Watchmen - 守護者

Watchmen (守護者) is a 2009 film. The film stars a bunch of people, but these were the main players, Jackie Earle Haley, Patrick Wilson, and Malin Åkerman. The others included Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Carla Gugino.

The story is pretty hard to describe in words so I'll just post what Netflix has:

Zack Snyder directs this adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's graphic novel set in a parallel Earth in 1985, where superheroes are prohibited from using their powers despite the threat of nuclear war. When one of their number is murdered, however, the outlaw heroes -- including Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino), Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) and Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) -- unite to defend themselves.

As a person whom read the comic version before seeing the film, it didn't matter. Because I read the comics back in the 80 while I was in High School. And back then, I wasn't into the more mature stuff like this. So, I read them, stored them away and completely forgot about it. Seriously, completely forgot. So, while I watched the movie, things started to sorta come back, but never completely. Which was a good thing. In general, the movie was standalone and I didn't have the baggage of the comics to reference.

However, the movie is pretty heavy in its subject matter and to where it was going, I didn't feel compelled to follow. In the end, I was was just "eh" about the movie. It was not bad and it certainly wasn't great. Well made film though and prolly a must watch if you're in sci-fi.

Mission: Impossible III - 不可能的任務III

I caught Mission: Impossible III (不可能的任務III) right when it was released on DVD back in 2006. One of the best things about this movie was that they filmed roughly 20% in Shanghai, China. The city of one set of my grandparents. Shanghai will always hold a special place in my heart. I got a chance to visit Shanghai for 2 days back in 2000. I've been pining to get back there and spent at least a week.



So, when the movie moved to the Shanghai portion of the film, I was all eyes and ears. It was quite funny to hear Tom Cruise shout a couple of Mandarin Chinese terms.



You would be better off getting a movie synopsis from Yahoo! Movies or Wikipedia or even the M:i:3 site.



One of the standout features of the film is Maggie Q. Maggie plays one of the agents that supports Tom Cruise on his mission. Maggie actually has a nice roll and is credited with playing someone called Zhen Lei. Maggie Q was not the dragon lady bad gurl or the the eye candy for white guys to drool over. She was part of the team and did her part.



I thought the plot was a little confusing, but I understood it for the most part. I was a huge fan of Alias and thought this was a good vehicle for J.J. Abrams to enter the film market.