movies

Movie Review: Wonder Woman

I’m going to lead with: my experience wasn’t wondrous at all.

I have a bad habit of reading the Wiki and IMDB posts thoroughly before watching a movie, rather than just going with the flow where most movies are concerned. When I read that Wonder Woman received critical acclaim as well as mass approval, my curiosity was stoked because my benchmark of superhero movies was done solely by the first Avengers roll out. And that’s a movie I can watch (and do) again and again.

So what can I say about Wonder Woman? Well…those were 2 hours of my life I’ll never get back. *wipes tears surreptitiously* Let’s list it’s less than stellar qualities, shall we?

  • Chris Pine hasn’t been eye-candy material since The Princess Diary days. He’s adequate in this movie. Nuff said.
  • Gal Gadot- I wouldn’t have picked her in the role of a Amazon…she looks too confused about the world around her; constantly! And has a case of botoxy lips which never seem to close…giving her a perpetual perplexed-fish look. That was an alliterative mouthful, wasn’t it?
  • Robin Wright Penn- gone before she could do anything.
  • Zeus&Ares- better depicted in the Percy Jackson series. A washout here.
  • Danny Huston- had more screen time in Wolverine and a better role too.
  • The aura of the guy in the role of the God of War needs to be spot on. David Thewlis…naah…he didn’t do it for me.

The intent here isn’t to trash the movie. It was adequate as a one-off watch. I guess I have issues with it being promoted more as a movie about a woman, made by a woman. Even if it is path breaking in that sense, it’s still boring. And that’s wherein lies the rub! It’s not interesting and I watch all sorts of crap that’s out there even sampling the tripe called the Sharkansas Womens Prison Massacre.

Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman doesn’t possess enough of a personality to be captivating. Gal Gadot as an actor needs to emote more and look beyond eyebrow twitches in lieu of acting. Give me the Black Widow with the deadpan and her kickass moves.

Rating: 2/5

 

 

Kiddy Movie Reco: Turbo

We LOVE animated movies in this household. Especially about all sorts of creatures you normally wouldn’t encounter in your day to day life or even if you did, you wouldn’t give them a second thought. Turbo falls into the second category.

The story of a garden snail who dreams of the Indy 500 and his eventful journey till the day the black and white checkered flag waves him off the starting line, is a story which the kids will enjoy thoroughly. Even if they don’t cotton onto the central theme of dream big and keep dreaming till you get it right; it’s a movie that’ll end up being looped a few times.

With a voice cast of Ryan Reynolds, Paul Giamatti and Samuel L. Jackson amongst others, this movie isn’t something that moves at a snail’s place but one that zips all the way to the finish line!

Another thumbs up from team Dreamworks!

Movie Review: Get Hard

Get Hard film poster.png

I seldom get around to watching new movies while they are still new. But atleast I got to this movie before a new calendar year started. And why is that important? Because I laughed until I wheezed, gasped and cried after a really, really long time. And that, in my book, is priceless!

So the movie is hilarious you ask? Not really. Not by a long stretch but it has its moment.

Here’s what it’s all about. Will Ferrell is a typical Bel-Air WASP, money-man with a ton of superficialities. He’s a stock broker with the magic touch and stereotypical rich white guy’s life aka the Benz and Beemer and a host of Hispanic staff pruning his lawns and cleaning his house. He works in a white firm, has a white girlfriend and all white associates.

And when trouble hits him hard, he falls back on his ignorant stereotypical mindset: that most blacks have gone to jail and are therefore are hardasses who can teach him to be a little less…wussy. So pleads with the one black person he sees on a regular basis, Kevin Hart, and asks him to get him HARD! The rest of the movie is all about Hart teaching Ferrell the ground realities about prison life and how Ferrell jumps through hoops to be a tougher man and not have to resort to be some giant’s bitch in prison.

It’s a buddy movie with Hart’s impersonations of the ethnic groups in a jail yard and Ferrell’s trash talking soliloquy being the standout points in an otherwise cliched movie. It’s not entirely Trading Places but it has some similarities.

All in all, it’s a one time watch only for the flashes of what make Hart and Ferrell the kind of comic performers they are. The rest of the movie is all about predictable comic sequences that will still get some smiles out of you. In the end, the two become pals and overcome their class, social hangups because they GOT HARD!

Rating- 1 1/2 *

Movie Review: Minions

Image courtesy: http://www.filmwaffle.com

In a nutshell? It’s for kids and those who are entirely too gaga about these little yellow capsules that go jumping, babbling about.

But crack the nut and you are still left with a movie that doesn’t have much of a story line and is a rather lame-ish precursor to Despicable Me.

They ARE cute. They are silly and they have tremendous potential as good merchandise. Beyond that? It’s really just a silly movie.

BANANA!!!

Movie Review: Jurassic World

We’re a pro-dino family. The more teeth, the better. The bigger, the better. So it was a forgone conclusion that we not only had to watch this movie but had to appreciate things about it. But all dino bias aside here’s what’s good about it…

The story couldn’t have any entirely new twist in it because the whole damn premise is about an amusement park which has dinos running amok. The more time goes by they (the film makers) just find ways to make you jump more in your seats. Be as that may, they keep the interest levels up with the new dinos that they dig up (excuse the pun) and the ways that they wreak havoc on the sadly unsuspecting populace.

Spoiler alert…go no further if you wish to see the movie and not have the predictable plot laid out bare courtesy wikipedia.

Chris Pratt is good. He’s better than what he was in Guardians of The Galaxy and that’s saying something. Gone is the man from Parks and Recreation. He doesn’t go OTT with his ex-Navy man avatar and instead does what he’s supposed to as a wrangler/trainers of the velociraptors on Isla Nublar.

The rest of the cast basically function as props but one wonders why Vincent D’Onofrio takes on these negatives roles so often these days. Possibly all those years of Law&Order made him want to have fun as the bad guy for a change?

Irrfan Khan has no business being in a dino movie. He’s an actor of no little talent and he’s deadpan in the worst possible way and very little screen presence IMHO. He dies soon enough and carries very little weight even among actors who typically don’t take up dramatic roles much.

The hero of the movie and totally living up to his name is the T-Rex. He is the king and he IS the Indominus Rex more than the test-tube-petri-dish-hybrid dino that the mad scientists have unleashed in the park.

But this movie gets a 1&1/2 thumbs up for it’s entertainment value and because no one quite does it like Spielberg…even as a producer.

Worth 2 watches but only in the movie theater…it loses its charm on the smaller screen.

2014: A Retrospective of Movies

Compared to other years, I’ve actually gone out and watched quite a few movies in 2014. My quite a few might be still a pitiful number but I was averaging one movie a year after MLM was born so anything that takes me beyond that number is just dandy!

I downloaded (ahem ahem) quite a few recent movies as well in the past year and rather enjoyed some of them while others were  in the watch’em-delete’em category.

Some of the stuff that stayed with me from 2014 were:

I wasn’t too impressed with How To Train Your Dragon-2 barring the new dragons they introduced. I didn’t see why Stoick had to be killed off. But Toothless as the alpha was a bit over the top for me. Still…dragons, fire, flying..what’s not to enjoy?

Incidentally I watched about 5-6 movies in the theaters this time around so half the fun was that. Plus the nachos and the popcorn…leave it. Am a hog.

The stuff that was a strictly one-time watch were:

  • 22 Jump Street (did not understand how this got good reviews).
  • Guardians of the Galaxy (the retro soundtrack made me nostalgic)
  • X-Men: Days of Future Past (enough already with the franchise!)
  • The Other Woman (not very funny…not really funny at all)
  • Frozen (somehow the hype made it less interesting for me but gotta love ‘Let It Go!)
  • Sex Tape (watched it halfway before the brat woke up but didn’t find it engaging enough to come back and watch it till the end)
  • Annabelle (boring!)

I still have atleast another 10-12 more to go and we’re round it off by watching Paddington today at the theater (first movie out in 2015…yay!).

Be as all this may, I think 2014 is one of those years where they have made extremely diverse movies and some truly excellent ones at that. Hollywood doesn’t let the grass grow under its feet but the amazing range of 2014 has been one its best so far.

Do you agree?

Happy Viewing all 🙂

Movie Review: Enough Said

I watched Enough Said last night. All but the last bit since MLM suddenly woke up howling. But whatever I saw of it seemed very believable and at times a bit slow but then again relationships don’t always ignite and flare up in the blink of an eye. While the movie makers are limited by their constraints of time and often end up packing in a whole gamut of emotions and experiences, the way this movie unfolded was very realistic. People do take their time in getting to know each other, feelings do unfurl gradually and there are awkward bits through it all.

I have never seen James Gandolfini in such a soft role. Not that he was entirely stereotyped to play Mafioso roles but that he could be believable as a flabby middle-aged man, finding himself in a new relationship was really good to see. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus can’t help having such mobile expressions- she frowns, she smiles and her whole face transforms entirely. She too is quite different from Elaine of Seinfeld.

A good real movie about real adults in a realistic world. It was steady rather than slow in its pace and that was the best part. That it’s about middle-aged people doesn’t stop people of different ages from relating to it, even if it’s in bits and pieces.

Worth a watch if excitement and in-your-face romance isn’t what you’re looking for and are willing to watch how real relationships develops.

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