The yearly trip to the MMFF
SO and I get to be jologs once every year. And what better time than the Christmas season, where Pinoy movies rule the cinemas? Yep, we had the guts (yet again) to watch an entry from the Metro Manila Film Festival.
I had been coaxing my SO to watch films like Shake Rattle and Roll 9 or Bahay Kubo, only in vain. He bought tickets to Resiklo. Uh, Bong Revilla? Great...
I've seen the trailer in YouTube (with a sucky English voiceover that squeaks like a chipmunk... who the heck is he?!) and honestly saw shades of Hollywood films like the Matrix and AVP, hints of video game plots, and designs which were probably inspired from entries in a Cosplay. I still don't get why people are comparing it to Transformers, which is absolutely a far cry from it. Lemme guess... because the robots were moving?
I was ready to be disappointed when the movie started. For a post-apocalyptic era where natural resources are rationed, Bong Revilla seems to be a tad bit clean. All throughout the movie. It's amazing that hygiene is still a priority of the people of Paraiso (which they call their secret base of human survivors) while food and water are being saved for a rainy day. At least the gash on his right arm is consistent.
The whole theme of the movie is like War of the Worlds: alien invasion. Earth's allied forces have fallen and so the aliens (called Balang, or Locusts -- which SO notes is what the aliens are called in the PS game Gears of War) are turning humans into either food or mutated beings. In the Philippines, there is one community of survivors hiding somewhere. Bong Revilla belongs here, but along with his army of misfits that includes his sons (which are not his sons here) and Sergio, errr, Dingdong Dantes, they're collecting things outside Paraiso that they could recycle (ooohh... so that's why the title is called so). These recyclable things are made, as we learn in the latter part, to become weapons and robots against the alien race.
Jennylyn Mercado is Mr. Revilla's sort-of love interest (geez, she could be as old as your daughter, dude!) who, with her younger sister, seek Paraiso and her long-lost father.
I must say that this movie is the surprise of the year. Honestly, the robots' design still needed a lot of improvements (it looked like a toy robot from the 80s) and consciousness of details, like shadows and stuff. There are a few scenes in which I felt the robots were not in the right proportion against the humans. Despite everything, I know there are a lot of Pinoys who do amazing work with 3D, compositing and junk art (that shows our sheer ingenuity). I salute these people. And yeah, the alien spaceship had a great design.
Cheesy lines and morale-boosting blah, errr, speeches are expected with this kind of movie. At least Paolo Contis made good with his comic antics.
Continuity had hits and misses here and there. Some stunts were pretty unrealistic, like Bong Revilla and Roi Vinzon's fight scene. A kid has powers similar to Hiro Nakamura, and a medium whose eyes become white like Isaac Mendez. Need to improve on the chroma technique (you should get the guys who do the Lotto show on Ch4). Production should be aware of minor details like bruises, dirty nails (heck, it's post-apocalyptic), scratches on the "armor" and the guns. And yeah, unlimited bullets?! Again?! Did someone just push "U-U-D-D-L-R-L-R-Sel-Start" before the movie played?
Overall, with the nice twist in the ending and Kevin Roy shouting the theme song during the credits, Resiklo is pretty entertaining. Surprised? Yep, me too.
