Movie Review of Amazing Spiderman 2

The latest superhero movie to hit the cinemas is none other than the Amazing Spider man 2.

When I first heard about it, I was told right away that there were 3 villains and that raised some hope of how the fight scenes between the hero and villains would be like, after all 3 vs 1 is definitely difficult for Spider man. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. It was a 1 vs 1 fight. I would get to that later on.

The focus of the movie is the villain Electro. For some weird reason, they chose a character who was a Black. He in no way resembles the actual impression I had of him based on cartoons way back. No yellow and green costume, just bluish energy like. I mean I get the CGI and visuals and all but it is totally different.

 

Electro is supposed to look like this for your information, from the comics and cartoons.

The final fight scene between Electro and Spider man was really good, even though it wasn’t as challenging as expected. Overcharge the dude. Yea, we didn’t see that coming for sure.

I didn’t really get how Gwen died. After all she didn’t hit the ground. Peter still held her back with his webbing. It’s like the appearance of Green Goblin, his purpose was to kill her. It’s so DUH when you see the Green Goblin appear and he positions himself strategically between Gwen and Peter. Brave girl but for all she is worth, she is to die.

Oh and then for once, we see how utterly useless Spider man is when Goblin flies over the clock tower and his webbing can’t reach the Goblin. He’s stuck on the surface of the tower and the Goblin flies above with Gwen, mocking him.

The movie ends off with a bang, the introduction of a third villain. I was wondering when he would appear. Who is it? It’s the Rhino. Yes, a man in a metallic suit, made to look like a rhino. I was like huh? Are you kidding me? This is how the Rhino should look like.

 

The Rhino is like Electro, both of them are in suits that represent their powers.

I don’t know about others but for me, I was quite disappointed with the movie. I expected the villains to look a certain way and behave in a certain way. We all know the plot, so there’s nothing really new about it. Of course, the CGI and visuals were good, nonetheless. As they say, when you watch a super hero movie, don’t raise your hopes. As for this depiction of Spider man and the villains, it’s a new one and I personally don’t welcome the change. I would rate this movie 3.9/5.

Rock Climbing at Climb Asia

So just yesterday, my sister and I decided to venture to rock climb as Climb Asia, located at Civil Service College, 60 Tessensohn Rd, Singapore 217664.  We booked a one hour taster session to try out rock climbing and despite being slightly late, we were still given a thorough tour of the rock climbing facilities. They had indoor rock climbing facilities, a total of 4 different colored walls and they also had walls for bouldering. The difference was that for bouldering, the height of the wall is relatively low such that you could jump off the wall to land on some padding, without the need for a belayer.

We climbed three of the four walls. Initially we started out climbing casually with any of the stones. On the second try we decided to challenge ourselves and limited our climb to certain colored stones. Lastly, we did our cool down, notice ‘cool down’ is the term they use, with an easier route.

 

So this is yours truly climbing. Changed the photograph to black and white because it was somewhat blurry. After climbing our hands were all shaking when we attempted to take photographs. My excuse for being so tired was I was wake-boarding a couple of days ago and also gyming so you understand right?

After climbing on the walls for rock climbing, we proceeded to bouldering. It was relatively easy to reach the top of the wall given its height but the difficulty was in moving along the sides of the wall, like from left to right, especially when the wall was inverted at a certain degree. We were told to try to fall, since we always need to learn how to fall before we learn a sport, so throwing ourselves off the wall was part of the learning process.

This is my sister and I doing one of our first few selfies with the bouldering wall in the background. Notice the angle of the walls. Inclined at a particular angle to make it more challenging.

Movie Review of Transcendence

This movie is of a sci-fic genre, whereby scientists attempt to integrate a person’s consciousness into a machine as a form of AI. The main lead, Will Caster, was poisoned and on his dying bed, his wife decided to experiment on him and to kind of upload his consciousness into machinery and thereafter even uploading his consciousness onto the internet. As an online husband of sorts, the AI version of Will is able to buy himself land and make scientific discoveries that baffle mankind. He is able to help humans regenerate and recover from ailments of any kind and this is what makes him dangerous to man. Man fear the unknown they say and this is so real in the movie. Mankind developed a technology that could help them but they feared the power it possessed.

The movie was a bit slow paced and dry at the start but it gets better when the AI version of Will gets uploaded on the internet. After that, it gets really interesting as we get to see what this AI is capable of and how the other scientists react to its development.

It has been a while since I watched such a thought provoking movie. Makes me think about how man is always developing technology to benefit our own kind but at the end of the day we are afraid of what we have created for moral reasons, for the power it places into our hands. It begs the question whether there is a need to pursue such technology. Man is man because we are subjected to birth, life and death. If we do not die, are we still humans? Will we still be humans? I guess I shouldn’t tell you the ending in case you decide to catch it at the cinemas but it has a really sweet ending to it. At the end of the movie, it refocuses our attention to the love between the husband, Will and his wife, Evelyn. It is not about the world but really, it is just about them and their love.

I would rate this movie 3.8/5.