Ra.One - Review

Ra.One - "A Bollywood superhero flick with a lot of promise and an excellent first half, got bogged down by too much song & dance, masala and a lackluster story in the second half. But after Endhiran, this is the best special effects I have seen in an Indian movie. And for that reason alone, worth a watch at the theater"

When you decide to watch a superhero flick, there are certain things that should be left at the door. The first one being Logic. We watch these movies to have a good time, for a few laughs and some dramatic action sequences. To a large extend all these rules apply to Ra.One as well. Shahrukh Khan plays Shekar Subramaniam, a video game developer in London, who has a young son Prateek (played by Arman Verma) and tried to live up to his son's expectations of a bad ass game. His son tells him that Villains are cool and that his father should create the toughest super villain in the world. And thus from this wish comes Ra.One (a pseudonym for Raavan). As expected things go out of hand, and Ra.One comes into the real world and creates havoc. It's actually a good premise for a superhero movie, a super villain that's next to impossible to destroy and the hero, G.One created with all the good in Shekar's heart to vanquish him.

I tried imagining the movie without the song & dance routines that showed up every 10 to 15 minutes or so. The movie would have been 2 hours long at the maximum, they might have been able to keep the audience attention for that long and the shoddy ending may have been glossed over and to say make a hindi movie without the songs is not unheard of today. The second half of the movie adds not even half as much to the movie as the first half and as expected Kareena Kapoor is the movie as eye candy and to play the damsel in distress and does not really contribute much to the story, but then to do her justice, it's really a father and son story with G.One taking the place of Prateek's dad.

All in all not a great movie. It's just timepass and a good action & adventure movie.

My Rating: 3 on 5.

Rahul.

Real Steel - Movie Review

REAL STEEL - "It's a feel good movie that provides a couple of hours of laughs and entertainment. Hey, Robot Boxing is action packed fun!"


Sometime in the near future, boxing goes out of style and Robot Boxing is the name of the game. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is a former boxer who now fights in the ring using the robots, but times have changed and he can't really keep up. After a fight he is approached by some guys who tell him that his ex-girlfriend has died and certain things happen that his son Max Kenton (Dakota Gayo) comes to live with him and travel on the road as he fights this robots. Along the way they find ATOM a robot in a junkyard and they brush him up for the ring.

The movie is really a father-son story of endearment and a little guy taking on the the big guns kind of story. Dakota Gayo puts in a really wonderful performance as Max Kenton, that really makes you connect with the character and cheer the robot along. Hugh Jackman's chemistry with him really is what makes the movie worth a watch.

 The only real reason to watch the movie on the big screen is the Robots, the boxing matches were actually a lot of fun. I'd give the movie an average rating of about 3 on 5.

Rahul

The Lion King - Not Really a Review

The Lion King 3D (2011) - "It's interesting how a movie re-launched 17 years after is was first released tops the box office and is still as entertaining as ever. It's a wonderful family movie, kids will love it & 20 somethings that saw the movie as kids may find the movie nostalgic."


It's funny that we actually decided to go watch the Lion King at the theater. The TV has been filled with advertisements on it's DVD re-launch and I guess it was more of just a funny yearning to watch the movie again after all these years. 3D was just a good excuse to watch it again. We walk into the theater and there was one couple other than us there, every other family that was there were with kids. But hey I enjoyed the movie just as much as the rest of them.

But this is the real question, should the movie studios really consider re-launching some of the classics that did well in the past, Maybe digitally re-master some of them or maybe just even re-release them. Or was the only reason The Lion King did well was because it was targeted at children for whom The Lion King is a brand new experience and they would have ensured their parents take them for the movie. If some classic movies (not gonna list them) are released, I may actually go to the theater to watch them. Think about this, before the Star Wars prequels came out, the original 3 movies were re-mastered and re-released and were watched by quite a few people. I guess if there is already a definite fan following, it's without much risk.

Coming back to The Lion King, the first time I saw it, I must have been 10 years old. I remembered some funny things while watching the movie this time. Aposter I had in my bedroom, the Hakunamatta t-shirt I had & the really addictive music in the movie. The sound track of The Lion King is foot tapping good. It's uplifting and makes you smile.

Hey this is not a movie am going to recommending watching to anyone, that'll be silly. Watch it if you really want to, it is what it is, it's fun for an hour and half. No strong performances, just good ol' morals & fun.

I think it be unfair for me to rate this movie considering am not really the target audience. So am going give the movie 2 ratings. One that I normally give, and one that I think a child might give. :)

My Rating: 3 on 5
If I was still a kid: 4.5 on 5

Rahul.

THE DEBT - Review

THE DEBT - Every Secret Comes with a price.  - "A gritty fast paced movie, with excellent chemistry between the characters. Definitely worth a watch."


The movie set in two time lines. One in late 90's in Israel and the other in the 60's in East Berlin. It's about 3 Mossad agents, Rachel Singer, David Peretz and Stefan Gould who have been  sent to east Berlin to extract a Nazi war criminal, Dieter Vogel (The Surgeon of Birkenau) who is accused of crimes against the Jews. They want to bring him back to Israel to stand trial for his crimes.

In the late 90's the 3 of them are heroes in their country and Rachel's daughter has written a book chronicling their bravery in East Berlin. But as the story of their bravery is being chronicled you start to realize that the story that the 3 of them have told the world of what happened 30 years ago in Germany may not be the entire truth and the ghosts of their pasts have come to haunt their present.

The character of Rachel Singer portrayed by Helen Mirren & Jessica Chastain, is at the core of the story, being the link between all four characters in that operation in 1966. What ties the two ladies together is the scar on their faces. Faces that tell so much of the story. One with a world of possibilities ahead and the other burdened with the horrors of what happened in the past.

It's quite a long movie, but you don't feel bored at any point during the story. I would definitely recommend this movie for anyone who wants to watch a good story and be entertained.

My Rating: 4 on 5.

Rahul.

For such a good movie, this was one of the stranger ones I've seen in the theater. Just 4 people in the entire theater and half way though, the other couple left (I guess it was getting late for them).

Captain America - The First Avenger - Review

Captain America - "It's what you expect from the movie. It's a lead up to the Avengers movie. But on it's own it's just a good action movie and nothing more."


This movie begins with a bunch of scientists finding the frozen red, white & blue shield under ice. (For the uninitiated, The Avengers are Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor and many others. The premise of the  Avengers is that the Captain was frozen for a number of years before he was found by the Avengers whom he joins to become of the Avengers). Now that we got done with bringing the Captain into current day Marvel myth, the movie can concentrate on telling his story.

Set in 1942 during WWII, the movie introduces "Hydra" the technological & supernatural arm of the Nazi war machine. The movie shows Hydra branch out and try and dominate the world on their own. Steve Rogers is a puny young guy who stands up from himself no matter what. He wants to enlist to fight for his country but has got every known condition known to man. After trying multiple times and being rejected, he gets an opportunity to become the first super soldier. A new breed. But as you will eventually realize, he's the only one who becomes a super soldier, before everything goes crazy. The movie also introduces Howard Stark, Iron Man's dad, who plays a major role in creating Captain America.

For superhero nuts like me, the movie was good fun (better than Thor atleast). This movie is 3 on 5.

But here's my ranking, for some of the superhero movies made in the Marvel Franchise thus far.

Only Marvel Superheros (Batman is miles ahead in the entire list)
1. X-Men First Class
2. The other X-Men movies
3. Spider-man
4. The Incredible Hulk (the second version with Edward Norton, not the first one)
5. Iron Man (part 2 was better than 1, and Robert Downey's version of the character is cool)
6. Captain America
7. Thor (having a tough time deciding the bottom two, they are both awful)
8. The Fantastic Four (they were watchable only for the special effects and nothing more)

Rahul.

Delhi Belly - Review

Delhi Belly - "Laugh out loud funny. A crazy comedy, when they say S#!T HAPPENS.. they mean it. Throughly enjoyable... A must watch if you can handle the S#!T"


Aamir Khan productions. I've started getting my expectations up when I see a movie with this banner on it. It's a bit dangerous to get your hopes up on one production house. It's been putting out some really good movies. When I first saw the trailer for Delhi Belly a couple of months back, I was not very interested to watch it. It seemed too dumb. I really couldn't make out what it was about. And yesterday, all I saw was one sentence "Shit Happens & it's funny" I decided to go watch the movie. Damn it was good.

I've not seen a Bollywood English movie that's been this good for a long time. Imran Khan plays a journalist who lives with his roommates Vir Das a cartoonist and Kunaal Roy Kapur a photographer. The movie is Imran's best performance to date.

About two minutes after the movie starts, you hear everyone around you breakout into laughs and you don't really stop till Aamir's item number before the credits roll. It takes a lot of the stupid cliches in hindi movies and takes it over the top. I'd say if you are open to a movie with foul language and insanely funny laughs go watch Delhi Belly.

I'd give it 4.5 on 5.

Rahul.