Resident Evil: Retribution

 Released Year: 2012

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

Casted by:

Milla Jovovich as Alice

Sienna Guillory as Jill Valentine

 李冰冰 Li Bingbing as Ada Wong

Michelle Rodriguez as Rain Ocampo

Aryana Engineer as Becky

Shawn Roberts as Albert Wesker

Johann Urb as Leon S. Kennedy

Story: 

Alice and the others on the Umbrella Corporation freighter Arcadia face an attack by a fleet of tiltrotors led by Alice's former ally, Jill Valentine. Alice is captured in the attack, while the fates of Chris Redfield, Claire Redfield and K-Mart are left ambiguous.

Alice awakens in an underground facility and is interrogated by Jill. During a power failure, Alice escapes her cell and the laser grid, finding herself in a simulated Shibuya Square, Tokyo. Fighting her way out against zombies, she enters a control room and encounters Ada Wong, one of Albert Wesker's top agents. Ada explains that they no longer serve Umbrella and the power outage was staged by Wesker hacking into the facility's computers. Wesker appears on a screen, revealing that the Red Queen now controls Umbrella. Ada explains that the facility is underwater, located in Kamchatka, Russia, that served as a former Soviet naval outpost. The facility was designed by Umbrella in manufacturing clones and created simulated outbreaks to show the effect of the T-virus. Ada and Alice plan to rendezvous with a rescue crew, which includes Leon Kennedy, Barry Burton and Luther West, Alice's ally from the prior film. Leon's team plants explosives near the entrance of the facility, which will detonate in two hours to ensure the facility's destruction. The group plans to meet with Alice and Ada in the Raccoon City suburbia area. In a New York City simulation, Alice and Ada defeat two Axemen. Leon and his team enter a Moscow simulation, but are attacked by armed Las Plagas Undead.

In the Suburban setting, Alice and Ada encounter Becky, the deaf daughter of another Alice clone who mistakes the real Alice for her mother. They also encounter clones of Alice's former compatriots the One, Rain Ocampo and Carlos Olivera, sent to capture them. Ada gives Alice her smart glasses so that she and Becky can find their way and become split up. They encounter another clone of Rain, who was a friend of Becky's mother and Alice gives her a weapon. She then rescues Leon's surviving crew from the barrage of zombies and a giant Licker. Once united, the heroes head for the facility exit but are assaulted by the clones and Becky is captured by the Licker. Alice rescues her, using Leon's bombs, kills the Licker and allows the heroes to escape. The good Rain clone and Barry are killed - while the rest escape.

However, on the surface, their snow-mobile is knocked over by Jill Valentine's submarine. They confront the heroes with Ada as their hostage. Jill and Alice begin fighting each other, while Rain - now also enhanced with Las Plagas, fights Leon and Luther West, killing the latter. Alice is able to tear the mind-controlling scarab from Jill's chest and sinks Rain through the ice where she is dragged down by zombies. Alice, Ada, Becky, Leon, and Jill travel to Wesker's headquarters, the heavily barricaded and fortified White House, staffed by S.T.A.R.S. and the United States Military. Alice meets Wesker in the heavily-barricaded Oval Office, where he injects her with the T-virus, returning her superhuman abilities; as only Alice successfully bonded with it, she is the ultimate weapon. On the roof, Wesker explains the Red Queen is trying to wipe out humanity, and all of the remaining uninfected are in the base; it is humanity's last stand. A pull-away shows the military defending the White House alongside the remaining Umbrella Corp. soldiers against enormous hordes of T-virus abominations swarming all over the walls. 

 L² Scored: 8/10 

L² Comment: 

Finally Resident Evil is back on the "good-to-watch" track again... Not sure why Michelle Rodriguez is back into the movie but luckily her part is not that heavy, kinda hate to see her nasty face lately~ As the Asian market is getting wider, the production decided to add in asian superstar Li BingBing in this movie as well. However, Li BingBing's style in this movie is kinda weird and look like those 70's shanghai hooker as well, totally spoil her nice image. The story wise is not bad, kinda love the scene when Alice is being chased by many zombies, so cool~ :)

Truth Or Dare 2012

Released Year: 2012

Directed by Robert Heath

 

Casted by:

David Oakes as Justin

Florence Hall as Gemma

Jennie Jacques as Eleanor

Liam Boyle as Paul

Alexander Vlahos as Luke

Tom Kane as Felix

Jack Gordon as Chris

Story:

This is a British movie about a group of teens who while at a party, play a game of 'Truth or Dare', but the game gets out of hand when one of the party goers (Felix) is picked on by the other teens. A few months later they are all invited to a party that Felix is throwing at his parents mansion. But when they get there they are told the party is in a cabin further up the road. They arrive to find that Felix's brother is there instead, but where is Felix, and what does his brother have in store?

L² Scored: 7.5/10

L² Comment: 

 Not a bad movie with good storyline and good acting on these young actors & actresses. Specially like Jennie Jacques, i think she's a potential actress who will become famous internationally soon.

The Dark Knight Rises

Released Year: 2012

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Casted by:
    Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne / Batman
    Tom Hardy as Bane
    Anne Hathaway as Selina Kyle

Gary Oldman as Commissioner James Gordon
    Joseph Gordon-Levitt as John Blake
    Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate

Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox
    Michael Caine as Alfred Pennyworth

Story:

Eight years after the events of The Dark Knight, Gotham City is in a state of peace. Under powers granted by the Dent Act—legislation inspired by the late Harvey Dent—the Gotham City Police Department has nearly eradicated organized crime. Batman has disappeared and Bruce Wayne has become a recluse. Police Commissioner James Gordon feels guilty about the cover-up of Dent's crimes, and writes a resignation speech confessing the truth; however, he decides that the city is not ready to hear it. While searching for a missing congressman, Gordon is captured and his speech taken by Bane. Gordon is shot during his escape and found by patrol officer John Blake. While recuperating, Gordon promotes Blake to detective, with Blake reporting directly to him.

Wayne Enterprises is nearly bankrupt after Bruce invested in board member Miranda Tate's clean energy project, designed to harness fusion power, only to shut it down after discovering the core could be used as a nuclear weapon. Blake—who has deduced Batman's identity—and Gordon encourage Batman to return, but Alfred Pennyworth resigns after a failed attempt to dissuade him. Bane attacks a stock exchange and bankrupts Bruce, using fingerprints cat burglar Selina Kyle stole from Bruce’s safe. Fearing that his business rival, John Daggett—who employed Bane to aid in a hostile takeover—would gain access to the reactor, Bruce asks Tate to take control of Wayne Enterprises. Bane subsequently kills Daggett as he is no longer of use.

Batman asks Selina Kyle to lead him to Bane in exchange for a program that will erase her identity from every database on the planet, allowing her to retire. However, Selina actually leads him to a trap; Bane agreed to let her live if she brought him Batman. During the confrontation between Bane and Batman, Bane reveals he knows Batman's identity, that he leads the League of Shadows following Ra's al Ghul's death, and that he will steal Wayne Enterprises’ weapons. He physically cripples Batman and sends him to a foreign prison where escape is virtually impossible. The inmates relate the story of Ra's al Ghul's child who was born in the prison and the only person to escape; Bruce believes that the child was Bane. Meanwhile, Bane traps most of Gotham's police underground using bombs throughout the city, and cuts Gotham off from the rest of the world. Bane tells the citizens that any attempt to leave the city will result in the detonation of the fusion core, now converted into a bomb. Bane reveals the cover-up of Dent's crimes and releases the prisoners in Blackgate Penitentiary. Bane starts a social revolution among the poor and criminals of Gotham. The wealthy are given show trials presided over by Jonathan Crane, where the "convicted" are killed no matter the sentence.

Bruce spends five months recovering and retraining himself. He escapes from the prison and returns to Gotham, enlisting Selina, Blake, Tate, Gordon and Lucius Fox to aid in liberating Gotham and stopping the bomb. During a confrontation between the police and Bane's forces, Batman subdues Bane. Tate intervenes, coming to Bane's aid and revealing herself to be Ra's al Ghul's daughter Talia. She escaped the prison as a child, returning with her father and the League of Shadows to rescue Bane, the one person who helped her escape. She plans to kill Batman and complete her father's work by destroying Gotham. Gordon disables the bomb's remote detonator, while Selina shoots Bane using the Batpod's cannon before he can execute Batman. Batman tries to force Talia to take the bomb to the fusion chamber where it can be stabilized, but she is injured in the attempt. Before dying, Talia floods the chamber. Gordon deduces Batman's identity as Batman uses an aircraft developed by Fox to haul the bomb beyond the city limits. The bomb detonates over the ocean and presumably kills Batman.

Batman is praised as a hero, while Bruce is assumed killed in the riots. After Bruce's funeral, Blake wants to reveal Batman's identity to the world, but Gordon disagrees. Bruce's estate is divided to cover any debts and the rest is left to Alfred; the manor is left to the city to become an orphanage. Fox discovers that Bruce had repaired the autopilot on the aircraft six months prior, and Gordon finds the Bat-Signal refurbished. Alfred witnesses Bruce and Selina together in Florence, while Blake inherits the Batcave.

 L² Scored: 9/10

L² Comment:

A 3 hours movie of Batman is awesome. Though Batman is always not the top of my superhero, but i love his rival. Catwoman, Joker, Penguin, Poison Ivy are all so cool~ Christian Bale as Batman since last movie is convincing... Yeah he's cute, and he got the feel :) Anne Hathaway in another hand shocked me with her voluptuous hot body.; but i dont really like her catwoman's suit, i was hoping to see something like Michelle Pfeifer & Halle Barry style~ And finally Batman's gay friend Robin is here, hopefully he will become Robin in the next movie~ :) 

The Iron Lady

 Released Year: 2012

Directed by Phyllida Llyod

Casted by:

Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher
Jim Broadbent as Denis Thatcher
Alexandra Roach as young Margaret Thatcher
Harry Lloyd as young Denis Thatcher

 Story:

 The film begins sometime in 2008 (opening against the backdrop of news of the Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing) with an elderly Lady Thatcher buying milk unrecognized by other customers and walking back from the shop alone. Over the course of three days we see her struggle with dementia and with the lack of power that comes with old age, while looking back on defining moments of her personal and professional life, on which she reminisces with her (now dead) husband, Denis Thatcher. She is shown as having difficulty distinguishing between the past and present. A theme throughout the film is the personal price which Thatcher has paid for power. Denis is portrayed as somewhat ambivalent about his wife's rise to power, her son Mark lives in South Africa and is shown as having little contact with his mother, and it is implied that Thatcher's relationship with her daughter Carol is at times strained.

In flashback we are shown Thatcher's youth, working in the family grocery store in Grantham, listening to the political speeches of her father, whom she idolised - it is hinted that she had a poor relationship with her mother - and announcing that she has won a place at the University of Oxford. She remembers her struggle, as a young lower-middle class woman, to break into a snobbish male-dominated Tory party and find a seat in the House of Commons, along with businessman Denis Thatcher's marriage proposal to her. Her struggles to fit in as a "Lady Member" of the House, and as Education Secretary in Edward Heath's cabinet are also shown, as are her friendship with Airey Neave (later assassinated by the Irish National Liberation Army), her decision to stand for Leader of the Conservative Party, and her voice coaching and image change.

Further flashbacks examine historical events during her time as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom including the rising unemployment related to her monetarist policies and the tight 1981 budget (over the misgivings of "wet" members of her Cabinet – Ian Gilmour, Francis Pym, Michael Heseltine and Jim Prior), the Brixton Riots of 1981, the miners' strike of 1984–5, and the bombing of the Grand Hotel during the 1984 Conservative Party Conference, when she and Denis were almost killed. We also see (slightly out of chronological sequence) her decision to retake the Falkland Islands following the islands' invasion by Argentina in 1982, the sinking of the ARA General Belgrano and Britain's subsequent victory in the Falklands War, her friendship with Ronald Reagan and emergence as a world figure, and the economic boom of the late 1980s.

By 1990 Thatcher is shown as an imperious but aging figure, ranting aggressively at her Cabinet, refusing to accept that the Community Charge (the "Poll Tax") is regarded as unjust, and fiercely opposed to European Integration. Her deputy Geoffrey Howe resigns after being humiliated by her in a Cabinet meeting, Michael Heseltine challenges her for the party leadership and her loss of support from her Cabinet colleagues leaves her little choice but to resign as Prime Minister, about which she is shown as still angry and bitter twenty years later.

Eventually, Margaret is shown packing up her late husband's belongings, and telling him it's time for him to go. Denis's ghost leaves her – in spite of her cries that she is not yet ready to lose him – fully dressed but without his shoes, and she is left alone washing up a teacup.

L² Scored: 6/10

L² Comment:

I'm not really fond of this movie as i think Mdm Thatcher's life is a bit boring as she spent almost all her life on politics, which i will not ever do it in my life. However, I'm impress with Meryl Streep once again. She never failed to impress me in all her film, she's totally in the character :) And of course, her excellent acting in this movie has won her a multiples awards' Best Actress, bravo :)

The Woman in Black

 Released Year: 2012

Directed by James Watkins

Casted by:

Daniel Radcliffe as Arthur Kipps

Ciarán Hinds as Sam Daily

Janet McTeer as Elizabeth Daily

Sophie Stuckey as Stella Kipps

Misha Handley as Joseph Kipps

Liz White as Jennet Humfrye

 Story:

 The film opens with three small girls having a tea party in an upstairs room in the Eel Marsh House. As they play, one of them looks up, the other two doing the same. The three girls, in a kind of trance, destroy their toys and move to the bay window. Each of them simultaneously open one window and jump to their death's. A woman screams over her child's death, and the screen pans out, revealing a portion of a woman in a black gown.

In the Edwardian era, young solicitor Arthur Kipps lives with his four-year-old son, Joseph and his son's nanny. Kipps's wife Stella has died after childbirth. Kipps keeps having visions of her and is facing financial problems along with stress from the law firm for which he works. He is assigned to handle the estate of Alice Drablow, who owned an English manor known as the Eel Marsh House, where she had lived with her husband, son Nathaniel, and sister Jennet Humfrye. Although the locals are unwelcoming, Kipps befriends Sam Daily, a wealthy landowner, and his wife Elizabeth.

At Eel Marsh House, located on an island in the marshes, Kipps repeatedly hears footsteps coming from upstairs in the house while he is going though paperwork downstairs. He then goes upstairs to a bedroom where he sees a baby crow that has fallen out of a nest located in a worn down fireplace. After putting it away, the crow's mother swoops past loudly - this being the first jump in the film. As he goes to the window and opens it, he sees the Woman in Black standing in the distance and then vanishing. He reports the sighting at the local police station but, while there, two boys bring their sister Victoria, who has drank lye. She dies in Kipps's arms. Victoria is not the first child in town to commit suicide, and the townspeople believe the "Woman in Black" comes for their children as revenge for her own child being taken from her, and believe that when someone sees her, a child nearby the person who saw her, is killed, which could be why children have been dying since Kipps' arrival at Eel Marsh House as Kipps saw her there.

Kipps and Sam arrive at the house of Jerome, the local solicitor. The house is empty, and they hear a noise from the cellar. Kipps peers through a hole in the cellar door and is startled when the face of a young girl, Lucy Jerome suddenly appears and screams at him to go away, believing he was responsible for Victoria's death. After returning to Sam's house for dinner, Kipps discovers that Sam and Elizabeth's son, Nicholas, drowned while playing at the beach and that Nicholas communicates through possession; Elizabeth, in a possessed state, then draws a hanging woman who Kipps realizes is Jennet. Later at the Marsh, Kipps discovers notes claiming that Jennet was mentally unstable and was not allowed to care for Nathaniel, who was actually Jennet's son, although this fact was hidden by Alice, Jennet's sister, who raised Nathaniel as her own son. He also finds out that Jennet hung herself due to Nathaniel's death, long ago.

The villagers desperately want Kipps to leave, but he refuses, wanting to protect his job. Throughout the night at the Marsh, Kipps has many paranormal experiences with the Woman in Black and all the children that committed suicide, as they all appear outside the house in the state they were in when they died. The next morning, Sam and Kipps return to town to see the local solicitor, but Jerome's house is on fire. Kipps rushes inside to rescue Lucy, Jerome's daughter, who has been locked in the cellar. There, he sees the Woman manipulate the girl into setting herself on fire. Lucy smashes a lantern at her feet, getting engulfed in flames. Kipps visits Mrs. Daily, who reveals in a trance that Joseph is the next victim. Kipps realizes that he must put Nathaniel to rest by giving him a proper burial. Kipps and Sam go to the Marsh. Kipps dives into the marsh and finds Nathaniel's body. They then take his body and lay him out in the nursery in the house, expecting the woman to appear and reunite with her lost son. The Woman appears and knocks Kipps to the floor and disappears. Then, Sam and Kipps finally lay Nathaniel to rest by burying him with his real mother, Jennet. After Kipps and Sam leave, the camera moves quickly through the hallway of the Marsh House, and the voice of the Woman in Black can be heard saying "I'll never forgive!... I'll never forgive!..."

Kipps is reunited with his son, Joseph, who is with his nanny, exiting their train at the railway station and plans to leave immediately. While the nanny is occupied with getting tickets to the train to London and Kipps is bidding Sam goodbye, Kipps turns to Joseph, walking along the tracks towards a fast approaching train. Sam and Kipps notice the Woman along the platform as Kipps jumps onto the tracks to save Joseph. As the train passes, Sam looks through the windows to see the unrested souls of all the children whom the Woman has claimed.

Still standing on the tracks with Joseph, Kipps looks up to see the now deserted platform. Joseph asks, "Daddy, who is that lady?" to which Kipps replies with a smile, "That's your Mummy." Realizing he and his son have died, he kisses his son and walks to his wife behind them, carrying Joseph and takes her hand. The three of them, reunited in death, 'go on' together, leaving the Woman in Black, in her grief, forever after.

   L² Scored: 8/10

L² Comment:

This is quite a good film based on a novel. The whole story is kinda scary and the pace is just nice. Its a big challenge for Daniel Radcliffe to act as a father, but a 22yo boy can't convince me at all!!!