The Spirit, Inkheart

These are the two movies which I managed to catch during this holiday break. I cannot believe how cheap the movie tickets here are. RM6 for students. I'm paying 2 times that in Australia... which makes it 5times more once converted. Anyway...

The Spirit.
In the spirit of comic-to-big-screen movies, The Spirit manages to retain its comic-like angles and colours to bring out the story of a guy who cannot die against a villian who cannot die. Both without any super powers except that they regen so fast that they cannot die. As for the name, it was so-so, The Spirit of the City. But I like to be the hero. He is suave, and every sentence he says to a girl, instantly melts her and catches her heart. And he was 'just being nice'. I wonder what will happen if he TRIES to get a girl.

What about the villian? The octopus. No meaning behind it until the end, where he shows that he has eight of everything, and explodes into 8 parts flying away with a trail of smoke, making him look like an octopus. His henchmen were funny... but no added value to the movie.

Oh, and the highlight, the girls... All of them beautiful, Eva Mendes being the most. Almost nude scene. Or not almost. I wouldn't know. Because they censored the part in Malaysia. Thats the only thing I don't like about Malaysia. They censored those scenes. And intense kissing scenes. I don't see a reason why they should. But they could, the would, and they did.

Overall, I like those comic to screen adaptations coz of the new camera angles and colouring which is usually unheard of in movies, making new angles in cinematography.


Inkheart
I also like to watch book-to-big-screen movies like City of Ember, Narnia, LotR, etc. even though it spoils the book. One thing it takes away is the imagination, and it plants fixed images, like that it did to the Harry Potter books. Some things, cannot be put to screen, like thoughts and the beauty of descriptions and best left in the book.

What I like about this movie is that it is a book about books. I manage browse through the book, to find acknowledgements at the end, with references to all the books that the author uses in Inkheart. It was more than what I've seen in the movie, and I know that they left out chapters from the book. It isn't just about the number of books used, but they use the original text, and not some 'modernized text' version. It makes me want to read those books. I know the story, but I would probably never recognise the original version when I see one.

Basically what this movie did was rekindle my love for books and story writing.


What I miss the most about watching movies in Malaysian cinemas are the caramel coated popcorn... I dunno why I prefer diabetes over hypertension...