Film: UPCAT
Rating: 2/5

So I've seen it. And the movie is a disappointment.XP (Cram it into one word and my reaction would be: "Err".XP)

I'm tamad to write a review so here are some shotgun bulletpoints:

• The situations are all too extreme they're devoid of verisimilitude. (Yack, Comparative Literature term!XP Use another word! Simplify! Communicate to your audience! Where's my mongol rat-bitten eraser?) What kind of parents wouldn't want their kids to take the UPCAT? What kind of parents would force their kids to take the UPCAT? Parents over children domination: that is so centuries ago. Parents don't own their kids, mind. They only serve as springboards from their downfall. Why can't them parents just be NORMAL and COMPLIANT to what their kids want to be? Parents should teach their kids to exercise their FREEDOM! And not tether them on, say, a fire hydrant. Your kids are not your pets, when will you ever get that?
• Death from hazing isn't that rampant in UP any more, whatever campus. That ended in the 90's. Kids these days are point-blank chickenwinged wussies they can't even throw a tiny booger-sized crumpled paper at a professor.
• The movie's fogged with too much mysteries and revelations. Lo and behold, your UPCAT tutor was a cheater during the exam. And lo and behold and begrip yourself, your father provided him the cheats. And lo and behold and strap onto your seat belts, your father's best friend died from a fraternity hazing. And your father's best friend is your tutor's brother. Surprise, surprise, surprise. It appears that the only way to dazzle the viewers is to portray complex scenarios that'll divert them from the essential elements of the movie. And it would've been all cleared up if the father was open in the first place. "Look here son," the father should've said. "My best friend died from a fraternity hazing so I want you to join a sorority instead."
• Jane's cousin, a sorority leader in UP and a biaaaaaatchy high-class supervixen wannabe, that character just simply CANNOT exist in UP!
• a - b = b - a :: Oh come on! A retarded kindergarten can answer that!XP Why, that's the cosine theta of the arc tangent of an oblate spheroid spiraling into the astral black hole of your asshole.XP
• What happened to Jane? She just vanished winkly from the picture.XP
• Lucas, inspired by Nick Joaquin, took up Malikhaing Pagsusulat in UP. But Nick Joaquin wrote in English, and never in the Filipino language! Lucas should've just taken Creative Writing or Comparative Literature major in Philippine Literature Written In English. Otherwise he should've been inspired by Vlad Gonzales or Bob Ong instead.XP
• Shading circles? WTF. When did that become part of a review? And why just circles? Other shapes have rights too. Give justice to the isosceles and rombuses and trapezoids! Besides, the answer portion uses oblongs, not circles. And it uses pen ink, not chalk. Teeeeeeh.XD
• How can a Fine Arts graduate review kids for the UPCAT when his own admission exam only included skills test--sketching, painting, blending, sculpting, and the like. FA grads don't know nil about math, language, and reading comprehension exams.
• The characters strike me as insipid. They're not at all motivated for academic excellence.XP All they want to do is impress some authority figure who don't even give an elephant's fart about them, bleah.
• It dwelled too much on the love angle which isn't the point of the story.
• If Lucas (Feliz Roco) and Jane (Yas Neri) had the face of real probinsyanos (dark skin, thick lips, sarat ilong), the movie would've crumbled into molecular antimatter.XP
• What's the point of watching this? It should've focused on what high school students would do to get an admission test and pass the exam. Remember the indie film Batad? The protagonist, an insular boy thriving on the fields of Banaue Rice Terraces, earned his way into getting a pair of hiking shoes. Flip the coin and Lucas hasn't earned anything to get into UP. You don't even see him read one bloody book. He just sort of materializes on the screen, typing a mysterious novel in his laptop. And mind you, not all novelists are successful. Of a thousand books written in the Philippines, only three will be published, and only one will reach the local bookstores.
• Lucas as a writer is just so FAKE. If he were a writer he shouldn't be portrayed as ordinary; he's too ordinary he doesn't even have a personality. As Butch Dalisay once said (Well, he said it yesterday during our lecture on Good Country People.XD), "You're not normal people because you're English majors." A writing career doesn't equate to big bucks, and it takes decades to earn a legendary status, which doesn't necessarily include wealth. Lucas is just BLAH, some random pasang-awa in the UPCAT who won't even amount into anything. Without his good looks and charming smile, not to mention his fawning sycophantic best friend, the film isn't worth the watch. It's cabbage throwing worthy and a fart in your face worthy and a... Give me my money back! Grarrrr.

Overall, the movie lacks direction. I should've written it! With me as the director, producer, main cast, makeup artist, and camerawoman. I can do that all by myself and make it to the box office and movie awards and international film fests.XP Gaaaaaaad, this movie is a reject. It should've been entitled Kropek instead.

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