X-Men: The Last Stand

At long last, the eagerly anticipated X-Men 3 movie has been released. I must confessed that I enjoyed the movie but was equally disappointed at the same time. How so?

Usually, when a movie is made from a comic, graphic novel or novel, it will be either slightly or completely different than it's original written. This is probably to cater to the audiences, the flavour of the movie or just to create another interesting part to the movie. From Harry Potter to the Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. However, I did find that the only faithful movie I've ever watched was Sin City, it was a film noir, almost like watching a graphic novel come to life.

Now, for X-men, apart from the dark leather costumes, many of the characters have powers that are strange and the characters are younger than they should be relative to the other characters. Take for example Shadowcat, Rogue, even Iceman. But I shan't digress on this. Read below for my nit-picks at The Last Stand.

------Some Spoilers Below-----

1. Jean Grey's character with her split personality of Phoenix and hence Dark Phoenix was a little bogus. They didn't even try hard to explain it too much, which was a deviation from the comic.
   
2. Her Phoenix (fire-bird) effect was missing from the movie. Even her red trenchcoat made of curtain drapes failed to impress. The original Dark Phoenix had more fashion sense, a red and yellow costume with a sash for a belt.
3. The Brotherhood of Mutants, their powers were very haphazard, I really couldn't tell who was who. Was Arclight a man in drag or a woman?
   
4. Magneto was more powerful in the comics as he could manipulate not just metal, but even plastic and stone. When he was unable to affect the plastic weapons in the movie, I was stunned. Or perhaps they couldn't create too powerful a character for fear they could not find a way to kill him off.
5. Wolverine's healing factor seems to have mood swings, sometimes it's gradual, sometimes it's fast, perhaps he's not eating enough vitamins! Walking against Jean Grey's barrage of gale force winds that flay the flesh off his body, he even has time to re-heal himself. Jean obviously wasn't smart enough to ash him quickly and completely like she did the Professor.
6. Angel, all he was there for was to save his dad and look smug. Otherwise, his debut centred around showing his upper torso and his abs.
7. Leech's powers seems to be only temporary, so was the mutant "cure" only temporary? The chess piece moved an iota! If you blinked, you probably missed it.
   
8. Jamie Madrox aka Multiple Man was a useless multiple decoy.
9. Iceman and Pyro fights and he just head-butts him? Did he die? Did he escape? What happened?
   
10. Poor Mystique, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned indeed!
    
11. Scott Summers aka Cyclops died? It wasn't really clear till the end. Did Phoenix absorb him into herself? It wasn't clearly shown. Maybe they didn't have enough money to pay him and he fled to do Bryan Singer's Superman Returns.
12. Professor Xavier died, that was a huge shock to me really. However, did he really die? Hmm...
    

Overall, I thought it was enjoyable to watch all the action sequences and Magneto frivolously using his powers to destroy cars and move bridges.

Brett Ratner did a good job with the action. However, I thought that Bryan Singer could have completed the X-Men Trilogy before moving on to do Superman Returns and pulling James Marsden over. I'm sure that he could have developed upon all the characters more to make it a most satisfying trilogy ending.

I mean, JRR Tolkien would not have let CS Lewis complete his Lord Of The Rings Trilogy would he?? Think Aragorn as a lion and Sauron as the female white witch! Yeesh... what a scary thought indeed!

Let's wait and see if there's going to be any X-Men 4 movie in the pipeline.

7.5 out of 10

Translation

My friend sent me this table, it's almost like a reading between the lines for the hidden meanings. Scary how right they can be at a workplace!

Human For Sale

My blog reached it's 1 year anniversary on the 15 May - hooray! I'm glad it's been existing online for as long as it has, holding my thoughts, rants, interest, movie and book reviews.

I just came across a Human For Sale site and found myself worth close to 2 million. Go try it out and see how much you're worth! The breakdown is just too embarassing to post! hehehe...

I am worth $1,945,458 on HumanForSale.com

A Need For Speed

Hi all, it's been awhile since my last confession. I recently returned from a month long vacation and have several topics brewing. It's so easy to let your mind wonder when you're on vacation and thinking of nothing...

Anyway, let's just say that I was driving around in an Mazda MX5 Spyder for the first few days of my vacation, enjoying all the perks of speeding around in the convertible (wind and dirt in your hair) and taking bends at top speed (120 kph) and letting the car's incredible compensation system compensate for all those high-speed turns, right up to the point of braking for the speed camera!

Those pesky speed cameras, who likes them? It catches anyone speeding and makes them pay for it. Sometimes, it depends on how fast you go, and in no matter which country you visit, they're there, these silent sentinels just waiting to catch you on film.

Then it occurred to me: Why not use speed cameras to catch those people who drive slowly on the freeway or in the fast lane and at the same time catch speedsters? This is how it works.

You put up signs saying that this freeway is a 90 to 110 kph (or mph, depending on which country you're from) speed zone, you're not allowed to go slower than 90 kph or faster than 110 kph. If you travel within this designated speed limit, the cameras won't take a photo of your car. If however, you drive slower than 90 kph or faster than 110 kph, your car get's its picture taken and you'll get fined.

Just before Christmas last year, my friend Kerry visited and complained that there were idiotic drivers driving at 60 kph in a 90 kph lane. Well Kerry, this method I thought up is to fine-tune those pesky speed cameras and will (hopefully) greatly ease the traffic congestions on freeways (and in fast lanes), catch those wannabe speedsters and it's a great way for the government to make loads of money from those slow, pathetic drivers (through fines! Yes! Make them pay dearly!!), it's a 3 prong strategy that is guaranteed to work wonders.

If you're working in the Traffic Department and read this post, do think about implimenting it, because think of all that $$$ you can get through fines! It's like building a moving Disneyland, you'd probably earn millions in a day on that freeway alone. Now multiply that by the number of freeways you have in your country! I can imagine at least 75% of drivers travel out of this 90 to 110 kph limit. You can even lower taxes after this!

If they do ever impliment it, I'll be able to get to work in under 15 minutes instead of getting stuck in bloody morning traffic for up to at least an hour!

One can only wish...

Censorship Cowards

Time and time again, this issue on censorship is brought up. If it's not censorship of movies, then it's of information. What kind of information? The political kind, the kind that only harms the government and makes them look bad on election year.

Lately, the local blogs have been swarming with political dissent and the government, with all their vaunted elections coming up, have decided to "bribe" the citizens by imposing measures, call it censorship if you will, to help weed out these dissent, and ultimately snuff it out, so that they won't breed online. Too late, the seeds of a silent revolution have already been planted.

I've always believed in freedom of speech, but at the user's discretion. Freedom of speech not to turn people into matyrs and enemies. It's bad enough as it is that the world is fighting on a religious front in the Middle East. Do we have to fight on the home front too? These parodies are only present in developed countries, notice that third world countries don't bother with these things. They're more concerned with shortage of food and water and surviving till the next day.

I've often read that the more you oppress a people, the more innovative they get trying to get out from under that iron fist. The easier it is for them to slip through your fingers and get away with it. As it is, the invisible rule is ever-present in this country. This makes our people very selfish and sadly self-centred, thereby leading to dissent with their own government - a vicious circle if you will with no end in sight.

Although other countries like America and perhaps the UK do certain amount of censorship, they do so with a bit of logic and wisdom, which seems to be lacking in these parts. There ar many degrees in which you can consider blogging to be a threat.

Take for example, if Osama Bin Laden decides to start blogging and podcasting, to instill all his fear and terror with his campaigns, ah then it's right to censor it, as that becomes a threat to everyone world-wide. But if you're just a student blogging your daily activities and perfecting your communication skills to garner world-wide attention, then leave them be, what harm could that be?

Are those blog entries really so dangerous that you need to censor or control blogging as a whole? Are they cowards not to allow bloggers or podcasters their freedom to personally broadcast their point of views? Are podcast just another means by which a company or government or media group spread their propaganda? If so, censorship is the last thing they should do.

Blogs have turned into our very own online version of a Speaker's Corner. And there's nothing anyone can do to stop it. If you censor everything, you might as well be blind, deaf and dumb.

Superhero

Your results:
You are Green Lantern.
Hot-headed. You have strong will power and a good imagination.

Green Lantern 85%

Spider-Man 75%

Hulk 65%

Iron Man 65%

Superman 60%

Robin 45%

The Flash 45%

Batman 40%

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

I took the superhero test, I don't really like being Green Lantern, although I do love his extremely imaginary power ring. I thought of myself as more of an X-Men like Cyclops or Iceman, but hey, I'm not complaining!

Do the superhero test and let me know who you turn out to be. Cheers!

Dream Car

I've been looking to get a nice car ever since I had to get rid of my blue Fiat UNO. There was an initial substitute - Volks Wagen Golf, the hatch-back one. However, cars here are so fucking expensive that I use the equivalent of the cost of a Steinway grand to compare. A BMW here cost almost 3 Steinway grands, or close to it!

Well, this is my dream car - Humvee. If they ever import this vehicle, it will be a road hazard! It's so broad it will take up 1.5 lanes here and parking will be a huge problem. However, ever since watching the TV series Entourage and the guys just driving around LA in their yellow Humvee, and seeing a Humvee limo up close and personal in San Francisco, this vehicle just amazes me!

Here's to striking the lottery soon and getting this car imported! It's guaranteed to be a babe magnet, and I might even nickname it Pussy Wagon! hehe...

Then again, dreams are just what they are...dreams...

Behold: The Pussy Wagon

Relative

Noise is relative to the silence preceding it.
The more absolute the hush, the more shocking the thunderclap.