*Funny and semi-scary*

It Chapter 2 is directed by Andy Muschietti and is the sequel to It (2017). It follows the story of the Losers Club who at the end of It, think they succeed in eliminating Pennywise but find out that 27 years later, *It* returns to haunt the town of Derry and now the Losers Club, all grown up, have to eliminate the demonic clown once and for all.

This and the first chapter have what other horror films lack i.e heart.

The bond of friendship which all the members of the Loser’s Club have is the centre of the film and is the strongest part of this 3 hour long fest.

Easily the worst part of this film is the pacing.

It feels completely off and drags at most places in the second act. Some aspects of the second half could’ve been done away with which could’ve fixed the pacing issues. All the performances are perfect and there couldn’t have been a possibly better cast than James McAvoy (Bill), Jessica Chastain (Beverly) and Bill Hader (Richie) as the leads.
Bill, who was the leader of the Losers Club in the last film, is much of a side character in this one and the person who truly stood out was Richie, played brilliantly by Bill Hader. He made the film for me.

All of his *jokes* landed and he helped add levity in the otherwise creepy film.

Eddie (James Ransone) also had very good moments and James Ransone was the best choice for playing the adult version of Eddie. Him and Jack Dylan Grazer (young Eddie) resemble each other in such a way, I can’t think of any other way Jack will look like when he becomes an adult other than James Ransone.

The casting was that good.

The background score complimented the eerie visuals very well. Everybody knows that in Stephen King’s novel, the adult versions of the Loser’s Club had a worse story than their children counterparts and the same can be said with Andy Muschietti’s films but he tries his best with eliminating the worse parts of the novel and adding his own horror flair while still acknowledging the book. It’s not good as the first one, but *It* comes close.

——————-RATING——————–

Story: Average

Treatment: Excellent

Performance: Excellent

Recommendation: You’ve got to watch Chapter 1 if you want to understand everything. But worth a watch.

*A Wimpish Roar*

The Lion King is directed by John Favreau, who had also directed The Jungle Book remake in 2016.

I was optimistic for this remake because I had loved The Jungle Book.

The only thing I didn’t like in that movie was the King Louie song. Even though it was quiet hilarious because Christopher Walken sung it but it took me out of the film and felt tad forced.

The Lion King had NINETEEN songs in it clocking SEVENTY SEVEN minutes and thirty two seconds.

Most of the songs felt forced and could’ve been easily replaced with normal, old fashioned dialogue. Okay, I know you are going to say that the animated version of The Lion King had almost the same amount of songs and that version was legendary. Well, I could tell you for a fact that it did not transform well into the live action version. All the lyrics of the songs were the exact SAME. And moreover when the voice actors sang, for me, it didn’t match up with what was shown on screen at all.

The filmmakers tried to make the animals realistic by making them expressionless.

The animated feature had the freedom to show expressions on the faces of the animals which had a lasting impression on the viewer but in the live action version, the expressionless faces of the characters made everything less interesting. Enough of the rant though let’s talk about the positives. The voice actors are all great.

The standouts for me were Chiwetel Ejiofor as Scar and Donald Glover as the adult Simba.

James Earl Jones (the voice of Darth Vader) was terrific as Mufasa as well. The background score was tearjerking and scary when it needed to be. The CGI was impeccable.

Every character design looked real and even better in 3D.

I actually still can’t get over how cute young Simba looked. Anyways saying all that, this movie was a huge disappointment for me, a fan of the animated version. But, for an audience which does not know anything about what the film is about, they’ll surely have a blast because the story is that good.

Disney, don’t make remakes of already well known films for money. This formula is getting tiring real quick.

——————-RATING———————–

Story: Excellent

Performance: Average

Treatment: Excellent

Recommendation: Don’t go unless you don’t know anything about The Lion King.

*Disappointing, but not on all fronts.*

Article 15 is directed by Anubhav Sinha, who has also directed films like Ra.One and Mulk. I was keen on watching this film after the attention-trapping trailer because of what the movie is trying to portray. I.e. what the condition of rural India actually is.

It’s a relevant topic which must be discussed and there are not enough movies portraying this.

I went into this film expecting a gripping and dark film. The first half gave me that. The build up was interesting and shrouded with mystery and I thought that the pay off to buildup will be ground breaking but for me, it felt flat and there were lot of loose strands left of the plot.

When the movie finished, I didn’t feel satisfied.

I surely didn’t get what the build up promised and I left the theatre a tad bit disappointed. Not getting into spoilers of course, some characters felt that they were just there to increase the screentime and didn’t add much to the plot.

The scenes with them completely strayed away from the good parts of the film i.e. Aayushman Khurrana.

His stoicism was matched with emotion and was a very likable presence. His performance was very good. Manoj Pahwa was extremely scary and Kumud Mishra was effective with a nuanced performance. The cinematography and lighting was gorgeous. Most of the scenes took place during dusk and late night which gave an eerie feeling and put me on edge.

It was a nice touch because the feeling of *something is going to happen* was brought.

The background score was perfect in the first half with a Hans Zimmer-isque feel to it but after the intermission, the score got repetitive. All in all, Article 15 is a very relevant film with good performances and okay-ish plot which could have been much better.

———————RATING————————
Story: Good

Performance: Excellent

Treatment: Excellent

Recommendation: Must be seen because of the message.

*A flick of missed opportunities*

X-Men Dark Phoenix is the last X-Men film from Fox Studios which is directed by Simon Kinberg, who was one of the writers of the ill-received X-Men Last Stand which also had the Dark Phoenix storyline.

This is Kinbergs’ first film as a director and it was a huge responsibility to handle the film which supposedly closes Fox’s X-Men Franchise.

I’m not going to say that he fails in each aspect, but there are more failures than successes which leads to the film being a bit of a mess.The first act is brilliantly set up though. Each character gets to shine and Jean Gray’s (Sophia Turner) backstory is set up perfectly. The problem arises after Jean gets the Phoenix Force. In the comics, it is supposed to be the most powerful force which can obliterate planets. Of course, it won’t be realistic if shown on film but what Kinberg decides to show is so grounded, that it feels like he doesn’t know what to do with the character.

But Sophia Turner, with what she was given to work with, gave her best and made Jean (the protagonist) as believable as possible.

She was able to bring out the conflict between her due to the previously mentioned *Phoenix Force*. The second act drags and it feels that the writers didn’t know what to do here. Vuk (Jessica Chastain) is one of the main characters of the film who we know barely about. I can’t explain much about the character as it would be going in the spoiler territory but it felt that Jessica Chastain’s Vuk was just brought in to differentiate the storyline from the comics and it falls flat. That’s the main problem I had.

The third and final act feels like a completely different film.

It is a huge and massive action sequence taking place in a train and it works as the action choreography felt raw and impactful but loses weight due to the terrible second act.

The best aspect were the performances of each and every single character. James McAvoy as Professor Xavier as always was good and so was Michael Fassbender as Magneto.

The feeling of finality was brought through them.

The one thing which amazed me was the background score. I didn’t realize it that it was Hans Zimmer’s until after the movie. His theme elevated this film by giving a more grounded feeling to it.

I think that a 20% score on Rotten Tomatoes is too harsh for this film. It was an honest effort by Kinberg as a debut director to give a fitting end to this 19 year old franchise which unfortunately does not succeed but it definitely deserves more than 20%.

In my opinion, I think you as an audience should not be swayed by the reviews and should make your decision yourself.

You never know, you may actually end up liking it.

———————RATING——————–

1) Performance: Excellent

2) Treatment: Good

3) Story: Weak

4) Recommendation: Worth A Shot.

*Painfully Mediocre*

Bharat is a Salman Khan film which is written and directed by Ali Abbas Zaffar. This pairing has earlier made films like Sultan and Tiger Zinda Hai which earned a great deal of money in the Box-Office and had received decent reviews. I liked these films and was intrigued by what Bharat would have to offer.

Ali Abbas Zaffar disappoints.

The film deals with Bharat (Salman Khan) who encounters various situations in life and emerges victorious in all the difficult moments which he goes through. The problem is, that the film opens with Bharat alongside his best friend, Vilayti Khan in a store, content with their life. After that, when the titular character narrates his life to his grandchildren as well as the audience, the tension and the feeling of uncertainty decreases drastically when a life-threatening situation takes place during the narration as we, the audience are shown at the starting that Bharat and his best friend are living side-by-side each other, gratified.

The cause for the decreased *tension* all lies in the Screenplay written by the Director and Varun Sharma.

Secondly, the pacing was very uneven. The first half was relatively decent but it all came apart in the next half. I felt that the movie was dragging and the addition of 3-4 songs with dance sequences didn’t help at all. The second half had a lot of forced comedy which made me forget how to laugh.

It was not a 155 minute film by all means and could have been much better if it would have been trimmed more to a 130 minute mark.

The only thing that kept me going was the performances of the cast. Salman Khan nailed his role. Katrina Kaif (Kumud Raina) proved to her critics that she does have acting chops and her on-screen chemistry with Salman Khan was decent. Disha Patani and Tabu did their best with the minor roles which they were given but Sunil Grover as Vilayti Khan takes the cake as the best *actor* here. He hit the right spot when it was comedy and when it was drama.

The performances of the cast saved the film. All in all, Bharat is not a Kalank (pun intended) or a Race 3, but it isn’t a Sultan either.

—————–RATING———————–

1) Performance: Excellent

2) Treatment: Bad

3) Story: Mediocre

4) Recommendation: If you think Katrina Kaif doesn’t know acting, watch Bharat if you want to be proven wrong.

*Loser Of The Year* – Actual dialog from the movie.

Student Of The Year 2 is produced by Karan Johar and is directed by Punit Malhotra. It introduces us to newcomers, Ananya Panday (Shreya) and Tara Sutaria (Mia) and has Tiger Shroff (Rohan) as the hero and Aditya Seal (Manav) as the villain.

This movie has been done many times before. It has all the worst possible clichés which I thought it won’t have but it does and in plenty. I thought that the filmmakers will try and make this realistic and have a core message for the youth who are the main audience for the film. Unfortunately, it has none of that.

This film is so unrealistic that it scares me that kids who are between 7-10 years might start thinking that college will be like everything that is portrayed here.

There is only ONE minute of screen time showing *students* studying. As a 16-year old, it saddens me that this is how Bollywood wants to portray college life i.e. kabaddi, running races, long jumps yada yada. If one wins in these competitions, he/she becomes the *student* of the year.

Really, Bollywood? How low will you stoop down now?

I’m just getting warmed up because there’s a lot to talk about. The action sequences felt that they were straight out of a Jackie Chan movie. In his films, there is a perfect reason why he could do those stunts as he was e.g. an Agent in Rush Hour. But here, these characters are College Students who are flying around everywhere. And next to the kabaddi sequences. The filmmakers made new rules for this sport which made me want to go to sleep.

On a side note, the Indian kabaddi team should take notes from this film.

The direction is so generic and choppy that it’s saddening now. It seems as if the filmmakers don’t care about the audience anymore.

It’s all so cheesy and over the top with a song every ten minutes that kept taking me out of the movie.

The dialog was an abomination. That is all I’ve to say about that.

As I always try to end with a positive note, the performance was surprisingly good. Aditya Seal did a fantastic job. Tara and Ananya were decent as well. Tiger was meh but Harsh Beniwal (Puggi) was the stand out. He got the best laughs.

All in all, don’t waste your ticket money for this mess. You’ll not only save your money, you’ll save a few IQ points too.

————–RATING——————-

1) Performance: Good

2) Treatment: Bad

3) Story: Catastrophic

4) Recommendation: If you’re a fan of Tiger, maybe.

* Stirring and twisty *

Detective Pikachu is directed by Rob Letterman, who also directed Goosebumps. I really admired this adaptation of a child’s horror book to a Hollywood movie and wanted to see what he could do for the Pokémon lovers out there. He delivered.

• This movie has enough enjoyment for movie enthusiasts who don’t know anything about Pokémon and Pokémon fans.

For the movie enthusiasts, Ryan Reynolds voicing Pikachu was a movie-saving choice because he is hilarious. He injects comedy into an otherwise dull film and he makes it work.

• The Pokémon are much better characters than the actors in this film.

Except Tim Goodman ( Justice Smith ), there was no characterization of any other human and whenever on screen I saw *humans* interacting with each other, I just wanted Pikachu or any other Pokémon to cut the conversation and move the story forward as there was only tons of exposition and no character development. Having said that, the interplay between Tim and Pikachu is fun and stirring which holds up the script. There were lots of Pokémon references in the film. As there were so many, it took me a while to catch on the references and in that process, I missed some. This implies that the makers put in their heart and soul to make this film an entertaining affair and not make Pokémon a source of income for Hollywood and they succeeded to an extent.

• The VFX team deserves praise as all the Pokémon felt real especially Pikachu.

Ryan Reynolds did an amazing job in voicing Pikachu and I can’t think of any other actor who can voice this legendary cute character. The background score was based on the original Pokémon theme and it fit in well. The editing was decent and movie was overall technically, well crafted.

• There is a very big twist which caught me by surprise. From a storytelling perspective, the twist was handled well I bet you won’t see it coming.

————–RATING—————-

1) Performance: Average

2) Treatment: Excellent

3) Story: Good

4) Recommendation: Watch it just for Pikachu. You won’t be disappointed.

*Not as scary as you think*

The Curse Of The Weeping Woman or The Curse of La Llorona is directed by Michael Chaves, the protégé of James Wan, the director of the Conjuring films and currently the pioneer of films of the horror genre.

The movie is based on a Mexican Folklore and the first question which rose in my mind was that why wasn’t this film set in Mexico.

This folklore is pretty popular for the Mexicans and I think it was disappointing for the Mexicans as a community to see a much more *Americanised* version of La Llorona. Anyways with that major hiccup, this is a decent movie.

The James Wan horror formula works again here, but it is becoming kind of tiring.

None the less Michael Chaves follows the footsteps of James Wan and The Curse of The Weeping Woman comes off as much more of a student film. The setting is simple and not too convoluted, which makes this film much more grounded and *horrific*. La Llorona wasn’t as terrifying as I thought she would be because most of the *scares* were cheap jumpscares. The buildup or the *horror* was mildly prevalent.

The continuous jumpscares made me disconnect with the movie but the end was done relevantly well.

The first act was set up very good in fact and I see this film as a missed opportunity. If not for the jumpscares this could have actually become a much, much better film. The second act was mainly based on this and thus suffered. The third act was executed well and lifted this movie to a decent one. All the actors did their best and made the affair a believable one. Linda Cardellini was especially good. She was the stand out. The editing was the highlight whereas the background score, not so much.

The background score aids in the buildup of a scene but as almost all the scenes ended with a dreaded jumpscare, the score didn’t have much to do.

All in all its a decent effort by Michael Chaves to live up to his teacher and this movie could’ve been miles better.

—————- RATING —————

1. Performance: Excellent
2. Treatment: Average
3. Story: Good
4. Recommendation: Passable for a one time scare.