Puss in Boots

After a couple of weeks lay, we finally got it together and managed to catch "Puss in Boots". There were no excuse rally after spending almost the week at Sunway Pyramid, we hopped onto the cinema.

Getting the tickets were rather tricky at the beginning as thee were only late shows, except for Thursday. when we shoed up, the movie was marked with the letter B. What did that mean? The lady at the counter did not do a great job explaining. All she said was it was in a special theatre. 3D. No. Just a special seating. She was more interested in which seats we wanted.

It turned out that the B stood for Beaniplex, and all the seatings were actually beanbags. Nice! Irfan enjoyed it so much that he started bouncing up and down on the bag. As for Idlan, he was more worried that the place was cold and went around looking for blankets! It was no Gold Class I was afraid, so blanket for him.

The movie was actually great fun. Enough to entertain both the adults and kids - and the kid in the adult as well. The plot slowed down after the customary grand spectacle, but the pace soon picked up again. I actually rate it higher than Smurfs and Alice in Wonderland in term of plot. But the boys did not really care. The laughed at the jokes and were in awe with the animations.

There were plenty of classic one-liners, and the tie in and the twist of classical children tale was rather clever I thought.

The Beaniplex was also rather good, if only the management took the trouble to explain what it is - not really explaining it verbally, but rather have adverts or leaflets. It was cosy and not too cold. The beanbags could make you slouch rather if you were not careful, but the kids loved it.

Transformers 3

As I mentioned in the previous entry, we had a nice time celebrating a birthday party of one of Idlan's classmate at the cinemas. And Transformers 3 did not disappoint. Cue the usual Michael Bay hyperbole, over the top special effects, slow motion macho shots, hot babes and understated heroes.

Of the three movies on the chain, this was the best. The focus of the movie we're clearly on the Transformers themselves rather than the hot babes or the human characters. Even the special effects were tone down to make it more believable, and not to undermine the main action. And actions they were. The storyline this time around was more on the struggle of Optimus Prime in dealing with his identity, specifically dealing with the place where he was from, Cybertron. The idols that he worshiped in the past were not who he was ..... and I shall leave it at that.

The human characters from the the first couple of installments were back, except for Megan Fox of course. But to be honest, we did not really miss much without her as the new love interest was equally as hot. The main protagonist this time was more on Optimus, with the antagonist being Sentinel. It was action-packed as you would expect, but the usual comedic moment - watch for Deep Wang. Even John Turturro was back to reprise his role.

Of the three movies in the series, this must have been the most matured in terms of story development if you can call it that. There were many gaps in the story however, and some of the conjectures being made took some believing. The first part of the movie however reflected the director's, Michael Bay frustration with the general reception of the first couple of movies. The main character, Sam found himself jobless despite saving the world twice, paralleling what happened to Bay in essence. Despite making blockbusters after blockbusters, he has yet to find any formal recognition of his efforts. Once the melodramatic was over, the real action picked up, and it was relentless from the first 30 minutes onwards.

I left the theater with a broad smile. If it was a feel good movie, it certainly succeeded. The pace was furious and despite the movie running over two hours, I hardly felt it. Initially, my boys were restless, but once the action started picking up, they were glued on to their seats. By the end, they were asking me to get them the toys from the movie - clearly a success on the Bay's part. I had reservation however concerning taking young children to watch the movie. Some of the scripts were rather crude - especially for children who do understand English - and some of the sequence - the humans disintegrating into skulls upon being shot by aliens and the blood-like material coming out of some of the Decepticon characters after being hit - we're quite gruesome. So, parents discretion were very important.

TGV Birthday

A couple of years back, when we were planning one of Idlan's birthday, we made a few enquiries about where to celebrate. We have done the usual - house party, clowns, biggest cakes, restaurants, halls, play gym. We wanted to do something different. We settled for the Bird Park. Amongst other things we came across was to do a party at a cinema, a pool and outdoor garden theme.

The cinema one was unfortunate because there were no big releases during the boys bit days at the time. The place we discussed at was at Pavilion. The package did not come cheap, but it does come with memorabilia, all fitting the theme of the movie. It would have been great to have the Rio theme for instance. The cinema would provide a private sitting area - for those who had been to the Gold Class foyer at GSC at Pavilion, you would know what I was talking about.

Today, we had one such party at TGV Wangsa Walk Mall, to celebrate one of Idlan's classmate's party. The movie was Transformers. The party began at 11, when we picked up our tickets at the foyer, then being ushered into the theaters hall. The friend of hours actually paid for the whole theatre, all filled with friends and families, with the birthday boy and his friends sitting in the middle row. Before the movie begin, we had the usual cake-cutting, sing songs and tidbits. Not much food though, some sausages and popcorns. The movie then begin right before noon.

Speeches before the cakesIt was a great idea actually, although I would have wished for more food. I could see throngs of people buying the tickets outside while we were ushered into the hall. I would personally struggle to fit in that me people though. I would need close to 200 people to fill the hall. the other problem if found was the whole party was done inside the movie theatre. There were not much room to maneuver as we had to walk across the row to get in and out of our seats. We also had problem to stash our food as the seats were pretty cramped.

The cake-cutting was done at the front of the theater, and after that, we had to queue for food on the side. It would have been better if the food were served in a bigger area, maybe the main foyer - unfortunately the main foyer at the cinema was rather too small. There was some delay clearing the food before the movie started, making the children really restless. I would blog more about the movie later.

Movie Starting

We were bow packed into the theatre and waiting for the cake-cutting and sing songs. The boys getting grumpy understandably. Movie starting in 20 minutes. Havoc!

Let's Kung Fu Panda

The first installment of Kung Fu Panda proved a hit in our household. Certainly we were looking forward for the follow-up and it was not a surprise when the boys asked me to take them out to watch it on the first weekend the movie came out. After the frantic search to get tickets for the early morning show, we finally settled for the seats a TGV at Capsquare. Armed with soda and popcorn - everyone was hyper at this point, we had ver high expectations for the movie.

The start was actually quite funny, setting up the plot for the movie. A bit of action and punchline here and there. But by midway, it because e obvious that the writers were telling a story of something deeper. It was an origin story, on where Po came from. He must have been half expecting that he was adopted and his father Ping was a bird. The actions came fast and furious, but it was laced with some sappy moments. Puan Anita broke down a couple of times believe it or not. But then again, she was Puan Anita ......

The pace built up again towards the end, which was needed as my boys were getting bored with the heavy dialogues. This time, the pace became relentless, and jokes flowed nicely. There were plenty of nice touches and the ending was although predictable, was well-conceived. There was also a bit in the end which hinted toward another sequel ....

All in all, it was a good day out for the family. Certainly highly recommended for the kids and the kids amongst us. However, if you were planning to watch it with a date, just make sure you go for an evening show as the theaters would be full of noisy children in the morning and afternoon showings.