Coming to Cinemas (24/1/2013)

After three weeks of catching up to some of the last US releases from 2012, we finally have the first week of only releases for 2013.

Let's look at the few releases coming out this week:

Hansel And Gretel: Witch Hunters

Director: Tommy Wirkola
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Gemma Arterton, Famke Janssen, Peter Stormare
Running Time: 1 Hour 32 Minutes
Language: English
Classification: 18
Synopsis: Catching up with Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Arterton) 15 years after their traumatic incident involving a gingerbread house where today, the siblings have evolved into vengeful bounty hunters dedicated to exterminate witches. Over the years, the siblings became expert hunters, famous for their proficiency at tracking and taking down their prey. Although still recovering from their ordeal, their work is relatively easy as for an unknown reason harmful spells and curses do not work well against them. Now, Mayor of Augsburg recruits them to rid the town and nearby forests of the evil Muriel (Famke Janssen) who is planning to sacrifice many local children at the witches' gathering during the upcoming 'Blood Moon' night in two days time. To make things worse, the duo also has to deal with the brutal Sheriff Berringer (Peter Stormare) who has taken power in Augsburg and conducts a very indiscriminate witch-hunt of his own.

Trailer Impression: I have no idea why this is so highly anticipated among my friends and if it wasn't for the 18 rating, I wouldn't even have given this one a second glance. Fairy tales with a twist has been one genre that I can't recall to have been given a good take so far, and this one by Norwegian director Tommy Wirkola doesn't seem to be taking it up to any different level. I disliked Snow White and the Huntsman and that was the most promising one I thought that had came out for these 'modernized' fairy tales so far. This doesn't even seem it can beat that, other than having the unadulterated slaying. This was shot during pre-Avengers, so Jeremy Renner also doesn't look like he is doing better here after his disastrous turn in last year's The Bourne Legacy, and Gemma Arterton isn't hot right now to shine with much starpower.

Juvana

Director: Mohamad Faisal bin Ishak
Cast: Zahiril Adzim, Johan Asari, Syazwan Zulkifli, Sharnaaz Ahmad
Running Time: 1 Hour 30 Minutes
Language: Malay
Classification: P13
Synopsis: Picking up a few months after the end of the TV drama series "Juvana", Daim is freed from the juvenile centre after being found not guilty of murdering his mother. He tries to lead a normal life in the outside world, but finds that it is vastly different from life in juvenile prison. Daim begins to attend high school in hopes of finishing his SPM. He also finds a job at the brick factory to support himself. However, in school, he is bullied by the other students and does not have any friends besides Sara. Further, the school guard who knows about his status as an ex-juvenile convict is always watching him. Everything that goes wrong in school is blamed on Daim as well...

Trailer Impression: Living in the well of the TV world (and certainly for Malay television), the subject of Malaysian juvenile prisons and its hidden dynamics from the public eye does sound to be an interesting subject that warrants to be explored in a full-length feature of its own, rather than being a continuation from a TV series. Although this trailer shows an emphasis of continuing a story with recurring characters that may alienate those who are not followers of the series, I would catch a movie about Malaysian juvenile centres with more realistic enactments. Call this one interesting, but just slightly missed the mark to have a real reason to see it.

Parker

Director: Taylor Hackford
Cast: Jason Statham, Jennifer Lopez, Michael Chiklis, Nick Nolte, Clifton Collins Jr.
Running Time: 1 Hour 58 Minutes
Language: English
Classification: 18
Synopsis: Professional thief Parker has always lived by one rule: Not to steal from the poor and to not hurt innocent people. However when the people he thought he could trust betrays him and leaves him for dead, Parker follows them to Florida with the intent on extracting his revenge. He disguises himself as a wealthy Texan and solicits the help of Leslie, a woman on the inside, in order to get his revenge by stealing his former crew's planned heist from under their noses.

Trailer Impression: It's been a while since I've seen a Jason Statham movie. I don't mean movies where he appeared in like Expendables 2 or Killer Elite, but his solo vehicles. I remembered watching a trailer for this where it showed that this could be the character with the most depth played by Statham, but from this trailer I can't say the same for its plot. Adapted from a novel by Taylor Hackford, who has done some decent work before (I loved The Devil's Advocate), there is some reason to be optimistic, even though the accent from Statham does throw you off.

Taxi! Taxi! (德士当家)

Director: Kelvin Sng
Cast: Gurmit Singh, Mark Lee, Gan Mei Yan, Jazreel Low, Lai Meng
Running Time: 1 Hour 32 Minutes
Language: Mandarin
Classification: P13
Synopsis: "Taxi! Taxi!" is a social comedy set in the metropolitan city-state of Singapore, told through the encounters of two characters who are in what is widely perceived as the most sociable profession on the island taxi drivers. Inspired by famed blogger Dr Cai Mingjie's real life accounts as a taxi driver in his bestseller "Diary Of A Taxi Driver: True Stories From Singapore's Most Educated Cabdriver", the movie follows the trials and tribulations of a retrenched microbiology scientist, Professor Chua, as he turns to taxi driving after several failed job attempts. Along the way, he befriends (although they didn't quite start off as friends from the get-go) a veteran taxi driver, Ah Tau. The two men, who appear to be polar opposites of each other in every aspect from educational levels, personalities, attitudes toward life and even the languages that they speak, eventually find themselves interdependent and influencing each other in ways that they probably had never imagined possible.

Trailer Impression: Another interesting subject based on another interesting source material, and it only gets better with the appearance of Gurmit Singh without his signature mole and yellow boots and Singapore Chinese regular funnyman Mark Lee. Although not done by Singapore's satire-extrodinaire Jack Neo, this does seem to know where to hit the right spots for a good laugh, even though the jokes may be too Singapore-centric. Namewee could take a few notes from this.

FilmBah's Pick of the Week 

From Arnold Schwarzenegger, we move on to our first Jason Statham movie of the year with Parker and Jeremy Renner in Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, so that should be enough to keep the action fans happy. But the one that has caught my eyes for this week is the combined star power of Gurmit Singh and Mark Lee in Taxi! Taxi!. I'm trying to diversify my language palette of movies this year, so having a non-English (or half-half) movie to pique my interest to go to the cinema so early this year, delights my heart as a moviegoer.

 Releases according to CinemaOnline.