Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Absolutely Fantastic

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

First of all I'm really intrigued with the Panday series since FPJ so I watched this movie.But this new Panday, well, the acting of both the protagonist and antagonist really sucked. Either it was overacting or lacked emotion, it was really lame. I'm not applying this to all the casts though. The noises they make were really annoying as well. How my ears bled!Second, the storyline was mediocre. No plot twists or anything that made the movie exciting. It was too linear. The climax, wait, there was a climax? I expected more of the Panday and the Filipino folklore it should have been packed with.The visual effects I have no complain, but the audio was not dynamic, it was like listening to the radio. The background music, sound effects was okay. The voice dubbing was like the actors were whimpering so close to the microphone especially when Bong Revilla cried like a girl. The sound he made was excruciating.I really expected more. For this I gave a 1/10.

When a meteor crashes into the desert of Sto. Sepulcro,the blacksmith or "panday" in Tagalog,Flavio,played by Ramon Revilla,Jr forges a dagger and a church bell from the its remains.Then,he uses the dagger to fight off the evil Sombra Oscura, who constantly attacks the town. By some magical power, the dagger transforms into a great sword every time Flavio wields it.Then when his final battle against Lizardo,played by Philip Salvador.He is the son of the devil and the leader of the Sombras. The battle is intense, but Flavio as expected prevails in the end, vanquishing Lizardo.Ang Panday is a movie for children. But in spite of its target audience, a film does not have the right to present a shallow film feature. Kids are smarter than most people think they are. The story is clichéd,formulaic and predictable. The special effects are of low quality. The actors and the actresses are below average as well. A disappointment especially to Panday fans.

Okay, first off, before I will explain why I rated this movie Comedy-Drama, I'll tell you a story about my nephews who watched this movie in the movie house after Christmas. My nephews came home and they asked me, "Uncle, we're so hungry", I asked them, "Where have you guys, been, why are you guys so hungry?" The older one answered, we watched the movie 'Ang Panday', the younger one said, "We should have just bought some rice noodles (Pansit). I asked, "Why is the movie not good?", the younger one replied, "It's stupid!", he's 6 years old.That moment with my nephews made me curious about this movie, although, I don't want to go and check it out in the movie houses, because, you know the old saying, 'Kids don't lie'? Well, I got a chance to view this movie yesterday and after viewing I rated it Comedy-Drama.Comedy, because it's hilarious that this movie even became Best Picture and Best special effects, the plot is still the typical primitive Filipino Movie making style, the effects are old school like the eighties in Hollywood, the acting is so lame specially the Wannabe Joker of Batman guy who played the Over Acting Lizardo or is it the Overacting Guy that played Lizardo? Holy my Aspirin, the actress that played Diyosa, what is that, I mean the line delivery, it just plain sucks, is she a hired extra?Drama, because I felt terribly bad about my nephews who swallowed their pride going around our neighborhood to almost beg for Christmas Treat, knocking on every door uttering "Namamasko Po!" only to receive centavo coins. I felt bad because, I felt that these innocent children have been robbed by these movie makers, maybe because they know the children wouldn't mind spending the money they earned on Christmas Day since it was only a gift from strangers?Hmmm, I wonder if the rest of the Manila Film Fest Movie Makers really have this as their intention to earn from Box Office? Awful really, to treat paying movie goers like they're stupid, thinking no one will notice that the movie is designed for no I.Q. people.It just makes one like me wonder?

That's right to the point. Fantasy films are a rare treat to the Philippine cinema especially if its locally made. The Panday series is an original Philippine work, if fact foreign films have made adaptations out of it. IT gravely disappointed me that the originality that made the Fernando Poe Jr. Panday flicks a success lacked big time in many parts of this film, the opening score alone from the start it sounded like the quickened version of the original "DUGO NG PANDAY" theme, but as it goes on you can notice a strong similarity to the notes of the opening theme from the online game MU. The scenes passes on following the original film adding in a few elements like a dragon or the heroes lady love(s). I was beginning to get the chill and excitement of the film. Then Bang, The scene of Lizardo calling on his minions to celebrate, the part where the camera zooms out traveling backwards among the hoard, they were URUK HAI the scene was a shot directly copied from The Lord of the Rings: THE TWO TOWERS. For a little note Lizardo Never had URUK HAI, he had manbeasts but mostly half horses "TIKBALANGS" and savage men but never URUK HAI as the scene of the rejoicing Lizardo Boasted. HE had NINJAS lots and lots of them. The special effects crew should have exerted a little more effort and replaced the URUKS with ninjas. Not to mention removed those pikes that were strong giveaways of where they took that footage.BUT aside from the opening deficiency and the "I saw this before scene" it was a good movie, acting was superb, action shots that followed the original were true to the line and made a little better thanks to the new effects (that were at least original)funny moments were likable and believable, not the Mr. Bean thing that's been going around lately.However i feel it too short. After watching the movie I feel as though I breezed through time. The special effects for one seemed to be hasty. The movie itself felt like it left me hanging and looking for more (twice, i got back in to watch it again.I got a little irritated on the second round since a snorker was directly behind my seat. I cant help but feel some scenes were amiss, cant help but thought how come it became like this already. There was one scene(though i can not be certain if this was due to technical errors) it was a scene wherein the hero was walking amid moving grass the the scene just shifted to him already surrounded by burning bodies, there was no sound of an attack nothing but the hissing sound of burning whatever.I cant help but wonder what if this film stretched up a bit. If it ran for 3 hours to compete with avatar. I wonder what if this film was more detailed. I just cant help but think what if the effects personnel was more committed and their use of CGI more developed. I wonder what if they stuck to the original "dugo ng panday" theme than the muffled MU theme. I just wonder and can't help but wonder the story had so much potential. I just really can't help but wonder Could they have joined Dolphy's caliber and competed internationally. I just really cant help but think on it again and again and wonder again and again.