Category: movie reviews

Movie Review: Spies In Disguise

Post author By FortunateCave
Post date 1 Jan 2020
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TO and I started 2020’s fun segment off with a mother&son movie date. That nachos and cheese popcorn were a part of it goes without saying. And that the dust from the nachos and the cheese from the popcorn don’t go without a hard scrubbing; goes without saying also.

Now, onto the movie! A lone wolf master spy and a lonely young brainiac scientist learn about each other and what it takes to be a team in this new offering from Blue Sky Studios. Will Smith is smooth as ever as Lance Sterling, the uber cool, unflappable, repartee-trading spy who always ‘flies solo’. Tom Holland with his vulnerable ‘young man’ voice as Walter Beckett come together and learn what it means to be friends, save the world and why pigeons are rather misunderstood and far more cooler than any of us every imagined.

It’s a fun movie with the kind of appeal fun that works with both the kids and the big kids in their lives. Check it out for the slick animation or if you simply like Will Smith…or pigeons! because this flick sends messages without being preachy, too uppity or without being too in your face about it. No spoilers here barring that there are LOTS of pigeons.

Rating: 3***

Tags 2020, animated movies, funny ha-ha, lessons learnt, making memories, mother and son time, movie dates, popcorn and nachos, raising a boy, raising kids, spies in disguise, tom holland, weird is good, what kids want, will smith

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Movie Review: Frozen II

Disney’s latest offering is a testimony to parents’ love for their children. A) They buy the movie tickets and then spend a bomb on snacks the kids didn’t need to eat and B) They sit through the entire movie while a small voice in their minds keep going, ” Gag me with a spoon!”

The fact that I have a boy doesn’t stop us from watching a movie which is firmly in the “girlie” territory. The sequel had giants, magic, mysticism and lots more but it also had its characters breaking into a song at the drop of a pin and was very reminiscent of the Bollywood dramas where people gaze off into the unknown and sing their hearts out due to love, fear, doubt…any damn thing that catches their fancy!

But the main things which stand out in this movie are the lack of a strong storyline which was the foundation of the earlier one. It’s almost as if Elsa needs a new drama in her life because being queen and having a normal existence is so humdrum. She begins to hear voices which she cannot resist and that starts off the chain of events which unfold in predictable cliche after cliche. The animation too, doesn’t delight like the previous one. There are one or two instances and those are best watched in 3D but the rest is fairly meh.

So unless your kids *really* love the princessy feel, skip this one. Go watch Inside Out or Hotel Transylvania instead; again. I’ll take Adam Sandler’s Drac over Kristoff singing his heartbreak in a sequence reminiscent of a 90s boyband video.

Sigh…

Tags animation, blah, Disney movies, Elsa, Frozen-2, kids' movies, meh, movie reviews, Olaf, princess movies, sequels, weekend movie dates

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Movie Review-Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw

Post author By FortunateCave
Post date 3 Aug 2019
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There’s a different kind of fun to be able to see a movie as a ‘phust day phust sow‘…but when the movie ends up spanning the realm of moderately entertaining to ‘how high were they when they wrote the damn script‘, you know you’d have been fine watching it after a few weeks or not at all.

For a movie that’s supposed to be slick and exciting, this particular slice of the F&F franchise lives up to neither. It’s cliched to say the least and oh-so predictable. But let’s dissect it properly shall we?

The 8th installment of Fast and Furious reunites Hobbs and Shaw with macho posturing that’s meant to turn into ‘I got yuh back brah! in the end while they save the world and manage to inject an adequate number of quips to qualify the movie as being funny as well. That they managed to insert a tourism promotion for Samoa is a nod to Johnson’s roots and his being a producer am sure.

Here’s the story- After an ex-MI6 agent gets cybergenetically enhanced and wants to bring whoop ass down on those who get in the way of his organization and his vision of a better world, Hobbs and Shaw get pulled into the action to bring their own version of whoopass to counter the whoopassery being dished out by Mr.Quasi-Android. Played by Idris Elba (hubba hubba), Brixton Lore has all the gadgets, all the cool bikes, costumes and enough internal hardware to have metal detectors going off perpetually.

Hobbs and Shaw unwillingly get drawn into the action for different reasons. Hobbs because his agency loans him out to MI6 and Shaw because his little sister is being framed for all the havoc Brixton’s been wreaking in order to get to a biologic weapon that can…wait for it…DESTROY THE WORLD!! Who saw that coming?!

Now little sister, played oh so dully by Vanessa Kirby, has injected said biologic weapon into her own bloodstream to prevent also said baddies from getting their mean, nasty paws on it. Thankfully for her, the weapon is in small capsules which are on a timer- they will get released into her body after an ‘x’ amount of time passes. Thankfully the movie makers are nice enough to keep that happening during the length of the movie and not have it spillover into another installment.

Between hobnobbing (ooh…punny me!) with Russian arms dealers to get the lowdown into where an extraction device for the virus can be accessed to tearing up the streets of London, Hobbs and Shaw build up a camaraderie that’s fooling no one. Jason Statham should have as little of a speaking role as possible. After his less than stellar turn as Jonas Taylor in The Meg, Statham should keep his roles to those of the Handsome Rob ilk where he’s not required to win people over with his diction and ability to emote beyond a point.

The Rock’s USP is his quips and mountain man muscles and he doesn’t disappoint but neither does he set the screen on fire. Both the leads seem to be straggling with a script that has them just going through the motions and doing unbelievable things while not getting a scratch on themselves or acting like it was a walk in the park. Ryan Reynolds comes in with his inimitable brand of humor and his interaction with Johnson are some of the actual fun parts of the movie.

As for the action sequences, imagine this…a car hooking a helicopter during a chase to save the damsel. The helicopter rises higher and higher and the car achieves liftoff as well but in the nick of time is saved from going over a cliff by a line of cars ahead of it playing choo-choo trains. Instead of going whoa or even oooh…the audience was laughing or saying “gimme a break”. But over the cliff they go and miraculously no one is hurt. Would a broken bone or two be so out of place when plummeting off a sharp cliff face onto a sea/beach full of jagged rocks.

Image result for helicopter scene in hobbs and shaw

But the objective of this review isn’t to trash the movie. It’s to say that maybe this franchise is on its last legs. Gone are the days when F&F stood for cars and actual speed. Now it’s brawn, some cars, a whole lotta destruction, uber bad guys and a rather lame attempt to keep going till the next installment. Quit while you’re ahead people.

Go see it if you’ve got a lot of free time on your hands or you really like either Johnson or Statham or are a diehard fan of the series. Barring that, there’s not much to recommend this one. It’s testosterone-laden to the hilt!

Rating 1.5 stars

Tags action movies, Dwayne Johnson, Fast and Furious, fast cars, first day first show, Hobbs and Shaw, Idris Elba, jason statham, macho men, movie dates, movie franchises, OTT, sequels, testosterone, The Rock, what were they thinking

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Movie Review: Judgementall Hai Kya

Post author By FortunateCave
Post date 28 Jul 2019
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Judgementall Hai Kya poster.jpg

Kangana Ranaut has been in the news for so many things in the recent past that any movie of hers is newsworthy mainly because of the gossip around the actor. Although, IMHO, she’s become typecast for her neuroses in the earlier movies; she still manages to deliver a believable performance as person who is psychotic and yet not entirely off her rocker.

Rajkummar Rao fits well into edgier characters as smoothly as he does the feel good ones. His turn in Stree vs ELKDTAL vs JHK are varied as they are well-etched and with their own distinctive feels. He is truly a good actor in every sense of the word. He belongs in each of the movies he does.

The disclaimer at the start of the movie is also something that’s commendable in a place like India where mental health issues are a huge taboo and a dirty secret that’s more liable to be swept under the rug than be tackled head on.

Onto the actual reviewing: The movie is engrossing but it’s no OFOTCN or Nobody’s Child. It is however, a thought provoking look at a life tinged by pain and feelings of not belonging anywhere and being heard by those who matter.

The direction is fairly taut with Kovelamudi dropping the ball only when Rao starts fessing up to all his crimes which were deemed as psychotic ramblings of a delusional woman. Kangana sometimes overdoes it with the wide-eyed stare of a person who lives in a parallel universe inside her own head. Sometimes the scariest people are the ones who remain calm on the surface but are churning with maladaptive thoughts and hallucinations inside; desperately hanging onto shreds of reality.

The ancillary characters mainly make up the comic element in the movie. Whether it’s a long-suffering, hoping-to-get-laid sort-of boyfriend, or the ineffectual, obese cop (Satish Kaushik) who perpetually keeps eating; adding to his weight and his inefficacy. Jimmy Shergill doesn’t add much to the movie; gravitas or otherwise. His cameo needed to be better fleshed out. And for God’s sake, why does Amyra Dastur get work? She makes very little impact. At least someone who could breathe some life into a role needs to be brought in. She fails to strike a chord with the audience at all. The opening sequence of the movie with the blood splatters, spills and the origami is actually more poignant than many things in the entire film.

In the end, Rajkummar Rao with his sociopathic turn and Kangana in her delusional avatar, carry the movie forward and take it a step in the right direction; making mental illness lose its stigma and helping people know that it’s *not* a dirty word.

Rating 3.5/5

Tags bollywood, changing face of Hindi films, changing society, delusions, dirty words, hallucinations, Hindi movies, judgementall hai kya, judging people, kangana ranaut, mental health, movies with a message, neurosis, new age directors, not just a song and dance, psychosis, rajkummar rao, sensible movies, taboo

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Movie Review: Annabelle Comes Home

Post author By FortunateCave
Post date 29 Jun 2019
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When is a horror movie not like a horror movie? When it fails to scare, that’s when. While the closing credits are scrolling on the screen, the only question that comes to mind is “Why the heck did Annabelle come home if she wasn’t going to cause out and out mayhem and carnage?”