Meenakshi Rao's Bollywood and Hollywood movie reviews

Cast:  Liam Hemsworth, Jeff Goldblum, Jessie T Usher, Bill Pullman Rated:  6/10 It’s much too familiar if you can jog back your memory to the 1996 original which came in to sweep you with its own version of alien invasion, albeit with a much smaller space ship and way lesser CGIs. Independence Day: Resurgence  plies you into a much, much bigger alien ship, a behemoth as big as 3,000 miles in diameter. Naturally then, the invasion and the design of destruction is much bigger too and that’s where the film scores most — its lifelike visuals of a queen bee alien throwing death in all directions, not to mention the energy it generates to steal the core of the Earth and end life on the planet. The story, the characters, even the premise is much the same as the original version. So, in a way, it does breed familiarity but the grand scale on which it unfolds this much too similar story gives it back some punch. Just when the American President is giving a salutary spe...

Cast:  Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Vicky Kaushal, Shobhita Dhuliwala Rated:  6/10 No one showcases depravities of the human mind as graphically as Anurag Kashyap.  Raman Raghav 2.0  is an all-in-one show of the debauchery of the human mind through two characters — one a mindless, certified killer who kills for the heck of it, the other a uniformed law enforcer high on abuse, and not just of substance. Together, the two script a racy psycho-thriller which stands still in some places as starkly as it runs amok with unimaginable and yet unstated violence in other. The mind games are splashed in blood and gore which the director skillfully makes you imagine more than he shows. Though the film lets out a big and clear disclaimer that this is not about the 1960s’ serial killer Raman Raghav, it draws heavily from the much documented Mumbai marauder who infamously confessed to have killed more than 40 people on the streets as also to raping and killing his sister. Here,...

Cast:  Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart Rated:  6/10 It’s around The Rock (Dwayne Johnson) and its all flabby but funny. It’s also around Kevin Hart so it was meant to be funnier, which it isn’t. But together the two script a watchable action comedy that is more comedy than action. Contacted by Bob Stone (Johnson) whom Calvin Joyner (Hart) once gave a fig leaf when bullies forcefully carried him stark naked and threw him into a gym full of people, Hart becomes crucial to a CIA mission to retrieve some code from rogue Black Badger. He doesn’t want to but is made to. Back in high school, Stone was many stones more than normal weight and an acutely obese loser. Two decades later, he is every woman’s wet dream with rippling muscles and a torso so smooth that you might slip on it. But that’s besides the point. The funny bone of the film is the chase around a project full of ifs and buts, bullets, smashed windows and an uptight FBI woman running in circles to catch Black Badger wh...

Cast:  (voices) Ellen DeGeneres, Albert Brooks, Hayden Rolence Rated:  7/10 It’s rare if you can raise a finger against Disney/Pixar when it comes to their animated films, even if they are sequels. From  Finding Nemo to  Finding Dory , the animation quality has only become more polished, colourful and engaging. This time, our cute little blue host has an enchantingly put “Short-term Rememory problem” which forces her to get lost in the big blue deep ocean, losing her loving parents, and then with her mental issues go on a journey to find them across the high seas. An endearing tale wherein Nemo comes in too as do parental issues, a slimy but well-meaning octopus who is more chameleon than octopus, a short-sighted whale, some of the cutest otters and other such ocean people. As Dory does what she does best — forget, love, forget and love over and over again — you settle in with your ow-so-sweet exclamations mixing up with the popcorns through the colourful j...

Cast:  Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, Daniel Radcliffe, Morgan Freeman Rated:  6/10 As a sequel, this magic heist is, well, magic. The four Horsemen are there to regale you with their antics in a cross-continent thriller as the four disappear into thin air through a terrace pipe to land all the way away in Macau. Not that they planned it or saw it coming. But once in Macau, they are made to steal the snoopiest microchip in the world by none other than Daniel Radcliffe (without the Potter magic of course) in bargain to their freedom. That’s the premise, but the film scores most on pace which never ever ebbs as the Horsemen, same old men from last time, with an addition of a vivacious girl with the fame of having taken out a hat from a rabbit eight long years ago, doing the tricks. The film directed by Jon M Chu who has in his pocket films like  Step Up 3D  and  GI Joe: Retaliation  and does a pretty decent job of ...

Cast:  Hetal Gadda, Krrish Chhabria, Vipin Sharma, Gulfam Khan, Vibha Chibber Rated:  6/10 Simple, uncomplicated and very much Kukunoor, Dhanak  is a straightforward tale of hope and goodness told through a cross-country  padyatra of two siblings, one blind but funny and the other determined but naive. The brother is blind and the sister is his light. Both are school children who make short of long walks to school bringing the Salman-SRK rivalry to the forefront in their own endearing manner. After being orphaned in a Pushkar  mela  stampede, they live in a  dhaani  deep in Rajasthan with a cruel chachi and a well-meaning but hen-pecked chacha. But they are happy despite their situation and the thread of happiness and hope runs throughout the film from which you return with a happy song on your lips. Writer-director Nagesh Kukunoor returns with Dhanak after a long hiatus and makes sure that this simple love story of siblings who take o...

Cast:  Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor, Alia Bhatt, Diljit Dosanjh Rated:  9/10 Udta Punjab  is so crazed, crass and coked up that, like an addict, you just can’t stop watching it. It’s a highly uncomfortable film — stark, dark and real — which grips you like cocaine and makes you dive into the lowest of narco lows and then rise with the highs of the best delivered anti-drug message on Indian screen thus far. Abhishek Chaubey’s gritty gripper shows up Punjab as all the previous documentation has failed to do despite the State’s more than a two-decade-long plummet into a virtually en masse haze of narcotics, cocktail of injectable chemicals and, of course, trips on prescription drugs. There’s everything to contend with in this film — cross border smuggling, narco-political nexus, the well-oiled rustic cartels, the cleaning up bids, the cuss words, the profanities and, of course, the predicament of the State’s drug-induced population which is reeling at all levels. ...