Understanding Life

If there is one truth about life, it is its unhindered and continuous change, for as long as the life remains.There have been a number of philosophers who've tried to describe life but no one's ever reached a consensus about it. According to some, life is the name of continuous happening, continuous involvement, continuous evolution... and all these phenomenon lead to one word, change.

I recently saw this movie called 'The Tree of Life' which also tried to describe the truth of life and I'll have to say the way the movie presented its concept was quite convincing. The movie gets you stunned by its visuals which were extraordinarily captured from all the ordinary things. And surprisingly, these are the ordinary things that confine the truth of life within them, ready to be explored, ready to be unearthed.

The movie covers a part of the life-span of a boy and depicts different phases of his life. How his parents are fascinated by his existence when he's born. How he grows up and takes his very first step. How he speaks his very first word. How he looks upto his parents in difficult scenarios which he does not understand. And ultimately, how he starts to understand things and starts detaching from his past, his parents.

There are so many things which I didn't understand at all but now things have started to fall in place. The reason behind this is nothing but the change and development brought by life.

Few years back a teacher, while making us read a sophisticated book, said, "These words are gonna remain the same, but they would mean different to you when you read them again in a few years". At that time, all I did as a response was make jest out of it but it was now that I realized that he was right.

Well, the movie just triggered a thought in my mind and I couldn't help writing it down. There's nothing I understand about life yet but I'm certain the change would continue... until the end.

PRINCE OF PERSIA: THE SAND OF TIME

In this most anticipated game-to-movie adaptation, we follow Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) as he teams up with Princess Tamina (Gemma Arterton) to stop a ruthless leader from laying his hands on the Sands of Time, a gift from the gods that can be used to reverse time and rule the world.

THE VERDICT

What makes Jake Gyllenhaal so eager to assist the fallen beauty? Not much, but perhaps the story of the Prince Of Persia can be forgiven for some of its drowsiness it causes and by taking it through a different approach; bold and mannerly done. The whole story in the movie has nothing to do with any plot from the games. Like I once said, there is nothing much to pull off from a video game storyline, take an example like Silent Hill or Doom – but the wild imagination of the peoples behind the Pirates Of The Caribbean had done some decent jobs by giving taking things the other way round. Yes, there is nothing perfect about the movie at all but it definitely stands better among others on the movie-based-on-video-game genre.

Once upon a time in the vast empire of Persia, Prince Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal), whom had no royalty and nobility in his blood, ran across the slum of Nasaf as a cheeky and highly agility orphan kid. Amazed by his courage to stand for justice, he was soon adopted into the family of King Sheraman. 15 years later, he joined the highly-ranks of his brothers Garsiv and Tus and their uncle Nazim (Ben Kingsley) to invade the holy city of Alamut, suspected of selling weapons to the enemy state. Upon the destiny, Dastan found a magical dagger known as The Dagger Of Time which unleashes sands and reverses back the time. Framed for the murder of his father, Dastan became an exile from the his homeland and later teaming up with the beauty Princess Tamina (Gemma Arteton) to embark on a journey that fills with the eager to search the real killer of his father. Soon, he learnt about the potential and the possible destructive power that may happened if the dagger falls into the wrong hands.

Loosely based on Jordan Mechner's video game and infused with 6th century Persian fables and fantasy, director Mike Newell could have done no mistakes. Prince Of Persia is no ordinary Sinbad or Aladdin story. Should I say it lies closely to Indiana Jones? And just because they are Middle Eastern, it does not justify the ban on British accents after all! The positive note is that Prince Of Persia is indeed a surprisingly good. The writing team can come out with a decent and entertaining swashbuckling movie that does not have anything in related to the game, although one may notice the heavy elements borrowed from the games itself. The producers have described the story as comparative to Warrior Within and The Two Thrones, where both games’ elements are incorporated into this. It is decent, fast-paced and innovatively created adventure that is easy to follow, although one must always be cautious of its multiple heavy plots in it. The whole adventure is simply fantastical.

Even with the decent story, there is however some flaws checked in it. Despite the multiple plots been gel together, there is always a possibility that things do not adhere that well. Here it suffers those conventional loose story line and uneven tones, especially the final 30 minutes of the movie which I though was a little too fuzzy. Was it because of the style of film editing? Indeed, the poor film editing has caused many things to breeze through and at times, it felt no connectivity to each other. Camerawork is stunning but deplorable as a lot of dizzying and action cuts are making its round all over the place – it is not that it is bad but the dizzying scenes can be a little annoying! The fleshy finale or rather the anti-climax occurs too sudden. With all the intense battles and the plot build-up, the last 20 minutes is nothing more than a stand-off debates on the morality of the invasion and what’s truth or not. There are also at times that the story may goes a bit off track with the attempts of making jokes that are not so funny and an oddly witty dialogue could means almost nothing.

Prince Of Persia is a good movie if only you consider the finale as a norm flaw. The casting is indeed variety and explorable. Jake Gyllenhaal managed to shun away his boyish persona to become a wild and cheeky character like Prince Dastan. He may not be the best feet to fit in but I think he had done pretty enough to get things kicking. Gemma Arteton’s Tamina is as usual as her role of spiritual divine (just like in Clash Of The Titans) but I noticed that she raise her game higher and for that she is great in. Ben Kingsley and his antagonist role are so familiarize. Just now I said that the jokes aren’t that funny, Alfred Molina’s Sheik Amar did not make things worst. He is truly a comical relief, always with his obsession on ostrich races and evading the taxes.

IN SHORT

With a decently written story, nothing much goes wrong in the movie. It will hopefully give fans something to cheer for and Mike Newell’s glorious efforts in Harry Potter: The Goblet Of Fire has managed to make this swashbuckling sandal-and-sword a very entertaining and joyride. He makes it better than the others. The scar on the climax with the remaining 20 minutes towards the end is something that should not happen but it did happen anyway. Some camera and editing works are questionable. Luckily, the Oscar-winning director of photography John Seale did great visual effects and cinematography, as well as Alfred Molina and Gemma Arteton make this movie impressive, while million tonnes of sands are thrown only to serve you a fun but not an epic.

Iron Man

I give Iron Man three and a half stars because it starts out very strong, but then slips in the second half. The one problem I have in the beginning is the non-linear element. It seems like ever since Pulp Fiction the non-linear element has been all the rage. The problem is Pulp Fiction had a purpose for the non-linear. Pulp Fiction is really several stories surrounding the same events. If there is only one story and no other rational reason for the non-linear, such as Memento, there is no reason for non-linear elements.

In any event, the first half of Iron Man is excellent. Tony Stark (Downey) is a weapons manufacturer who is kidnapped by terrorists, while in Afghanistan displaying the latest weapon from Stark Industries. Stark uses a prototype of the Iron Man suit to escape; however, when he returns to America he does not build the Iron Man suit to be a superhero. While imprisoned by the terrorists he notices all their weapons are from Stark Industries. Here a favorable and rational image of the arms manufacturer is depicted. Stark only developed weapons for the U.S. military so to be used to defend America and protect the lives of those who fight to defend America. His weapons are solely for protecting natural rights. Thus, he is disturbed when he notices the enemies, the violators of natural rights, have his weapons. 

Consequently, he creates Iron Man to destroy his weapons that are in the hands of enemies. This is almost like Ayn Rand's hero Howard Roark who destroys his own building when the government builds it improperly. Also, Iron Man paints the rational depiction of the military. Iron Man is supposed to be one individual acting the way the military should act. Both are should only be concerned with protecting natural rights by destroying the violators.

Another strong element of Iron Man are the scenes when Stark builds the prototype and then creates the refined Iron Man. There are great scenes of Stark sweating and hammering in a cave with fire around him, and them more complicated assembly of the refined Iron Man. These sections adhere to the excellent tag line of the movie, "Heroes aren't born, they're made." Iron Man is basically praising the self-made man and the power of man. The superhero Iron Man is simply Stark, but he has a sophisticated vehicle to defend natural rights while protecting his own. Stark also needs his awesome mathematical and scientific abilities to create the suit. Thus, the message is man is a superhero because he has a sound morality and the reason to achieve greatness. Iron Man is basically a more technological version of Batman. However, Batman focuses more on the philosophical greatness of man, the moral angle, while Iron Man speaks to man's incredible ability to create and produce. Of course, both Batman and Iron Man praise reality and truth through Iron Man's emphasis on math and science and Batman's emphasis on philosophy.

Unfortunately, Iron Man begins to slip in the second half. Obadiah Stane (Bridges) is not well developed. His motives for creating the Iron Monger and trying to destroy Iron Man and kill Stark are vague. It appears he just wants to destroy and profit from destruction, but this is not incredibly clear and is really quite generic. However, Bridges does an excellent job as a villain.

Gwyneth Paltrow's acting as Virginia "Pepper" Pots also begins to slip in the second half. In the beginning Potts is intelligent and confident, but in the end the tone of her lines conveys the ditsy girl character.
I am also unsure about the last line of the film, but I am leaning towards liking it. In the end Stark admits to the press that he is Iron Man. As far as I know, the Iron Man comics did not have this angle. So that is what troubles me, not adhering to the Iron Man story line. I do understand adjustments must be made when changing from comic book to the silver screen, but this is a large deviation from the story as far as I can tell. However, this is the first superhero I know of that the individual has admitted to being a superhero, while still acting as the hero. This could develop some interesting superhero story lines never explored before.
Finally, I do like that S.H.I.E.L.D. is introduced in the movie, indicating that in future Iron Man flicks the government and Iron Man will have a strong connection. I have also heard rumors of a future Marvel superhero film of The Avengers, which is a team of superheroes including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and The Incredible Hulk, which will all have their own movies by then. I assume S.H.I.E.L.D. will also have a large role in this.