Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

The Giver Starring:  Meryl Streep, Jeff Bridges, Katie Holmes, Taylor Swift, Brenton Thwaites Rated:  5.5/10 Here it is for you — in black and white. It’s a colourless existence without pain, joy, envy, anger, no memory or much else that is usually associated with humanness of being. But here, there is no war, no killing (only release), no riots, no death, no negativity, nothing that might acquaint you with the basic human emotion of being either concerned or upset. It’s a cautiously carved life for a new kind of humanity which neither questions nor looks for any answers. According to the chief elder, brilliantly played by an aptly wrinkled Meryl Streep, this is the existence that saves human beings from the negativity of true life. Settled on a table top mountain amid the clouds, children are not born to families but assigned to them for nurturing. Graduation and growing up are equally regimented, no questions asked. If the children are not up to the mark, they are ...

Entertainment Starring : Akshay Kumar, Tamannaah Bhatia, Mithun Chakraborty, Johnny Lever, Sonu Sood Rated : 5/10 Let’s get one or two things straight at the very beginning here. This is a dog starrer, not really an Akshay Kumar starrer. It is an attempted comedy, not a real one. The main hero of the film, the dog, does not get a single dialogue here and very few wuffs at that. Akshay plays the rich pet’s man Friday and just to let you know, his make-up is as retarded as some of the film’s funny dialogues. The attempted humour gets so repetitive and tedious at times that even the poor dog has a dazed expression all throughout, almost as if he would prefer a lonely lamp post to put his leg up rather than spend time in the posh environs of a deserted villa in Bangkok. Entertainment is the dog’s name and you feel really bad with Krushna who extends the laughter challenge to 70 mm when he says cheesily — and oh-so-expectedly — that ‘Entertainment  kitni kutti cheez hai’! ...

The Hundred-Foot Journey Starring:  Helen Mirren, Om Puri, Manish Dayal, Charlotte Le Bon Rated:  7/10 Foodcentric movies have a charm all their own and this languid one emanating from the picturesque village in the north of France is gently enervating. Produced by none less than Steven Spielberg, it catches the pulse of kitchen soirees and Michellin stars with a grip one would have on a knife while slicing tough meat. The beauty of it all is that you can almost smell the aroma of the food wafting through the two restaurants of this sleep village. Then there is Om Puri and his family which walk into this village on a rainy night to create all kinds of havoc in the hearth of the neighbouring restaurant standing tall on its acquired class and commitment to high end food through the managerial skills of Helen Mirren. As the  tandoori  chickens take on the fromage and molecular pigeons on the plates on either side of the sinewy road, there is romance buddin...

Guardians of the Galaxy Starring:  Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper Rated : 5.5/10 I am no Marvel fan, traditional or newbie, and I was not quite sure of what was going on. But, between a hamster, a crinkled tree, a painted abs man, an avatar like waif and a human in an automatic switch mask, not to mention the orb, Ranon and an outer galaxy Earth, I quite loved the experience. What I minded a little bit though was the more than two hour run of this fantasy adventure where the special effects were special and the story full of events. And no, I don’t think this is an essentially children’s movie so that takes out the retarded factor from it and on the whole makes it a wholesome entertainer in a week where there were many other good movie giving this one company.  Source: August 1o, 2014

Into the storm Starring : Richard Armitage, Sarah Wayne Callies, Matt Walsh Rated : 7/10 Storm chaser Pete Moore had waited for his entire life “for a storm like this” and when he finally gets into the eye of it, he knows how all else is so mortal.  Into The Storm , for most part of the film, is an edge-of-the-seat experience where — very correctly — tornadoes are the centrepieces, and not the humans or their situations around them. In a scenario where everything is being blown apart as humanity runs for cover, the film sits pretty stable, thanks to its awesome visual effects wherein the force of the 300 miles per hours winds and its absolutely blood curdling twisters of all sizes (read big to major to super tornadoes) take you into a zone where even breathing becomes a difficult and oft forgotten proposition. Way back, a similar force of calamitous wind was put on screen in a movie called  Twister  in which Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton battle the storm in an im...

Lucy Starring:  Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Amr Waked, Choi Min-sik Rated:  6/10 It’s an extra-ordinary thriller, anchored extraordinarily by Scarlett Johansson, a sureshot aspirant for an Oscar this year. Lucy is in Taiwan as a student and what happens to her is sudden, shocking and stunning. The film does not take too many shots to get the thrill rolling and that fast pace is kept alive all through, thanks not just to the editors. The soul of the pace and the film is Johansson whose mastery of and changeover of expressions make for gripping viewing. Of course, it is not everyday that you get to be thrown into the devil’s cage by your boyfriend, taken over by the Chinese drug mafia, inserted with a pack of deadly brain-spurring drug pouch and then let loose to a highly intelligent — and explosive — phase of life. To Johansson’s credit, she lives up to and exceeds all expectations, maybe because her brain functions 100 per cent due to the pouch explosion ...

22 jump street Starring:  Channing Tatum, Peter Stormare, Jonah Hill, Ice Cube Rated:  5/10 As compared to the two other Hollywood film released this week (in the absence of any Bollywood mount), you could say 22  Jump Street  comes third — not a total loser but quite bogged down by its much-to-familiar cop and campus tricks of the trade. You know Channing Tatum, you know Peter Stormare and you definitely know what all they can do together. It is  22 Jump Street  guys, not 1 Jump Street. And the producer is pretty sure he will get through 75 more years, churning out the same stuff from campuses all over the world — of course, with the same cops going undercover in boys hostels to reach 46 Jump Street and more! So what’s new you may ask. Nothing really. But it is still some kind of fun to revisit the detective duo antics, the blunderings, the sex mania, the relationships, the boy bonding, the black and white jokes and the general dumbing down of ...

Hercules Starring:  Dwayne Johnson, Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell, Joseph Fiennes, Peter Mullan, John Hurt Rated:  5.5/10 Dwayne Johnson is big enough to be Hercules and it turns out to be a big plus-plus that he is also well-abbed, fierce, warrior-like, beefy and yet humanly poignant. You could say, he is the real Rock of the film, what with his bulging muscles, his demi-God status and his sheer physicality in war and in peace. Add to this the tricky murder of his wife and three kids and you have reason to believe that the resultant action will be relentless. The bigness of being starts from his big bulging biceps and his lion cap. He has nightmares his whole life about a three-headed bear monster trying to destroy him but when dream turns to reality, he convincingly rips apart the hydra-headed monster through his jawline. The best part of all the heroics in the film is that Dwayne makes them believable. He is warrior, friend, father, potential lover and an avenging...

Kick Starring : Salman Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez, Randeep Hooda, Nawazuddin Siddiqui Rated : 4.5/10 Jai Ho! Sallu  bhai  is all for Being Human, and now in the most aggressive way — through his movies. This is the second one of the NGO types after  Jai   Ho  which came and went without the usual ripples Sallu  bhai  creates among the audiences. In this one too, he propels the goodness of ‘being human’ in all ways — through being a good a man, through being a bad man and through being a devil who is all about hidden goodness, well, of being human! I like  Salluji  with all his frills, including the towel between his legs and the swagger between his lips. This one has them too but the mission that is being propelled gets to you faster than the star and his traditional antics. It’s almost like Sallu  bhai  going veteran on his own  filmi  career and dishing out a signing out series of films before the final  s...

The Grand Budapest Hotel Starring:  Ralph Fiennes, Jude Law, F Murray Abraham, Edward Norton, Mathieu Amalric Rated : 6/10 It comes with an ensemble of stars and is still languid and gentle and comes without any searing competition for screen space. Like all that is true of old world charm, this one too grows on you in a hidden manner, making no hue and cry around a potent storyline emerging out of a pre and post Hitler Europe. For a director to get away with haivng the masterful Jude Law as a mute witness of proceedings unfolding before him through a narrator who has been through it all speaks volumes about the self assurance of a well fleshed out and simply irresistable storyline. Ralph Fiennes is the central butler of the Grand Budapest Hotel story which, over the years, sees the grandeur and the decay of time. Both hues have been captured beautifully by the art director and all the colours sepia, grays or otherwise come in handy to enhance your mood to go back in ti...