Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

Cast : Ajay Devgn, Sayesha Saigal, Erika Kaar, Abigail Eames, Vir Das, Girish Karnad, Saurabh Shukla Rated : 5/10 Pepperfry or some such would have sold Shivaay as a slow juicer. But once the juice starts flowing out of the droopy eyes and flexing biceps of an overly supplemented Ajay Devgn, and his slick action soiree, there is no stopping the edgy rollercoaster jumping nations from all the way from India to Bulgaria. So you wonder why Devgn, who is actor-director and producer of this film, took around an hour to get to the point. Generally, he is not so daft, or wayward for that matter. But in Shivaay, he first introduces a stunning but prolonged sequence of his mountain and cliff jumping prowess which establishes him as the superhuman being with super duper Himalayan powers, as someone whom Lord Shiva himself has given the strength to throttle the life out of anyone who messes with him. But once his daughter is kidnapped by the Russian paedophile and flesh trade mafia in a...

Cast : Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma, Fawad Khan, Deepti Naval Rated : 4/10 Why oh why can’t anyone in Bollywood — big or small — make a simple, heart-touching romance? Like Yash Chopra used to? Why does Karan Johar — whose film as director we had been waiting for, for so long, had to have such a complicated relationship status for  Ae Dil Hai Mushkil ? What was Aishwarya Rai doing there at all? A stunning shaira in Venice who is game for emotionless romps in the bed? She is a shaira for God’s sake! She had to have emotions, if nothing else. Why did she leave husband Shah Rukh? Karan? Anyone? In fact, why did Shah Rukh Khan even make that one-minute outrageous appearance as a victim of unrequited love? Couldn’t have looked more irrelevant, ridiculous if I may say so. And then there was Ranbir Kapoor. Why did he have to behave in such a retarded manner, trying to be a cute lover out of school almost? What was wrong with Anushka? Well, what the fish! ...

Cast:  Gong Yoo, Ma Dong-seok, Jung Yu-mi, Kim Su-an, Kim Eui-sung Rated:  5/10 There are zombies and zombies and zombies in this Korean film which has grossed the maximum money this year if Korean film industry figures are to be believed. The story, as you would have guesses, revolves around a train journey to Busan and the centrepiece of this crowded film is a father-daughter duo. The zombie attack happens while the train is on its route and the director has done well to keep the attack the only focal point of the story which gets mushy here and there only to add meat to the tale. The outbreak starts after an infection woman passenger, bitten on the leg by a zombie, infects fellow passengers. And if that is not enough, as the hapless passengers seek refuge on a midway military station, to their horror they realise that the entire Army unit which was supposed to save them, is infected too. In the middle of all this zombie-ness, the father is shown trying his bes...

Cast : Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Aldis Hodge, Patrick Heusinger Rated : 6/10 Much like Mr Mission Impossible, you can’t view Jack Reacher as any hero other than Tom Cruise. He may be ageing, screen tired and too much of a veteran to light up the fisticuffs and the agility needed for Lee Child’s series of books, but Cruise is Reacher and Reacher Cruise. So, this film on one of the 20 bestselling action thrillers written by Lee Child, is a tad slow, somewhat different from the novel and the second one on screen after the 2012 outing brought in the gold rush. For those who have not read the novel, the action and the thrill would be more than enough to stay with; for Tom Cruise diehards, it might come across as flawless; and for those avid Child readers,  Never Go Back  on tape would seem to be a neither here nor there movie on a novel which has been intricately woven and excitingly narrated. As Reacher, an ex-major in this one, Cruise portrays a lonesome wanderer doin...

Cast:  Tom Hanks, Irrfan, Felicity Jones, Ben Foster Rated : 6/10 Dan Brown’s movie adaptation of  Da Vinci Code was a washout — a slow spoiler which killed the constant edge the book kept you on. But  Inferno is just the opposite, confronting the book in edginess, thrill and momentum cheek by jowl. For those who have read the book earlier, the film will bring old-time joy. For those who haven’t,  Inferno,  the film, will keep you rooted. Tom Hanks, who couldn’t really save  Da Vinci Code  from slow, unmoving death, is at the centre of all the rolling excitement in  Inferno.  As the good old professor Langdon, he hits memory loss and wakes up in Florence all the way from America, not knowing why and how he arrived there overnight and why he is so full of visions of Dante’s hell. The director has done well to keep the suspense and the chaos over a manic billionaire’s twisted attempt to kill off more than half the humanity to save t...

Cast:  Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Rebecca Ferguson, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans Rated:  7/10 For those who have not read this stunning bestselling book of the same name by Paula Hawkins, I can’t say much about the film as it will kill all the fun. For those who have, the film is a good patch on the book even though you may know what happened and who did it. The drunken haze that the main character is in has been very well portrayed by the towering British actress Emily Blunt who dominates the frames, the sentiment and the trajectory of the entire film. A weak actor would have spoilt it all but Blunt keeps the film alive and kicking till the very end. Had it not been for her brilliant acting, the film would have been waylaid by innate slowness and all the back and forth technique that the director has used to keep this murder mystery in a staccato mode. This ploy takes away from the pace somewhat and that’s not what you would have wanted from the film. However, it i...

Cast:  David Oyelowo, Lupita Nyong'o, Madina Nalwanga Rated:  6/10 Every once in a while, an inspiring sports film comes along to warm your hearts but such biopics are generally on popular sports like football or cricket. This one is on a niche sport and so all the more heartwarming. This one is from an abject slum town in Uganda which breathes squalor as none other, so the achievement it sports makes it even more heart-warming. This one is about a girl who is illiterate, who sells maize, who battles poverty with her strong-willed mother on a daily basis and who has no dreams to make a difference to her and her family’s life before showing up her brilliance in chess, and so it is extremely heart-warming. There are many more reasons that warm up your heart to this one by Mira Nair. She serenades the struggles of an under-privileged girl who rises to become a national champion and a master of chess from an odd corner of the world where only NGO stories and welfare sc...

Cast : Eva Green, Asa Butterfield, Chris O'Dowd, Judi Dench, Samuel L  Jackson Rated:  6/10 It’s thrillingly Tim Burton all the way — weird, edgy, exciting, adventurous, magical and, of course, about extra-ordinary beings on Earth. At the centre f them all is Miss Peregrine who is as eccentric as Mary Poppins, a fierce mother to her peculiar crop of children, a transformer with an ability to relive past time as well as turn into a bird at the drop of a demand. Played to the hilt by Eva Green, Miss P’s character is much like the female version of a Johnny Depp role in full bloom and does most of the arresting in the film which otherwise dangles on adventurism of the monster-going-to-devour-the-gifted kind. The spooky and haunting ambience that Burton lends to the film keeps the crescendo going all through. Burton’s uncanny ability to understand and celebrate the gifted outcasts makes this film worthy of a watch. Other than the intimidating Miss Peregrine, there is a c...

Cast:  Harshvardhan Kapoor, Saiyami Kher, Om Puri Rated:  4.5/10 Rakesh Om Prakash Mehra. Gulzar. Shankar Ehsan Loy. Anil Kapoor’s debutant son Harshvardhan. Saiyami Kher, a star niece. And, a story based on Punjab’s famous folklore of Mirzya-Sahiba. What more could have been needed to make a splash, an expansive, romantic, musical, arty flash? But  Mirzya  is a spectacular waste of a canvas, as stunning a waste as its otherwise stunning visuals. Why Mehra opted for a comprehensive slow-mo to exaggerate every action, every gesture in the film, why he chose to overpower a simple love story by overbearing canvas art is bewildering, as bewildering as Anil Kapoor’s decision to allow his son to debut in a film in which he was made to compete with the brilliance of a derived landscape drawn out of a colourful and earthy Rajasthan on one end and a stark but stupendous Ladakh on the other. Needless to say, the poor boy struggles to show himself up against such an i...

Cast:  Sushant Singh Rajput, Anupam Kher, Bhumika Chawla, Kiara Advani, Disha Patani, Rajesh Sharma Rated:  8/10 Neeraj Pandey. Bravo for this well told, somewhat untold story. Not because Dhoni is my favourite captain but because you have caught him the best way he could have been caught on tape. You have given this sport biopic real colour and real bite. Sushant Singh has impeccably captured MS Dhoni’s gait, walk, posture, enigma and every little detail that could find expression in the best way possible. Even your choice of characters is near perfect. Jagmohan Dalmiya looks like the real one, so does Kiran More, Ratnakar Shetty and all others at the BCCI. All except for Dilip Vengsarkar who plays super selector who brought in Dhoni through the Cricket Board’s two-three-towns initiative of talent hunt. For a person like me who has spent time at all the career turning matches Dhoni has played, it was like reliving the entire experience which means you have done the ...