Guardians of the Galaxy

 Released Year: 2014

Directed by James Gunn

Casted by:

Chris Pratt as Peter Quill / Star-Lord

Zoe Saldana as Gamora

Dave Bautista as Drax the Destroyer

Vin Diesel as Groot

Bradley Cooper as Rocket

Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser

Michael Rooker as Yondu Udonta

 Story:

In 1988, following his mother's death, a young Peter Quill is abducted from Earth by the Ravagers, a group of space pirates led by Yondu. Twenty-six years later on the planet Morag, Quill steals a sphere-like artifact only to be intercepted by Korath, a subordinate to the fanatical Kree, Ronan. Although Quill escapes with the artifact, Yondu discovers his theft and issues a bounty for his capture while Ronan sends the assassin Gamora after the orb.

When Quill attempts to sell the orb on the Nova Corps homeworld Xandar, Gamora ambushes him and steals it. A fight ensues, drawing in a pair of bounty hunters; the genetically-engineered raccoon Rocket, and the tree-like humanoid Groot. The Nova Corps arrives and arrests the group, imprisoning them in the Kyln. A powerful inmate, Drax, attempts to kill Gamora due to her association with Ronan, who killed his family. Quill dissuades him by saying that Gamora can bring Ronan to him. Gamora reveals that she has betrayed Ronan, unwilling to let him use the orb's power to destroy entire planets such as Xandar. Learning that Gamora has a buyer for the orb, Rocket, Quill, Groot, and Gamora work together to escape the Kyln.

Elsewhere, Ronan meets with the titan Thanos to discuss his daughter Gamora's betrayal and the loss of the orb. Accompanied by Drax, Quill's group escapes the Kyln in his ship—the Milano—and flee to Knowhere, a remote criminal outpost in space built in the giant severed-head of a celestial. A drunken Drax summons Ronan, while the rest of the group meet Gamora's contact, Taneleer Tivan. Tivan opens the orb, revealing an Infinity Stone, an item of immeasurable power that destroys all but the most powerful beings who wield it. Suddenly, Tivan's tormented assistant grabs the stone, triggering an explosion that engulfs his collection.

Ronan arrives and easily defeats Drax, while the others flee by ship, pursued by Ronan's followers and Gamora's sister Nebula. Nebula destroys Gamora's ship, leaving her floating in space, and Ronan's forces leave with the sphere. Quill contacts Yondu before following Gamora into space, giving her his helmet to survive; Yondu arrives and retrieves the pair. Rocket, Drax, and Groot threaten to attack Yondu's ship to rescue them, but Quill negotiates a truce by convincing Yondu that they can recover the orb. The group agrees that facing Ronan means certain death, but that they must stop him from using the Infinity Stone to destroy the galaxy. On Ronan's ship, the Dark Aster, Ronan embeds the stone in his warhammer, taking its power for himself. He contacts Thanos, threatening that after the destruction of Xandar, he will kill Thanos; hateful of her adopted father, Nebula allies with Ronan.

On Xandar, the Dark Aster is confronted by Yondu's fleet, the Nova Corps, and Quill's group, which breaches the Dark Aster. Ronan uses his upgraded warhammer to destroy the Nova Corps fleet. Drax kills Korath, and Gamora defeats Nebula (who escapes) and unlocks Ronan's chambers, but the group finds themselves outmatched by his power until Rocket crashes the Milano through the Dark Aster and into Ronan. The damaged Dark Aster crash lands on Xandar, with Groot sacrificing himself to shield the group. Ronan emerges from the wreck and prepares to destroy Xandar, but Quill distracts him, allowing Drax to destroy Ronan's warhammer. Quill grabs the freed stone, and with Gamora, Drax, and Rocket sharing its burden, they use it to destroy Ronan.

In the aftermath, Quill tricks Yondu into taking a container supposedly containing the stone, then gives the real stone to the Novas. As the Ravagers leave Xandar, they remark that it turned out well that they did not deliver Quill to his father. Quill's group, now known as the Guardians of the Galaxy, have their criminal records expunged, and Quill learns that he is only half-human, his father being part of an ancient, unknown species. Quill finally opens the last present he received from his mother; a cassette tape filled with her favorite songs. The Guardians leave in the rebuilt Milano accompanied by a twig recovered from Groot, which is already growing. In a post-credits scene, Tivan sits in his destroyed archive with two of his living exhibits: a canine cosmonaut and an anthropomorphic duck.

 L² Scored: 3.5/10

L² Comment:

Seriously, this movie only managed to get me awake for around 1 hour then the rest i was mostly half asleep and half awake while watching it in the cinema. The storyline is just all over the place for me, not really like it. It makes me think of "the hitchhiker of the galaxy", which i dislike a lot... gosh~ i hate it coz this film have so many of my favorite celebrities inside and i still dislike it...

Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant

Released Year: 2009
Directed by Paul Weitz

Casted by:
Chris Massoglia as Darren Shan
John C. Reilly as Larten Crepsley
Josh Hutcherson as Steve Leonard
Jessica Carlson as Rebecca
Ray Stevenson as Murlough
渡辺 謙 Ken Watanabe as Hibernius Tall
Salma Hayek as Madame Truska
Michael Cerveris as Desmond Tiny
Willem Dafoe as Gavner Purl
Story:

Darren is an A class student with a good future, his best friend is Steve who is a useless bump. Darren is fancy with spider while Steve fancy the vampire. Steve has been wishing to become a vampire to end up his pathetic life. On one night, they received a brochure from Mr Tiny to attend the freak show.

Despite how the school teacher refuse to let them attend the show, the 2 youngster went on the freak show by themselves. The show was host by Hibernius Tall, all kind of freak person appeared such as the wolfman, the woman who can grown her body again, the rib-man, the man who can eat everything even fire. And Madame Truska who can transform herself by touching whoever feel the future of Darren when she touched him. The final performer is Crepsley who Darren & Steve suspect he is a vampire. Crepsley warn them not to announce his identity or else he will kill them.

The school teacher brought the police to the show and force them to close down. To hide from the school, Darren and Steve hide in the dungeon. While Gavner and Crepsley have their discussion, they discover Steve is there. Steve begged Crepsley to turn him into a vampire, but after tasting Steve's blood, Crepsley state that Steve's blood is not good to become a vampire. Steve is pissed off and swear he will come back to hunt the vampire down. Darren's hideout was discovered too and he ran away by stealing the spider from Crepsley. In the meantime, Gavner inform that vampaneze has sent Murlough to kill Crepsley.

Next day, Steve discovered that Darren got the spider and try to kill it but was bitten instead. To get the antidote, Darren went back to the freak camp and find Crepsley. To take up his wife, Madame Truska's advice, Crepsley decided to turn Darren into half vampire in exchange for the antidote. Darren agree on the deal and promise to guard against Crepsley's coffin during daytime to prevent the attack from Murlough. Darren was found death the next day but actually is a fake death. Later at night, Crepsley come to dig out his coffin and brought him to stay in the freak camp. In another hand, Steve was jealous Darren got his dream and went to work with Murlough to slave the vampires.

Living in the freak camp, Darren was in the same room with the snake boy, Evra. Darren even fall in love with the monkey girl Rebecca. But Murlough brought Steve to attack by capturing Darren's family and Rebecca. Steve offered Darren to surrender and join them but was rejected. While fighting, Rebecca used her tail to open the knots and let go of the Shan's family. Crepsley is unable to fight against the 2 rivals and Rebecca fed Darren with her blood and become powerful to help Crepsley. Mr Tiny was watching all these and finally turn Murlough into a tiny person and went away with Steve.

Finally Darren and Crepsley went back to the Freak camp and other voted and agreed to let Darren stay. Crepsley even offered him a new coffin in the camp too.

L² Scored: 4/10

L² Comment:

This is from Darren Shan's novel series, "The Saga of Darren Shan". How weird, the author used his own name to be the main character, huh?!? The whole movie is not bad, quite good. Just like the freak show in "The Wolfgirl", you can see all sorts of freak showing their freak thing.

But i always thought vampire is monster/creatures but not freak. And both the new actor Chris Massoglia & Josh Hutcherson still need a lot of training on their acting... overall the movie is ok, nothing much excited about it...