Universal Soldier: Day Of Reckoning (2012) direct-to-video movie

Overall verdict: 7.5/10

The Good: Intriguing mystery plot, intense action, realistic stunts and violence, surreal atmospheric cinematography, ties up loose ends for the Universal Soldier movie series, old school synthesiser soundtrack, Scott Adkins finally acts.

The Bad: Overuse of slow motion, annoying "white flashes" during hallucination scenes, over-the-top performances from antagonists, slow first act.

3D Readiness: Native 3D

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A change in direction is risky. You may end up alienating your original fan base, you may end up with an unrecognisable sequel that is a sequel in name only, or you may end up creating a better product. UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING is that better product. Not just a sequel, but an expansion on a waning science fiction action franchise, DAY OF RECKONING closes many loose ends and answers questions that were left hanging by 2009's franchise revival UNIVERSAL SOLDIER A NEW BEGINNING/Regeneration.


Luc Devereaux, the protagonist from the original 1992 movie, has gone AWOL. Having failed in reintegration into society, Devereaux has accepted his cold hearted killer and merciless soldier persona with a new nihilistic mindset. Used like a weapon then discarded by his handlers, the disillusioned Devereaux slowly recruits other Unisol sleeper agents to join him for an eventual uprising against the government and the black ops programme that robbed them of their humanity. His latest act of terror was the cold blooded murder of a woman and child, the wife and daughter of a family man named John (our protagonist played by Scott Adkins).


Mysteriously left alive, John starts to track down the elusive Devereaux for the sake of revenge, but ends up unveiling mystery after mystery. The greatest mystery however comes from within as John is tormented by hallucinations of Devereaux and manifests combat skills that he had never learned; skills that allow him to best other Unisols in hand to hand combat.


Those skills would be tested as John hunts down the truth of his past, evades the relentless Unisol "Magnus" who has been sent to stop him, and takes a journey into the heart of darkness that is Devereaux's hidden fortress. John's journey is a painful one about losing one's humanity to vengeance. As his obsession grows, his methods become more inhuman and cruel. As he goes further down this dreamlike rabbit hole of a story, John is faced with a risk of becoming the devil to defeat the devil when he finally faces Devereaux.

Scott Adkins portrays that gradual metamorphosis from man to killing machine with a good level of nuance and restraint. Finally given a starring role that goes beyond just fighting and scowling, former stuntman and trained martial artist Adkins shows off his acting chops, taking John across the full range of emotions from despair to a focused drive, to single minded obsession. Sure it's not much, this is not some romance drama after all, but it serves the story while allowing Adkins to go "Rambo" on all his enemies.



Having cast trained martial artists like Adkins, Andrei Arlovski and Jean Claud Van Damme, the action in DAY OF RECKONING is bloody, intense and marvellously shot. It is the sort of hard hitting full on fighting with practical effects that is a rare sight in this day and age of special effects and digital stand-ins. This movie never shies away from bloodshed, showcasing every wound, shot and death with grim realism.


From the onset, the mystery plot is gripping with its fair share of twists and unexpected revelations. It does sag a bit in the first act but once you get past that, the pace picks up. If you have been following the franchise, many questions are answered here. For example, how does Dolph Lundgren's Andrew Scott character return again and again despite meeting gruesome ends in each instalment?


Drawing inspiration from APOCALYPSE NOW (the whole "former soldier gone rogue and amassing an army" as well as the surreal journey into darkness theme), TERMINATOR (the relentless pursuit of John by Unisol Magnus) and MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (brainwashed sleeper agents/assassins with false memories), UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING is a gripping tale from start to finish.


As a whole, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: DAY OF RECKONING achieves what many of its contemporaries fail to: it is a direct-to-video movie that looks just as good as a hollywood blockbuster. No doubt the result of John Hyam's masterful direction and cinematography. His camerawork achieves an interesting look to the film that slowly mutates from soft and sombre into harsh lighting with clashing colours reflecting John's physical and emotional journey. Accompanied by haunting synthesiser music courtesy of Michael Krassner, the movie draws you in with its surreal atmosphere.  Perhaps the only questionable filming decision was to utilise an epileptic flashing strobe light in scenes where John has his hallucinations.


A dark yet fitting end to the franchise which still leaves some doors open for further sequels.

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Entertainment: B+

Story: A-
Acting: C+

Characters: B-

Music: B+

Replay value: B

"Brains": B+

The Maze Runner (2014) movie review

Overall verdict: 8/10

The Good: Intriguing mystery premise, well rounded characterisations, magnificent production design, well paced narrative, touches on social commentary

The Bad: cliched storyline, shaky camera cinematography, "designated hero" syndrome for main character

3D Readiness: Post filming 3D conversion.
IMax-ability: Tight shaky shots of running do not work in iMax. 

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His name is Thomas. That is all he knows. He has been sent via the mysterious "box" into a contained colony of boys called "the glade". Nobody knows why they are there, only that they cannot leave. Around the glade lies the maze where only the fastest and bravest among them, dubbed "maze runners", get to explore in the hopes of finding a way out. Thomas' arrival causes a schism among the boys and strange incidents start happening one after the other. As the perfect peaceful society of the Glade is slowly torn asunder, Thomas must unravel the secrets of the maze and confront the horrors within. 

Secrets, half-truths, and a sense that all is not what it seems. I have always loved a good sci if mystery. Our premise of a community of male teens isolated from the world is a premise many would be familiar with. The group rivalries, the competition for alpha male status, the unique lifestyle and forms of punishment; MAZE RUNNER takes advantage of its slow moving first half to build that world of lost boys. All the while, the constant mystery of the maze lingers. And just when things start to wind down, the writers throw more surprises into the mix which give the film a much needed sense of urgency. What are these surprises? No spoilers now. But rest assured, this movie has great pacing.

MAZE RUNNER is how I always imagined a gritty blockbuster movie would look based on those printed mazes in activity books we used to trace with crayons when we were kids. The maze itself is marvelously designed, oozing with a sense of dread. The ominous walls combines an ancient monolithic look with pieces of worn out future tech peeking out the corners; just enough to give this uneasy sense of that something is not quite right. Couple all that with some truly spine chilling sound effects and the movie starts to cross into horror territory. 

It is to mazes kind of like what they did to a simple board game called Battleship. Unlike the battleship movie, MAZE RUNNER gives us some well rounded characters with believable motives and decent development. Yes you have some clichéd stereotypes in the benevolent but status quo upholding leader, the hot headed "warrior chief" alpha male edging for a fight, the conflicted second in command, and an adorable sidekick for the main character. Yet it is this sense of familiarity with the character archetypes and the isolated single gender community setting that let's one ease into the story without being alienated by the already alienating premise.

Amazing as the movie is, MAZE RUNNER is not without some flaws. Main character Thomas suffers from the typical designated hero syndrome. He is not a kid who earns his heroism or the respect of the group. From the get go, everything important revolves around him, he is able to do startling things that no one else can. You know he is special and the plot does not hide that or let it develop naturally. Director Wes Ball crafts a decently paced narrative with top notch special effects, but the visuals tend to be marred by his obsession with out of focus shaky cameras in action scenes. Perhaps the biggest misstep is some poorly placed flashbacks that could have completely ruined the mystery element for audiences familiar with certain video games (hint: Portal). 

I admit to not having read the original book so I would not know how close it is to the source material. On its own, MAZE RUNNER is The grandchild of LORD OF THE FLIES and TV's LOST. It combines tried and true story beats sieved through an intriguing premise and a decent mystery (despite being almost undone by the ill advised flashbacks). It avoids many mistakes other adaptations of young adult novels make, like lingering on romance subplots, and leaves a decent sequel hook that leaves you wanting more.

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Entertainment: A

Story: B-
Acting: B+

Characters: A

Music: B+

Replay value: A

"Brains": B

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) movie review

Overall verdict: 10/10

(note: in all fairness, it actually scored 9.88 on my scale. But since i have made a practice of rounding decimals to the nearest 0.5, i do the same here)

The Good: action, emotion, narrative coherence, brevity, thematic richness, cast chemistry, strong performances, references to the comic books, stupendous soundtrack, and more.

The Bad: Ends the franchise, sets the bar too high

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"A fire will rise", screams the promotional poster. That fire is the bar set for comic book movies to come. That fire is the standard to which future superhero films will struggle to reach.  That fire burns out the competition and rises above all expectation. That fire is Christopher Nolan's magnum opus "THE DARK KNIGHT RISES", based on the Batman character from DC comics, and easily the best movie based on a comic book character, ever.

Closing out the summer blockbuster season, The Dark Knight Rises concludes the tale of one man's lonely war on crime and brings to a close one of the smartest most epic and most profound film sagas ever. Picking up 8 years after the events in "The Dark Knight" left Batman a fugitive of the law, Gotham city is experiencing a time of peace. Yet this peace is built on a lie; a lie that weighs heavily on the conscience of Police commissioner James Gordon. A mysterious chain of events brings the notorious masked mercenary Bane to Gotham with a grand plan to seize control. Backed by a secret army, this new threat forces billionaire recluse Bruce Wayne to once again don the mask of the Batman and fight to save his city.

The above synopses can never do justice to the true narrative complexity inherent in The Dark Knight Rises. It's thematic richness far exceeds it's preceding films making it not only the most ambitious comic book movie to date, but one of the rarest of the rare "3rd sequel" that does not fall victim to the typical Hollywood trilogy syndrome (Good-->Great-->meh.....).

That being said, one cannot pin down the exact genre of this movie. It is a crime thriller, a mystery, a tragic character drama and an action blockbuster. It has romance, it has comedy yet never becomes bogged down in any one genre unlike "Peter Parker: High School Romance" and "Tony Stark and his Amazing Friends". Such is it's complexity, complemented beautifully by the numerous psychological, political and philosophical themes within the narrative. It is a smart movie, an insightful movie, one that gets you thinking. The depth of its themes is extraordinary yet here is not a movie that "preaches"; as the mystery elements slowly unravel, it is up to the discerning audience to pick apart the inherent symbolism, references to real life events and musings on human nature.

Amidst all that, it all comes down to what truly drives the movie: it's characters. When you watch the events of The Dark Knight rises unfold, you do not see actors playing roles, you see characters. Real and effectively fleshed out characters. Nolan wastes no time on elaborate back stories or long flashbacks. He is a master of brevity; with a single shot and few impactful lines he is able to establish a character's personality, the forces that drive him or her and then bring each arc to a satisfying close.

Despite being titled "Dark Knight", this is a movie about Bruce Wayne. (Then again we hearken back to a theme hinted at in Batman Begins: "Is it Batman or Bruce Wayne that wears the mask of the Dark Knight"). Past his prime, mortal and without purpose, Wayne's tale is almost biblical in it's analogy of a life, death and resurrection. His established vulnerability and mortality gives every battle a nail biting sense of tension that you will never have when rooting for an invulnerable thunder God or an invincible gamma monster. Just as intriguing is the cast of secondary characters like James Gordon and Blake who represent that glimmer of hope and humanity's capacity for good in our grim modern era. A powerful script grips the audience into the story and lets us care deeply for the characters.We laugh with them, cry with them, join with them to lash out in anger, to sink in defeat and to rise up in triumph.

As much as it is "its own creature", The Dark Knight Rises continues the trilogy's staple of inserting many homages to Batman comic books. The new characters of Bane and Selina Kyle combine the most memorable elements of their numerous printed incarnations with the trilogy's sense of realism; the result is perfection. Iconic comic book moments are faithfully recreated without feeling like a lazy cut-and-paste while seemingly innocuous side events in the previous movies are revealed as sinister foreshadowing.

One might feel that the movie tries to do too much in too little time. Yet what might seem like a truncated film actually works within context. The brisk pace and absence of a sense of time only heightens the surreal nature of the unfolding events, particularly in the third act. Everything from the camerawork to the pacing is steeped in raw emotion, punctuated by the the pulse pounding score of the legendary Hans Zimmer: A slice of silence with only the muffled sounds of footsteps and a tune that mimics a heartbeat, A primal chanting that builds to a crescendo as a hero emerges from his purgatory. If the visual footage is the movie's body, Zimmer's score is it's spirit beautifully united as one.

Marvel's Avengers made comic book superheros appeal to the masses, The Dark Knight Rises makes a comic book superhero appeal to the masses while still keeping it smart and taking the genre seriously. You do not need explosions, aliens or giant robots to make a movie epic, you do not need a laugh a minute to keep film entertaining, you do not need playful banter to make a script witty. All you need is great writing, masterful direction and a creative team with utmost respect for the source material.

Intense and insightful, The Dark Knight Rises is no mere movie but a grand masterpiece. A timeless tale that will resonate with movie audiences in the years to come. An immortal classic in the making, whose legacy will forever remain as a benchmark for the blockbuster and comic book industries.

The trilogy comes full circle. It is finished.

The curtain closes now on a milestone in comic book movie history.

Rise, dear Dark Knight, and take a bow. 

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Go For it: Just go for it! Or read the review again!

Avoid it: Why would you? Seriously!

Entertainment: A

Story: A

Acting: A

Characters: A

Music: A

Replay value: A

"Brains": A-

ArgentoSoma (2000) anime series review

Overall verdict: 7.5/10

The Good: well developed mystery element, realistic human drama, explores complex themes both personal and philosophical, awesome voice acting, believable emotional narrative, full bodied character development

The Bad: cliched premise, animation is mediocre for its time, art takes some getting used to

Current Availability Status:
In print on DVD from Bandai. Sadly No longer available in singapore

Used to have a VCD but (thankfully) its gone (along with the company that printed it)
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(NOTE: The title is in GREEK. It is not a spelling error)

In an alternate future world, a failed space exploration program led to a major invasion by towering golden titans from beyond the stars. Though the initial invasion was repelled, isolated incidents of alien incursions still crop up, all with a similar M.O: the alien titans seem intent on reaching a location in known as "Pilgrimage point". The world governments set up the organization known as FUNERAL to repel invasions and prevent any alien from reaching Pilgrimage point. At the same time, ongoing research into the aliens have provided earth with defensive technology known as the SARG mecha.

Enter Takuto Kaneshiro, a kind hearted and extremely brilliant young man who, along with his girlfriend Maki Agata, assists their mentor Dr Noguchi in his alien research. Tragedy strikes when an experiment to revive an alien, artificially reconstructed with parts of other dead aliens, goes awry. Takuto is the only survivor, scarred both physically and emotionally. Convinced that the awakening alien killed his girlfriend, Takuto's kind hearted nature gives way to grief, regret and pain. One day, Takuto is visited by the mysterious, Shakespere quoting "Mr X", who offers him a chance at revenge. The revived alien has been taken in by FUNERAL and renamed FRANK (as it was constructed from dead body parts similar to Frankenstein's monster) to be used as a last resort weapon against other aliens. In exchange for agreeing to work for Mr X as a double agent, Takuto begins his new identity as Ryu Soma; the stoic, cold ace pilot and latest recruit into the FUNERAL combat team. He is a man with a hidden agenda, that is to sabotage the FUNERAL operations and ultimately destroy Frank.


Boasting a rich, character driven narrative, the story takes on a very personal feel as we "get into the heads" of the FUNERAL team members; their motives, what drives them and what connects them to each other. Every character is fleshed out with sufficient depth.Take Ryu for example, whose obsession for vengeance has blinded him to new friendships, and slowly eats away at the kind man he used to be. Ryu's frustration soon turns to delusion as his two personalities, Ryu Soma and Takuto Kaneshiro, clash. To make matters worse is the introduction of young Hattie Bartholomew, a blond girl who shares an almost magical connection with the alien Frank, and also bears and uncanny resemblance to Takuto's dead girlfriend. Ryu's cold determination stands in perfect contrast to Hattie's childlike innocence; she adapted to her past trauma not with bitterness but with a kind of psychological regression into her own world of innocent fantasy to the point of referring to Frank as an elf.


The characters are all really easy to relate to and through them, the show slowly explores themes of psychological withdrawal in the face of trauma, military ethics, political conspiracies and, later in the series, the ontological question about human identity. More common themes of trust, love and loneliness play out along the unraveling mystery right up to the startling revelation about the true nature of the invaders. Adding to the very "human" experience is a fine cast of voice actors who play their parts with utmost professionalism. The English dub cast wins out as being more enjoyable only because most of the characters are Caucasian or non-Asian to begin with. The more subdued english delivery, as opposed to the sometimes overacted japanese voices, fit the tone of the show and lend more realism. Some of the actors also gave their characters believable accents to match their nationality.

Yes, already the more hardcore anime fans would be screaming at how similar the story premise is to the famous anime Evangelion. But rest assured, the resemblance is only superficial. Similar to the alien Frank, ArgentoSoma is composed of familiar parts of different anime series, combined and given new life. The premise is Evangelion, the relationship between Hattie and Frank is as heartwarming as in the movie "The Iron Giant" and the shady alien conspiracies within the higher powers takes its influence from X-files. It is in this almost bizarre combination that Argentosoma becomes its own creature. A lot of attention is paid to making the inner workings of the FUNERAL organization as believable as a real military branch. The combination of personal little character arcs with a grand scale invasion backdrop works well despite its slow pace at times.

For a lack of publicity or perhaps a lack of audience interest, ArgentoSoma can easily be considered a "second tier" production no doubt overshadowed by SUNRISE's more successful mecha franchises like Gundam. And with good reason too. As clever, complex and emotionally engaging as its story is, ArgentoSoma does not hold that same level of proficiency in its technical aspects. The animation is generally passable for a year 2000 series, but the artwork takes a while to get used too. Just take a look at the screenshots

The characters look fine. But when viewed from a face front angle, their noses seem to disappear, giving them a very flat and sometimes inhuman appearance. Earlier episodes do move at a slower pace, but in this case it works in the show's favor, allowing the mystery and tension to build.

Credit goes to the fact that Argentosoma is an original anime screenplay not based on any manga or light novel. If it were only given a higher production budget and more publicity it might have become a true anime legend that withstands the test of time. Alas, most fans may just be content to pick it apart and deride its influences and homages as being "unoriginal", never giving ArgentoSoma a chance to touch their hearts and minds.


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Go For it: if you are curious about one of the most underrated science fiction anime from the turn of the century which combines thought provoking themes with realistic human drama set against a mecha genre backdrop.
Avoid it: if you seek an original premise or if a generally depressing tone turns you off. Also if you have no patience for mystery plots.

Entertainment: B
Story: A-
Characters: A
Animation: B-
Art: C+
Voice work (japanese): B+
Voice work (english): A-
Replay Value: B+
"Brains": A-


Standing tall. Frank in all his disproportional glory.


The SARGs. Weapons born from alien tecnhology and used against their progenitors