Pirates of the Caribbean fest!

Yes, I am a sucker for everything that falls under Hollywood blockbuster category. Sure enough, its feasting time with yet another comeback of a stupendously successful franchise. A franchise that somehow eluded my watching resume for one reason or another. But with time finally on hand, I made it a point to finally watch this Disney extravaganza back to back (regardless of the fact that the first movie was a downright pain). And this is what I think of them.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003): **

Let’s get this straight at the very start–this movie is a bore and a big, fat one at that. And for me this is all that matters. All the creative intelligence and technical wizardry be rubbished, if its a story not well told, a story that fails to elicit any response, then for me that film just isn’t worth watching. And this first Pirates movie is just that. Gore Verbinski just isn’t able to infuse any life into the characters. Yes, he’s crippled by a plot that’s way too complex for its own good but given that this is supposed to be an intro to the world of supernatural Caribbean piracy and an English Royal family, the setting just doesn’t have enough build-up or interactions to be convincing.

The action starts head-on with a pirate called Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) arriving at the Jamaican port, incidentally rescuing governor’s daughter Elizabeth (Keira Knightley) who has two secret admirers– the local blacksmith (Orlando Bloom) and Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport). An argument or so later with Commodore, Jack’s put away in the gallows as the port is invaded by a ghost ship called Black Pearl. Now Black Pearl is a vessel crewed by a huge bunch of “undead” hoodlums who are apparently under this weird curse of remaining undead until every single gold medallion is returned to a chest they stole and spent from years back. That and a small blood sacrifice from every thief. Now the twist in the tale is that while abducting and looting the port, they capture Elizabeth (who has that last medallion they need thanks to a chance encounter she had with Orlando Bloom when the latter was found stranded at sea. Bloom’s father, Bootstrap, was one of the pirates who, angered by his crew’s disobedience to the cursed treasure, posted the medallion to his son back then). And then there is another thread of Jack Sparrow also being the captain of the Black Pearl who was mutinied back then and marooned on an island.

Believe me, there’s nothing more unexciting an exercise than sitting for a good two and a half hours only to get answers to questions like “Is the curse finally broken?”, “Does Jack Sparrow get his due?”, “Do Elizabeth and the blacksmith get together?”. For the only question that really matters is “Do I care?”. And I really don’t. The undead pirates might as well have skinned Elizabeth alive and burnt the blacksmith at stake and probably that would have stopped my head from bobbing with sleep.

One look at the length and clearly Disney’s tried their hand at creating their own LOTR. But one really wonders where all the production money really went. For alongwith bland direction of a convoluted story, the film is far from breaking any ground in terms of shot-taking, cinematography, acoustics, action or even dialogues. The swordfights are unforgivably repetitive and absolutely unimaginative. And to talk about how the people in this film talk would probably even make Virginia Woolf wince in her grave. From the first to the last scene, everyone is vexed, peeved, miffed–I mean its really tiring to see the actors go through the motions of fighting and pouting some gibberish about rum and cursed coins with a single expression. Oh, and it all ends the Bollywood way. That and there’s something disastrously wrong with Keira Knigtley’s teeth which makes her more of a scathing witch than the petite princess she ought to be.

So, in this whole fake dark cloud, thankfully the silver linings just about refrain you from breaking the DVD in two. Johnny Depp for once. The guy is an absolute riot as the flamboyant (read almost feminine) and smooth-talking pirate. That is, until he’s painted with the same pale colour that most of the film’s coloured in. Him and the one scene where Elizabeth drops off the edge of a castle into the sea thanks to her overtly tight corset just as the Commodore Norrington is proposing to her are very funny. Sadly, the film isn’t. Infact I don’t even know what this film is. There simply isn’t a sense of surprise, dread, menace, urgency or anything.

Power to all of you who love this tripe and have made it a blockbuster that it is. For me it just didn’t work.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006):***

Ah! Now this is more like it. Its almost as if one fine day a child discovers that the showpieces in his living room are indeed the best toys. Yes, Verbinski and his team finally have some fun with the savourless characters that populated the dead-beet of a first film. Much to my relief and everyone’s mirth. Forget the sequel curse, this is a boon on the lines of Shrek 2 and Spiderman 2. Almost everyone get their act straight and finally are up for some play.

Though, for some bizarre reason, the script and the screenplay writers are still way too uptight about doing away with the unnecessarily numerous subplots which means the film is still awkwardly dense and long. The only respite being the fact that it is this way only sometimes.

Elizabeth and Will Turner are arrested by the new Lord from the East India company on the day of their wedding for aiding in the rescue of a pirate like Jack Sparrow from his execution (picking up where the last film left off). A deal is struck to abate the discomfort if Will is able to bring Jack’s “broken” compass.

Meanwhile Jack has an old debt to settle with another legendary captain (Davy Jones) of yet another ghostly ship (Flying Dutchman) for reviving Jack’s Black Pearl. The captain has his heart stowed away in a remote island in a chest (the same one that gives the film its title) and Jack must find a key to that. And then there’s also a thread about Will Turner’s father, Bootstrap, meeting again with his son Will. And even Elizabeth is ready to take some matters in her own hands if she wants to rescue Will. And so abounds another epic of alliances, duels, secrets, curses, chases and swordfights.

Yes, its way too complicated for its own good but somehow everyone’s in a lighter mood and it more or less ends up pieced almost together by the time the end credits roll.

Just like her blouses which have a newfound depth, Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth’s swashbuckling incarnate is pure eye candy. To see the lady do more than drape herself in bustle-n-crinoline skirts and exaggerated sleeves is quite a pretty sight and thankfully she’s used the right dental floss (pardon the sudden change in my critique of the girl’s aesthetic anatomy but this is supposed to be a follow-up comment from the review of POTC 1). Her scenes with Depp’s Jack Sparrow are crackling with a visible chemistry and thankfully, there is enough screentime given to the main characters alongwith her to finally bother you with what’s happening to them.

Johnny Depp is an absolute hoot as Captain Jack Sparrow. He has the best lines and he has them all through. All the comic sequences are written around him and they become ten times funnier with Jack’s drunken gait and his now inimitable verbal gymnastics. Be it the time when he’s enjoying every bit of the reverance from a superstitous tribe (or when he’s running from them), or when he’s in a three-way duel with Will and Norrington or just generally uttering lines like “Oh bugger”, he’s just howlarious. And you know you root for him just a moment before he’s about to enter the mouth of a giant octopus-like sea creature called Kraken shouting “Hello, beastie”. If at all this movie is remembered ten years from now, it’ll be for Depp’s no-holds-barred spirited performance.

Orlando Bloom does the stereotypical hunk act with elan and understatement. Which leaves me a bit clueless on the ubiquitous Orlando-bashing. Two other things which the makers get right this time around is dialogue and SFX. There’s humour galore and the special effects are in the league of King Kong (sometimes, even suspiciously inspired–esp the tribal scenes and the giant Kraken’s mouth). Though the menacing Flying Dutchman and its barnacled, tentacled crew really are originals, and quite excellent ones at that. Hans Zimmer’s score finally makes its presence felt too and just as a compliment to some breathtaking cinematography, the opening scene where we see a drenched bridal Elizabeth sitting amidst a courtyard full of dining tables, chairs, cups, saucers which are getting carelessly splattered by rain is haunting.

There are still elements which just don’t quite sit comfortably together (you still don’t know how seriously to take the characters in this utter tosh for Verbinski’s handling of drama still remains quite bland and archaic). So there’s none of that freewheeling epic feel that Lord of the Rings has but at Disney they are hellbent on proving otherwise. They are successful to some extent in this grandiose sequel which has had me intrigued what the final film in the trilogy will have on offer next year.

But till then, you can have a bite at this enjoyable fare which has enough wham-bam, physical slapstick and self-deprecating one-liners to see you through the sometimes dragging plot.

Back to more film-watching 2006 (5)

Yes, I am back to what I do on this blog. Reviewing movies. For a change, all three movies below were experimental, fresh in one way or the other and each one of these had a powerhouse performance by a female artiste.

Garden State (2004): ****

I can’t remember the last time I did not cringe when one of the lovers went through a heart change towards the climax and finally did the inevitable kiss as the credits waited to roll. One of those generic things that’s written in stone as a formula for the perfect romcom, in Garden State, it comes across so convincingly that it leaves you all warm and fuzzy. And that’s because the film does what is actually quite a rare sight- capturing every moment of companionship with absolute honesty. No matter how flawed and over-written it remains in places, its the masterful romance at the film’s heart that haunts you long after the film’s over. Chronicling the life of a troubled twentysomething TV actor in LA, who comes home to Garden State for his mother’s funeral, the movie follows him as he meets up with his acquaintances and chances upon the quirky girl-next-door Sam while waiting outside a neurologist’s clinic. Funnily enough, Sam’s a motormouth with a gift to lie for no apparent reason. How slowly their relationship blossoms and their realisation of how right they are for each other is the stuff great romances are made of. Replace great with real-life in the last sentence and you’ll know the inspiration for all my ga-ga over this movie.Garden State wouldn’t be anywhere as good as it is had Natalie Portman, Zach Braff and Peter Sarsgaard didn’t perform the way they have. Portman is an actress to behold. Seldom do you get to see such self-aware characters played so uninhibitedly that they become a real blast to watch. Quoting her one line which really hit home with me bigtime: “OK, so… so… sometimes I lie. I mean, I’m weird, man. About random stuff too, I don’t even know why I do it. It’s like… it’s like a tick, I mean sometimes I hear myself say something and think, Wow, that wasn’t even remotely true”. And the character’s always mouthing such refreshingly real lines, and you just can’t help but fall in love with Sam. When she’s not busy lying or accusing herself of ruining some moment or wondering if Braff’s character is totally freaked out with her, she’s doing this cute and weird stuff like standing all of a sudden in her room and do these funny actions and noises (according to her, she’s creating an “original moment”). And though Sam looks forward to a good cry by laughing more on the life’s ironies, you secretly wish that she doesn’t. I can’t remember the last time (yes, this is the second time I am saying this in a review) I have cared so much for a character.

And then there’s the little master Zach Braff, who trebles here as the actor, writer and director. And for someone who’s accustomed to his over-the-top slapstick in Scrubs, his underplay in Garden State is genuinely surprising. Nonetheless, it is this very subtlity that lends immense poignance and dignity to the film’s energy. Cossetted inside the quitely troubled Andrew Largeman, the protagonist, its a performance standing on meaningful glances and commonplace lines delivered the way only a collected, deeply perceptive actor can manage. The film’s pure magic when he’s sharing the space with Portman’s Sam and their heart-to-hearts are so spontaneous and bereft of cheese, you practically wince in your couch the time when Braff decides to sort his life out and leaves Portman stranded on the airport (and no this isn’t the end).

As a second lead, Peter Sarsgaard, like a true blue thesp at his craft, manages to do his badmouthing, soft-hearted chum routine with a charm and deadpan style that’s sure to make you grin. His part is a tad over-written in the initial reels with scenes like Braff’s meeting with his old buddies stretched for no reason (or so it appears on the first viewing), but still in such a charming film, these are minor glitches you learn to like on subsequent viewings. Likewise Braff’s relationship with his psychologist cum dad doesn’t really strike the right note (that, or because its such a dysfunctional one that the lack of any seeking-out-to-each-other is deliberate).

The word note reminds me of the film’s fantabulous soundtrack that’s choc-a-block with one lilting pop ditty on another. Braff’s cherry picked some of the most moving and lyrically sound contemporary tracks and tunes and used them to splendid effect.

On the whole, even though people like to remember Garden State as a superb chronicle of a twentysomething’s angst, for me its a cheerful little tale of how uplifting true love can be. Sunshine stuff!

Closer (2004): ***

The Graduate’s director makes a comeback with this decidedly pessimistic whine-a-thon on relationships in the new millenium. By the end of it all, two of the four lead people have cheated on their partners, one of them has manipulated his partner back with him and the remaining one is revealed to have gone through the whole drama of being loved and dumped under a pseudonym. Save for two-three minor scenes, the film’s obsessed with amplifying the worst in every character which does make for an occasional uncomfortable (but interesting) viewing.

A minor road-accident acts as a starting point for a London-based obituary writer Dan (Jude Law) and an American stripper Alice (Natalie Portman). The dormant writer in Dan finally finds in Alice a muse for his first book. One year on–they are a couple but Dan starts to randomly flirt and then have a serious affair with Anna (Julia Roberts), his photographer. In some weird mindframe, an year later, Dan enters a cybersex chatroom pretending to be this hot babe called Anna, making a doc (Clive Owen) literally wet in his pants (yea, I know you got it) and alluring him into meeting at the London Aquarium. Little realising that he played the perfect cupid for the doc (Larry) and the real Anna. Anna and Larry become a couple, but not without Anna secretly dating Dan. The scene is set for some serious, expletive-filled showdowns. And the spoils are for everyone to live with.

In this cyber age when we are bombarded with people ready for a no-strings-attached physical relationships and one night stands, monogamy does seem a suffocating concept. To add to the fun, there’s always the one-look-and-you-are-wiped-off-your-feet kind of infatuation which, married or otherwise, just has to be answered to. So how the hell does one expect an institution like marriage to work? Its a brave statement to make, but Closer’s gung-ho about forcing this bitter syrup down your throat.

The characters are quite a mixed bag with Natalie Portman’s Alice having to do with the clunkiest of lines and a love-story with Jude Law’s Dan that even at its lightest moments feel rehearsed (which makes it quite a pain to sit through the time when they cry, scream and pout dialogues like “you don’t love me”). To give credit where its due, Portman does make a credible stripper and her interaction with Owen at the strip club is quite a sight. The true stars of the enterprise however are Clive Owen and Julia Roberts. Owen’s totally convincing as the self-confessed hypersexual Larry whose first concern when her wife reveals her extra-marital affair is whether the guy she’s dating is a good f*ck. This very scene where the husband and wife spit venom on each other is one of the best confrontational sequences I have seen in a film. Julia Roberts, as the depressive, confused wife Anna gives the film the only bit of warmth it has.

Its hard to take in anything positive from a film that resolves itself as cynically as Closer does. But in a weird reverse-psychologically-kind-of way watching so much going wrong does bore in two-or three things one ought to do right when in a relationship. Its also not a film that everyone’d easily take to (my friend who watched this with me halfway through pleaded me to see the DVD on my laptop and free up his TV) so watch this at your own risk.

PS: On a sidenote, I had always found the film’s publicity design to be quite something. After watching the movie I realised how misleading all that serenity and whiteness really was. The tagline “if you believe in love at first sight, you never stop looking” still manages to sum up one of the themes succinctly though.
Hard Candy (2006): ***

I have lost count of the number of times I have found myself flipping through the newspaper pages, coming across some headline on the lines of “paedophile filming young girls jailed for 13 1/2 years” and then thinking out loud “these b*stards should all be made to stand in a line and have their balls slashed off”. And here is a film that goes straight after the balls of one such sexually depraved character. Yes, you can’t get more direct and literal than Hard Candy (web-slang term for an underage girl) which tells the story of a14 year old girl out on a daredevil mission to teach a fashion photographer cum web-chatting paedophile the lesson of his life by castrating him with a pack of ice (as local anaesthesia for the genitalia), some sharp instruments, cotton bandage and her untrained hands. The whys and the hows of this girl’s actions never quite filter through convincingly (read this as “are not bothered to explain”) which means that within 30 minutes she descends from an unusually brave girl to a sociopath in your eyes, and there really does come a point when you are forced to think where exactly your loyalties lie. With this horrendously sicko teenager or the now-suffering paedophile. Just for this intelligent and seldom used style of manipulation, Hard Candy deserves a pat.

This, plus the fact that its made with such queasily close shots of characters (more like demons) and some amazingly unpredictable sequences–you’ll wince and twitch to the point of even wondering why you spent your money on the ticket. As a debut work by a music video director, a hell lot of suggestive imagery and sounds are used to mess up with your mind and one look at the performances by the leading two actors and you know this man is talented. The actors playing the two principal characters (Ellen Page and Patrick Wilson) might be lesser known, but deliver gut-wrenchingly real and nuanced performances. The camera loves them to the point of never leaving their visages for a single second and despite that, the experience of watching these two monsters interact for a good two hours is quite overwhelming. More than half of film’s tension and unpredictability is thanks to Page’s ability to do a split-second whirlwind in her voice and expressions. And Wilson’s character graph is so masterfully done up that you’ll be finding yourself changing your opinion more than once every thirty minutes. Kudos to this actor for bringing up every single layer of his character’s vulnerability and deception to the surface. Add to all this the crackling dialogues throughout.

And yet, its not quite the ultimate movie as somewhere down the lane you realise that its actually too much of the same thing after a good one hour. Its different and its shocking yes, but the second half and the climax do a grave disservice to Wilson’s character. His giving in to Page’s threats about exposing him to his girlfriend is a tad quick and quite out-of-sync with his ultra-cautious and hideous nature. The castration scene is one brilliant sequence alright but there’s a twist immediately after that which kind of ruined it a bit for me. And as there really never was any buildup plus the attempt to explain the motivation for such extreme action by Page’s character isn’t convincing enough, after a point of time you detach quite easily from the characters. Which is always a bad thing.

Still, give it a try if you are hunting for something experimental and uncomfortable with some sensational acting.

Until my next batch of reviews, ciao!

Krrish : Movie Review

Krrish: **

One sole reason why I have stopped watching anything that Sanjay Gupta (Kaante, Khauff, Musafr,Zinda) dishes out is because its all blatantly ripped off Hollywood and makes a pretension for being not so by wrapping it all up with swanky music videos. Rakesh Roshan has now entered the very same frame of film-making where chunks of contemporary Hollywood blockbusters get dumbed down and concocted with absolutely nerve-grating 80s style B-grade over-the-top melodrama. But projecting it as a kiddie fare, he’d again rake in probably triple the amount of moolah he did 3 years back with Koi Mil Gaya. And then make another sequel, that’s a concoction of few more Hollywood films dumbed down. And that’s what essentially Bollywood’s come to. What hurts me even more is that the parts of Krrish that can’t be classified under plagiarism are either braindead, or yawningly predictable or so badly directed and so over-acted that one seriously doubts if Mr Roshan’s completely lost it. Yes, the very same film-maker who gave us well-directed, over-the-top but imminently watchable Khudgarz, Kala Bazaar, and Khoon Bhari Maang takes three years to make this outlandish curry of a film, which ends up tasting of nothing at all.

Case in point the film’s first half. Filled to the brim with generic, implausible Bollywood sequences, not a single one of these catches you by surprise. All the characters mouth typical Bollywood lines, do the usual expressions and you can even predict what background score will play at what time. The same silly manipulation and melodrama that keeps the saas-bahu serials TRPs stable for years–its all here, for us to bear. And by us I mean anyone who’s grown out of it. If you are still of an age running in single digits or still discovering Bollywood or suffer from amnesia or oblivious to the fact that Hollywood exists, you probably would lap this all up and deem it as the next big step in Indian cinema’s new age evolution. An opinion that, I, for my rather unfortunate visits down the local DVD library, can’t hold.

Nor can I rate Krrish higher just to applaud Mr Roshan’s effort to make India’s first superhero. Because our heroes never were anything less than superheroes. Pick up any action flick starring anyone from BigB to Mithun to Sunny Deol–they could bash up, fly, leap, jump and still manage to do cross-city runs after trains in film after film after film. So please stop this empty talk of Krrish taking Bollywood to new levels of film-making. This is old Indian wine in a rusty old barrel pasted with a new label that’s translated word-to-word from a Californian wine bottle.

Any redeeming aspects for me then? Well the SFX isn’t quite as bad or as overdone as I had thought they’d be, the toned-down Minority Report interface (added with some bizarre heart-beat scans as passwords–what the hell was that!) and conflict are palpable and Roshan Jr’s physique and agility does lend a streak of believability to almost every Matrix meets House of Flying Daggers scene. He does perform like there’s no tomorrow but its all quite a waste as all he’s really doing from the first to the last frame is trying to infuse life into horrendously written scenes and dialogues. What pains me more is that he’s one of those rare dynamic actors who are capable of giving immense depth to even the most silent scenes (watch Fiza and Lakshya) but all we get to see him do after 2 years of on-screen sabbatical is a circus routine and loud theatrics. If Johars and Chopras brought about the demise of the performer in Shahrukh, rest assured Hrithik’s creative stab will be from within his home.

The rest of the cast goes about the motions mechanically (yes, Rekha and Naseeruddin Shah are asked to do the weepy granny and evil scientist routine to the last cliche, and both of them oblige) but the one who really deserves a mention in every Krrish review is Priyanka Chopra. The mademoiselle manages to fake her way through every scene she’s in and bore us to death in the process. Granted, its a stinking Bollywood-dame routine with strikingly sudden heart changes, but there’s something called an actor’s instinct. Maybe too much to ask from an erstwhile beauty queen but didn’t anyone see the rushes or what! She really amplifies Krrish’s mediocrity as a film, and her scenes with Hrithik could really give you a frostbite. Move over Celina Jaitley, the new ice maiden is here. The soundtrack’s filled with nice vocals but the tunes are ancient. Maybe to accentuate the pretence of small-town Krrish, the songs are the way they are but for someone who couldn’t take the movie, the ditties are going to bring up all the bad memories of watching them on-screen.

As I said earlier, if masala Bollywood potboilers still set your heart racing, you’ll be in for a treat. I had to gulp down two ibuprofens to get over the headache of this three hour long ordeal.

X-Men Fest!

Finally, a new year resolution I was able to stick to (yes, if resolutions are about having fun, following them is a cakewalk). Amidst the utter chaos and exams, I managed to shell out some time for one of the most popular science fiction movie franchise–The X-Men. And boy, did I have a blast or what! Have tried to pack in a lot in one post but couldn’t help falling for such excellent characters. Yes, I am carried away and if you are ready for some fanship-level indulgence, then Go on… read my gush-a-thon!

X-Men (2000): ****

As an introduction to the homo superior aka mutants, the film rolls off on a rather sombre note as the camera captures a young Polish boy separated from his mother in a Nazi concentration camp. As the boy shouts and stretches for his mother who’s dragged away on the other side of an barbed gate, the gate starts to twist and bend in the direction of boy’s outstretched hand. Conveying the undercurrent of the whole series–discrimination and its repurcussions-couldn’t have been done more effectively.

Cut to the not to distant future and we are introduced to the principals of two mutant groups. One who believes in amiable discussions with humans for social acceptance (Prof X) and the other, who besides not believing in fitting-in with the inferior homo sapiens has a masterplan–to turn every human into a mutant (mutants being the evolution’s answer for gen-next species)–and he’d rather do it with a lot of noise. That’s Magneto for you. Yes, the very same Polish guy who had been victimised as a child in the Nazi world, is out to rewrite history by getting rid of all the discrimination–turning all humans to mutants. Even as a Senator fights in the White House to pass the bill of getting rid of all the mutants.

As the lines are slowly drawn, we are introduced to some brilliantly imagined characters like Rogue (a girl capable of sucking the life-force of anyone she kisses) who then goes on to meet Wolverine (who possesses an adamantium skeleton with inter-knuckle claws that pop out at the mere hint of rage and is almost immortal with his self-healing power), Storm (capable of changing the serenest of skies into a lightning and thunder-filled mess) and Cyclops (a hunk forced to wear goggles to stop the destructive optic blasts from his eyes)

The terrorist side is a little less populated but far more interesting with an aphrodisiacally sensuous blue-skinned diva called Mystique, a growling Sabretooth and a reptilian Toad.

X-men is one helluva joyride thanks to the fights and interactions between all these characters and the two bosses (one super-telepathic and the other a super-magnet). What makes it memorable is how cleverly its edited to be this crisp and smooth thriller that has shockers at every 10 minutes and sequences that tread a very unconventional path all through. You think you can guess how the scene will end but it just won’t. Characters you like will be stabbed, the old hags don’t just do the know-it-all wisdom act but can be horrifyingly testosterone filled and the breakneck pace it all moves in, despite knowing that Mystique can actually morph into anyone, you get surprised everytime she morphs back into her own sleek blue-body-yellow-eyed creature from nowhere.

The menace is unforgiving, the conflict viscerally charging and to top it all–the special effects are some of the sleekest work I have seen from any studio. Sequences like Logan’s raw opening cage-fight, the Senator turned a mutant and then finally melting into absolute water on the operating table, the Toad’s squashing spree, Magneto’s seizing of police’s guns just by flicks of hand and Mystique’s sinister shapeshifting–its fiendishly crazy and yet crazily convincing.

The superb screenplay and direction is complemented by an awesome ensemble of actors. Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart such unbridled authority and natural understanding to their characters, you can’t help believing anything they mouth. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is the one “with issues” and this repressed state of mind is brought about easily by him, just like Halle Berry’s Storm manages to be powerful, yet warm.

As the fable of blatantly obvious superheroes who are forced to live in hibernation for not being the dominant species (the physical mutation tagged to them for lifelong discrimination), its utterly convincing and totally entertaining. One of the best science fiction movies ever!

X2: X-Men United (2003): ***

Time to get in some knots now. With Magneto as captive, the X-Men stand united against an impending attempt to obliterate them all. Or do they? With a recent assassination attempt on the President, it seems all isn’t what it seems as a military scientist named Stryker, out on a venegeance mode, can go to any extent to wipe out mutants from the face of the planet.

Visually and acoustically, X2 races ahead of the prequel with jaw-droppingly brilliant CGI. Where do I start? Be it the teleporting NightCrawler who smokes his way through everywhere, or Magneto drawing the iron from guard’s blood and turning it into prison smashing balls and then floating plates, Wolverine’s smart and raw claw-and-nail fight with Lady DeathStrike–the eye-candy is just goosebump-inducing. And then there are the ever so reliable Magneto and Mystique–who do the menacing act with such conniving cheekiness (watch Mystique rudely showing others the “finger” as she gains control of Stryker’s base or Magneto, as he stops the falling X-Jet “When will these people learn how to fly?”), its just too hard not to have some fun while this race of homo superiors strut their stuff.

It also tries to deal a new facet–acceptance of mutants in their families (or rather a complete lack of it) but to be frank, for a 130 minute wham-bam popcorner–it turns a tad too self-important and long-drawn towards the climax. The finale itself is supremely predictable but thankfully is rendered watchable by the technical finesse. Overall though, amidst the labyrinth of the plot, precious little emerges as far as any theme is concerned.

Don’t get me wrong. X2 has some of the best acting, the visuals, the sounds, the fights, and even a little bit of hitherto unseen sequences, but somehow its a little too generic and been-there-seen-that sci-fi that wouldn’t persuade you to watch it a second time easily. Tidy but rather unaffecting fare.

X3: X-Men-The Last Stand (2006): ****

Time to rejoice! With this rock-solid final X-men movie, I would be surprised if this series wouldn’t go down the annals of celluloid sci-fi as one of the most splendid pieces of film-making. Finally something to compete with the LOTR hat-trick of good cinema. And it surprises me the most on passing this verdict, but in almost every sense of the word, the third X-Men is just as good as the first one. Maybe this stems from the fact that I am no nit-picking purist who would moan about how disrespectful its been to the real comic-book characters or what a grave injustice has been done to this and this character. I haven’t read the comics and the only yardstick I had for this third instalment was its preceding two movies. So, pardon my decidedly shallow judgement… but I was blown away by the visuals and the sheer emotion the film packed, and I can’t help but admit it.

The opening sequence for starters. After a flashback of Prof X and Magneto trying to persuade two parents to enter their supremely gifted mutant girl-Jean (who grows up to be Dr Jean Grey as we know from the last two movies and who breathed her last in X2), you have the camera set on an agitated boy struggling alone in a bathroom in what appears to be scratching his back. His father, outside the bathroom, realising something fishy after not getting answered on the nth knock is about to break in. The boy’s sweating with all the work as the camera rolls onto his hand and we see a blood-stained knife. And as his dad’s about to break in, he quickly shuffles many more knives and scissors into a tray. All bloodstained. Until the dad actually breaks in and we see the boy’s back. 10 ruthless perforations at the back of each shoulder–the holes from which the boy’s white feathers come out. He is a MUTANT. The boy shrieks on having found out (it ripped my heart apart, don’t know about others) and the credits start rolling.

I actually was quite surprised as we were again shown a bereaving Cyclops, not realising that one of the dominant threads of X-Men 3 is Resurrection of the Real Jean. Yes, who would have thought that beneath the calm, moderately telekinetic, underdog of a character is hidden the real Jean–the Phoenix, who might have been tamed by Professor X for years, but is now on the verge of unleashing a destruction that no one has ever witnessed. As if Jean wasn’t enough, a new cure for the mutant gene (instant gene therapy in an inoculation!) has been found by the humans. One prick and the powers of mutants dissolve instantly turning them into a normal human. A normal homo sapien. Clearly getting down from the podium of a homo superior isn’t an idea that catches the fancy of any mutant. Which gives another cause for Magneto to form an army, and by promising her everything Professor X couldn’t, get Jean on his side too. The battle-lines get drawn once again and its Wolverine, still deep in love with Jean, to step up and take one last stand.

What completely bowled me over in X-Men 3 was that it had a heart. And a pretty big one at that. Not for a single moment did I feel that any of the deaths of “good” mutants were rushed. They all are brilliantly conceived, sometimes kept silent to compound the effect, and sometimes so cruelly obvious I wished I could turn my eyes away. Maybe this is what happens when you watch the trilogy back to back in 2 days, but I really found them affecting. And then there was the opening wing-cutting scene of young Angel. Also scenes like Rogue joining the queue to get the cure so that she’s able to touch people and have a relationship or the one where when strapped to the chair for an injection of cure, the way Angel opens his wings and burts out of the glass building into the open sky are classily poignant. In neither of the prequels has the camera captured the pathos of fitting in, hiding their true selves or a mutant’s sense of pride and bliss in just the way he or she is. Magnificiently done.

And then there are the special effects. I am telling you one thing– I can watch this movie at double the ticket price just to watch scenes like Magneto walking down the road and turning everything from cars to lorries to junk by mere flicks and slaps in the air. That one scene… the way Ian McKellen walks with the maroon helmet and the works, the sheer display of power is majestic. Not that the other scenes don’t deserve a billing–every scene where Jean unleashes the beast in her is crackling with energy and the one sequence that everyone’s going to talk about… where Magneto rips a whole bridge off and transports it across to the island is so blatantly made-to-impress that one does really gawk at it. The climax is also a piece de resistance with subtle suggestions of Magneto and Professor X being back to where they were. It does a lot to uplift the mood of heavy-hearted fans like me who didn’t want X-Men to finish so soon.

The dialogues remain as sharp, minimal and intelligent as they have always been. The ensemble cast delivers like a dream come true, and Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen and Halle Berry really are in their element. Kelsey Grammer in the hideous all-blue-and-hair Beast incarnate is a likeable addition. Quite contrary to what I’d read in review after review, the overwhelming number of mutants each with their assorted power really accentuates the entertainment factor, rather than interfering with it.

Overall, I personally feel that the last X-Men has more muscle, more sinew, more tension, more anger, more issue than X2. Its not quite as fiendishly unpredictable as X-Men but its just such an involving and entertaining fare, the only thing I found myself whining about was its rather sharply scissored running time. It isn’t quite as short as to leave you feeling shortchanged, but a 15 or so minutes more would have made me end this without this sentence. Still, 3 Whistles and cheers for Brett Ratner from me!

So, get up, grab some popcorn and catch up with the whole series of X-Men NOW!

Some more film-watching 2006 (4)

Never expected the Match Point review to end up as big as it finally did. Hence this separate post for random films I caught on the big screen in the past month. Hope you enjoy these mini-ops!

When A Stranger Calls (2006): ** and 1/2

Blame it on my impatience. A wait of a mere 30 minutes more and I could have watched the French thriller Hidden (Cache). But my attitude of barging into the cinema and into the screening straightaway meant I ended up with this teenybopper horror-lite. As if the title couldn't be any longer and self-explanatory, its about a high school girl getting harassed by a prank caller (read serial killer) one night when she's baby-sitting at a posh and sprawling riverside mansion.

Its more generic and predictable than the words themselves convey but somehow the formula concocted doesn't end up being an absolute disaster. The menace in the atmosphere is well maintained by clever lighting techniques (stepping into every room switches on the room's lights–works bigtime in chase sequences) and the opening sequence where a lonely woman (living next to a local fun fair) gets called and then killed manages to terrify thanks to inventive camera and sound design. But then these plusses are never quite equalled by a screenplay which is ridden with stupid sequences, characters that behave less logically than kindergarten children and a lead actress that pitches in a consistently pale performance. The end product isn't even a patch on Panic Room but thankfully doesn't bore either.

Silent Hill (2006): **

You can count the pigeon-holes into which the contemporary horror films broadly fall into– Grimy Gore fest (Saw, Hostel, Wolf Creek), Supernatural Thriller (Sixth Sense, Others), Costume-n-Mask Horror Dramas (Ghost Ship, Exorcist, Descent, Evil Dead) and lastly fantasy horror (Constantine, Silent Hill). I normally try to avoid the last group like plague, but somehow landed up watching this.

Though the basic premise in this case–a concerned mother takes her daughter to the demonic place that haunts and possesses the latter while sleepwalking-does elicit some reaction, the actual film simply fails. And there are many reasons for this–first, there's absolutely no warming up to the characters. You have barely found your seat and bang! you see the possessed daughter standing at the edge of a cliff while her mom shouts off in the background. Barely 5 minutes after that, both mom and daughter are on the trip to the godforsaken place called Silent Hill. A crash later… mom finds herself amidst a foggy, snowing with ashes, town of yore replete with dilapadated buildings, empty streets. The daughter's gone but can be heard running. Mom (Rose) follows the sound, and suddenly a loud siren starts firing away. Mom continues walking down the stairs of a huge building and suddenly a huge black mass starts to entangle and numerous blackfleshed screaming children mutants start to materialise.

As the film unfolds, one comes to know that the siren represents the falling of "darkness"–a sign of evil that resides in the limbo land of Silent Hill alongwith the godfearing fanatical Catholics. But how clear the line really is, between the good and evil, is the premise for the remaining film as Rose unearths the dark secrets of the Silent Hill. Problem is, there's too much of such gibberish and it takes itself way too seriously.

The film is filled to brim with conflicts and showdowns between cacophonic characters who, because we don't know about, we just don't care about. Making it all just a pile of nonsense and in the process, boring us to death (a cardinal sin for any film). The only highlights being the two-three sequences of "darkness falling" which sees the otherwise unsuspectingly falling-to-pieces walls and floors transform into a network of blood vessels and inaninmate objects turning into yucky creatures like human sized roaches etc. A flashback sequence done in grainy film about witch-hunting towards the climax is a valiant attempt to unlock this puzzle of a film but just succeeding that is a so-bizarre-it-cracks-you-up vengeance episode of the devil which really makes you wince and wonder how you ended up watching this.

I can fill up paras on how tacky the CGI was but just to summarise my experience–I was laughing my humble a*se off everytime the crafted monsters (a plastic-pyramid headed devil or a team of zombie nurses that go on a twitching frenzy..LOL) came on the screen.

Please don't waste your time and money on this tripe unless you still haven't been spoonfed the message of being judged after death.

Ice Age 2: The Meltdown (2006): ** and 1/2

Though never quite as ambitious as Pixar's or Dreamworks' animated ventures, of late Blue Sky Studios have set about a good account for themselves with gorgeous looking but simple feel-good animations like Ice Age and Robots. Surprisingly enough, Ice Age 2 as a sequel doesn't quite entertain on the same level as Shrek 2 did. Simply because its just more of the same old thing. The principal characters still carry on walking and meeting more silly characters en-route, and a love story and a predictable conflict later its all over and they continue walking happily ever after. Don't get me wrong–it really is an enjoyable fare with two things working bigtime in its favour-Scrat (the acorn-obsessed squirrel who'll go down the annals of animation as the best character ever) and the wit in the dialogues, but one only wishes they hadn't rushed the scriptwriter quite so much as to pen such a wafer-thin, predictable plot that ends up boring us of characters we had come to adore in Ice Age.

Still, I know I am repeating myself (but what the heck), just watching Scrat struggling to keep up with the forever slipping and out-of-reach acorn through half-liquid peaks and half-frozen water bodies will have you rolling in an un-abating laughing fit. This is one amazingly conceptualised character and hopefully, Blue Sky would release the next Ice Age sequel with only 90 minutes of Scrat and his acorn. Now that'd be something!

More Later,

Karan!