The Green Hornet

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Waktu edar : 17 Januari 2011

Waktu menonton : 15 Februari 2011

Media menonton dan teman menonton : Ciwalk XII sama Nadya Siddiqa, Nurdini Amalia, Dang Dwaya Reksawibisana, Agiya Fersya

Hal paling berkesan : I'm stumped. I honestly don't know

Untuk membuat sebuah film superhero, diperlukan seorang superhero yang likable. Bukan berarti superhero itu harus baik sekali, tidak pernah melakukan kejahatan dan sebagainya. Tapi penonton harus bisa merasakan koneksi dengan sang tokoh. Seorang superhero harus bisa membuat penonton merasa dia super, tapi masih ada aspek dalam dirinya yang bisa membuat kita merasa “They’re only human after all”.

Menonton The Green Hornet, saya bingung mengkategorikan film ini sebagai film superhero atau bukan. Ya, film ini adalah adaptasi dari komik. Ya, film ini berkisah tentang seseorang yang memerangi kejahatan walau dengan cara yang berbeda. Tapi film ini jatuh-jatuhnya untuk saya sebagai film action biasa.

Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) adalah anak dari pemilik koran terbesar di Los Angeles, The Daily Sentinel. Dia tidak pernah bekerja dan selalu menghabiskan uang ayahnya. Ketika sang ayah meninggal mendadak akibat sengatan lebah, dia terpaksa diwarisi perusahaan koran sang ayah dan juga jabatan sang ayah sebagai pimpinan The Daily Sentinel. Petualangannya menumpas kejahatan dimulai ketika dia bertemu dengan pegawai garasi ayahnya, Kato (Jay Chou) yang bisa merancang mesin dan alat-alat yang canggih. Mereka berdua memutuskan untuk mencoba menggunakan mobil tersebut untuk memotong kepala patung ayah Britt pada suatu malam. Ketika mereka secara tidak sengaja malah mencoba memerangi kejahatan, mereka justru mengetahui besok paginya bahwa mereka dikira kriminal dan bukan pahlawan. Akhirnya mereka memutuskan untuk menjadi pahlawan dengan berpura-pura menjadi kriminal untuk bisa lebih dekat dengan kegiatan kriminal.

Sebenarnya apa yang salah dari film ini? Untuk saya, yang paling fatal adalah Britt Reid. Seperti yang sudah saya sebutkan di atas, untuk membuat sebuah film superhero, penting sekali untuk membuat tokoh yang likable dan relatable. Britt is a jerk. And an idiot. Saya tidak masalah dengan tokoh orang kaya menyebalkan yang womanizer, asal dia likable untuk kita, sang penonton. Tony Stark, sang protagonis dalam film Iron Man, adalah womanizer dan menyebalkan, tapi kita sebagai penonton yang melihat dari sisi Tony-nya, bisa melihat kenapa dia begitu. Entah karena scriptnya atau performa Robert Downey Jr. yang jauh lebih baik dari Seth Rogen, saya tidak melihat sama sekali sisi baik dalam diri Britt Reid. Dan seorang superhero harus membuat penontonnya merasa dia pantas menjadi superhero. Untuk saya, Britt tidak pantas sama sekali menjadi superhero.

Bukan cuma itu saja. Hampir tidak ada sama sekali perkembangan karakter di dalam film ini. Semua orang ya cuma begitu saja. Bahkan untuk terjadi sebuah character development, orang-orang di film ini harus punya karakter dulu. Dan hampir tidak ada tokoh di film ini yang terlihat karakternya. Britt terlihat karakternya, tapi karakter itu adalah seorang unlikable idiot jerk, yang tidak membantu film ini sama sekali. Kato sebagai sidekicknya, tidak berekspresi dan tidak pernah diperlihatkan emosi yang signifikan. Saya bahkan baru tahu bahwa pemerannya adalah Jay Chou saat menulis review ini dan saya kaget. Saya pernah menonton film Jay Chou dari negara aslinya, dan aktingnya bagus. Disini sama sekali tidak terlihat itu. Dan yang menganggu saya lagi (maaf kalau seperti rasis, tapi saya tidak bermaksud kesitu) adalah suara Jay Chou, yaitu bahasa Inggris dengan logat Cina. Saya tidak mengerti apapun yang dia ucapkan, dan menurut saya lebih baik dia digambarkan sebagai karakter yang memang berbahasa Cina, atau pilihlah aktor Cina yang memang bisa bicara bahasa Inggris lancar.

Love Interestnya dimainkan oleh Cameron Diaz dalam performa yang paling flat, dan tidak ada sesuatu pun yang istimewa. Dan mungkin saya bisa memberikan penghargaan sedikit karena dalam film ini tidak ada adegan kissing atau percintaan dengan sang love interest. Itu sangat jarang terjadi dalam dunia perfilman. Satu karakter yang menurut saya penyelamat dari deretan cast yang so so adalah villainnya, Chudnofsky. Dia jahat, tapi comical, yang pantas karena film ini kan adaptasi dari komik. Tapi pemerannya, Christoph Waltz, memainkan peran ini dengan sangat baik, dan membuat saya merasa ini adalah film komedi. Jelas itu yang diincar oleh sang pembuat film, yaitu action comedy, tapi Waltz lah yang paling sering mengingatkan saya tentang hal itu. Kalau melihat banyaknya penghargaan yang diraih setelah performanya dalam Inglorius Basterds, tentu saja ini tidak mengherankan. Saya menantikan menontonnya dalam film Water for Elephants bersama Reese Witherspoon dan (tergantung kalian Team Edward atau bukan) Robert Pattinson.

Sebenarnya apa yang ingin diraih oleh sang pembuat film, Michel Gondry, yang membuat masterpiece, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, dan membuat beberapa film yang bagus kalau itu yang anda suka, tapi pasti unik, yaitu The Science of Sleep dan Be Kind Rewind? Cuma di beberapa scene saya melihat gaya penyutradaraan Gondry, selebihnya ini hanya sebuah film action biasa. Yang ingin dicapai sepertinya adalah film action comedy, dan di beberapa tempat tujuan ini tercapai. Saya tertawa di beberapa scene. Tapi apakah ini film action comedy yang baik, dan apakah ini film superhero? Jawabannya tidak untuk keduanya. Untuk kategori film action, terlalu banyak adegan yang diperpanjang tanpa tujuan. Di pertengahan film, ada adegan perkelahian antara Britt dan Kato yang untuk saya terlalu panjang dan tidak ada gunanya. Durasi perkelahian itu dipotong setengah, atau bahkan tiga perempatnya, tujuan yang ingin dicapai masih akan tercapai. Dan terlalu banyak ledakan dan adegan tembak-tembakan yang untuk saya lebih berfungsi sebagai filler dan tidak begitu penting. Untuk kategori film komedi, ini lumayan tercapai. Ada beberapa scene yang lucu, tapi ada beberapa scene yang “garing”. Untuk film superhero, seperti yang sudah saya ungkapkan diatas, film ini gagal dengan satu alasan : Britt is NOT likable.

Mungkin ada banyak yang terhibur menonton film ini. Tapi untuk saya, melihat adegan ledakan dan perkelahian diselingi percakapan orang-orang yang minim karakter dan seorang protagonis yang unlikable is not my idea of a good time. Jadi maaf sekali Michel Gondry, tapi ini adalah Epic Fail anda.

Delirium



Delirium (2011)

A novel by Lauren Oliver

Waktu edar : February 1st 2011

Waktu membaca : Februari 2011

Media membaca : ebook di Stanza for iPhone

Hal paling berkesan : beautiful writings, great dystopian world building



Love can make you do crazy things. We all know that. But this book takes it a step further. In this book, love is a disease. A deadly disease.

Lena lives in a future world where love, or amor deliria nervosa, is a disease. At the age of eighteen, everyone goes into surgery to remove this disease, called the cure. Everyone’s afraid of contracting it. The most deadly crime is to be caught with a member of the opposite sex. Singing, laughing too hard, or too-long hugs and kisses are forbidden. There are regulation officer that patrols the city to look for signs of the disease. If you want to read books, movies, and music, you have to search through the LAB (Library of Approved Books) and LAMM (Library of Approved Music and Movies) and you can download it throught the intranet. The officers patrol everything. They’re listening on phone conversations, through closed curtains, to make sure that everyone is safe from the disease. The required reading for health class are Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, to remind them of the dangers of love.

Before graduation, students are put through an evaluation, to determined whether they can go to college or not. The government also pick four possible match candidate that students can marry based on the evaluation performance. Everything is orderly and safe, and everything is determined by the government. All cities are enclosed in electric fence, where beyond lies The Wild, a place people used to live before the cure. No one ever went into the Wild because it is forbidden.

Lena can’t wait for her own surgery in three months. She lives with her aunt and two cousins after her mother commits suicide rather than give up on love. Lena is always teased at school because of her mother. The only best friend she had is Hana, and her little cousin that won’t talk, Grace.

And then, at the day of her evaluation, she met a boy. A part-time guard at the laboratory where she took her evaluation. The boy, Alex, is nineteen, and he had the three dot mark on his neck, the sign of someone who’s gone through the surgery. Before she realize it, she began spending more and more time with him, and two months before her scheduled surgery, she realized something. She fell in love.

Let me tell you all the reason why I love this book. When I first read about this book, I knew instantly that I’m gonna like it. I love dystopian book. A book about a future world where everything is so right but so wrong always fascinates me. Granted, this premise has been done many times last year. The genre dystopian YA is huge right now. And I have read similar books, like The Giver by Lois Lowry (awesome book and my most favorite dystopian YA), Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld (more action than drama, but awesome), and the latest is Matched by Allie Condie (in which the heroine is matched with a boy through evaluation, just like this one, but she fell in love with another boy). I thought I have had enough of dystopian YA.

But it turns out that I like this book. A lot. What I like most is the way that the author, Lauren Oliver, writes. It’s beautiful, like a beautiful prose, and it’s haunting and sad at the same time. This is her second book. Her first book is Before I Fall, about a popular girl who’s in a car crash and gets to relive the day she died over and over again. I love that book, and I love this book too. I think I have become a fan of Lauren Oliver.

And I love the world building. Lena’s world is not that different from ours in some places, but it’s a lot different in others. Because there is no love, a mother holding her crying child is considered a disgrace. Even husband and wives that kiss too long, or hug to deeply, can be considered under suspicion. I love how the book portrays Lena. In a way, she’s just an ordinary girl. But underneath, she is brave. And when she said I love you for the first time, my heart breaks.

And the romantic interest. Alex is a rebel, a bad boy. And bad boys are always delicious. I love their romance. It’s bittersweet. Although I feel like Alex as a character is underdeveloped a little bit. But I like their interactions.

I always like dystopian book. And this book is nothing original. But I still like it, because of how beautiful the writing is. I love it. And what I remember most is a quote that’s still haunting my mind even after I finish reading it.

I love you. Remember it. They cannot take it.


Hex Hall

Hex Hall

a novel by Rachel Hawkins

Waktu edar : March 2nd 2010

Waktu membaca : Januari 2011

Media membaca : ebook di Stanza for iPhone

Hal paling berkesan : a different look at a wizarding school

I love books about school. I love books about normal school, like The St.Clair series by Enid Blyton about boarding school in England or Gossip Girl by Cecily Von Ziegesar about a school for rich kids in New York. I love abnormal school too. Books that come to mind is Harry Potter of course, about magical school. A couple of other is Knightley Academy by Violet Haberdasher about a school of Knights, Gallagher Girls series by Ally Carter about a school of spies, Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead about boarding school for vampires, Academy 7 by Anne Osterlund about a school of teen space pilots, and even My So-Called Death by Stacey Jay about a school of teen zombies.

To say that I love books about school is an understatement. My love for these books is equal to my love of Post apocalyptic books and romance books. Why do I love these books exactly? It’s because I love school. I love looking through the curriculum. My lifelong dream at elementary school is that an owl would come at my house and delivered my Hogwarts acceptance letter. I even downloaded Yale College Guide just so I can browse through the classes, even though in a million years I could never got into Yale. I love school.

And this is one more book about school. Hex Hall is a book about a school of witches actually. I am actually a little bit wary, because magic school is something that belongs to Harry Potter, and no book can surpass that. I’m afraid that this is just some copycat of Harry Potter. BUT it turns out that this book is so much different than Harry Potter and that to me is very impressive. The concept of witch in this book is so much different than Harry Potter, and even though it still can’t surpass Harry, didn’t even come close, but this is a hell of a fun book.

The book is a story about Sophie. She is a witch, but she lives with her mom, who’s not a witch. Her dad is a warlock (boy witch) but they’re divorced so Sophie was raised only by her mom. Because of some accident about a love potion gone horribly wrong, Sophie is sent to Hecate School for Prodigium. Prodigium is magical beings, consisting of witches, warlock, faeries, shapeshifter, and a little bit of vampire. In there she met her roommate, which also happens to be the only vampire on campus, a gorgeous warlock which also happens to be the boyfriend of the most gorgeous girl on campus (and the most bitchy), and mysteries about a dead classmate and an organization that is intend to kill her.

Okay, maybe the bit about organization that intends to kill her, bitchy and gorgeous classmate, and a hot guy is so cliche. But believe me when I say that the concept of witches in this book is original. The school doesn’t actually teach magic, because this is kind of a reformatory school. They teach boring subject like Magical History and Ancient Witch and Warlock of the 17th Century. But the school is portrayed really well and I like it, even though I personally want more description of the classes in the school. But I’m a school freak, so it’s different. Other people would have no problem about the descriptions.

Sophie, as a character, is not so memorable to me. That’s because I feel like I’ve read about characters like her a couple of times already. The world around her is the center of the story, but not her. I guess that’s why the book is titled Hex Hall I guess. Other characters, like the trio of gorgeous and bitchy girl, is just as unoriginal. It’s fun to read, but I’ve read dozens like them. The love interest, Archer Cross, is also that mysterious gorgeous bad boy, with a gorgeous bitchy girlfriend, that falls in love with the heroine eventually. Nothing original.Compared to other YA I’ve read recently, he falls flat. Wesley Rush from The Duff is as bad a boy can be, but he’s so damn hot because of his badness. Etienne St.Clair from Anna and the French Kiss meanwhile, is so nice and charming, and he’s hot because of how nice and charming he is. Archer Cross is kind of a cross between them, but because the author didn’t explore further about him, he’s kind of average in every way.

I guess this book falls above average. It’s even good, but it’s not very good. It’s a fun book, and I love the world building. But the character falls flat, and I didn’t exactly fall in love with the love interest. The book also have similarity with Jinx by Meg Cabot, but it’s distinct enough that I can enjoy it.

Overall, one more book I’ll add to my collection of books about school, and I’m looking forward to the sequel, Demonglass, coming out in 2011. But there’s a lot of better books out there, so if you want a quality read about witch and wizard, stick to rereading your Harry Potter book and you’ll be better off.