Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

The bigness of the film, and director SS Rajamouli’s mastery of cinema, can be gauged from the fact that  Bahubali-The Conclusion  as a film turned out to be much bigger than the billion-dollar question on which it stayed alive in public imagination for two long years. The brilliant tapestry of VFX-aided visuals, the larger than life war sequences, the intricate action scenes, the pulsating romance, the hate, rage, envy and commitment that Rajamouli wraps the film in, the ultimate bigness he lends to the proceedings, the drama he enhances with real-time emotions, the pace he unleashes to turn this period drama into a modern thriller make the sequel as big a blockbuster as its prequel. That he renders the much-awaited answer to the big question almost irrelevant in the face of a super splashy story is something that speaks volumes of his unmatched big-screen, big-movie acumen. It is somewhere just before the intermission that you get to know why Kattappa killed Bahuba...

Cast (voiceovers):  Demi Lovato, Rainn Wilson, Joe Manganiello, Jack McBrayer, Danny Pudi, Michelle Rodriguez, Ellie Kemper, Ariel Winter, Meghan Trainor, Jake Johnson, Mandy Patinkin, Julia Roberts Rated : 5/10 Was there something wrong with the 3D glasses that PVR provided or was the movie shot in another dimension? Really, this time the Smurfs were not as arresting, funny or even action oriented. And the fairytale locale they inhabit may have been a riot of colour and imagination but it comes across as too busy to give you that gossamer touch with which you can go the whole hog with an animation film, especially if you are not a gullible child and an adult wanting to go to an animated film. Other than the fact that PVR has gone on a fleecing spree, discontinuing the already barely affordable popcorn combos to sell corn and cola separately at a steeper price (small corn Rs200 and Pepsi Rs220!), there was also the fact that the largely unhappening smurfs stretched for ...

Cast :  Aparna Sen, Shabana Azmi, Lillete Dubey Rated:  4/10 Shabana is great, Aparna Sen muted and Lillete much too bubbly under the circumstances. And, there is a Palatial house in Mumbai resounding with monologues from the three aged friends, two being housemates. That's Sonata  for you, helmed by veterans you have long looked up to. So it is a let down that the three are unable to knit the magic they are so capable  of. Not because they have erred but because  Sonata  is much too theatrical for a movie screen. The three lovely ladies deliver their thoughts as if they are on stage and not in a film, and the fact that the film is actually an adaptation of a play does not help matters either. The issues at hand and on the table — basically black thoughts around a seemingly safe and even life — are much too familiar even though the aged ladies have settled in comfortably as singletons. They are modern women with modern mores. One an HOD with a...

Cast : Jessica Chastain, Johan Heldenbergh, Michael McElhatton, Daniel Brühl Rated:  8/10 Holocaust stories from Hollywood have been quite a draw. Be it the Auschwitz concentration camp horror on tape or beautifully shot saviour stories like  The Schindler’s List , what Hitler did to Jews is a story that continues to trend even 73 years later. The   Zookeeper’s Wife  does not stretch on the visual acumen of a Steven Spielberg, or even the mega Jew stories that Hollywood has engagingly encased over the decades, but it is a heartwarming tale nevertheless, this time of a Polish couple saving close to 300 Jews during the German occupation of Poland from 1943 to 1945. Based on the diary of Antonina Zabinski, the wife of zookeeper Jan Zabinski, director Niki Caro has done well to stick in bulk to the story as it evolved from the diary. It is an eventful diary entry which did not need added dramatisation and the director having realised this while mounting he...

Cast : Sonakshi Sinha, Kanan Gill, Shibani Dandekar, Purab Kohli, Sunny Leone Rated : 5/10 So what’s the one and only guiding light of this film? Well, it is Sonakshi Sinha without her weight. She looks slim in knickers, is entirely bubbly, the nude make-up adds to her screen presence and she does act too. But other than that, there is nothing real or arresting about this loosely stitched up film, the high point of which is the arresting monologue of “Mumbai You Are Killing Me”. Sadly though, it comes right at the end and much after the movie has proved itself as a blind bumbler in ample measure. Coming back to Sonakshi, she looks slim and trim — and beautiful too as Noor, a young broadcast journo full of serious human interest stories no one is interested in. Her Bridget Jones persona is becoming if nothing else. But, the portrayal of journalists and journalism is skewed from the word go and much of the film is around the media. However, nothing of the sort that Noor ...

Cast:  Raveena Tandon, Alisha Khan, Madhur Mittal, Divya Jagdale, Anurag Arora, Rushad Rana, Saleem Khan, Shalee Goel Rated:  4/10 Gangrape is a troubling subject on screen or otherwise. So you would have thought, Raveena Tandon, the Mast-mast girl on a comeback trail as an aged prima donna, would have dealt with the subject that was more real than  Maatr. Girdling around the story of a mother-daughter gangrape in a Delhi farmhouse in which her daughter is killed and she barely survives, the film freezes you with its starkness of the incident. But after that it becomes a victim of Box Office viability and skids into a rape and revenge drama that lacks the authenticity that should come with such an issue. Not that Raveena is any less on the screen but this one was not about her, it was about the issue of gangrape, a scourge of society that is only growing, and with impunity. Yes, the film does show you how weak our systems are to deal with rape, how corr...

Cast:  Taapsee Pannu, Akshay Kumar, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Manoj Bajpayee, Anupam Kher Rated : 5/10 An aspiring Baby 2,  Naam Shabana  takes too much time to get into the groove of international crook takeouts. And when it does get into the deep of the job, the interval is far over and there’s not much time — or energy — left to enjoy the show. Having said that, Taapsee Pannu looks aptly volatile to be an undercover strike agent. She has the body for it. She has the kick-ass moves. She even has the expressions to carry the film on her slender but strong shoulders. What she does not sadly have is a thick enough plot. At best, this otherwise promising film, is an attempt to bask in the glory of  Baby . At worst, it is a failure in doing that. The sob story around c hawl  girl Shabana seems unnecessary and prolonged considering the exciting task at hand. She has interned in jail for killing her wife-beater alcoholic father, is made to lose her boyfri...

Cast:  Dacre Montgomery, Naomi Scott, RJ Cyler, Becky G, Ludi Lin Rated:  5/10 More like the making of the power rangers, this one from the comic stock comes alive a little late in the film, taking just a little less than 65 million years to get the rescue of the Earth mission going. The jump from the detention classroom to the crystal bearing teens is the mainstay of the movie, not the actual job of hand — the job being to save the Earth for superhero Zordan from an evil gold-gobbling enchantress out to destroy mankind. Not that the director cares to explain why she is on such a destructive path but let’s just move on to the actual jugglery of action on which any such film is based. Well, in that sector too, it flips here and there as there is too much talking and too less action, most of it being confined to last 20 minutes of this film. And please remember, these are not Marvel Power Rangers, these are Saban’s Power Rangers led by Jason Montogmery, the Red R...

Cast:  Dennis Quaid, Britt Robertson, Josh Gad, KJ Apa Rated:  6.5/10 For dog lovers, an Oh-My-God kind of a film. For others, a so-sweet one. For yet others, “that one was better, remember?” thing. But in between these three tags, the film based on a book by W Bruce Cameron, is a lightly funny family drama centred around a dog who is philosophical about its purpose in life, lives four differently enabled lives, remembering each one of them distinctly, and finally returns as a neglected St Bernard to the original owner with whom he grew up much to the mirth of both. In between, there are anecdotal, sometimes happy, sometimes snappy, sometimes unhappy lives of a stray puppy, a German shepherd K-9 police dog, Tino, and a chubby 1980s Corgi before the St Bernard returns to stay. Much of the meat of family life in the 1960s and 1970s makes up the film which is cute, happening and emotional about canines. It’s an endearing slice of America through the ages and throu...