Movie Review: Alice in Wonderland : Dark and Dull...

Tim Burton makes some dark, nutty films and Alice in Wonderland, has his signature look and feel to it. But what it lacks is entertainment value.

This story is not the original; it is a sequel to the same. So here, a nubile Alice returns to the rabbit hole to fulfill a prophecy. The problem with the story is that it is not engaging enough. It doesn’t have the charm of the original. Also the story-telling is extremely grim and with hardly any captivating sequences.

The characters in this film are also not too endearing, except for the nutty "Mad-Hatter" played brilliantly by Johnny Depp and the “Red Queen” played by Helena Carter. Also, the background score lacks the strength to really suck you into the scenes.

What the movie scores on, is “Visual Effects” and the 3-D experience. If you watch this film, you will realize what an actual 3-D experience is. The wonderland though bleak and grim - is fantastic. But that is not enough to hold your attention.

Though this movie is topping the US, UK charts, it’s mainly because of the Johnny Depp drawing power and nothing else. Watch this only if you are an avid fan of his; else go take a chance on some other small-budget Hindi film!

Rating : 4 / 10

Movie Reviews - NARNIA and SPEED RACER

Genre: Fantasy

Rating: 5.5/10

This movie is just about watchable. The movie is a continuation of the hugely succesful first part, but does not live up to the expectations. This is mainly due to the insipid storyline. The creators probably should have added some masala into this film or should have cut down its lenght, because the product is mostly boring. The special effects, the graphics, the cinematograhy etc are exceptional, but then which hollywood film doesnt have amazing special efects? It cannot be the only reason to watch this film, you need something more - an intersting plot. A slow moving movie isnt automatically a boring one, but this one is both. Even children would lose patience after 2 hours I guess, coz this one goes on for approx 2:30 hours. Overall, its just about watchable, but not quiet good. For fantasy freaks, it would surely be a let down.

Rating: 6 / 10

I went to this movie for timepass and it surely passed that test. This movie is sprightly and it delights. The creators of Matrix bring to life this Japanese cartoon and keep alive the spirit aswell. For those who havent been initiated, Speed Racer is the name of a Car racer, who belongs to a Racing Maniac family. His brother was also a racer and lost his life during a race. His father is the manager, cum mechanic who comes builds the Cars in which he races. There are a whole bunch of delightful characters - but one's that stand out are his little brother and his monkey. Their antics are worth the money you spend on the ticket.

The movie deals with the influence of Corporates and Politics on Auto-Racing and how speed racer fights against this cartel. This movie has it all, comedy, suspense, drama and fast paced racing action. It will take you some time to swallow the Animated World that the Wachowski brothers have created but once you do, put on the speedbelt and hang on for the wonderful ride. The best part about this film is that, it is entertaining, has wonderful comedy and its pace keeps increasing untill it culminates into a crescendo. You would surely walk out happily out of this one. So enjoy....

Movie Review - Forbidden Kingdom - Timepass fare

Genre: Fantasy/Kungfu

Rating: 5.5/10

Some films are made for timepass, and this one's ideal for that. Jackie Chan completely rocks it and manages to keep you in splits with his drunken antics. This movie is basically a fantasy flick which is extremely cliched and is like the recipe Love stories of SRK, predictable. But for the inclusion of Jackie, this would have probably gone down the drain. He makes it enjoyable.

So its about this American Guy, who is obsessed with Kung-Fu flicks and eats, sleeps and dreams about Kung-Fu. He gets teleported to this Forbidden Kingdom when he comes across an Enchanted Shaft belonging to the Monkey King. He becomes the messenger, the prophecy who is destined to give ot back to the Monkey King. But its not that simple. First he does not know Chinese - but thats easily overcome, because mysteriously in this magical place in China, everyone can speak english! Then there is the Evil General who has this brutal dictatorship over the land and he does not want the prophecy to be fulfilled. The american guy has legions and legions of soldiers to combat in order to give the shaft back. In this task he is helped by 2 monks. One - a drunken master - Jackie Chan and a diligent monk - Jet Lee. These 2 not only teach him Kung-Fu but also help him in his expedition.

What works for the movie is Jackie Chan's comedy and some amazing Kung-fu combat scenes - specially the one between Jackie and Jet Lee. But do not expect anything great from the movie. It's a simple fantasy flick with all the Masala used over the ages for such a flick. So, go over in this vacation time and enjoy, simply.....

Movie Review: 10000 B.C. - An utter waste!

Rating: 3 / 10

The much awaited 10000 BC by the much acclaimed director of "Independence day" and "Day after tommorow" , falls flat on its face and never recovers. Its got the most boring and cliched script, amazingly toothless dialogues and sonorous background score.

The story is about this tribe, where a small girl arrives from a far far land as a profecy of the impending devastation. A small boy - our hero falls head over heels for her. Then when they grow old, the prophecy comes true and the Villians drag many of our hero's tribe mates and ofcourse the heroin away. So our valiant hero trudges through Snow capped mountains, carnivorous birds ridden forests and miles of desert to reach the villians den. Here the villian - who is considered to be god, has lakhs of slaves belted to make huge Inca temples. And our hero brings out a revilution and kills the so called god. Happy ending!

You would probably laugh your head off at the utterly dumb dialogues and situations. This director seems completely inspired by some Old Hindi film, where villian picks up heroin, hero goes on mission with sidekick, side kick dies, hero fights the villian, villian manages to kill heroin, hero in rage kills villian and then heroin comes alive due to some heavy duty praying to god!!! Spare us mr.Roland Emmerich. Apart from some excellent graphics this is a total waste of time, money and effort.

Go to the theater at your own peril , but if you have to, take along loads of crazy friends. Then you can enjoy this boring but unintentionally filmy and funny movie. Then you can hoot, clap, shout, laugh and make the rest of the audience enjoy this prehistoric crap.

Stardust

Cross posted from : http://aashraya.blogspot.com/

Stardust is another patriarchal fairytale that has not strayed from the standard recipe of a Hollywood magic fantasy drama. Although the movie is based on a book, the plot is rather sloppy. I am afraid J.K.R.’s stories have made movie goers like me expect a little more from the world of magic in general. So even though the special effects were great and the movie had some fun laughs I found the movie underwhelming. There is no complexity to the characters or the plot. Things happen just so that the plot moves along and most of the times it doesn’t make any sense, even in the magical kingdom where the writer is only limited by his imagination. The only saving grace for the movie is the humor which is very reminiscent of the Pirates movies.

The main plot is about lovers and finding love (ugh!). So you should be prepared for a fair amount of lovey dovey stuff piled onto more mush. When I say that the mush quotient is pretty high, I kid you not. There are lines like, “For you my love I would do anything. I would go to the end of the earth and pluck out some stars for you.”

The plot (that never thickens):
Once upon a time there lived a horny young man who wasn’t getting any action in the human world and so decided to try his luck in the magical kingdom which happened to be in the forbidden area across a wall. The man manages to sneak into the magical kingdom and starts checking out the streets of the magic kingdom for prospective mates. As luck would have it, he meets a super horny princess who is chained to a trailer which is in the middle of the busy market. What is a horny princess doing in the middle of a market soliciting strange men? A witch has enslaved the princess with her magic powers and so the princess is bound to the witch's trailer. (Cue: gasp!). But that still does not explain the horniness. Is she under a horny spell? Nope. Hey, women have needs too you know.

Anyhow, since the princess is bound to the trailer, the first order of business would be to rescue her. Nyoooo! There is no time. Well a quick quickie if you insist. Into the trailer they go and nobody comes a knocking when the trailer is rocking. It is wham bam thank you ma'm. The man returns to the human world and forgets about the whole thing. Alas, nine months later he finds a baby at the doorstep. The new daddy takes the news of his fatherhood pretty well by the commitment-phobic-movie-dad standards. He does not even get a paternity test. But that is not as strange as the fact that he does not ever try to get in touch with the woman who bore his son. Maybe they didn't have much in common, other than the son. At this point it is best you lay your questioning mind to rest if you want to enjoy the movie.

The rest that follows is the same old rehash of fairytales. There are two types of women, the smart hence ugly witches. Okay, Michelle Pfeiffer plays a witch, so they aren't all ugly. But all the independent women are evil witches. The other women fall in the category of damsels in distress. The men are busy killing each other when they are not romancing the women...except Robert De Niro who is a closet cross-dresser. Then there is the matter of saving the life of a fallen star (who morphs into Claire Danes on earth) before the witches or power hungry men get to her.

In the end, good conquers evil and the good guys live happily ever after...oops gave away the ending. But you knew that since the story began with once upon a time.

Rating: Blah with some giggles

Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix

Rating : 6 / 10

If you ask me frankly, this was just another movie. I dint find it special. But Harry Potter is Harry potter and it does carry that WOO factor, so one time watch is recomended. I liked this book because fo the dark connection between harry and the dark lord, but sqeezing all that into a movie seems a tall order.

The story has reached the point where the dark lord has risen again and is making his army. At the same time the ministry is in complete denial of this fact. They go to the extent of publicizing Harry and Dumbeldore as Plotters and Liars. Dumboldore also starts creating his army to fight the evil. All this is the build up to the 7th film. I wont elaborate on the story, bcos most of us have either read it or dont want to, so its immaterial!

The tone of the movie is set as dark and gloomy, which is apt. But the movie is slow and tedious. The direction is OK, but the editor is seriosuly handicapped and had to cut away major parts to make it a 2 and half hour movie!! The magic created in the books, is not duplicated on the screen and only during the dying few minutes, you are held spell bound. Its worth a watch for fans. Fantasy films are anyways timepass to watch, watch it on big screen.

Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer - Good fun.

Genre : Superhero

Rating : 5.5 / 10

For all those who like super heroes and fantasy films, this is worth a watch. The first film was also almost like this , a timepass fare. The story is good, the execution is great. You can always count on the special effects to be great and this movie doesnt dissapoint. Also, it has a quirky funny tinge to it, with the banter between The Thing and Human Torch.

The story is like this: An alien , SILVER SURFER comes to EARTH with a mission to prepare it to be destroyed by its Master. He causes great ecological imbalances throughout the world through his Drilling jobs towards the core of the earth. Meanwhile, one such incidence of a storm spoils Mr.Fantastic and Invisible Woman's marriage! Then Mr. Fantastic is recruited by the US defense force to create a machine to track this Silver Surfer who has immense power. Also, due to some imbalances , somehow by the grace of the Devil!!! - Victor Von Doom - who was frozen in the first movie - gets up from his encaged slumber. He comes back with a mission to team up with Siver Surfer and rule the world. God knows how he manages to get all his stuff back and then convinces the US defense commander to beleive that he is better than Mr. Fantastic and god knows why does the commander always think the fanatastic four are freaks and should be kept out. Anyways, Mr. Fantastic finds out a way to dismantel the Surfer from the source of his incredible power and save the world. Victor Von Doom has different plans which leads to a rather tame ending. And yes the deadly duo, do get married eventualy!

The spoilers are that the film doesnt have enuff action sequences and some twists are too predictable. Also, when I go to a super hero movie, I want the bad guys to be really really bad with no room for compassion for anything and then the super hero should thrash him silly!!it doesnt happen here.Biggest dissapointment is they somehow make the biggest star in the film "JESSICA ALBA" look bad!!! But, the execution of all the sequences are top class. What I love about these films is not the story, its just how the conceptualise things which are impossible in this real world and make them amazingly real in reel. I suggest if you have to see this film, watch it on big screen. Its good fun. Enjoy.