Watching two movies in a row: great!

Friday, May 21, 2004

Finally, an update. Sorry for putting this out late. But anyway, yesterday, I drove to Midvalley Megamall to watch 2 movies: Van Helsing & Troy. The reasons I went there instead of KLCC or Sunway Pyramid to catch those 2 movies are: 1) The parking charges are very cheap (RM1 per entry weekdays, RM3 per entry weekends), 2) The movie ticket prices are RM6 each due to student privileges (sorry my UK friends, no more special charges for you - you're no longer students after July! Muahahaha!), and 3) Since I can just drive there, there's virtually no transportation charges involved.

But it really was a somewhat dizzying experience, since I can't even let one movie's story sink into me before the next movie comes up. But luckily, the first movie I saw was Van Helsing, which was not a complicated movie at all. Simple enough to follow. Also, I was fortunate to not have to skip my solat (which I will never do on purpose) to watch them both. Van Helsing I watched at 11 a.m., Troy at 2.30 p.m. To sum those two movies up: Van Helsing was so-so, but Troy was great! Although not "Lord of the Rings great".

For those who've yet to watch Van Helsing, if you like action and computer graphics (CGI), go watch it. The movie's plot's not all that complicated actually. To summarise, Van Helsing was ordered by a Holy Order of the Vatican City to go to Transylvania and vanquish Dracula, who is trying to bring the babies that his brides (who are also vampires) birthed, to life. In trying to do so, Dracula uses Frankenstein's life force. At the same time, Kate Beckinsale's character, Anna aids Van Helsing in his quest (or rather, Van Helsing aids Anna), coz her family has vowed to kill Dracula. Finally, it was revealed that Van Helsing is actually the ancestor of Anna, but they've already fallen in love. It was fortunate that Anna dies in the end. If not, it sure would make for a weird relationship. A great, great, great, grandfather having a relationship with his great, great, great granddaughter. Eww...

But enough about Van Helsing. Troy was a much, much better film. I especially like the characters of Achilles (Brad Pitt) and Hector (Eric Bana). Both actors played their roles extremely well, with Achilles shown as a person having no care for the reasons behind the war as long as he remains glorious, and his main objective which is to make sure his name be remembered forever is achieved. Hector also is portrayed as one with huge responsibilities and having much sense and sensibility in the war. The war scenes were slightly not on par with Lord of the Rings, but still they were grandiose. Very, very good.

The plot? More or less, it's about Prince Paris (Orlando Bloom) taking the Queen of Sparta, Helen back to Troy because he loves her. All this happened just after Paris and Hector made peace with Sparta. This makes the King of Sparta, Menelaus mad and he asks his brother, King Agamemnon, the King of Greece, to wage war with Troy. In order to win the war, Agamemnon enlists the service of Achilles, the greatest warrior of the Greeks.

Suffice to say, if you have an encyclopaedia, you can just refer to the writings of Homer, "Iliad" and you'll have exactly the same story portrayed in the film. Well, not exactly, since some of the storyline has been changed, such as Achilles having a love interest in the war, which he shouldn't have in the original Iliad. Also, Achilles should have died before the Trojan Horse was brought into Troy, but in the film, Achilles still lives at that point. There are some other differing points between the film and Iliad, but generally they follow the same storyline.

All in all, Van Helsing was okay, and Troy was great. I think the last time I watched two movies in a row was in Form 4. But at that time I watched Spice World (What???) and another movie that I forgot it's name. Hmm... Now I can't wait to watch Shrek 2! But not today unfortunately, because I expect the show to have very limited seats, since the online and telephone bookings are already fully booked. Well, next week I suppose...

Posted by Nikman Shah at 2:11 pm
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