Movie Review: The Avengers..is ‘super’ fun!!

I must admit it. When I first saw the trailers of this multi-superhero, modern-age Justice League, I was pretty skeptical. Considering it had Thor, Captain America, Hulk – whose individual movies have been pretty unimpressive – with Iron Man being the only saving grace, I wasn’t sure what the lot of them could do together that would be any greater. Well..I was wrong

The Avengers is an awesome thrill ride and probably the most fun you can have while watching a superhero movie. Watching this movie tells you exactly what good writing, great dialogues, understanding of individual characters can do. The writing is near-brilliant with more than generous doses of humor thrown in. There are some dialogues that are trite and cheesy but thankfully those are few and far between. In fact, this is one of the few superhero movies that actually focus on dialogues between the characters, builds tension through the conversations/ arguments and makes it an integral part of the presentation

The movie takes its time. The way it builds up you can be sure that the director is in no hurry to get to the end – which works perfectly. The plot is pretty ordinary – typical superhero – end of the world kind of stuff but the presentation is exquisite. This movie makes The Hulk more endearing than the two standalone movies given to him and is probably the only movie that has managed to present The Hulk the right way. The same can be said about the other characters as well

For a change, the 3D is pretty good too and while there is nothing Avatar-esque about it, there’s plenty of flying and shooting about, to give the 3D experience. As far as the acting goes, Robert Downey Jr. takes the cake with amazing screen presence and the extremely charismatic Tony Stark breathes life into the movie. In ‘stark’ contrast though, is Mr. Captain America who even as a superhero seems like a complete misfit and Chris Evans doesn’t manage to lift the character one bit. If there is to be an Avengers 2 (and I dearly hope there would be) then they might want to re-think Captain America’s presence altogether.

While the build up’s good, the climax is even better. A stumbling point for many other superhero movies, the Avengers gets full marks in this department as well. Despite the 3D one can actually follow the action, to the T and there are plenty of thrills to be had before its all over

So all in all, The Avengers might just be the most fun you can have this season, so book your tickets if you haven’t already

Movie Review: Vicky Donor…donates some good laughs

With a name like Vicky Donor and the supposed ‘fame’ it has received over the past week, one would have expected a fresh presentation, with original humor and the audience in splits. For some scenes that is certainly the case and is probably the best reason to catch this flick

The movie takes an unusual premise and spins a nice little story around it at least for the first half. There is genuine humor and you find yourself chuckling and even laughing out loud on more than one occasion. However, its the attempt to take things forward where one begins to lose the plot. The dialogues become far less inspired, the scenes begin to drag and there even comes a point wherein you want to cry out in frustration with ‘a let’s get on with it’..

Post intermission there is again some fun to be had even though this time the jokes are more around stereotypes. Of course, this is a bollywood movie so the usual melodrama is but a rite of passage that must be made. The movie ideally should have been at least 20 mins shorter..that would have made it a real cracker

As far as the acting goes, Ayushmann is quite the revelation in his debut role. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about Yami Gautam so while she looks really pretty throughout the movie, her dialogue delivery leaves much to be desired. In vintage form, is Annu Kapoor playing Dr. Chadha to the tee, typical Punjabi accent included. A refreshing thing is that all the other side characters also have well etched out roles with the modern ‘Dadi’ probably having the best dialogues of the lot.

All in all , the movie isn’t the laugh riot you want it to be but what you get isn’t half bad. There’s a pretty good message that the movie tries to give too so I’d suggest you ‘donate’ your money to a good cause and catch Vicky Donor.

Movie Review: Titanic 3D..offers nothing new

 

15 years ago, James Cameron thrilled us with a spectacle, far ahead of its times. He then promised a glorious tribute – the memorable experience, enhanced in 3D, to mark the centenary of what was known as ‘The Ship of Dreams’….touted to be quite the dream experience. What he ends up offering though, is a re-visiting of the epic classic..but nothing new

Sadly but truly there is very little 3D in the new version of this masterpiece. In the beginning, when the crew is exploring for the titanic, one gets a few glimpses of the 3D experience and gears up for a magnificent scale up with the flashback and the actual journey of the titanic..but that never happens. What you get instead, is a high picture quality 2D movie, all over again with a few scenes that present some visual depth and give some minor effect of 3D. All the talk of awesome scenes when the ship actually breaks..is just that..talk, because most of it comes across as a 2D format only

I am not complaining though. I can say with certainty, that if it was possible to make this version better than it is, Cameron would have made it. The fact of the matter is that there is only so much that could be done with an originally 2D movie, and as much as you will for it to be a truly immersive experience, feeling as if one was part of the ship itself, this is the best that could be managed

However, that said, there’s no reason why you should miss this classic this time round. I’ll put it like this…if you’ve never seen the movie before, then just jump to it without thinking twice. If you’ve seen it earlier but not in the cinema hall, then also there’s every reason that you go and catch this movie because it was really made only for the big screen. But if you saw it earlier also in the movie hall, then you may consider giving it a miss..because you’ve probably already seen it all before.

However, I would still encourage you to go..if only to appreciate the work of a master, as he pays a fitting tribute to an epic disaster