Paddington

Based on the series of children's books by Michael Bond, Paddington tells the story about a young Peruvian bear who travels from his native rainforest in South America to London, where he attempts to find himself a new family to live with.

Cast: Nicole Kidman, Ben Whishaw, Hugh Bonneville, Jim Broadbent, Peter Capaldi, Sally Hawkins, Imelda Staunton
Direction: Paul King
Genre: Comedy
Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes

Paddington Movie Review:When Paddington (Whishaw) arrives in London (after he loses most of his family in a natural disaster back in Peru), he is initially lost in a sea of strangers and of course, a bit overwhelmed by the whole 'bright lights, big city' vibe. Nevertheless, he does have a taste for all things British (with an accent to match and a love for marmalade too) and stoically decides to wait it out at Paddington Station until hopefully, he will meet a family which will let him into their home and make him part of the family unit.

As a helpful indicator of his intentions, he sports a sign around his neck that reads: 'Please look after this bear. Thank you.' Soon, Mr Brown (Bonneville), Mrs Brown (Hawkins) and their kids notice him and decide to take him home. He can stay, says Mr Brown, but for only one night. Back in the Browns' comfortable lodgings, Mrs Bird (Walters) manages the house in her own eccentric-but-efficient way. Mrs Brown learns that Paddington - a name she coined for him back at the train station - is quite literally, a rare bear and helps him to connect with his past in order to give him emotional grounding.

Along the way, Millicent the taxidermist (Kidman, channeling a 101 Dalmatians-style Cruella De Vil) finds out about Paddington's rare breed and makes it her mission to turn him into her latest specimen, stuffed with sawdust and preserved for posterity. The Browns and of course Paddington, will avoid her at all costs.

The seamless blending of animation with live action is the most striking point in the film. Apart from gently delivering the message about the importance of belonging, the jaunty film score also keeps things moving along rather nicely. Fun family viewing.

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Comedy ,

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Taken 3

Bryan Mills (Neeson) lives a quiet life, takes care of his teenaged daughter Kim (Grace) and feels tenderly for his ex-wife Lenore (Janssen), who has been having problems with current husband Stuart (Scott). Lenore is found dead in Bryan's apartment one afternoon and is the cops' chief suspect for her murder. But Bryan's chief objectives are to find Lenore's killers, protect his daughter and prove his innocence.
Cast: Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Forest Whitaker, Dougray Scott, Sam Spruell
Direction: Olivier Megaton
Genre: Action
Duration: 1 hour 52 minutes

Review: Mills is not your ordinary tough guy. He possesses deadly skills thanks to his military and CIA background, but is also extremely ethical and discerning about when and how to use those skills. His prime concerns are his ex-wife and daughter. And when someone messes with that, he as we've seen in the previous Taken movies, he finds them and eliminates them.

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Action ,

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Big Eyes

Margaret Keane (Adams) has a gift for creating paintings that are evocatively and hauntingly beautiful. However, so buried is she in her art that she does not know how to market her creations. Enter Walter (Waltz), who not only charms and marries Margaret but also make millions off her work.

Cast: Amy Adams, Christoph Waltz, Kristen Ritter, Terence Stamp, Jason Schwartzman
Direction: Tim Burton
Genre: Drama
Duration: 1 hour 46 minutes

Big Eyes Movie Review: The story begins in the 1950s. Beat poets and artists abound before the psychedelic explosion of the 1960s. Margaret is a freewheeling artist and has no sense of taking care of business, finance and how to value her work in money terms. Her life revolves around her art, and her only confidant in matters of life, love and more is her friend DeeAnn (Ritter). Margaret raises a daughter by herself as she is a divorcee. She is also desperate for work.

And even so, she takes refuge in her paintings, all of which are characterised by portraits of all kinds of people, with larger-than-life eyes.

The movie essentially revolves around Margaret and Walter. As a fellow artist who also makes his living by selling paintings, he meets Margaret by chance at a local fair. He sells his works for $35 while the un-savvy Margaret is willing to paint a portrait for $2. Walter, obviously a better salesman than a painter, knows he is no match for her artistically but he knows a good catch when he sees one. He soon charms and marries her and then passes off her paintings under his own name along with smiley-face salesmanship to make big bucks. It is essentially plagiarism disguised by a veneer of love and it is only a matter of time before Margaret takes off the rose tinted glasses and sees things as they really are.

Adams' Margaret is yielding at first but gradually, her righteous indignation takes over. Waltz plays the consummate scoundrel, a wolf in sheep's clothing, with ease. The film is largely compelling and touches upon many aspects about the dynamics of a couple's love, along with the lengths and limits of tolerance one can have for the other................

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Drama ,

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The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death

During WW II, London's residents face the fury of Nazi air-raids. To keep a group of children safe, the authorities move them and two teachers to a safe house in the countryside. What no one knows is that this dilapidated house has a spectral inhabitant far more terrifying than the Luftwaffe's air raids.

Cast: Eve Parkins, Oaklee Pendergast, Helen McCrory, Jeremy Irvine, Phoebe Fox, Leanne Best
Direction: Tom Harper
Genre: Horror
Duration: 1 hour 38 minutes

Review: If there's one thing that Woman In Black 2 is heavy on, it is atmosphere. And that's apparent during the journey out of London when the students, chaperoned by Eve (Fox) and a brigadier's wife Jean (McCrory) head to Eel Marsh House. Located slightly off the mainland, the terrain is marshy and treacherous.

The 'safe house', itself is obscured by clouds and looks as if it could give the poor war-traumatized kids a fresh set of nightmares. One of these kids is the orphan Edward (Pendergast). He refuses to talk and communicates with the kindly Eve, with paper chits.

Strange things start to happen in the house at night after they all reluctantly settle in. Things go bump in the dark and faces peer out from secret passages and dank, dark corridors. Eve has nightmares about her aborted child as the spectre starts manifesting herself, sending across vicious vibes while trying to drive a wedge between Eve and Edward. Amidst this and a cantankerous Jean, Eve's only relief is a charming RAF pilot Harry (Irvine). Harry protects Eve and Eve protects Edward, who she loves like the child she never had.

The stylishness and eerie visual sophistication creates an often unsettling, almost surreal vibe that emphasizes how disconnected they all are from the rest of the world. And the very grin-and-bear-it style Brit stiff upper lip that they try to maintain (Eve and Jean even have time for a spot of tea in the kitchen as they try to figure out what's going on) adds to the sense of surrealism. Overall, the movie doesn't rewrite the book of shock (despite the jump scares), but what you get is a fast-paced scare flick with an ending that could have been creepier.

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Horror ,

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Unbroken

This is the true story of Olympic athlete Louis Zamperini who was a bombardier in a USAAF B24 in WW II. When his bomber crashed in the Pacific Ocean during a rescue op, he and two crewmembers weathered 47 days in a life raft. Zamperini also survived two Japanese POW camps till the end of the war.


Cast: Jack O’Connell, Domhnall Gleeson, Takamaasa Ishihara, Alex Russell, Finn Wittrock, Jai Courtney
Direction: Angelina Jolie
Genre: Drama
Duration: 2 hours 19 minutes


Unbroken Movie Review: Divided into three distinct phases, Unbroken begins with Louis Zamperini's (O'Connell) upbringing and early years, along with his participation in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The second, during the thick of WW II and the manner in which he and two crewmembers spent those arduous days in the shark-infested Pacific after the crash. And lastly, the superhuman force of will that helps him to survive the brutality of the sadistic Japanese labour camp commander Mutsuhiro 'The Bird' Watanabe (Ishihara).
We see in flashback mode how Zamperini searches for a sense of identity. Directionless, he spends his days smoking cigarettes and drinking liquor concealed in milk bottles. Local bullies call him a 'wop' and a 'dago'. But his elder brother Pete (Russell) sees that what Louis can do, is run. 'If you can take it, you can make it", Pete tells Louis.

Louis and his friends face almost every kind of hardship - from the elements to starvation to beatings to backbreaking physical labour and sometimes, all of it at the same time. The values his brother taught him prove crucial to how he emerges battered and frayed, but unbroken.

In this moving tale of trial and ultimate redemption, Jolie dutifully paints a harrowing picture of how Zamperini stoically bears it all. But the redemption aspect of the tale is just breezed through. If only we could see how Zamperini pieced together his life after the war. That aside, apart from an engaging screenplay (Coen Brothers), cinematographer Roger Deakins's frames are vivid and powerful and Alexandre Desplat's score augments at optimal moments but thankfully, never overwhelms. O'Connell and Ishihara bring a stunning sense of realism to their roles, which is a great reason why you'll want to watch this movie.

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Drama ,

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Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

During a special event at the Museum of Natural History, the 'living' exhibits start to act very strangely. This is because of a curse contained within an ancient Egyptian tablet housed in the museum. Larry (Stiller) needs to find out how to get to the source of the tablet's magic in order to get things right again.

Cast: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Ricky Gervais, Ben Kingsley, Patrick Gallagher
Direction: Shawn Levy
Genre: Comedy
Duration: 1 hour 38 minutes

Review: It's a big night that Larry has planned out, with some of his favourite exhibits like Theodore Roosevelt (Williams), Attila the Hun (Gallagher), the Tyrannosaurus skeleton Rexy and of course, Dexter the Capuchin monkey, all prepped up to put on a dazzling display for an evening spectacular - the re-opening of a part of the museum.
With many high-profile guests in attendance, including museum curator Dr McPhee (Gervais), we are also introduced to a new character, the Neanderthal Laaa (Stiller in a double role) who thinks Larry is his 'dada' when he first sees him. On the night of the event, all goes according to plan for a while but strange things suddenly happen, thanks to the tablet of Ahkmenrah's (stored far away in its own room) power.

The exhibits go temporarily insane and the guests flee in fright. Soon after, Larry admonishes the forlorn exhibit gang, who can't quite understand what came over them. Figuring out that it was the tablet's influence, Larry finds out the story about this mysterious artifact. The tablet's (it was made as a symbol of protection) magic is diminishing apparently and if it continues, every exhibit will turn to wax and it's game over for everyone.

So, Larry, along with his exhibit buddies, including the hilarious mini-sized duo of Jedediah (Wilson) and Octavius (Coogan), head to the British Museum where they get to the source of the tablet's power and mystery. This fairly entertaining kiddie comedy is full of funny little asides and exchanges that keep the pace going. And of special note is Robin Williams' heartwarming performance, tinged with the kind of jocularity and poignancy that only he could pull off. Fun viewing for the holidays.

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Comedy ,

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The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies

Thorin (Armitage) and the Dwarves including Bilbo (Freeman), are still inside Smaug's castle. Even while Thorin is blinded by greed for the castle's treasure, several other powerful forces are also making a beeline for the power that the place contains.

Cast: Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Luke Evans, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Orlando Bloom, Lee Pace, Evangeline Lilly, Dean O’Gorman
Direction: Peter Jackson
Genre: Adventure
Duration: 2 hours 27 minutes

The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies Movie Review: When Bilbo, Thorin and gang watched in fear as Smaug (Cumberbatch) flew away to torch Lake Town, little did they realize that their leader Thorin was going mad thanks to 'dragon sickness', lust for the castle's gold and the Arkenstone. He now refuses leave the castle or even honour a commitment to help the people of Lake Town who have fled from their homes.
Meanwhile in Lake Town, Bard (Evans) escapes from imprisonment amidst the chaos. The wizard Gandalf (McKellen) is also freed from captivity after a short and sharp battle with several wraiths at Dol Goldur, thanks to Galadriel (Blanchett), Elrond (Weaving) and Saruman's (Lee) efforts. Sauron himself appears and challenges them, but Galadriel summons up all her abilities and drives him away - for now.

Bard, the people of Lake Town, Gandalf and Legolas (Bloom) eventually make their way to the castle where Thorin is. Thranduil (Pace), leader of the Elves, also has a claim in the castle's treasure and will battle the Dwarves for it. They're all in for shock though, when they realise that a vast army of Orcs have gathered to annihilate them. Amidst all of this, the Arkenstone must not fall into the wrong hands.

The battles are indeed mammoth and this is undoubtedly the most deadly of theHobbit series. The visuals, sense of immersive fantasy, wonder and detailing, are completely on point. Jackson has managed to magnify all the best elements of the previous films and negate almost all of the melodrama to create a well-balanced and precise presentation that never drags its heels. There's even a snatch of romance - between Fili (O'Gorman) and Tauriel (Lilly) - as well. Everything that fans will expect to see in such a film is in here, times ten. Definitely a grandiose end to the three-part saga.

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Adventure ,

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