Assalamualaikum and welcome to today "Mega Monday". I would like to talk about a local movie called "MANTERA". In local usage, mantera means (cast a)spell. But as for this movie, MANTERA is an acronym for "MAN Transformable Exo-Robotic Armor".
So, last weekend I spent the day with my ex-housemate, Zoru Sama and Firdaus Hamid to watch a promising movie, MANTERA. At least the trailer quite promising. I've watched the trailer and couldn't help but noticing the CGI quality is quite crappy but you can't expect more with the limitation from budget and technology. The movie estimation budget maybe around couple million Ringgit Malaysia. It maybe didn't even reach a million dolar. And such technology maybe not available or affordable in Malaysia. So, I really need to put aside the aspect of CGI quality in my judgement. Spoiler alert! Don't read if you want to watch it.
(Baca lagi = Read more)
Nonetheless, let's not waste time. First, why is it an unfortunate movie? Well, honestly, the "essence" of the storyline is superb. I really like it. I even have imagined how the story will furthur develop. The first unfortunate things happen to this movie is the CGI of course. It really look animation-ish. If they decided to make this movie an animation movie, it will be better quality. However, I know that they (production team) also know that an animation movie that have a serious storyline won't work in Malaysian market. If they launch that kind of movie in Japan, MAYBE it'll work. So, for the sake of Malaysian viewers, they still need to make a live-action movie even though the robot look very animation-ish. Just like a college project.
Next unfortunate things that messed up the movie is the pointless dramatic scenes. Why? Because there is a lot of uncertainty that actually need to be reviewed and even without so much lovey-dovey scenes the movie is still all right. Why? there are 2 MAJOR mistakes in the movie. I'm not a guy who seek bloopers in a movie. But these are not the usual bloopers, it's SO OBVIOUS!.
1. Dr. Natasya Pushkin doesn't speak English at first, but later on, she speaks English! Maybe she just pretend that she cannot speak English because she's not sure whether she's in the good side (alliance of light) or the bad side (dark legion). But, they didn't show us that she tell the colleague that she just bluffing. Okay, maybe it's a common sense.
2. In the end, people suddenly supporting Azman, first of all, did they know what really happen? Did dark legion did something obviously bad and people already familiar which one is bad guy which one is the good guy? You know, things like that? How can he get much support from people when world doesn't even know what is MANTERA? If they cut the lovey-dovey part and fill it in with the proper scenes, this might be better.
Lastly, if they can get more convincing cast, maybe this movie will be better. I can say all the cast member performance are not convincing. Sorry guys. I still watched that movie and I forked out my money. You can't say I'm not supporting local movies. In fact, the reason I write this entry in English instead of Malay in a bad grammar condition is just to promote this movie to the foreigners who may suddenly stumble into this entry. Maybe an investor found out this promising movie via this blog and willing to make a remake? Overall, this movie have a full potential to go far. It's just they need people who have more experience and MONEY to make this movie awesome as it should be.
That's all for now. Again, sorry for my bad grammar. My intention is good. See you all tomorrow on "Techy Tuesday", InsyaAllah.
hasta luego,
Mata ne,
Wassalam.
from,
K-tea.
