Reviews Reactor

The Nigh Of is a mini-series from HBO and it's about a guy who, on one night, finds himself in a very sticky situation when the girl he was with ends up dead and he becomes the main suspect. From a glance, this might look like another murder mystery type show, but in actuality, it is more about being in this situation, and how the system is flawed.  In usual HBO fashion, the pacing of the show is slow, but the good kind. Everything takes its time and lets you soak it all in. The tension slowly creeps up on you during crucial moments, and builds and builds, putting you on the edge of your seat, without rushing anything. Since there are only eight episodes, there isn't a moment of boredom to be found, even if things slow down to a great deal.  From crime-scene to police stations and trials, everything feels laid out to a great degree of detail. People are simply doing there job, going about their business while the protagonist finds himself in this situation. It all

"Manners Maketh Man." This is one of those movies that completely takes you by surprise. I enjoyed it immensely. James Bond type-ish british spy film, but with way WAY more wack and awesomeness. Matthew Vaughn is a great director. I've watched all of his films (except Layer Cake) and the guy just has a knack of delivering really enjoyable/entertaining movies (Stardust, Xmen - First class, Kick ass). The cast delivered great performances all round. Colin Firth simply KICKED ASS. Loved his character and how classy yet deadly he was. Taron Egerton, the protagonist, was some nobody to me before I saw this movie. Now, he is a star in the making. Samuel L.Jackson, while didn't stole the show or anything, was a pretty good villain with a funny lisp condition. The plot actually felt somewhat fresh and wasn't your typical 'Take over the world' type scenarios that you see in this genre. Although I have see the main mechanism elsewhere, the reasons for doing, th

I never thought I would see Arnold in a role like this. And he surely pulled it off. Maggie is a movie about a father and his daughter who has been infected with the zombie virus and how he spends there last days together. The zombie world this movie takes place in was actually kinda fresh and realistic for a genre like this. I mean the virus is all spread and whatnot but society hasn't gone to shit. The authorities, the daily lives etc are still going on, they just have to deal with this new disease. The virus itself doesn't turn you into a zombie in like minutes or hours. It actually takes several weeks. Now both Arnold and Abigail Breslin were great in their roles. Arnold showed that he has subtlety in him, that he can play emotional dramas. And I really liked this side of him. The cinematography in the movie was often great. Now the movie has some good emotional scenes, and the scenes where both father and daughter are together and are just trying to get throu

Lights Out is a horror movie about a family, that is being tormented by an entity/ghost. The catch is, it can only appear in the darkness. I was really looking forward to watching this because of its premise. I mean let's face it, fear of the dark is a fundamental fear that everyone experiences atleast once in there life. So a movie centered around something like this genuinely intrigued me.  The cast did a uniformly good job. The kid was good, the mother, the sister, and hell, even the boyfriend. Usually the boyfriend/girlfriend character ends up being just disposable copy paste cliches, but this movie did a good job with the character.  Run-time of the movie is short around 1 hour and 20 mins, so the pacing was fast. You don't have slow periods or long build up periods that horror movies usually have. From the start, shit starts happening. That was both a positive, and a negative for me. On one hand, I enjoyed the fast pacing as it kept me on the hook consistentl

Stranger Things is a Netflix original series about a disappearance of a boy in a small town, and the efforts of his family and friends in order to find him, in the midst of strange events. This show's popularity really blew up after its release this year. It was everywhere, and I finally got around to watching it, and to see what all the big fuss was about. And well, the hype is real. I'll be very honest, I don't think I have ever seen a show that got me hooked so badly, so quickly, and maintained that interest throughout with extreme consistency. I started it after midnight, with a plan of watching a couple of episodes that night (Working Day, had to get up early), and continuing the rest next day. But instead of that, I stayed up till morning and completed it in one go. It literally glued me to the TV. Now, the thing that was most prevalent in hooking me to this show, at least at the start anyway, was the setting. It hit all the right points for me considering

This is a horror film about an entity that follows you after it is given to you by sleeping with someone, kinda like ghost STD. I liked the premise. It's funny when you think about it but it is also something different. The main lead acted really well. I liked her performance and she was really cute too. The rest of the cast ranged from good to meh. The way this film was treated gave it a really different and unique feeling from the current horror films. The cinematography was amazing with tons of lingering shots, slow pans and things happening in the background. The soundtrack was spectacular and really carried the film, I absolutely loved it. The movie just felt fresh and different and I really liked this about it, don't know how else to say it. From the start till the end, the movie had a constant slow pace and this tense atmosphere. This consistency was another thing that you don't see in current horror films as usually they start very slow and build up to an big f

"Oh what a day.....what a lovely day!". Definitely was a lovely day, and how can it not be when you watch something like this. Prior to watching this, I did a marathon of the original trilogy and didn't liked them very much. They may have been great in their own time but not anymore. No idea why people loved them. And I was of the opinion that this movie won't be that different from them. Luckily, I was wrong, so very wrong. The movie takes place in a post apocalyptic world where nuclear war destroyed everything. Chaos and pure madness is what remains. Now, in the previous movies, this whole post apocalyptic world didn't really interest me all that much. But in Fury Road, I got just the type of execution that clicked with me and the world hooked me in. Story was never the selling point of these movies anyway. Tom Hardy filled in the shoes of Mel Gibson as Mad Max. He played his one of the more typical roles, with less talk and tough guy voice and such, and he

This movie is about a widow with a single child, who are being haunted by an entity known as The Babadook. After hearing so much praise for this film, honestly, I'm a bit disappointed. The movie was shot well and I applaud it for not relying on cheap jump scares and instead use other means to inject fear into the viewer. Problem was that while there was some genuine creepy moments in the film, it always felt like they were cut short and didn't truly terrify me, leaving me unfulfilled. And while the movie did a good job of using the good old technique of keeping the monster in the dark and using its presence and the idea of it to scare, the movie did show the monster and I couldn't help but find it more funny looking then terrifying, which consequently reduced the fear factor of the scenes that followed. And it didn't help that there was literally no lore or info about the monster whatsoever. Now, on to the good parts. The acting in the movie was fantastic. Essie Da

This movie is about a search for the philosopher's stone and the horrors they face trying to get it. The movie is shot in a found footage style manner with multiple camera perspective. These types of movies always have that introductory period where characters are introduced and are seen just going about their lives etc and almost always it's boring. This movie however did it in a different manner, using the plot to turn that period into a clue hunt of sorts, and it was interesting. As most of the movie takes place underground, it had a nice dosage of claustrophobic feeling. Some scenes amplified the effect and were pretty tense. The horror aspect was wasn't that profound though. There were maybe a scene or two that actually gave me the creeps. I did, however, loved how it dealt with hell, was just refreshing and great to something different like this on a very common thing. Perdita weeks, who acted as the main lead and the one who was after the philosopher's stone

Having liked Divergent and its setting, I was really curious to know more about the world they created. Insurgent starts off straight from where Divergent left off. The team is on the run and are looking for some place to lay low. We got another A-list actor in this movie, Naomi Watts, who plays the rebellion leader. So it was Kate Winslet vs Naomi Watts. Her role was wasted in this movie though. Shailene Woodley was again good. I really liked Miles Teller in this. He was again the typical douche bag like he was in the previous film. The story and pacing this time felt a bit more messy because in the previous film, there was this continuous progression that kept the film together. Here, it felt more like a random mix up of high and low points. Now, I'm a sucker for rebellion scenarios and not surprisingly, I liked the said stuff here as well and plot points being associated with it. It did felt a lot similar to Hunger Game: Mockingjay story and I assumed it will progress a cer

"Monster is a relative term. To a canary, a cat is a monster. We're just used to being the cat." We finally get to go back to Isla Nublar after all these years (22 to be exact). It is a given that creating the same feel and magic of Jurassic Park is impossible. SO instead of just trying to recreate everything and doing it in a lesser way, director Colin Trevorrow went with a different approach and it actually payed off. Jurassic World takes place 22 years after the events of the original film. A new park after the events of the original film, on the same place, was opened and has been functioning for 10 years. They create a hybrid dinosaur as a new attraction but everything goes to hell when it gets loose. Now, I had somewhat low expectations going into the movie and while it wasn't as good as the original, nor did it had its magic and feeling (obviously), it turned out to be a whole another entertaining ride. The movie did a good enough job of paying homage to t

Being the FIFTH part of a franchise, initially I had some doubts about this film. But after seeing the good reception it got, my hopes were up and rightfully so. Rogue Nation continues off from where Ghost Protocol left, with Ethan Hunt getting a new mission to take down the rogue spy agency called the Syndicate. Tom Cruise is well, Tom Cruise. He was awesome yet again. The one that was surprisingly great was the female lead, Rebecca Ferguson. She acted great, she was sexy, she was lethal and she was a total badass. Best MI girl to date. Her chemistry with Tom Cruise was also great and it is one of those VERY rare times where I ACTUALLY liked the romance/lovey dovey subplot. Movie handled it very well. It wasn't prolonged or anything, it wasn't cheesy or cliched or typical, it was just right. The supporting cast was also great. Simon Pegg's character once again showed how to handle comic relief properly in a movie. He was funny, he was awesome and he wasn't jus

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. I was of the opinion that this will be your usual run of the mill action movie but it was infact more drama than action, and I liked that. The movie is about a guy working for his best friend, a mob boss, and must decide where his loyalties lie after a series of events puts his son on his friend's bad side. Liam Neeson did a good job of portraying a father whose beaten down by life, filled with regret and his past sins weighing in him. You feel for him and the condition he is in. Ed Harris plays the Mob boss, who was also good in his role. And these two had good interaction with each other, like you can see that had a proper history and are close. Almost everyone was good in this film. There were a lot of subplots in the movie but instead of getting lost in them completely, it executed them fairly well and gave the most amount of time to the main thing, the father and his son. The resentment of Liam neeson's son towards him and the

Suicide Squad is the third and latest entry into the DCEU, and is about a bunch of bad guys that are rounded up to fight for someone else. And just like this year's BvS, this movie received overwhelmingly negative reviews by the critics and was divided among the fans. I was super curious to watch it because unlike many, I actually enjoyed the DCEU till this point. Enjoyed both Man of Steel and BvS. But unfortunately, this one's a mess. The majority of the movie just feels choppy, editing was all over the place. Like they had a final product but because of disagreements, they took out a lot of scenes, shorten the runtime, and added others, making a giant choppy mess in the end. Scenes don't properly flow, including the flashbacks. Some scenes feel like they were added later (Probably the re-shoots) and they definitely didn't fit, particularly the elevator scene with Harley. The songs were all over the place as well. Some worked with their respective scenes, but

Central Intelligence is sorta of a buddy-spy comedy and it's about an average joe hung up on life over past issues, until he meets up with one of his high school batch mate, and things suddenly turn upside down for him. A movie like this only works if the two leads meld together, and boy oh boy did they ever in this movie. Dwayne Johnson and Kevin Hart both were excellent in this movie. I loved their chemistry, their banter and their relationship. They clearly seemed to be having a great time in their roles, and as a result, the movie as a whole became a lot more fun. Also, I liked it more that they weren't playing their usual selves. It was just hilarious to see The Rock play this man-child agent, he always manages to bring so much energy into every role. And Kevin Hart dialed back a lot. He was the average joe, the normal guy in this movie and I liked that. You do still get the usual Kevin hart outbursts/moments, in small doses. Aside from these two, there was a

The Shallows is a film about a women who goes to this very secluded beach for surfing, where a big shark attacks and strands her in the shallows, where she must find a way to survive. The only shark attack movies you get these days are the likes of Sharknado, so this being hyped as a proper shark attack film was something I was looking forward to. From the start, you could tell that this would be a good looking movie. Yeah it felt like a Go-Pro commercial in those starting minutes, but it looked pretty good, so who cares. The beach itself was beautiful, and the director fully utilized the location. Loved the cinematography, well, minus the slow mo shots. There were perhaps a bit too many of them.  Blake Lively looked very lively, and she did a pretty good job. There were moments where I thought she was a bit iffy, but overall she gave a good performance, especially considering the state her character is in for most of the movie. There was some backstory to her character b

The Legend of Tarzan is an action adventure film based on the iconic character, Tarzan. Not a huge fan or anything, but I have enjoyed the character and his tale in the Disney animated film when I was young. The other live versions, however, sucked. So I didn't really know what to expect from this film, but I was pleasantly surprised.  The thing I liked the most was how they didn't just remade his origin story as the whole movie, but actually told a tale years later. That, from the get-go, hooked me in. Tarzan is settled in England, with Jane, but due to some events happening in his home, he has to go back. And while the story had its issues, it was decent enough that I wanted to see what will happen next. You do get some of the backstory via flashbacks, which were pretty good. Alexander Skarsgard was a great casting choice as Tarzan. He felt like Tarzan, and he definitely, DEFINITELY looked the part. Margot Robbie as Jane was pretty good as well. She looked gorge