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Showing posts from September, 2016

Terminator Genisys (2015) - Movie Review

Just like Jurassic World, this is another new addition to a classic and beloved franchise we got this year. And in similar fashion, I was both excited and doubtful. Luckily, the movie turned out to be better than what I expected but it had lots of quirks. Arnold kicked it out of the park. I loved him. He was funny and he was awesome. Emilia Clarke (Khaleesi) was a pretty good Sarah Conner. She was just like what you'd expect a girl in her situation to be. Jason Clarke as John Conner was OK. And Jai Courtney as Kyle Reese wasn't that bad like everyone made him out to be. He still had that bland look about him though, don't think he'll ever get rid of that. Lastly, J.K Simmons role was pretty good, albeit a bit too short. The movie pays a huge homage/respect to the James Cameron Terminator movies (T1 and T2), especially part 1. Hell, some of the starting scenes were recreated shot for shot and it was great seeing that along with some bits and pieces that added to tho...

San Andreas (2015) - Movie Review

San Andreas is a disaster movie about a series of massive earthquakes getting triggered due to the San Andreas fault in California and a rescue pilot's quest to find his daughter amidst the chaos. Now, this had all the elements of your typical big budget disaster movie. And since I'm a sucker for such films (Loved them since childhood), I had a really good time with it. The disaster/destruction scenes were great. Loved them. There were a couple really WOW moments like the Tsunami. And the accompanying soundtrack was good enough to enhance the scenes with feeling of awe and wonder at nature's power at display it. And I'm glad that atleast during disaster scenes, the movie didn't add jokes to ruin the moment (I'm looking at you 2012). The Golden Bridge gets destroyed in a grand fashion yet again, probably the most destroyed landmark in film history. The CGI was mostly top notch. The part where it was the weakest was surprisingly the first scene with the car c...

Now You See Me 2 (2016) - Movie Review

Now You See Me 2 is a sequel to the 2013's Now You See Me, and once again stars the four horsemen, who this time find their selves being recruited by someone else in order to pull off a heist only they can perform, while dealing with other shit along the way.  I enjoyed the first one when it came out. I liked it for what it was, a fun, entertaining, pop corn flick not to be taken seriously. And this one follows the same path while upping the ante like a typical sequel. There was this comradery to the group giving you the feel that time has past between them. They definitely could have done more with it though.  Most of the old cast is back and once again delivered good performances all round. Lizzy Caplan replaced Isla Fisher as the female horsemen. Now I was worried at first because in her first scene, she felt annoying and way over the top. But luckily that was the end of that because as it turned out, she was a great addition to the group, and ultimately felt ...

UnKnown (2006) - Movie Review

Unknown is a mystery thriller about five guys who wake up in a warehouse without any memory, and they try to figure out who they are and what happened.  Now this movie does a good enough job of creating the suspense, the setting and the characters so that you are invested enough to be thrilled. You try to figure out who's right and who's wrong, who's good and who's bad, and stuff like that along with the characters, hooking you in the movie.  The acting was good enough to sell this premise. And just like the characters are doubting their-selves and each other, you start to do the same, which is a job well done for a movie like this.  The bulk of the movie takes place in the warehouse, but there are scenes of the law enforcement side, which aren't as interesting, and hence break the pacing a bit. Nothing too serious, but worth mentioning. Now, unfortunately, two things in particular ruined the movie for me. First, the ending. In hopes of trying t...

Attack On Titan (2013) - Anime Review (Season 1)

The most hyped up anime of last year. And it definitely lives up to the hype. The premise of the anime is that huge humanoid creatures called Titans almost drove humanity to the brink of extinction several 100 years ago. The only way humanity was able to survive was to build huge walls and live inside them. Very interesting stuff, and the story builds up nicely too. Since humanity is mostly in the dark about the titans, we as a viewer are subjected to the same treatment and slow reveals of new info as the plot about them as the plot moves forward is always exciting and shocking. The atmosphere is very grim and desperate. Sadness, hopelessness, loss etc is always looming overhead, perfect for this type of premise. This anime has an extremely EPIC!! feel to it. The soundtrack, the speeches, the motivational talk, and of course the action, all have the highest level of epicness applied to them. Infact, the word 'Epic' falls short to describing it. And this is the strength of ...

Hellsing Ultimate (2006-2012) - Anime Review (Complete)

"The bird of the Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame." Hellsing Ultimate is a 10 part OVA anime based on the Hellsing manga that follows it very closely compared the earlier attempt which contained 13 episodes and had to stray off because of catching up the the story at the time. And unlike many, I did liked that early attempt and still do but this, however, COMPLETELY BLOWS IT AWAY!! Bigger budget, better animation, better action, better plot and way more GORE. The story follows Hellsing organization which has only one goal, to rid the world from vampires/monsters. And they accomplish this mainly by their trump card, ALUCARD (DRACULA in reverse), an immortal and powerful vampire that does the bidding of his master, the leader of the organization, Integra Hellsing. Since they followed the manga to the fullest, the story this time around was a lot better and actually went somewhere. Still, plot isn't the reason to watch this anime because its the action...

Deadman Wonderland (2011) - Anime Review (Complete)

Action. Gore. Brutality. Fan service. Craziness. Abuses/curses. This anime is definitely aimed at a more adult audience. It starts off with a bang so I was interested in it from the get-go. We don't get any explanation about the world, the setting, the event etc in the start. Instead, we get bits here and there in almost each episodes, this increases your interest about finding out everything. The protagonist is your usual cliched kid who gets some kind of special power but doesn't know how to work it yet etc. I thought he would be yet another wimpy annoying brat, but thankfully he didn't go in that department far enough and he grew on me. Aside from him, there are TONS of other characters, many who are pretty good, my favourite being The Crow (Shinji), who also has his own OVA, which was great. There is a lot of good action, cool looking powers and techniques and LOTS of gore. Plus, the anime thrives at displaying it in a brutal manner. The soundtrack was decent t...

Southpaw (2015) - Movie Review

Southpaw is a by the books boxing/similar genre movie. It has the usual cliches and is predictable and all that. But all of that is OK because I don't really care about that if the execution is alright. Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the champion boxer. I gotta tell ya, this dude is following Bale's footsteps when it comes to physical transformation. Not long ago we got the skinny looking weird version in NightCrawler and now this fully buffed boxer. Gyllenhaal continues to impress me with his acting too, the dude was great yet again. He was intense, he was broken, and you really feel for him. Someone else who was really great was the daughter. I was really surprised by her and witnessing a great child acting is kinda rare. Rachel McAdams and Forest Whitaker also delivered great performances, their best in a while. 50 cents was just OK though. Since the movie follows the typical style of this genre, you get the initial fame, then something happens and there is the downfall area ...

Minions (2015) - Movie Review

Just like we got Penguins of Madagascar after the fame of the penguins grew from their small bits in Madagascar movies, in the same fashion we got this 'Minions' movie. I knew this was targeted for kids mostly but since I liked the two Despicable me movies and loved the bits with minions in it, I thought I'd atleast had some fun with the movie. I was wrong. There was little to no fun to be had in the ENTIRE movie. I was really bored. My face was literally like this: (-_-). The only thing that I can say I liked was the starting scene with minions throughout the ages and the last scene with Gru. Besides that, the whole movie was just filled with humor and jokes that didn't land and plot that didn't interest me. Nothing more than a cash grab owing to the minions increase in popularity and seeing how it made over ONE FRIGGIN BILLION DOLLARS worldwide, I guess they succeeded at that. Minions were great in little doses in the Despicable me movies but when you have th...

Train To Busan (2016) - Movie Review

Train To Busan is a South Korean zombie apocalypse film that has been getting a lot of buzz lately. And being a huge fan of zombies, I had to watch it asap. The movie is about a group of people that are caught amidst a zombie outbreak while traveling on a train.  Now the movie has some similar zombie flick beats that one would expect, but along side with certain Korean cinema layer of flare, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. The movie starts out slow, with a typical build up of the main characters, and then shit hits the fan, after which it becomes a thrill ride.  The train being the main setting of this film, I really liked how the movie used it for different sequences. There were tense and chaotic sequences, and there were quite and claustrophobic ones, giving a nice mix of all around thrill. The thing I loved most though was the fact it wasn't a plain old gore fest. There wasn't even that much violence for a zombie film owing to the fact that no ...

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Movie Review

X-Men Apocalypse is another entry in the franchise, acting as a sequel to Days of the Future Past (DOTFP), with Bryan Singer once again returning as the director. Now, I always liked the X-Men movie franchise, and the ones directed by Bryan Singer are my favorites, especially DOTFP, which is my favourite of the franchise and one of my favourite super hero movie to date. So I was naturally very excited for Apocalypse.  The movie is about Apocalypse, an ancient mutant believed to be the very first of his kind, with unimaginable powers. He wakes up in current times, and decides to rule the world again. Only thing standing in his way are, ofcourse, the X-Men.  Now there was a lot of stuff that happened in the movie, a lot of characters to introduce, storylines to develop etc. And I think the movie managed to handle most of it quite well, instead of crumbling on its weight. I liked the build-up, and I liked the middle act. The flow felt fine to me, and everything was ...

Z for Zachariah (2015) - Movie Review

Z for Zachariah is a post apocalyptic drama about a girl living alone in a world devastated by Nuclear war until she finds out that she is not alone. The movie can be seen in two halves. The first half is the much superior drama about the religious farm girl and the scientist survivor she finds. While the second half turns into a lame love triangle which ultimately bogs the movie down. Seriously, why did they have to put that in. Could have been a much better movie without it. There are only three actors in the movie and all did great, especially Chiwatel Ejiofor. Margot Robbie looked really beautiful, in a more natural way. The film's cinematography was great, very well shot. And I liked the soundtrack as well. 6/10

Insidious: Chapter 3 (2015) - Movie Review

This is a prequel to the previous two insidious movies. It is about a girl in a city getting haunted and Elise, the ghost hunter, trying to help her out. The movie shows a couple of things that tie in to the previous insidious movies and I liked that. The family was pretty normal and the kids were thankfully NOT annoying. Lin Shaye, who plays Elise, was great, really liked her. This movie depends almost entirely on jump scares, which was both annoying and thrilling. There were some of them which were very well crafted and really gave me the jumps. But when a movie tries to scare you with mostly jump scares, it gets really annoying and repetitive and predictive. And jump scares are just an easy and cheap way of making you scared for a small duration. I would have liked if the movie had more scenes with something ominous and creepy occurring and not have a jump scare thrown in. Thing with jump scares is that they have become TOO FRIGGIN COMMON in horror movies these days and hardly ...

And Then There Were None (2015) - TV Series Review (Mini-Series)

It is a series based on the famous novel by Agatha Christie of the same name and it is about a group of people from different walks of life who are invited by a rich family to stay in their mansion on an Island. But someone there starts to kill them one by one creating terror, suspicion and alliances among one another. I loved the premise and it was very well executed. Different and varied characters came to life by great acting, with actors like Charles Dance (Tywin Lannister in Game of thrones) and Toby Stephens (Captain Flint in Black Sails). As the situation gets more dire, you see the true self of these people and I loved how the show focused on the mental state of everyone and how they were coping with this. The cinematography was gorgeous. The show was really well shot. Now, my main issue with the show was its three episodes length. It was just too short to fully develop a large character set and while the show did a good enough job with the time it had, it often felt too r...

Fant4stic (2015) - Movie Review

Oh boy, finally got to see this popular flop. And yeah, it is bad. The most important thing in a movie like this i.e team dynamic and chemistry was almost non existent. Whatever stuff they tried to develop felt forced and lame, only thing that I somewhat liked was Ben and Reed chemistry. The acting was somewhat serviceable but what they had to work with was bad, so in turn they ended up looking lame, even though there was some talent here, especially Myles Teller. I think he would have made a pretty good reed if he had gotten something better to work with. The story and its pacing were shit. Horribly edited. Some stuff happens, then some other stuff, then some other, all in a rushed and poorly executed way and you're just sitting there thinking, what are they going for here. The finale was also pretty lame. Hardly any fight and bam, its over. They jam in famous lines of these heroes there and it all just felt like a disaster. Atleast you would expect CGI to be good. But it was...

Inside Out (2015) - Movie Review

The past couple of offerings from Pixar weren't really that stellar/of their level. They decided to take a break for a year and came back with one of their best offerings. Inside out is a movie about a 11-12 year old girl and the emotions that control her inside her head. Joy, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and Fear were the five emotions we got. All of them had great voice acting which brought these characters to life. Joy and Sadness got more attention in the movie as the message the plot was giving centered around them. I do wish that we got more of the other three emotions too. They didn't get as much screen-time as I would have liked. The concept was great and clever and its execution was perfect. Seeing the inside workings of one's brain being played out the way it did in the movie was just so GENIUS!! And the best part of it was that everyone can relate to it, which makes the experience even better. The movie is filled with allegories that point to pain of moving, ha...

Tomorrowland (2015) - Movie Review

The trailers really intrigued me and knowing that Brad Bird was directing it, how could I not be excited for it. Finally got around to watching it and if you take out the third act of the movie, it was great. The movie is about, well, tomorrowland, or rather the journey to get there. I'll keep it vague as the movie did a great job of not telling you a lot in the trailers, unlike the stupid trend we have nowadays where even the main plot twists are sometimes shown in the trailers (I'm looking at you Terminator: Genisys). The main cast was pretty good. Brit Robbertson, who plays the lead girl, was fantastic. I loved her in the movie. She really had this enthusiastic, perky, and plain fun aura about her and it just made her character really likable. Good thing too since she had to carry the movie on her shoulders. We also get George Clooney, who obviously needs no introduction, and was good. And the little girl, played by Raffey Cassidy, initially didn't impress me but then...

Mr. Nobody (2009) - Movie Review

"Every path is the right path. Everything could've been anything else. And it would have just as much meaning." Mr. Nobody is a movie which shows the multiple possibilities a young boy's life could turn out when he is faced with a choice at a critical moment in his life. The movie shows different timelines/possibilities where the life of the boy could head to depending on certain choices, all with their ups and downs. Some were more joyous than others, some more depressing, some more heartfelt etc. While it is impossible to show all the possibilities, the movie did it best to show as much as possible in the time frame it had without getting too crammed up or rushed. Jared Leto plays the lead and gives a great performance, not surprisingly. And the accompanying cast also gives an almost universal good performance. The movie does have this 'Inception confusion' effect where different stuff happening at different times could confuse the viewer and in additio...

Pixels (2015) - Movie Review

Aliens attack the earth, but this time their weapons of choice are classic retro games characters. The movie stars Adam Sandler, Peter Dinklage and Kevin James along with tons of other known actors and some high profile cameos. But aside from maybe Peter Dinklage, none of them worked. Lazy acting or over the top. Also, I really don't get what was the point of adding the LAME ASS romance in this movie. It was so cringe worthy and waste of time. Michelle Monaghan was just there to look pretty. The special effects, all the retro characters brought to life, were pretty good. The pixelation effects looked nice. Also, there were some, very few, scenes which actually were fun. Like defeating donkey kong while 'We will rock you' is being played. Now this is the kinda stuff the movie should have focused on. Other than that, the movie was just filled with mediocrity. The jokes never worked, the situations never worked and had so much cringe worthy stuff, and the cheese level was...

Space Station 76 (2014) - Movie Review

This is a movie centered around a space station in the distant future when a new co-captain arrives. The fun thing is that the future shown is through the lens of the 70's era and its sci-fi films. The whole movies is just about the random daily lives of some of the inhabitants of the space station and an impending doom that is coming towards them. Liv Tyler leads the movie as the new arrival at the station and the co-captain. She is joined by Patrick Wilson, who plays the captain. They both delivered great performances, especially Patrick Wilson and the rest of the cast wasn't too shabby either. And in a movie like this, that is what really counts. Now, this movie might come as a comedy, but it is actually more drama with a bit of comedy, and that too of the dark kind. And I thought some of the comedic stuff was handled pretty well, although it was quite subtle. Could have used a bit more fun. The special effects were low grade, but they were rarely used. The inside of th...

No Man's Sky (2016) - Game Review

No Man's Sky is a procedurally generated open world (open universe !?) adventure-exploration game developed by the indie studio Hello Games. Now, this is a very divisive game, and I have never experienced anything like it. It's like the game starts out amazingly well, and slowly deteriorates into a repetitive mess.   Things I liked:  The soundtrack. If there is one thing this game nails completely, it was the soundtrack. I simply loved it. From hauntingly beautiful to the epic triumphant pieces, it really gave the game its own feel. You get this when you enter a space station for the first time:  No Man's Sky OST: Asimov First couple of hours. They were amazing and were exactly what I was hoping for. Things like the first time you fly your ship out of the atmosphere, land on a space station, land on a different planet etc was so exhilarating. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced, and as a space fan, I was having a blast.  Next several hours....

Black Mass (2015) - Movie Review

"It's not what you do, it's when and where you do it, and who you do it to or with. If nobody sees it, it didn't happen." Black Mass is a film based on true story about a gangster named Whitey Bulger, who makes a deal with the FBI to take down his competition. Now I was really looking forward to watching this because it looked like this will be the comeback of Johnny Depp, and it certainly was. All the acting was top notch but Johnny Depp was the obvious standout. His portrayal of the gangster was chilling, intense and at times creepy. He was again wearing tons of makeup but it added rather than distracting. Easily his best work in years. The movie was also really well shot. Great cinematography. This, and Johnny Depp's acting really made some scenes really great and intense, and made you go "I want more of those". And I wish we had gotten more such scenes instead of the other stuff we got. The problem with this movie was that it lacked focus in...

Ant-Man (2015) - Movie Review

ANT-MAN is yet another successful offering by Marvel and feels like their freshest one too. When the movie was announced, I was hoping to see Hank Pym as the Antman but with the way they went was fine too. Micheal Douglas steals the show as the old Hank Pym. I loved him. Paul Rudd, who plays Scott lang, the new Antman and Hank's protege, was pretty good too in his role. Evangeline lilly was good as hank pym's daughter and look pretty. This movie was REALLY hilarious, especially thanks to Michael Pena, who completely bombarded every scene he was in with humor. Marvel's funniest movie to date after Guardians of the galaxy. It also felt small in scale and scope compared to other superhero movies, fittingly just like the hero it is based on. Ultimately, it is a heist film with a superhero origin story in it, and good one too, which was both refreshing and entertaining. My favourite thing about this movie was that how it referenced to The Avengers and their stuff and ac...

The Conjuring 2 (2016) - Movie Review

The Conjuring 2 is a sequel to the conjuring (2013), once again directed by James Wan, and is about another case of the warrens where a family in England is being terrorized by a supernatural force. I loved the first one, and this one is probably even better. There are two parts to the story: One being the family being haunted, and the other related to the warrens. And they were intertwined really well. James Wan once again proves that he is the master of this craft in the current times. While the setting is nothing new, it is the execution that sets it apart and somehow makes it feel fresh, and terrifying.  Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise their role as the warrens, the monster hunting couple, and their chemistry has only been improved over the last film. Both delivered great performances, especially Patrick Wilson. Another great performance was from the girl who was being tormented and she did a terrific job, and carried a lot of this movie. The best complime...

Sleeping With Other People (2015) - Movie Review

Sleeping With Other People is a romantic-comedy-drama about two people with sexual and relationship issues, who after finding each other help to bring about reforms.  Now, this was a pleasantly surprising watch for me. I thought it would be some typical romcom, and I only gave it a watch because I like both the leads. But I was wrong.   The story wasn't anything new. The beats felt similar to every other romcom (For the most part), and the movie is predictable. BUT it is the execution that it made it feel fresh. It had genuine heart, took its time in more emotional moments, and gave its characters room to breath.  The core of the movie is the relationship between the leads, and boy oh boy did Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis nailed it. Best performances of their career so far for me. They had such a palpable chemistry. Both worked off each other so well, and it all felt really natural. Very rarely do I see this in movies like these. And the direc...

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials (2015) - Movie Review

The first part was a surprisingly entertaining film. And I was really looking forward to watching this. The movie starts off right from where the last part left off. The team is out of the maze and are with a group that opposes WCKD. While the first part was more mystery and stuff, this is a more adrenaline-filled action packed entry. The acting felt improved from the last part. So was the cinematography, movie was well shot. The CGI was good, for the most part, too. The Wasteland looked great. And I loved the infected. They really reminded me of the infected from The Last of Us. Same vibes and had similar degree of infection. And scenes involving them were thrilling. Now, the first half of the movie was honestly great. The action was great, the pacing was adrenaline pumping, the escape sequences were well shot and handled and it was just plain entertaining to see the destroyed world and the team trying to survive in it. The second half however kinda bogged down the movie. T...

The Man From U.N.C.L.E (2015) - Movie Review

Guy Ritchie directed this film so you know if nothing else, the movie will atleast have style. It is a spy film that is set in the cold war era. The story is something that you have seen done so many times i.e two guys who don't like each other forced to work together for the greater good. What's interesting about the movie is that it pays a huge homage to spy movies of 70s/80s. It is classy, stylish and doesn't take itself seriously (mostly). Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer lead the film with being spies on the opposite end of the spectrum. Cavill plays a classy american spy, like an american James Bond. And Hammer plays the russian spy who has the typical traits i.e big tough guy. Both are joined by the lovely Alicia Vikander and they formed a rather fun trio. I loved how Cavill and Hammer played off each other. Their chemistry was great and their banters etc were really fun to watch. All of it was enhanced by the beautiful cinematography, stylish direction and rivetin...

The Newsroom (2012-2014) - TV Series Review (Complete)

The Newsroom is an HBO series created by Aaron Sorkin, who has written great dialogue based movies like The Social Network and Steve Jobs. It is about a news network that undergoes some changes and decides to do deliver proper news, and the ordeals they have to go through because of that. Aaron Sorkin is an amazing writer. He just has this natural talent for making dialogue driven stuff. This series oozes with that. A show about news is obviously going to be nothing but dialogue throughout, and he made it work so SO well. I loved seeing how the news worked, how people dedicated themselves to delivering the truth, how real events from recent years were covered and how brutally honest the show could be at times. And because of Sorkin's writing, it always felt fast paced but natural at the same time, embedding the feeling and urgency of their jobs. All that could not have been possible without the cast, which was so perfect, with Jeff Daniels taking the charge. His best performan...

Hitman: Agent 47 (2015) - Movie Review

So we have yet another movie based on the popular video game franchise 'Hitman'. This could have been called anything and it wouldn't have mattered as it's nothing like the game. Instead of sneaking or trying to take out enemies quietly, Agent 47 here just goes in guns blazing like Rambo. The acting was bad. The actor who played Agent 47 was serviceable at best in some scenes while being bad in most of the others. The girl was lame and Spock (Zachary Quinto) followed that suite. The story was meh. Also, movie named 'Hitman Agent 47' focused all of its time on a girl rather than the actual agent. The action, terrible. The fight scenes were horribly choreographed and employed extremely rapid zoom cuts, which was annoying as shit. And the car scenes were filled with really fake looking CGI. Not to mention that the time between action scenes was just in your face exposition. The only stuff that I would say I liked was very VERY few bits where Agent 47 felt like...

Everest (2015) - Movie Review

"Human beings simply aren't built to function at the cruising altitudes of a seven-forty-seven." Everest is a film based on the true story of a tragic disaster that befell an adventure club on their expedition to summit Mount Everest in 1996. The cinematography is great in the movie. Some pretty breathtaking shots of Mount Everest and other areas of Nepal. Along with this, the soundtrack was just as good, making it a real treat to watch at times. The movie has a big cast comprising great actors like Jake Gyllenhaal, Josh Brolin, Jason Clarke, Keira Knightly etc and all of them did a good job. Jason Clarke especially was great and made me care for him. It didn't sugar coat the events nor it added tons of extra stuff for entertainment to appeal to the wider audience. It took it self seriously and honestly, by the time it was over, I was pretty sad, even though it actually did a not-so-good job at developing the characters. And coming to that, it was my main problem...

Goosebumps (2015) - Movie Review

Growing up, I was a huge fan of Goosebumps. I used to buy any Goosebumps book I got my hands on. I still have about twenty of them on my shelf. They were adventurous, often scary and creepy(at the time) and just plain fun to read. This movie gives a lot of nostalgia and kinda makes me go back and read the books again. The plot isn't focused on a single book. Instead, the premise is that a family of single mother and an only child (Teenage Boy) moves to a new town and their neighbor happens to be R.L Stine, the author of the Goosebumps book. Due to a string of events, it turns out that opening the original manuscripts releases the monsters in the book to real life and now we have our movie. Comedy worked most of the times, monster sequences were campy but enjoyable and it was overall a pretty fun movie. Story kinda played out like your typical Goosebump book. The main kid and girl were alright and Jack Black as R.L Stine was pretty fine, although having no resemblance to the au...

The Walk (2015) - Movie Review

The Walk is a movie based on a true story about Philippe Petite, a high-wire artist, whose dream was to perform his art on the World Trade Center. Joseph Gordon Levitt plays the guy and he was pretty darn good at it. Add that with Zemeckis great direction and you were in his world. You felt his passion, his reasons, and his dedication. The movie is kinda a mixture of two genres. The first half is more of an origin story and biographical drama whereas the second half seems like a heist movie. The second half was splendid while the first half kinda stumbled. The first half builds the protagonist nicely but the romance kinda felt meh. It was great seeing him creating a team and planning the event and finally doing it in the second half though. Had all the goodness of a heist movie. Fun secondary characters, plan buildup and execution, tension in failure and improvisation etc. The cinematography in the movie was really great. The whole final sequence was JAW DROPPING. I actually felt ...

Sicario (2015) - Movie Review

This is a movie about a major level drug bust seen through the viewpoint of an FBI agent recruited to aid in it. Emily Blunt plays as the agent, and she was terrific in the role. You could really sense that she is a tough gal and all but the situation is way more than she can handle. However, the one who stole the show was Benicio Del Toro. The dude was perfect. Other performances were pretty great too. Well acted movie all round. I loved how this movie showed the face of supposedly right side and created moral dilemmas about the end justifying the means etc. The movie had the balls to show brutal stuff, and I commend it for that. Now, the way this movie was shot, and how it build-up tension, was FRIGGIN AMAZING. Outstanding cinematography coupled with great direction and hauntingly beautiful soundtrack that complemented every shot, really made for some really tense and thrilling scenes where I was on the edge of my seat. Nail biting tension. Didn't matter what the pay of...

The Drop (2014) - Movie Review

The Drop is a movie about a bar which sometimes acts as a drop point for illegal cash flow and a robbery there triggers a series of events for the characters involved. It was a very well acted movie. Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini were really great. I especially loved how Hardy conveyed the emotions of his character through body language and facial subtlety. You could feel some of the history that the character has been through from that. Some scenes, especially the finale had great tension and execution. The pacing however was sometimes really slow though. And the story failed to setup its world like the movie wanted to. There's history, there's relationships, but the execution of it wasn't that good for my taste. That isn't to say it was horrible, it was fine to a certain degree but in a movie like this, you want to really get invested in the character's world and that just didn't happen to me. And due to that, some scenes/characters just ended up feeling...

RockNRolla (2008) - Movie Review

Directed by Guy Ritchie, RocknRolla is another one of his British gangster films. And just like Lock Stock and Snatch, this one is filled with a vast, varied and interesting set of characters, intertwined with each other. Gerard Butler, Tom Hardy and Idris Elba are among the many actors that encompass the character set and all were great in their roles. Ritchie is a master at creating worlds with interesting characters involved in crime delivering great and witty dialogue, and humorous scenes/situations. This was a highly entertaining watch. I enjoyed the shit out of it. The pacing, direction and editing were great. The movie does focus more on certain characters that were less interesting and it was a bit of a bummer as I would have loved more focus on the ones I liked more. It also does feel a bit to similar to his previous movies and in that you can't help but compare it to the previous films, not on the level of the likes of Snatch and Lock Stock but still a highly enterta...

The Revenant (2015) - Movie Review

The Revenant is a survival+Revenge story taking place in the 1800s in America and is about a pelt collector, Hugh Glass (Played by DiCaprio), who is left for dead in the cold wilderness and must survive in order to get his revenge. From the very beginning, you could tell that this will be a visually enthralling experience. Emmanuele Lebezki, who did the excellent cinematography and deservingly won the oscar for last year's 'Birdman' and 'Gravity' before that, returns to deliver yet again another eyegasmic experience. The movie is overflowing with beautiful shots which just feel very natural with the environment. And there are some sequences which are simply JAW DROPPING, particularly this one scene with the bear where I was completely stunned and had no idea how they pulled it off. Another Oscar win for Lebezki. The story is a simple but a very gritty, brutal and unforgiving experience. Leonardo DiCaprio gave one of his best performance. He had very few lines o...