Judul : We Watched ‘Badang’ So You Don’t Have To. Here’s Our *Honest* Review
link : We Watched ‘Badang’ So You Don’t Have To. Here’s Our *Honest* Review
We Watched ‘Badang’ So You Don’t Have To. Here’s Our *Honest* Review
Every day, we see Malaysians weighing in on what they think of the movie. We know for sure 95% who commented on it haven’t seen it and yet they still think it’s a really bad movie thanks to a few reviews.
The lead actor of the movie, Datuk Seri Aliff Syukri even made a video pleading netizens and keyboard warriors to stop bashing him and asked everyone to “appreciate his talent.” But what’s even more unnerving is the fact that the he had the audacity to claim that Badang is way better than Black Panther. Seriously bro?
So how bad is bad? Our curious bones were aching to know what’s the fuss is about and we decided to give Badang the benefit of the doubt and spent 1 hour 45 minutes watching it. To our surprise, there were two other people in the cinema as well who have no idea the nightmare they’re about to experience.
#1 Originality
Right off the bat at the beginning of the movie you’ll see Badang completely ripping off Marvel’s signature intro – the comic book-style pages, fonts, fight scenes and introduction of charcters. Congrats, it gave us a clear indication on how the movie is going to be for the next 105 minutes.
When we heard about this movie, we thought it will portray the Badang we all knew growing up – a superhuman who gained his extraordinary abilities after eating a genie’s puke. However, we felt cheated when we found out that this traditional Malay folklore has been taken out of context and the name Badang was used merely to give a nice ring to the lead character’s name, Bad.
If someone were to take the legendary Badang and elevate it into a modern superhero, we’d have no qualms about it. Sadly, this Badang gained his super powers due to the fact that he was born from a bamboo. He now wears a lime green costume with an Alien vs Predator-ish face mask and parades around taking selfies with his fans and doing media interviews when he’s not busy.
Badang has super strength and the ability to be invincible but he has one major weakness though, which his best friend conveniently tells the whole world during a media interview. If he comes into contact with water, all his powers will be stripped.
Okay lah, guess there was a bit of originality in the character development but it’s a shame that the mighty hero was portrayed that way. We demand justice for the real Badang!
#2 Acting
To be honest, the casting seems a bit odd. They decided to choose cosmetics entrepreneur Aliff Syukri to play Bad or Badang who is the main lead. Aliff is quite a character on his own in real life, especially if you’re familiar with his antics online and famous Terlajak Laris tagline. Due to this, people are quite curious if his real-life personality will translate into his acting.
True enough, not much acting was required (or done) by Aliff as it felt like watching him as his true self on screen. There were quite a number of scenes where it was very clear he was overreacting or overplayed his role which really annoyed us.
Talking about getting annoyed, there’s another character that we just can’t comprehend how on Earth did this person was able to land the role of Bad’s bestfriend and classmate. Sarip or Arep played by Azhari Zain is supposed to age 25 in this movie but he doesn’t look a day over the age of 40. Heck, he looks like your dad or uncle. We're cringing every time we see him trying to fit in with a bunch of 20-year-olds in class and trying so hard to be funny with his over-the-top expressions.
Why him? No one knows for sure, so we can add this to the list of the world's greatest unsolved mysteries.
The dynamics of the both of them is quite a deadly concoction, as the duo often talks in a loud and overplayed manner. So, you can imagine when the both of them exchange dialogues it felt like an annoying migraine that won't go away. But there’s a plot twist, we found out that Azhari also wrote the script for Badang. We’ll let you guys do the math yourself for that part.
The heroine of the movie is played by Fasha Sandha while Fauzi Nawawi plays the villain who also happens to be Fasha’s step brother in the movie. Both stars are no stranger to Malaysian cinemas and TV screens as they are seasoned actors so they did quite a pretty good job for their roles.
Fauzi leads the Dragon gangster gang where his ‘anak-anak buah’ or henchmen sports cheap knock-off Bandi Amuk-inspired masks and of course, dragon tattoos. The young thugs were obviously trying too hard to be the bad guys and probably needs a couple more acting classes with him.
And come one lah guys, tak kan all the gangsters portrayed in Malaysian movies must have the dragon brand? Why not come up with something else like ‘Geng Mak Kau Hijau’ or ‘Geng Muntah Hijau’ since it’ll relate to Badang in a way. But amongst all the try-hard gangsters, you’ll be in for a surprise as 'T'Challa' turns out to be one of the gang members.
#3 Costume and Special Effects
As mentioned earlier, Badang wears a lime green costume. He probably loves his costume so much that he even goes on dates with his girlfriend in it. And we can’t help but to agree with the villain, when he says Badang looks like a grass-hopper. Perhaps they should rename this movie to Belalang Man?
The special-effects looks kind of amateurish compared to the KL Special Force trailer we watched minutes prior to the movie. Maybe they should learn a thing or two from Syafiq Yusof on how to make bada** scenes using explosives?
In-terms of CGI, there’s effort but it could definitely be improved. If you've always dreamed of travelling across continents in a blink of an eye, well Badang can take you! You’ll be 'amazed' at how impressive he transports himself to Antartica, Egypt, London, and Paris, within seconds. You’ll surely ‘believe’ he was truly there! It's so realistic that it'll make Wakanda look like a joke.
The dubbing is really bad though, you can clearly see some dialogues not synching with the casts’ lip movements. Even the viral guy doing the MadLipz parody is doing a better job at dubbing. Maybe hire him for your next project?
#4 Plot
We’re no movie experts but this movie lacks excitement and has a lot of confusing and jarring scenes. Even Aliff Syukri's 'Abang Nak Tegur' music video is far more entertaining.
Trust us, if it wasn’t for this review we’d walk out of the movie as we were yawning from time to time excruciatingly waiting for it to end. The only excitement probably came from us planning a funeral for our brain cells after the movie.
The plot is basically Badang wanting revenge on the Dragon gang for running over his mother with their truck. And that scene is so questionnable that we're surprised his mother survived the hit and didn't require surgery. If you see the CGI, you'd be damn sure she died on the spot. But wah, the mother also got super powers, is it?
There was no sub-plot, not even a backstory of the villain himself. The Dragon gang wasn't as intimidating as they thought they would look like and most of the time it felt like they were running a shady Muay Thai gym.
The whole train towards the ending is a real big, draggy mess and has weird transitions between scenes. Some sequence were also illogical because who needs logic in a fabled superhero movie, right?
There was one part where Fasha arrived with Badang at the Dragon gang’s lair and both of them were caught by Fauzi and Fauzi even threatened to kill Fasha’s mother. (When did Fasha's mother come into the picture also we don't know, it was so sudden like our sudden regret watching it).
The next thing you know, Fasha suddenly looks like she took a shower, wore a new outfit and dolled herself up for a night out with the girls. But the thing is, she’s still at the lair, roaming freely and making a secret call to Badang’s best friend for help.
Badang was captured in a way that it was easy for him to escape – all he had to do was wiggle his hands out of the rope which was obviously tied loosely. And honestly, he had COUNTLESS of opportunities to escape. But nope. He wanted to wait for his annoying bestfriend to save him as if he was the damsel in distress. Badang may have some super powers but he ain't got a super brain.
Verdict
Is it as bad as what people are saying? Yes. Should you watch it out of curiousity? No, unless you’re being paid a substantial amount (like RM1,000 at least). Is there hope? We don’t know, ‘cause they took all the hope we had after watching the movie. It honestly felt as if a Dementor sucked the life out of us as we walked out of the movie theatre.
We give Badang a 1/10 rating which is for effort. It was ambitious. But it all went downhill. Just like its RM2,000,000 budget.
And ironically, the main lead's name literally spells out how everyone this the movie is. BAD.
If you're planning on watching it, don’t forget to stay back once the movie has ended for the post-credit scenes. Kidding, it was probably the scenes in our head where wished we hadn’t agree to watch this movie. Can we have 105 minutes of our time back, please?
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