The premise is interesting, and the graphics of some disasters are pretty good, but the movie’s premise wears out thin when shadowy mysterious figures enter the picture. Who are they? What are they doing? Those questions are answered at the end of the movie, in what has to be the most disappointing and depressing movie ending I have seen in quite some time.

Without spoiling any of the major plot points, all I can say is watch the movie without thinking too much about the story progression or its coherence. Nicolas Cage does a decent job with the given material, but this movie seems even more pointless than Next.

Rating: 25%

Hong Kong - Jetta Company Limited acquired the assets of Ugobe and will be re-launching "Pleo" in the near future. Established in 1977, Jetta has focused on manufacturing an extended range of toy, consumer electronics, juvenile, robotic and gift products and is one of the most recognized engineering and OEM companies within the toy industry. Headquartered in Hong Kong, Jetta currently operates five production campuses in Guangdong Province which combined has over 4.5 million square feet of production floor space. At the forefront of the fast-paced toy and robotics industries, Jetta continues to strive for "excellence" and is pleased to add "Ugobe" to its operations.

Another robot bites the dust. This time, it is Sony’s robotic MP3 player that could dance to your music by… flapping. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sony is discontinuing the Rolly in North America (and presumably in the world soon) as the $600 toy that doesn’t do much probably didn’t find enough buyers to justify its existence.

Instead what you get is a better than the other 2 sequels overall. Storyline is more coherent, characters are developed slightly more and it is fun to see Vin Diesel and Paul Walker back in action together. In Fast and Furious, Brian O’Connor, an undercover FBI agent that no one seems to recognize (I guess they haven’t seen the first movie yet), and Dominic Toretto must infiltrate a drug operation where they drive cars filled with drugs through the US-Mexican border.

The movie is set between the events of the first one and the third one and it tries to tie everything together, which is a noble goal. But you aren’t watching this movie for its storyline or character development. Instead you want car races, car chases and action. There is a lot of girl on girl on girl kissing (maybe filmmaker’s fantasy), but many of the cars get plenty of screen time. If you suspend your sense of belief and just enjoy the ride, you will find a competent action movie that is perfect for the franchise fans. You may need to watch the first movie, confusingly called The Fast and the Furious, to figure out all the relationships but it isn’t a requisite to understand the bare bones story in this one.

Rating: 70%

The movie is full of visual gags, and most of the comedy from shock (such as “how dare they talk about oral sex in front of children!”) instead of real genuine jokes or gags. Role Models drags too long with the introduction of characters, especially the children. It shouldn’t take long for the audience to figure out how much of a fantasy loving geek one is, and how foul mouthed and short tempered the other one is. Instead, the bulk of the movie is focused on putting them in different situations and seeing what they will do.

The moral of the story, if any, is that any slacker can find strength within to triumph and accomplish much in life. This is exemplified by the movie’s climax where the 2 men and 2 children dress up as KISS members and participate in the medieval battle. It’s not as if the movie would have benefited from more writers, as there already were 4 on board. Instead, a much better direction would have helped the movie a lot by keeping the pace brisk and eliminating useless gags.

Rating: 45%

The residents soon discover that Center for Disease Control has locked them in and put the entire building under quarantine. As the remaining survivors scramble to stay alive, the camera crew keeps rolling as this is the “recording” of how the events unfolded. Unfortunately what they record is very one-note and not worth saving. The movie’s premise of super rabies causing humans to violently attack each other is very reminiscent of zombies. A lot of the concepts in this movie have been done to death before, and the movie doesn’t add anything.

Worse still, they used the ending scene as the poster for the movie, spoiling the entire experience. If you have motion sickness, don’t watch this movie as there’s a lot of shaky camerawork and dark corridors.

Rating: 30%

First the food: I started with the traditional fried calamari that was served with spicy lime aioli which complemented the calamari well. Thankfully the batter wasn’t needlessly thick and it was light enough to be enjoyed without weighing yourself down. Another appetizer I tried was the seared yellow fin tuna which was cooked to perfection and the gingered cucumber slaw was refreshing, without overpowering the tuna itself.

Unfortunately the entrees did not fare as well as the appetizers. One thing that grabbed my interest from the menu was the duck confit fettuccini. A nice duck confit of leg is difficult to pull off and Zest knows how to cook its ducks. The problem was with the fettuccini that featured sun dried tomatoes  and mushroom, drowned in fat and oil. There was so much oil in the pasta that it was drowning and the mushroom was soaked in heavy oil. The pasta itself was nothing spectacular, and my pasta was severely undercooked. A beautiful duck confit was not able to save this disaster.

Another thing that has to be noted was the atrocious service. Granted it was packed to capacity, but that does not excuse the waiter from not attending to my table, taking forever to bring ice to chill the lukewarm bottle of white and not taking our order. The manager had to step in and take our entree orders when our appetizers were done and the waiter still failed to show up to figure out what we were going to eat next.

It is a bit disappointing that the duck confit was paired with the oily fettuccini. Perhaps a simple vegetable sidedish would have worked better. In the end, this mediocre restaurant needs better food if it is to compete in the crowded “American” cuisine.

Find the results in best and worse use of a celebrity, best and worse CG and the best and worst ads of the evening.

Best use of a celebrity: Hulu.com
Hulu is an online video streaming service available in the United States, and the latest ad indicates its intent isn’t pure. Alec Baldwin explains to us that TV turns our brains into soft mush, and Hulu will make it even more impossible to avoid TV. After all, are you going to turn off both TV and computer? The secret to Hulu is world domination… you see, Alec Baldwin is an alien who feats on our brains turned into mush. His performance is spot on and it is an interesting take on the standard parental advice that TV makes you dumb.

Worse use of a celebrity: Cash4gold.com
If you wanted to send gold off to some unknown place by mail in order to generate some cash out of it, which celebrity’s endorsement would help you decide on which service? According to the fine folks at Cash4gold.com, the answer is MC Hammer and Ed McMahon. They both come off across as desperate in shilling the service and this is clearly one of the worst ads of the evening.

Best use of CG: Coca-Cola (Bug’s Life)

Leave it up to Coca-Cola to bring the night’s best use of the CG with adorable bugs stealing a Coke in order to enjoy it. The background music of Peter and the Wolf fits the scene very well as this vibrant commercial is sleekly produced with a very happy tone. Of course, pouring Coke in your garden may not revitalize the plants, but that’s what CG is all about.

Worse use of CG: SoBe

Even without talking about the overly hyped 3D effects (hint: it wasn’t good), the concept of NFL players dancing ballet while wearing white costumes and mixing diverse CG creatures dancing and drinking SoBe were atrocious on their own.

Best Ad: Hulu.com

Worst Ad: Cash4gold.com