Léon the Professional

Léon The Professional, starring Jean Reno as a hit man and Natalie Portman as a broken-home 12-year-old girl aspiring to become a “cleaner”, is a kill-without-mercy action/thriller that is much deeper than the usual sequence of gunshots, explosions, and the inevitable profanities. Léon himself is an interesting subject; on the outside he’s killing people efficiently and left them with a line “no wive, no kids”, on the inside, he’s a soft guy who treats his plant like his best friend (ironically the best friend survives) and you can see it right away that he’s just a professional with no strings attached. Quick and efficient. You’ve gotta like the guy from the beginning. But with the arrival of Mathilda, who escapes her family bloody massacre involving a D.E.A officer played by Gary Oldman, he is forever changed as a person. He tucks her in and teaches her to how to kill.

Though Natalie Portman displayed such a great acting ability in her age, her character is a little too precocious, unbalanced, and … I don’t know, mean. (Her costumes, by the way, are evil. If somebody like her wanders off the street wearing outfit like that, young or not, my first impression would be a hooker.) Revenge is an acceptable trigger, but the sexual intimacy references she professes for Léon is a bit disrupting (cartoons-watching kid + sexual lover = unbalanced).

Anyway, it was a slow afternoon and not typically my normal hours to watch DVDs. I think the movie dragged on, but as I think back now, it was actually quite touching and serious at the same time. Hard not to sympathize with a character who’s willing to die for someone he didn’t care about.

3.5/5.

Brothers Grimm

I could trick myself into believing the reason I went to see this movie is because the trailer looked promising. Or because the seemingly full-of-himself director Terry Gilliam announced this previously:

“I was the perfect guy to do Harry Potter. I remember leaving the meeting, getting in my car, and driving for about two hours along Mulholland Drive just so angry. I mean, Chris Columbus’ versions are terrible. Just dull. Pedestrian.”

It turned out Brothers Grimm is merely a piece of fairy tales crap combined together with meaningless plot and weak actors. My suggestion is, before anyone makes harsh judgment of other’s work, please do reflect upon yourself first how people make judgments of your own work. Personally I think all three Potter movies are bad, but I wouldn’t put it so ugly to the term of “pedestrian”. Brothers Grimm is full of attempts to entertain people with kids’ tales, and it has succeeded its goal: make people sleep before the story ends.

1.5/5.

The Legend of Zorro

Am I a pervert for thinking that the guy who played Zorro would be perfect in the role of Professor Severus Snape? The first time the mask (really just a piece of cloth) was torn apart, I thought: Wow, he reminds me of someone. Fifteen minutes later, the picture of Alan Rickman and the enigmatic Snape came up. I didn’t pay much attention to the thought later because, well, the mighty scholar of Dark Arts turned good isn’t, first of all, a Latin-born at all. Second, Snape is supposed to be thin and pale, not tanned and sexy all over like Don Alejandro. Yet both of them are so charming in the humor department. Nothing cracks me up better than well-directed sarcasm and sardonic remarks. Which is the only thing I like about The Legend of Zorro. Story’s a no-brainer, too cliche to repeat, and about 30 minutes longer than it should’ve been, but Zorro himself seems to get a humorous personality upgrade. Can’t remember very well about the exchange of verbal and physical attacks between him and Elena in the beginning, though, it’s been years. Zeta-Jones is, well, as always, an impeccably dazzling woman; that I can’t argue with. Men should go crazy about her as much as women drool over Antonio Banderas. Strange, because I hadn’t really liked him so much. The next day after watching it I went to rent The Mask of Zorro, but the rental place didn’t have the title. Too bad. Another viewing of Zorro might enlighten my imagination of Zorro teaching Potions. Perhaps it’s the unkempt and greasy hair. Hmm. Pervert.

3/5.

Crash

It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

An example like Crash reminds us of how diverse the world we’re living in. Born and raised in traditional family that’s not open to diversity and pluralism, I know how pluralism is treated like a disease. I know how uneasy it is to pretend that we’re feeling secure living together with people from other races when stereotypes and labels exist. We are all living with set prejudices that ought to be banished long time ago.

And my world is not nearly as plural as L.A.

5/5.

Coming soon, indeed: X3

Ah. The year 2006 looks better ahead with another installment of X-Men movie “X3″ scheduled to be released on May 26th. ComingSoon reports an official website has been launched where you can watch a Flash-featured teaser trailer (well, when they say teaser, do you really have to look it up?).

Does this indicate that I’m a comic-book geek? Because I’m not. Really.