifting simultaneously. Later, the 78-year-old widower live his life on his own and it was not until the conflict between the old man with the contactor company that evicts him out of his own property did he realize that it was a perfect time to revive his long lost dream even without his beloved wife. He then tied thousands of highly pressured Helium gas Balloons to firmly flying his house to travel and begin his adventure. Accompanied by a wilderness explorer boy, who accidentally sneaked up on the porch of the cozy house as it flew sky high, he ventured across the country to South America, hoping he can fulfill his late wife dream moving her clubhouse in Paradise falls. Then the real adventure started for this film, and as he is drawn into this fascinating tour, so are we.

“Up” is not just fun to watch it is sweet and uplifting, it reminds me why I like movie so much. There are a lot of elements to cherish in this film. First and the most significant element is that the story is so simple yet so good and wonderful and very original. Pixar’s animation differs from Dreamworks feature in that they never really need to employ cheesy jokes that ultimately worn me off as in the case of strikingly bad first Madagascar film (2005) which eventually programmed my mind to avoid to see any Dreamworks product unless if it were ‘exceptional’, the information of which I can get from the review and its premise in any online synopsis. Ok, let’s stick to this film, shall we? The second element is they really know how to create embraceable characters that immediately steal the scene, which in this case is a peacock-like giant ostrich with colorful furs that does not even have any single human dialog. But its witty behavior attached itself to all main characters pretty seamlessly and even building a sense of omnipresence to the audience. The third element: they know how to make a comedy, a really funny comedy which in this case revolved around talking and sometime vicious dogs who behave like human with normal human expression. There were several scenes where the dogs laugh and it made me laugh to see how perfect they capture that impossibility as I occasionally wonder why real dogs never laugh. And the last but not the least: they understand the drama element plays an important role to the movie, because when technology behind film industry has advanced so much, movies become more tedious and plain dull when the director recklessly inject a ridiculous amount of spectacularly agonizing mindless scenes (like the case of Transformers) with no real intention to tell the audience a good story.

Back to my original discussion about finding your innocent 8-year-old self every once in a while, the late Walt Disney must had been very proud that the company is able to continue his legacy to entertain and conjure up the world of magic to thousands of audiences around the globe. As you see the opening logo of every Disney pictures zooming out this magical world of wonder emulating Disneyland theme park, combined with a music from “When you wish upon a star” song, you know and realize that they are starting up the process of inviting the inner child inside you to experience the world of magic they have beautifully crafted for 90 minutes or so. But why should you let your inner child enjoy this film more than your current self, when, though little children will surely enjoy “Up”, adults will enjoy it even more?

“Up,” A Walt Disney Pictures and Pixar Animation Studios release, is rated PG for some peril and action. Running time: 90 minutes. Four stars out of four (A)

-Mulyadi Tjoa, Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia -

Review Public Enemies

When asked by a friend, what do I see in a movie before I decide to actually see it? Well, when I was in high school, of course the genre is the main factor of consideration. After that, I began to lurk at the actors starring the movie, because some actors are either just plain good (e.g. Robert De Niro) or he/she always pick to star in good movies despite of his/her average not-bad-but-not-too-impressive-either acting (e.g. Leo Dicaprio). Now, I may add another account, the director of the film. We sometimes or even always forget that the director holds the greatest amount of responsibility to make a movie a successful one.

There are a lot of great directors in Hollywood. Unfortunately Michael Mann albeit is a good filmmaker, is not one of them. He is a veteran cineaste whose body of work includes high profile films such as Heat (1995) and The Insider (1999). Michael’s most recognizable trademark is that his films always focus on two main male characters conflicting to each other, such as Heat (Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro), The Insider (Al Pacino and Russell Crowe), and his 2006 feature Miami Vice (Jamie Foxx and Colin Farrell). Now, I have not seen the latter, but it was not well-reviewed by critics and fans alike so it kind of turned me off.

Michael is back with his latest feature entitled “Public Enemies”, rendezvousing two of the hottest stars in Hollywood right now, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale. The latter is more likely a reason why I decide to see it in theatre. It turned out that it was a bad decision. “Public Enemies” is a chaos that should have been the other way around. It is a complete misopportunity for Mann and all crews that are involved in this project. The high profile of Bale and Depp did not help one bit to conceal the movie’s strike of bad plot from the second half of the movie to the end. As it opened, the movie was so promising depicting John Dillinger (Depp) virtuoso escape scene from jail. I was convinced that he will be the main character driving this story firmly and enticingly. But guess what, as soon as this character met with a woman played by Marion Cottilard, and he fell head over heel in love with her, the note strikes on a very wrong chord.

Of course I don’t oppose movie romance in fact I enjoy it when it is true and in the right context, but when a movie mixes romance with gangster then you will hear a false note. From that point on, I knew it that Dillinger’s sentimental affection for the girl will be the death of him. Christian Bale’s presence is not really a presence as I felt that his attachment in this film is ironically a detachment of the FBI agent character he is playing, Melvin Purvis. It was as if he was from another movie, and at no point in this movie do I ever really care for his character. There was no strong bound or sense of strong conflict between the two actors like the usual showcase, Mann had successfully performed on his previous films I mentioned above. At the end of the day I do not know which party should I root for, because by the time I still patiently waiting for that affection, the end credit is already rolled.

The movie occasionally preoccupies the audiences with a very noisy and common place gunshot sound with crispy sound effect that was kind of a requirement for any typical gangster movie violence. I admire the effort, but to me it was merely a cheap trick to distract the audience from telling a real good story with good plot. Michael Mann was a fine director, as noted from his previous achievement. Too bad this time, instead of raising the bar, he’s just plummeting his own reputation maybe because he did not have enough preparation when making this film. He did not invest more time to dig a gamut of potential possibilities that this movie truly had.

If you haven’t seen this movie in theatre, spare your time and money and rent it later or better yet rent other movies this very film is trying so hard to emulate and has unsuccessfully done so. If you long to see a real gangster movie, then go and rent the best gangster movie ever made, Goodfellas (1990). If you want to have nostalgic moments with life and crime at the depression era, go and rent Road to Perdition (2002). If you want to see that pretty face Johnny spreading his charm, rent Finding Neverland (2003). If you want to see Michael Mann’s best work yet, please go and rent Heat (1995). And if you want to see Christian Bale’s endeavor fighting misdemeanor mad men and injustice, please go watch again last year’s biggest hit: The Dark Knight. That is all because you won’t find any of those in Public Enemies.

“Public Enemies,” A Universal Pictures release, is rated R, for Gangster Violence and some language. Running time: 130 minutes. Two stars out of four (C)

-Mulyadi Tjoa, Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta-

The sense of safety

The more general question to ask is simply “Are we really safe?” because no matter where you live death can strike anywhere anytime. Of course what I mean by death here is one that is caused by terror spree of some reckless and irresponsible party. In America, some people are in constant fear of being victim of murder-suicide type of gunshot massacre where hopeless mad killer posed as normal acting people and then wildly shoot people one by one nearby before ending his/her own life. To me that is actually many times more dangerous than conventional terrorist act because it is quite impossible (at least for now) to detect people seamless intention to spread terror when the perpetrator is one scrupulous guy who has been known for his/her warm virtuosity or gentle act toward others. Take a look atSteven Phillip Kazmierczak, the perpetrator of the Northern Illinois University massacre on February of 2008. He was according to his girlfriend, the nicest person ever and never demonstrated any tendency toward violence. It turned out that he had been lying to everyone about a brief history of mental illness during his childhood. He whacked 5 people and injured 18 others before he met his own demise.

Though there is no national tracking system for murder-suicides in the United States, medical studies into the phenomenon estimate between 1,000 to 1,500 deaths per year in the US, with the majority occurring between spouses or intimate partners, males were the vast majority of the perpetrators, and over 90% of murder suicides involved a firearm. Depression, financial problems, and other problems are generally motivators. This is a shocking fact. Before I came back from the United States in the march of 2009, there was this notorious Geneva county massacre in Geneva county in the state of Alabama where one 26-year-old Michael McLendon massacred 11 people in the neighborhood including his mother and himself. I would never be able to comprehend the mind of a person who can really put an end to his own birth giver, burn down her house, shoot the neighbor before ending his own life brutally. It is a sad tragedy and it really happened, not just a movie or a fictional novel story.

It is at times like this, when I long for the fictional pre-crime system depicted in Steven Spielberg’s film Minority Report. In Pre-Crime with the help of pre-cogs, we could detect a mass murder or crime before it even occurred and people could be punished for any strong intention with a vivid attempt of hurting other people (which of course only existed in the mind of the pre-cogs). If only that could be concocted, at least my sense of safety would be elevated to a significance level than it is now. But the system has its own shortcoming because I would lose every aspect of my own privacy, for the 24-hour constant surveillance makes me uncomfortable with other people’s tampering my private life only to be reminded by this notion of “We do this for the sake of your own good" excuse. Referring to the movie, there is one scene where in order to track Tom cruise’s character’s whereabouts, the FBI then used spider-like mini robot to scatter around and scan people’s retina when man and wife are shouting at each other, a man is answering his natural call in the toilet, a parent is about to tuck in her children in bed, and so forth. How can you live like this? As much as I desire that sense of safety, I surely would not be pleased if my private moments interrupted in that fashion. Now, I would not be too sure if someday we will have to live like that in the future, but on the other hand, when constructing the world of Minority Report, Steven Spielberg gathered about 50 real scientists of any discipline from around the country to sit together and have a brainstorming to make a raw but realistic projection about what the future would be like 50 years from the year 2001, which is when the movie is produced. Heck that would be eerie.

Back to our initial question: “Are we really safe to live in Indonesia?” The answer would depend on the level of safety in question. If asked would we need a constant awareness over our ambience all of the time and occasionally take a peek if someone intends to hurt us. I would say that is too much. We need not be that alarmed. But that certainly never hurts, because it is always good to practice self-awareness to escape from misfortune. Wherever we are, all of us are inherently unsafe. If you live in the U.S, like described above you might be in constant state of fear of becoming innocent victim of raging gunman. And of course a 9/11-like attack is a latent threat from countries hating the country. If you live in India, you could be a victim of India-Pakistan tension where just last November 2008, ten coordinated shootings and bombings were perpetrated by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants inside Pakistan across Mumbai, one of the major cities in India where the casualties of the attack claimed the life of at least 164 civilians. So, if you think to live in Indonesia is unsafe, think again. In conclusion, we could never be assured a 100% safety wherever we are and need to realize that life and death is only separated by this invisible doorway between our world and the afterlife. Enough said, forget about death, and get back to your life, enjoy it, and live it to the fullest.

-Mulyadi Tjoa , Software Developer @ PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta-

Review Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

For those who know me, I have been following the buzz surrounding the newest Harry Potter film in the last couple of weeks. It is fun to read buzz and hype regarding people’s fascination about a movie. Last year, I followed the buzz around The Dark Knight which coincidentally produced by the same movie studio for which I have a weird sense of support. It is the Warner Bros studio. I have an associate who owns stock at Time Warner Inc, which is parent of Warner Bros. So, my sense of support for this company stemmed tacitly from my support for this associate, albeit it unfortunately has no lucrative effect whatsoever on me.

Before reviewing, let me state that that I am by all mean a non harry potter fan and will likely remain so after I actually saw this latest installment. Last year, when The Dark Knight opened in theatres, it was mind blowing and enjoying a several weeks of becoming a juggernaut for other big releases last summer. This year’s Harry Potter unfortunately does not quite live up its hype. One of the best scenes of the film is at the very beginning of the movie, and you know that usually portends a bad aftermath because everything up from that point is downhill. But it certainly is not the case for the half Blood Prince as the adventure progress thru crests and troughs throughout its 153 minutes running time. The tone becomes darker than ever.

This newest Harry Potter clearly exemplifies an excellent exercise of character study (especially true for Jim Broadbent and Alan Rickman) as well as great cinematic artwork. Its dark visual elements divulge the imagination spawned out of the genius head of one J.K. Rowling. The movie occasionally interludes with the teenagers dealing with puberty due to hormonal rage. It was this part of the movie handled wittily and charmingly by director David Yates that I, who normally despise teenage coping with puberty, have a sense of affection for. The commonplace normal teenage upbringing that you read in trashy romance novel is enchanting and effective partly due to the fact that we have built a strong rapport with those kids in the last 8 years or so.

If this film could ever be a great film, it certainly could not be great per se. It has to build on strong grounding bases that were the first 5 chapters on the series. You cannot conjure up the rich world of Harry Potter on this picture sans the knowledge of the previous stories of the saga. The cinematography is a great one. There is one beautiful shot involving dropping a ring and of course the very first scene of the film. This is not a devout film adaptation of the book, so I heard. This might serve well for its own good or not. It is for the fans to judge.

The major drawback of this film is as it moves forward from the two third of the movie towards the end it becomes slower in pace and eventually decaying audiences anticipation built up at the beginning. This is by far the most talkative Potter film and will surely turn off people with high adrenaline. I surely enjoy the slow pace because the director gives more time for the audience to appreciate the story and the character more. However, it might be too slow and too talky that by the end of its running time it annihilates all audience expectation for a thrill ride with a very good story. Don’t get me wrong the story is intriguing and those characters become more embraceable for me as opposed to a more cynical attitude I had before with the previous movies. It is like you are expecting for something that is never quite so delivered. However, according to some associates of mine who are Potter fans, they admittedly were pleased by this latest film.

Harry Potter and the half Blood Prince was meant to be released last November, but was moved to this summer because of some financial reason. The move has driven madness among fans alike and has catapulted its advance ticket sale sky high. Unfortunately, though it is still good, the film does not deserve that kind of privilege. Instead of a super massive black hole that can suck everyone dare enough to walk close to the cinema that plays the film without initial intention, it is just another Potter film with great eye candy and interesting tale to enjoy but just not worth getting into a very long line of purchasing the ticket for.

“Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince,” A Warner Bros. Pictures release, is rated PG for scary images, some violence, language, and mild sensuality. Running time: 153 minutes. Three stars out of four (B)

-Mulyadi Tjoa, Software Developer @PT Switchlab Indonesia, Jakarta-