By: Jim Yurick Baltores
URDUJA
For the first time ever, Philippines had already her own first full-length digital animated film made by true-blooded Pinoys. Arranged by over 400 Filipino animators, Urduja, the love story of a Filipina princess and a Chinese pirate was finally brought to life on the big screen.
Urduja features the voices of the country’s top movie personalities led by Asia's Songbird Regine Velasquez as the voice of Urduja and Cesar Montano as her love interest, the Chinese pirate Limhang. Completing the lineup were Eddie Garcia as the voice of Lakanpati ( Urduja’s father), Johnny Delgado as Wang, Jay Manalo as Simakwel, Michael V as Kukut the rat, Allan K as Tarsir, Ruby Rodriguez as Mayumi, and Epi Quizon as Daisuke.
The whole story was purely and traditionally a PINOY style. As the only daughter of Lakanpati, chieftain of the Tawilisi tribe of Central Luzon, Urduja was raised as a warrior to help protect her people from their rival tribe, the Batyaws. However, Lakanpati's failing health has given rise to his urgency of finding a husband for the Tawilisi warrior princess.
Lakanpati deemed Simakwel, a Tawilisi warrior whom Urduja hates, to be the most eligible husband for the princess and become the future Tawilisi chief. Unconscious of Simakwel's ambitious and devious ways, Lakanpati tries his best to convince Urduja to marry him. However, Urduja meets Limhang, who lands on the Tawilisi shore as he flees the wrath of the ruthlessly greedy wis.
From this chance meeting blooms a beautiful romance between Urduja and Limhang, who will have to bravely face all odds to fight for their love. Limhang, as a foreigner must prove his sincere intentions not only for Urduja but also for the Tawilisi people while Urduja has to fulfill her obligations as a daughter to Lakanpati and as a princess to her tribe.
HANCOCK
When I saw the trailer of Hancock I was like "Wow this movie looks cool" and it lived up to my expectation because the film was absolutely funny and unforgettable.
Hancock has the kind of premise that you will wonder why it took so long putting it on the big screen. With the overabundance of comic book movies coming to cinemas this decade, it was only a matter of time before we were given a tale of a washed up superhero, drunk and lonely, being berated for his destruction rather than praised for his bravery. If Pixar's The Incredibles touched a bit on the subject with the disbanding of heroes by the government, however, here is something different. This guy doesn't hide his identity or pretend he is something he's not. No, he lets it all out on the line and most of it is unflattering and just plain rude. Jaded from the lack of respect he receives, John Hancock finds that he'd rather wallow away in solitude than try to make people like him. Surely, he will still go out and help while making 9 billion dollars worth of damage. But when he's done, he's back to the bar and the bottle, his only friends in the world.
All things changed when he met a public relations man whom he caught a second from death we Hancock saved his life, while harming many others in the process. Seeing an opportunity to get back into the in big leagues, Ray Embrey decides to make his hero his new client. Having this freak of nature turn himself into authorities, Ray thinks that a little time away from the city will show the people how much they need him.
While imprisoned, crime goes up 30% in just five days, people start to worry as the criminals begin to feel invincible, and, to top it all off, Hancock gets a little quiet time to himself so that he can rework his image.
Dealing with anger issues and alcoholism on the inside, Ray also begins to work on his personality turning him into a civil person. Once the city comes a calling, his rebirth will allow him to be ready to take control as someone the public can trust, rather than hate.
The story twisted when Hancock had amnesia when he discovered that Ray’s wife was his long lost wife. Mary Embrey is also having the same power like Hancock but they lose their powers when they are near each other. This gave their enemies a chance for revenge. The accident almost killed them. Because of Hancock’s love for Mary and his friend Ray, he decided to move away and continue saving lives from a distance.
Made for comedy, the fact that Ray is played by the talented Jason Bateman and Hancock by Will Smith, the film was delivered funny. The evolution of Hancock took barely an hour and a half, there's not much room for more depth. Overall, the laughs are big and the film is certified entertaining.
WALL-E
There's a way to measure how well an animated film takes over your imagination. Are you forgetting something when watching animation? Do the textures and settings, the fantasyland and characters, become — for lack of a better word — real? That, or something close to it, is what happened to me during WALL-E, the puckishly inventive, altogether marvelous new digitally animated feature from Pixar.
The movie sets us in a rusty, post apocalyptic urban desert, all glaring sun and junk-heap skyscrapers, where the only living thing or at least the only thing that moves is WALL-E, a cute squat robot with droopy binocular eyes whose name stands for Waste Allocation Load-Lifter Earth-Class. That's a very fancy way of saying that WALL-E is a roving trash compactor — and, in fact, he's the last of his breed. Hundreds of years after humans fled the earth, he's still doing what he's been built to do, molding scrap metal into bricks and piling them into neat towers.
After a while, a spaceship landed, and WALL-E met EVE, a frictionless white pod with cathode-ray eyes who's been sent to earth in search for organic life. (Her name stands for Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator.) It was love at first sight for WALL-E but EVE doesn’t show affection for him although she felt amused on his personality. After that meeting, they developed a genuine friendship like humans that later fell into love. These two don't talk, exactly, but they hold each other’s hands and burble each other's names. It's love at first mechanized heartbeep.
Their love story ended when EVE deactivated after fulfilling her mission and was taken by the same ship that brought her on Earth. WALL-E clung to the outer hull of the ship as it departs into space. Upon arrival on EVE’s place, WALL-E encountered many challenges that tested his bravery and love for EVE. These caused serious damages on his part that eventually deactivated him. EVE brought WALL-E back to Earth.
Having arrived on Earth, EVE frantically repaired and reactivated WALL-E. However, the extent of the damage erased his memory and personality completely, making him return to his normal directive. Heartbroken and believing that the WALL-E whom she knew and loved was gone forever, EVE held his hand and gave him a parting "kiss". The resulting spark rebooted WALL-E's memory, and he suddenly recognized her as they clasped hands in joy and kissed each other once more. With a renewed sense of purpose, humanity and robots began working together to restore Earth's biosphere.
Even as the movie turned deeply ironic, still, it never lost its heart. I'm not sure I'd trust anyone, kid or adult, who didn't get a bit of a lump in the throat by the end of WALL-E, a film that brought what the best Pixar films had: It whisks you to a new world, then makes that world every inch our own.
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