Movie Review : Hellboy 2 - What the hell !!!

Genre : Super Hero
Rating : 3 / 10
My say : Seriously, What the hell?

Dunno where to start. HellBoy, the boy from hell who is now part of the freak platoon bread by the US government to fight the paranormal, the weird, the absurd....

So we are given this hero from Hell called "RED" who craves of being known, of being loved by the people he protects. His wife is Pyro girl who is pregnant and hiding this condition from him. His sidekick is an amphibian called "BLUE", the brainy guy who gets kicked before being saved by the hero. And then there is a Gas Ball - who is the cliched fun element.

Our team of freaks are out to save the world by preventing the villian from letting lose the indestructible GOLDEN ARMY. If they dont do this, the Golden Army would destroy, eliminate humanity.... yawnnn...

And then you see a sequence of lame action sequences and jokes. The director probably thinks that special effects, weird creatures are enough to make a hit. Sorry buddy, no ways.... It seems as though they had this year long session on making weird creatures and forgot about the story, so used all the weridos they had designed! After a while , you can't help but say "WHAT THE HELL"???

Movie Review: The Dark Knight - Intense but lenghty

Rating: 6.5 / 10

I would have given it an even better rating if the lenght would be around 15 minutes less. The movie is too intense and too serious to keep you gripped for 2 hours and 30 minutes. When there is so much tension in the air, you need respite, which you get from songs in Hindi movies, but in Batman, you have no such room to breathe. At some point you feel that you have had your fill, but then there is too much on the platter.

The Batman enterprise , reprised by Christopher Nolan, has truly transformed it from its Comical past ( POW, SWISH days) to an almost unbelievably brutal and realistic present. The Joker is not the wicked laughing prankster of the past. He has become a psychopathic, killer with no remorse. He kills, because he enjoys it. He is a terrorist, who has no rules, no boundaries, no reason. And our Batman, is a confused man. He wants to remove the burden of being the Knight in shining armour. He wants to give it to a man with a face ( District Attorney). He has complete faith in the new DA to put the criminals in the cell, and clense Gotham once and for all and he does not dissapoint. Just when our hero decides its time to put in his papers!! Joker strikes... And nothing would be the same, anymore....

Nolan has done an exceptional job in building the momentum in the action sequences. Rather than using a lot of noise, he has used silence. The editing in this film is phenomenal. Complex, but very well done. The gadgets, the acting is par excellance and will keep you gasping for more in a few sequences. But its too lenghty. I was losing my patience in between. There are too many plots and twists and the movie keeps going on and on. The momentum that it gathers before the interval, is not maintained post it. The slick editing does help it though....

Finally , hats off to Heath Ledger. What an awesome performance. You would simply love his performance, be it the maniacal laugh to the one liners like "Why so serious?" "Lets put a smile on that face"... 3 cheers....

Go for it, because you will get more than you pay for,, but maybe slightly a little more than you would want or need or desire.....

Movie Review : HANCOCK - Wasted opportunity...

RATING: 4 /10

Normally, I wudnt dare write a review, when Priti ji has already written one (her review). But I have made an exception because I had to say something about this movie. It has made enormous first week collections, but I think things would start going down hill from the next week onwards, cos quiet frankly this movie doesnt work. You would probably come out of the theater wondering how the hell could a director let the movie go so wayyyyy out of hand!

What an amazing plot... A detested super hero.. A Drunkard, egotistical, destructive super-hero, who saves a life of a PR agent, who in turn helps our hero improve his social image. So far so good. But then there is a twist in the story, which makes you feel, the movie is gonna go up a few notches post interval. Unfortunately, it drops to level zero.. Infact, it crash lands...

I have to try really really hard to understand in what hour of utter insanity, did the story writer come up with such a dreadful twist in the storyline! Doesnt work bro! Aboslutely not... Infact it does not even make sense.

Technically, visually the movie is amazing. Will Smith revels as John Hancock and Charlize Theron sizzles on screen. Some dialogues and the comedy in the first half is good. But the main villian of this film is its story! Also, there is no novelty left in the character after this film, so I dont see how this franchise could have a sequel. Its better if we just leave this experiment as a hopeless one and move to better things .. Like the Dark Knight or HULK and Iron man coming together! I specially am hard on this movie because it had enormous potential, with such an amazing character at hand, but they completely goofed it up!

Iron Man - A decent start

Genre : Super Hero
Rating : 6/10

I went to this movie with inflated expectations, bouyed by the rave reviews everywhere. Yes, I also go through some stuff sometimes...

First the good stuff... The strongest part of this film, is the cutting edge technology. To even think of such advanced technology is extraordinary. You cannot get sci-fi more realistic than this. Hollywood has almost perfected their use of some mind boggling graphics and it completely keeps u mesmerised. What makes it really unbelievable is thats its so believable!!! Also, Robert Downey Jr. has come up with a really strong performance. His potrayal of a brash, super intelligent scientist, who turns into a savior is one of the plus points for this film. One more plus point is that IRON MAN is no freak of nature, he is just a scientist who through his inventions becomes the superhero.

But apart from this, I thought it was just an ALRITE superhero movie. This is the first movie of this extremely promising series, hence some time has been spent on the build up. So it takes some time to get started. But even when it is flowing there are really no big surprises as far as the story is concerned. Its extremely predictable. Its caught somewhere between Batman Begins and Spiderman. Batman begins comes closest to this movie, but Batman had a very strong story to back up the technological gimmickry. It tries the emotional touch of Spiderman, but fails there aswell... It doesnt falter as much as a SPIDERMAN returns, but it has its drawbacks. The villian track is really weak and it takes AFGHAN covert terrorist groups to be utter nitwits. It even makes all the scientists in the US, apart from the hero look like utter idiots.. You have to see the movie to believe me, because I dont want to give away the story. The love interest track with Gwyneth Paltrow is also boring.

OK, as just a timepass , comic book superhero caper, this is above average. So I sure think you should go ahead and watch it... For the amazing display of cutting edge technology, if nothing else.... This movie lifts the expectations for the next few IRON MAN movies, but if I have to judge this film alone, I would say I have seen much better superhero films..

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.