The 5th Wave

 Released Year: 2016

Directed by J Blakeson

Casted by:

Chloë Grace Moretz as Cassie Sullivan

Nick Robinson as Ben Parish / Zombie

Alex Roe as Evan Walker

Liev Schreiber as Colonel Vosch

Maika Monroe as Ringer

Zackary Arthur as Sammy Sullivan

Ron Livingston as Oliver Sullivan

Maggie Siff as Lisa Sullivan

Maria Bello as Sergeant Reznik

 Story: 

The 5th Wave follows 16-year-old Cassie Sullivan as she tries to survive in a world devastated by the waves of alien invasion that have already devastated the Earth's population and knocked humankind back to the Stone Age. As one of the planet's last survivors after her father was killed in a massacre by the army, Cassie has to learn the hard way to trust no one. The only thing that keeps Cassie going is the hope that she can save her 5-year-old brother, Sam, from a "training" camp established by the Others (the aliens). Cassie and Ben Parish, who was her crush in school, narrate a good majority of the story, along with several supporting characters who offer different perspectives. The Waves were planned attacks used by the Others in their attempt to take over planet Earth, but the reason for their desire to inhabit the planet is much deeper than that and has a lot to do with humanity itself.

 L² Scored: 6/10

L² Comment:

Before I watch this movie, a lot of friend told me the movie is not as good as the trailer. But for me, a guy who did not watch the trailer, I found that this movie is not as bad as what people say... Its something like "28 weeks later" + "Hunger game" + "Zombie land" kinda feel for me...

The movie is based on Rick Yancey's eponymous novel in 2013. From the ending of this movie, its not difficult to guess that there will be a sequence coming soon. But hopefully the negative feedback will not cause this series of movie to be die half way...

First Wave: Lights Out: During the first wave the Others release an EMP wave that takes out all electronics/lights/technology and kills half a million people by shorting out all moving vehicles, including planes in mid-flight.

Second wave: Surf's Up: The Others, realizing that roughly 40 percent of Earth's population lives within 60 miles (97 km) of coastline, drop enormous rods "twice as tall as the Empire State Building and three times as heavy" (45) onto the Earth's fault lines, causing massive tsunamis that wipe out three billion people.

Third wave: Pestilence: the Others launch a scheme to infect as many remaining survivors as possible with a deadly virus. Using the Earth's birds as carriers (via falling excrement) the plague claims 97 percent of remaining survivors. The virus, which resembles an advanced form of Ebola, causes victims to slowly bleed to death until eventually "you've become a viral bomb. And when you explode, you blast everyone around you with the virus" (46).

Fourth wave: Silencers: After the 3rd wave the remaining human population tries desperately to survive off whatever resources remain by looting, all the while clinging to the hope that "the people in charge", wherever they may be, are working toward a solution. Eventually this belief seems legitimate when an impressive battalion of soldiers (with functioning vehicles) arrives at the makeshift camp where Cassie, Sam and her father are staying. The soldiers and commander, however, only appear interested in the children and promptly load them onto waiting buses before ordering all the adults into the camp barracks. Once the humans are surrounded, Commander Vosch orders a massacre and kills everyone at the camp. Cassie, however, narrowly escapes and witnesses her father's death by Vosch's hand. At this moment the 4th wave becomes clear: not all humans are actually humans.

Fifth wave: The children captured during the 4th wave are taken to the Others' primary Earth military compound and are desocialized and then resocialized to execute one goal: kill the remaining human population. This is accomplished through a rigorous boot camp in which children, some as young as five years old, are issued weapons and are expected to follow orders given by commanding officers (whom the children have no idea are not human). During boot camp the Others convince the children that the "aliens" have taken over human bodies and it is paramount that they (the children) eradicate them. In essence, the captured children are the 5th wave.

The Amityville Horror 2005

 Released Year: 2005

Directed by Andrew Douglas

Casted by:

Ryan Reynolds as George Lutz

Melissa George as Kathy Lutz

Jesse James as Billy Lutz

Jimmy Bennett as Michael Lutz

Chloë Grace Moretz as Chelsea Lutz

 Story:

In 1974, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. murdered his family at their house in Amityville, New York. He claimed that he was persuaded to kill them by voices he heard in the house. Married couple George and Kathy Lutz move into the house along with the latter's three children from a previous marriage, Billy, Michael and Chelsea. The family experiences paranormal events in the house. Chelsea claims that she befriended a girl named Jodie, a name possessed by one of the murdered DeFeo children. Chelsea also inexplicably acquires Jodie's teddy bear. Then one day the couple decide to go out and spend some time together, and they hire a babysitter to baby sit the 3 kids, when the babysitter, Lisa, arrives they come to know that she had been there before to babysit the Defeos.

She tells Billy about the murders that took place in their very house. When she goes to Chelsea's room and Chelsea tells her that she is a bad babysitter, and she says Jodie told her so, the babysitter begins to criticize Jodie for the reason behind her being fired from babysitting. She is dared by Billy to go to the closet (the same closet where Jodie was). Inside the closet, she gets locked and is not able to come out. After a few seconds she has an encounter with Jodie herself. Then she goes into a shock and the paramedics come and take her. On the way to the hospital, Lisa says to Kathy that she had seen JODIE, who was supposed to be dead. Kathy asks priest Father Callaway to bless the house, regarding this as a protective measure which will prevent any future paranormal incidents, but Father Callaway flees the house when he encounters such occurrences himself in the process. He later informs Kathy that the teddy bear Chelsea has belonged to Jodie DeFeo and was buried with her.

George's behavior towards Kathy's children becomes abusive and paranormal activity continues; Kathy discovers that the building once belonged to a cult preacher and becomes convinced that George's abusive behavior is owed to a possession of him by the preacher's spirit. She tries to evacuate her children from the house and escort them to safety, but the possessed George attempts to kill her and the children; Kathy knocks him out to prevent him from doing so and transports him away from the residence. Subsequently, George is released from the spirit's control and the family permanently leaves the house. A title card states that the family left within 28 days of arriving and never returned for their personal items. Jodie is shown standing in the now empty house and screaming in terror while the house rearranges itself. Subsequently, she is pulled beneath the floor by a pair of disembodied hands.

  L² Scored: 6.5/10 

L² Comment:

Remake of the same name movie in 1979, this is a true horror story which has receive a negative critics. For me, it is just standard horror movie and nothing really too exciting during the whole movie. Sometime, even though its a remake, but i really hope the production team would come out something special rather than just copy everything from the original movie, right?

Bolt 2008

 Released Year: 2008

Directed by Chris Williams & Byron Howard

Voiced by:

John Travolta as Bolt
Susie Essman as Mittens
Mark Walton as Rhino
Miley Cyrus as Penny

 Story:

A girl named Penny and a dog named Bolt star on a hit television series called Bolt in which the titular character has various superpowers and must constantly thwart the evil plans of the nefarious Doctor Calico. To gain a more realistic performance, the TV show's producers have deceived Bolt his entire life, arranging the filming in such a way that Bolt believes the television show is real and he really has superpowers, including a powerful sonic scream-like "superbark". Mistakenly believing Penny has been kidnapped by the villain, Bolt escapes from his on-set trailer in Hollywood but falls into a box of foam peanuts and unknown to the film company is accidentally shipped to New York City. In New York, Bolt starts to notice that his "superpowers" aren't working, and rationalizes this is the effect that styrofoam has on his body. He then meets Mittens, a female alley cat who bullies pigeons out of their food. Bolt forces Mittens to help him get back to Hollywood, and after Bolt knocks Mittens unconscious the two start their journey westward on a truck. In Hollywood, Penny is deeply saddened over Bolt's disappearance but is convinced by the studio to continue filming with a Bolt lookalike.

Surprised at his first feelings of both pain and hunger, Bolt is shown by Mittens how to act like a cute, but needy dog, and is rewarded by food. They meet Rhino, a fearless, TV-obsessed hamster and Bolt fan who joins their team. Rhino’s unwavering faith in Bolt substantiates the dog’s illusions about his superpowers, but Mittens, who has learned that Bolt is from a television show, tries to convince Bolt that his superpowers aren't real. Bolt refuses to listen to Mittens, and instead becomes frustrated and attempts to "superbark" her repeatedly. The noise attracts Animal Control, who captures them both and transports them to an animal shelter. After being freed en route by Rhino, Bolt finally realizes that he is just a normal dog, but regains his confidence after Rhino (oblivious to this revelation) gives him a pep talk. They rescue Mittens from the shelter and escape, allowing them to continue their journey. Along the way, Mittens helps Bolt through his identity crisis by teaching him typical dog activities (such as hanging his head out car windows and chasing sticks), but Mittens refuses to go farther than Las Vegas. She tells Bolt that his Hollywood life is fake and there is no real love for him there. Her emotional rant reveals that she was once a house cat, but was abandoned by her previous owner and left to brave the harsh streets alone and declawed. Bolt refuses to believe that Penny doesn't love him, and continues on alone, wishing Mittens the best. Rhino, learning of Bolt's departure, convinces Mittens that they must help him, and the two set off to find Bolt once again.

Bolt reaches the studio and finds Penny embracing his lookalike. Unaware that Penny still misses him and that her affection for the lookalike is only a part of a rehearsal for the show, he leaves, brokenhearted. Mittens, on a gantry in the studio, sees what Bolt does not: Penny telling her mother how much she misses Bolt. Realizing that Penny truly does love Bolt, Mittens follows Bolt and explains. At the same time, the Bolt-lookalike panics during the show's filming and accidentally knocks over some flaming torches, setting the sound stage on fire with Penny trapped inside. Bolt arrives and reunites with Penny inside the burning studio, but they cannot get out. In desperation, and unwilling to abandon Penny, Bolt uses his "superbark". The firefighters hear the noise through the building's air vent and manage to rescue them before they succumb to smoke inhalation.

Penny and her mother subsequently quit the show when their agent attempts to exploit the incident for publicity purposes. Penny herself adopts Mittens and Rhino, and she and her family move to a rural home to enjoy a simpler, happy lifestyle with Bolt and her new pets. The show continues, but with a replacement "Bolt" and "Penny" – "Penny's" new appearance being explained in the show as being serious injuries necessitating her undergoing facial reconstruction surgery, and adopting a new storyline about alien abduction (one that even Rhino finds unrealistic, and Bolt finds "ridonculous"). The epilogue scenes during the credits show Bolt, Penny, her mother, Mittens, and Rhino enjoying their new life together.

L² Scored: 9.5/10

L² Comment:

Oh this cartoon is so cute :) Bolt looks a bit like my dog~ but only my dog is in gold fur hehehe... and of coz, Mittens is cute as well, first time i don't feel so hateful on cats lol~ the whole movie is kinda sweet of how Bolt wanna find his master and travel a long way with his 2 buddies... in the end all of them went home with Penny and live happily ever after~ sweet huh? :)

Hugo

 Released Year: 2011

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Casted by:

 Asa Butterfield as Hugo Cabret
Ben Kingsley as Georges Méliès
Chloë Grace Moretz as Isabelle

Sacha Baron Cohen as Inspector Gustave
Helen McCrory as Mama Jeanne

Michael Stuhlbarg as René Tabard

Jude Law as Hugo's father

 Story:

 In 1931, Hugo Cabret, a 12-year-old boy, lives with his widowed father, a master clockmaker in Paris. Hugo's father takes him to see films and his father particularly loves the films of Georges Méliès. Hugo's father dies in a museum fire, and Hugo is taken away by his uncle, an alcoholic watchmaker who is responsible for maintaining the clocks in the railway station Gare Montparnasse. His uncle teaches him to take care of the clocks and then disappears. He is later discovered to have drowned.

Hugo lives between the walls of the station, maintaining the clocks, stealing food and working on his father's most ambitious project: repairing a broken automaton, a mechanical man who is supposed to write with a pen. Convinced the automaton contains a message from his father, Hugo goes to desperate lengths to fix it. He steals mechanical parts to repair the automaton, but he is caught by a toy store owner, Papa Georges, who takes Hugo's notebook from him, with notes and drawings for fixing the automaton.

To recover the notebook, Hugo follows the shopkeeper to his house and meets Isabelle, an orphan close to his age and Georges' goddaughter. She promises to help. The next day, Georges gives some ashes to Hugo, referring to them as the notebook's remains, but Isabelle informs him that the notebook was not burned. Finally he agrees that Hugo may earn the notebook back by working for him until he pays for all the things he stole from the shop.

Hugo works in the toy shop, and in his time off manages to fix the automaton, but it is still missing one part—a heart–shaped key. Hugo introduces Isabelle to the movies, which her godfather has never let her see, while she introduces Hugo to a bookstore whose owner initially mistrusts Hugo. Isabelle turns out to have the key to the automaton. When they use the key to activate the automaton, it produces a drawing of a film scene, signed by Georges Méliès. Hugo remembers it is the film his father always talked about as the first film he ever saw (Voyage to the Moon) and Isabelle recognises the signature as being the name of her godfather, Papa Georges and the two of them take it to her home for an explanation.

Hugo shows Georges' wife Mama Jeanne the drawing made by the automaton, but she will not tell them anything and makes them hide in a room when Georges comes home. While hiding, Isabelle and Hugo find a secret cabinet and accidentally release pictures and screen boards of Georges' creations - the noise attracts Georges, who is deeply upset and throws Hugo out, feeling betrayed.

The bookseller refers Hugo and Isabelle to a book on the history of film and are surprised that the author, Rene Tabard, refers to Méliès as having died in World War I. Tabard himself appears, and the children tell him that Méliès is alive. Tabard, a devotee of Méliès' films, owns a copy of Voyage to the Moon. Then Hugo convinces Tabard to go to Georges' home. That night Hugo dreams of being run over by a train when trying to retrieve the heart key from the rails, a sequence that ends in a re-creation of the Montparnasse train accident. When he wakes up, he hears a loud ticking sound and discovers it is coming from his own chest, at which point he suddenly turns into the same form and shape as the automaton, but then awakens for good.

Hugo, Isabelle and Tabard go to Georges' home, and at first Jeanne tells them to go before her husband wakes. However, Jeanne accepts their offer to show Voyage to the Moon when Tabard compliments her as the beautiful actress in Georges' films. As they finish watching the film, Georges appears and explains how he came to make movies, invented the special effects, and how he lost faith in films when World War I began, being forced to sell his films as chemicals to get money, and opening the toy shop to survive. He also believes the automaton he created was lost in the museum fire and nothing remains of his life's work.

Hugo goes back to the station to get the automaton, to surprise Georges, but he is cornered by the station inspector and his dog. Hugo escapes and runs to the top of the clock tower and hides by climbing out onto the hands of the clock. Once the inspector is gone, he runs for the exit with the automaton, but he is trapped by the inspector and the automaton is thrown onto the railway tracks. Climbing onto the tracks, Hugo is almost run over by an approaching train when the officer saves him and detains him as an orphan without a guardian. While Hugo pleads with the officer, Georges arrives and says Hugo is in his care. The officer lets him go.

At the end of the movie, Georges introduces a tribute ceremony to his movies with Tabard announcing that over 80 films have been recovered and restored. Georges thanks Hugo for his actions and invites the audience to "follow his dreams".

 L² Scored: 7/10

L² Comment:

A very interesting movie based on the novel of Brian Selznick. And the actor are chosen well for this film. Basically everybody acted well, even Jude Law who appeared a short while can steal our glance away. Pretty much like the young actor, Asa Butterfiled. I think in the coming future, we will see some big film from this kid~ good luck.

(500) Days of Summer

Released Year: 2009
Directed by Marc Webb

Casted by:
Joseph Gordon-Levittas Tom Hansen
Zooey Deschanel as Summer Finn
Story:

The film is presented in a nonlinear narrative, as it jumps from various days within the 500-day span of Tom and Summer's relationship, indicated by an animation that includes the day's number; this summary is a linear version of the events of the film.

On January 8, Tom Hansen meets Summer Finn, the new assistant to his boss. Tom trained as an architect but works as a writer at a greeting card company in Los Angeles. Following a karaoke night, Tom's friend and co-worker McKenzie reveals that Tom is attracted to Summer. During the next few months Summer and Tom grow closer, despite Summer telling Tom that she does not believe in true love, and does not want a boyfriend.

Tom shows Summer his favorite spot in the city, which overlooks a number of buildings he likes, although the view is spoiled by parking lots. After several months of dating, Tom gets into a fight with a man flirting with Summer and they have their first argument. On day 290, Summer and Tom end their relationship after they see The Graduate, a film which Tom thinks shows true love. Tom does not take the break up well, and Tom's friends call his younger sister, Rachel, to calm him down.

Summer quits the greeting card company. Tom's boss moves him to the consolations department, as his depression is not suitable for happier events. Months later, as Summer and Tom attend the wedding of a co-worker, they dance at the wedding and Summer catches the bouquet. They sit next to each other on the trip home and Summer invites Tom to a party at her apartment. He attends the party but leaves when he sees that Summer is wearing an engagement ring. Tom enters a deep depression, only leaving his apartment for alcohol and junk food. After a few days, he returns to work with a hangover and after an emotional outburst, quits his job. He decides to rededicate himself to architecture, makes a list of firms, and begins to attend interviews.

On day 488, Summer sees Tom at his favorite spot in the city and they talk. Tom states his lack of understanding towards her actions. Summer explains that he was right about the existence of true love, and that she discovered in someone else all the feelings she had never felt with Tom. Summer holds Tom's hand. She says she is glad to see Tom is doing well. As she leaves Tom tells her he really hopes she is happy.

Twelve days later, on Wednesday, May 23, he attends a job interview and meets a girl who is also applying for the same job. They talk, and Tom learns she shares his favorite spot and dislike for the parking lots. Before entering the interview, he makes a date to have coffee with her afterwards. He asks her name, and she replies "Autumn".

L² Scored: 6/10

L² Comment:

The movie is a bit boring at the beginning, but it goes on with the changes of the emotion and dates... it started to brought out the best part of the whole movie. The love, the dates, the words, the feeling, the depressed, the disappointment which showed by the character is simply awesome.

Though i only rate it at 6, but i think u guys should watch it~