The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

Cast: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Hugh Grant, Elizabeth Debicki, Luca Calvani
Direction: Guy Ritchie
Genre: Action
Duration: 1 hour 56 minutes

Story: It is 1963 and the Cold War between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is at its height. Despite these diplomatic tensions, an agent from each of these countries - Napoleon Solo (Cavill) and Illya Kuryakin (Hammer) - have to work together to stop a shadowy group from getting their hands on a nuclear warhead.

Review: First off, it's important to note that this movie is actually based on a popular US TV show from the post-World War II era. Back then, the spy genre seemed especially relevant given the tensions between the USA and the USSR and so, made great fodder for primetime TV. However Guy Ritchie has now updated the story line and infused it with a wry and dry sense of humour along with a generous dose of wittiness, all the while keeping the Cold War backdrop as a present-but-distant sideline.

Cavill is a former rogue-turned-CIA operative who has to work with KGB sleuth Illya to thwart race car driver Alexander (Calvani) and his impossibly beautiful wife Victoria's (Debicki) radioactive ambitions, so to speak.

The movie borrows from the buddy cop genre too, in the sense that you have two very competent but rival individuals who find themselves lassoed together in order to achieve a common objective.

Ritchie lets Cavill and Hammer have their day in the sun, with the film being buoyed by a slick script and hyper-stylish visuals. It's the kind of cinematic romp that 007 would have traded in one of his fancy wristwatches to earn a cameo in. Hugh Grant - that master of dry Brit wit - as a spy boss is also delightful here. Speaking of Bond, Cavill does his best to out-Bond James Bond and arguably (as well as surprisingly) succeeds, as the super-suave spy.

Illya, every inch the ruthless Russian tough-guy spy is initially at loggerheads with his political rival but soon develops a healthy respect for Solo. They realize that they can achieve more while working in sync, in an atmosphere devoid of mutual suspicion. This U.N.C.L.E is effortlessly cool. Go see it.

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Action ,

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No Escape

Cast: Owen Wilson, Pierce Brosnan, Lake Bell
Direction: John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle
Genre: Action
Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes
Story: Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson), a hydro engineer battling recession, displaces his family to an unnamed Asian country. His wife Annie and two daughters were already wary about being uprooted. A sudden coup in this unspecified country pushes them to embark on a harrowing survival journey.

Review: There is no escaping the fact that No Escape, despite all the bludgeoning, is a guilty pleasure you'll be tempted to take. The loopy script ridden with shameful cliches ends up taking a backseat, as you get on this roller-coaster ride.

John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle exhibit their fluency with the horror genre by creating similar jump-out-of-your-seat thrills. The film weaves a macabre ambience, incorporating the genre's quintessential props to frighten audiences.

The film's weakest link is its story that is painfully cliched. We are told about a coup d'etat but never the political context. The story doesn't bother exploring the reason for the locals' hatred towards America. In fact, the locals in the film loiter around like zombies, with hardly any dialogues to mutter. The narrative never focuses on the socio-political issue, wrapping it up in a jiffy. The movie then breezily shifts its attention to the Americans stuck in the torn-down country, desperately struggling to get out.

What works here is that the end product is a slick, pacy thriller. There is a spine-chilling sequence in the film in which Jack throws his daughter from a high-rise, while escaping from a group of insurgents, and she lands with a thud in her mother's arms.

Parental paranoia is beautifully captured by Owen. He owns every perilous frame skillfully. Former Bond actor Pierce Brosnan remains largely unused in the film but is enchanting to watch in the scenes he features in.

There are glimpses of the director duo's terrific work. Along with cinematographer Leo Hinstin, they mount a terrific assassination scene, which begins with glasses and ends in gore. The film is undeniably shallow fun, but fun nevertheless.

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Action ,

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Ricki and the Flash

Story: Ricki (Streep) left her home, family and a life of luxury a long time ago in order to pursue her dream of becoming a rock star. She gets a call one day from her ex-husband Pete (Kline) who informs her that their daughter is depressed after a breakup. When Ricki arrives home, she realizes she has a lot of ground to cover in terms of catching up with her family.

Cast: Meryl Streep, Rick Springfield, Kevin Kline, Mamie Gummer, Audra McDonald
Direction: Jonathan Demme
Genre: Drama
Duration: 1 hour 41 minutes

Review: Even when off the stage and not singing cover versions with her band in a tiny pub to a small but appreciative audience, Ricki (her real name's Linda) remains in black leather. She slurs and sways in Keith Richards-like rocker fashion and looks totally out of place in Pete's sprawling, tastefully-furnished home. Pete however, has long since moved on with a new wife, Maureen (McDonald), who treats Pete and Ricki's children as if they were her own.

Regardless of her rockstar accoutrements, Ricki's maternal instincts kick in as she spends time with her daughter Julie (Gummer). Julie went into a tailspin after her husband left her. She's also pretty pissed off with Linda for not being around and flatly tells Linda that her rocker chic makes her look like a cheap hooker.

In time, the mother and daughter do bond, thanks to a lot of TLC from Linda, who also didn't know that one of her sons is gay and that the other son will soon marry.

Linda knows however, that while Ricki is her stage name, it's more than just a persona; it is her life and soul. Streep's presence in Ricki elevates what could have been a fairly ordinary family drama into something that is refreshingly different.

The performances are mostly solid. Real-life rocker Springfield plays Ricki's bandmate and lover. And Gummer's screen presence is credible and good. Some of the film's best scenes involve her. But by the end of the film, you might find yourself wondering if Streep (she plays and sings for real here) really is in a rock n' roll band on the side. Yes, she's that convincing.

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Drama ,

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Fantastic Four

Story: This origin-tale tells the story of four individuals, each of whom acquires a unique and specific super-ability after teleporting themselves to an alien planet. Soon, they'll have to join forces to save the planet from destruction.

Cast: Miles Teller, Michael B Jordan, Kate Mara, Jamie Bell, Toby Kebbell, Reg Cathey
Direction: Josh Trank
Genre: Action
Duration: 1 hour 39 minutes

Review: The Fantastic Four have been deserving of a reboot for a while now, in full contemporary style. This film however, feels like an extended, somewhat boring preamble to the kind of action and excitement audiences deserve to see, presumably in the next film in this series.

Miles Teller is Reed Richards. More flexible than a rubber band and silly putty combined, he is also the brainiest of the lot. Michael Jordan is the volatile Johnny Storm, a giant blowtorch who has the ability to chuck fireballs at adversaries. Kate Mara essays the role of The Invisible Woman. Apart from being the female counterfoil for all the raging testosterone in the otherwise all-male gang, she rivals Mr Fantastic (Yes, that title does sound cheesy, no matter how many times repeated.) in terms of being level-headed and intelligent. Oh, and she generates force fields too in the form of giant, super-strong bubbles. Jamie Bell is The Thing, a creature who looks like he was fashioned out of a gigantic clump of parched earth. The closest superhero in terms of comparability is the Hulk. However, Thing cannot even hold a candle to the latter in terms of sheer brute force. The villain's role - that of Dr Doom - is in the film essayed by Toby Kebbell. They acquire the said superpowers after using a Quantum Gate (read: fancy teleportation device) to explore Planet Zero, which is in another dimension. Kebbell is left behind, tragically, but will ultimately confront the other four.

The script is dull, littered with cliched catchphrases (eg, "We can't change the past, but we can change the future!") and humorless. There are barely any action scenes in the film, save the film's climax, which looks rushed. Only the visual effects and Teller's performance is worthy of note. Superhero film fans can only hope that the next one will be interesting to watch.

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Action ,

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Vacation

Story: Rusty (Helms), an aircraft pilot for a domestic carrier comes upon the idea to take his wife Debbie (Applegate) along with two sons James (Gisondo) and Kevin (Stebbins) on a road trip to an amusement park called Walley World. Their road trip however, is nothing short of disastrous, as they are beset at almost every turn during the journey, by various difficulties.

Cast: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo, Steele Stebbins, Chris Hemsworth, Leslie Mann, Chevy Chase
Direction: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein
Genre: Comedy
Duration: 1 hour 35 minutes
Review: While the film is supposed to derive loose inspiration from National Lampoon's Vacation (1983), there are actually just a few similarities. For example, this version spares nothing when it comes to bawdiness and potty humour that can either hugely tickle your funny bone, or put you off, if naughty jokes don't float your boat.

Rusty is a perfectly loving dad and husband. He loves his two boys and sees himself more as a friend to them, rather than a patriarchal figure. Debbie knows he is extremely well-meaning but she craves for him to be a bit more rough-and-tough, apart from wishing he was a bit more dominating with her in the boudoir. She misses the point that he's a genuinely rare 'nice guy' and that bed-breaking sex is not the be-all of a relationship. For the blissfully unaware Rusty however, the road trip is the ultimate tool in his bag of tricks to not only bring the spark back into his marriage, but help him bond with his sons too.

The movie has plenty of genuinely funny moments. Their vehicle for starters, looks ready to fall apart at any time, with the voice of the GPS navigation system sounding like a hysterically angry samurai warrior. There's also the part when they spend the night at Rusty's sister Audrey's (Leslie Mann) country home. Hemsworth has a full-on hamming-it-to-the-hilt role as a wealthy Southern gent who has a bourbon glass seemingly glued to his hand all day, is impossibly well-endowed and is a bull stud when in bed with Audrey. Apart from his cameo, you'll also want to look out for a portly Chevy Chase's turn here. Fancy a bunch of laughs? Go see it then.

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Comedy ,

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Shaun the Sheep

Story: Bored with the farm's daily routine, Shaun (Fletcher) decides to take a day off. However, his plans go awry when a trailer that the soundly asleep Farmer (Sparkes) is placed in, rolls away to the city. The Farmer also loses his memory when he bumps his head. It's now up to Shaun, his fellow sheep and a few mates to rescue the Farmer, restore his memory and bring life to normal at Mossy Bottom Farm.
 

Cast: [Voices] Justin Fletcher, John Sparkes, Omid Djalili, Kate Harbour, Tim Hands, Simon Greenall
Direction: Richard Starzak, Mark Burton
Genre: Animation
Duration: 1 hour 25 minutes

Review: For those of you who are new to these characters (the film is a feature-length excursion based on the children's TV series, of the same name), it is important to know that there are no dialogues in the movie save the odd grunt or vocalization from a character or three meant to convey basic emotions. Additionally, stop-motion studio Aardman Animations (Chicken Run, Wallace & Gromit, Arthur Christmas and more) have kept things pretty simple and sweet - looks-wise - in the film. And that visual tenderness is matched by the simplicity of the story line itself. This is quite essential, given the lack of verbal content.
Shaun is certainly the most independent and smartest out of all the animals in the farm and when one day a bus rolls by bearing an advertisement for a vacation, Shaun makes up his mind to take that coveted day off. But just when things are going according to plan, Shaun's potential day off turns into a missing-person hunt for the Farmer. Shaun also gets by with a little help from his (sheep) friends, Bitzer and a stray named Slip (Hands). And all the while, they have to avoid being locked up by an obsessed animal-control worker.

There are a few clever messages slipped into the story. Such as the subtle impart that (in Shaun's case) with freedom comes responsibility. There are other poignant moments, like a scene where stray animals are put up for adoption, and we see via their actions just how keen they are to be welcomed into a new home. All in all, fun viewing for kids.

 

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Animation ,

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Mission: Impossible Rogue Nation

Story: CIA chief Hunley (Baldwin) convinces a Senate committee to disband the IMF (Impossible Mission Force), of which Ethan Hunt (Cruise) is a key member. Hunley argues that the IMF is too reckless. Now on his own, Hunt goes after a shadowy and deadly rogue organization called the Syndicate.

Cast: Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Ving Rhames, Sean Harris, Alec Baldwin
Direction: Christopher McQuarrie
Genre: Action
Duration: 2 hours 13 minutes

Review: We get an idea of the kind of limits Tom Cruise will go to, in order to entertain his fans, almost as soon as the movie begins. He clings to the outside of a cargo plane (the shot reportedly took eight takes) while in flight, as he desperately maneuvers to get inside the airplane and jettison a load of chemical warheads. The CGI/stunt double route could have been taken, but Cruise did it for real. Because he's Tom Cruise.Cruise's Hunt is a little older, wiser, but no less aggressive. Hunt is captured and almost killed by a Syndicate member, but is saved by another rogue agent, Ilsa Faust (Ferguson) from Britain's MI6, in the nick of time. 'When he learns that the Syndicate plans on assassinating a head of state, Hunt brings in his old friend Benji (Pegg) to help with matters and their mission is now to thwart the Syndicate's plans.' What follows is classic MI fare with stunts galore, thrilling chase sequences, tech wizardry and more.
 

McQuarrie doesn't stray too far from formula here, but there's more humour in here than previously seen in the series. McQuarrie (who has worked with Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow and Jack Reacher) coaxes a kickass show from Cruise. Ferguson's Faust is alluring. She finds that sweet spot in between being eye candy and deadly vixen. On screen, Hunt and she complement each other perfectly.

The sequence at the Vienna State Opera (with the Chancellor of Austria in attendance, watching Puccini's Turandot), involving activity happening offstage between Hunt and a bunch of bad guys even as the blissfully unaware audience watches the stage show, is almost poetic in terms of timing and synchronization.

A winsome mix of old school and new, Rogue Nation will thrill you throughout.

 

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Action ,

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Pixels

A message is beamed out from Earth in the past to try and connect with extraterrestrial life. Among other pop culture elements, the message contains some old videogames. In the present day, aliens unleash those videogames on Earth in real life, in a destructive way. Only a few gamers can save the earth from annihilation.

Cast: Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Peter Dinklage, Michelle Monaghan, Josh Gad, Brian Cox, Dan Aykroyd, Daryl Hall, John Oates, Serena Williams
Direction: Chris Columbus
Genre: Sci-Fi
Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes

 
Review: What do you get when you take a dollop of Adam Sandler-style goofball humor and supplement it with nostalgia-laden videogame visuals from the 1980s? Pixels presents a barrage of this and more that can at times, hammer on the senses.
Brenner (Sandler) and Cooper (James) were excellent at videogames as kids. The only person, who could top Brenner, was Eddie Plant (Dinklage, the movie's hilarious highlight) who defeated Brenner in Donkey Kong. Brenner and Cooper are also buddies with Ludlow (Gad), who lives and breathes gaming. This was in the early 80s.

Cut to the present day and Brenner works in the electronics industry. While it pays the bills, it certainly isn't what he hoped he'd be doing. Especially when compared to his childhood buddy Cooper, who is now - wait for it - the President of the United States!

The games begin when Cooper tells Brenner that Earth is under alien attack and only their knowledge of the vintage videogames can save them. The aliens beam their messages using manipulated TV footage of Hall and Oates, Fantasy Island characters and so on, conveying that they have three rounds to play. If the humans lose, Earth is kaput.

Pixels is heavy on 80s iconography, with games like Pac Man, Centipede, Donkey Kong and even characters like Max Headroom being represented. While an older generation may get these references, the same might be lost on younger audiences. Sandler unfortunately brings nothing new to the table; his expressions remain the same as you'd have seen in The Wedding Singer. It is Dinklage rather, whose presence lifts every scene he's in, with his faux-suave routine as a ladies' man. So, if you watch this, it'll only be for his and Gad's movie-saving performances.

 

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Sci-Fi ,

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The Vatican Tapes

Young Angela's (Dudley) life is turned upside down when she's possessed by an evil entity. As her condition goes from bad to worse, her father Roger (Scott) and boyfriend Pete (Amedori) allow an exorcism to be performed on her.
Cast: Michael Peña, Olivia Taylor Dudley, Dougray Scott, Djimon Hounsou, John Patrick Amedori, Peter Andersson, Kathleen Robertson
Direction: Mark Neveldine
Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes

 
The Vatican Tapes Review: Loving, cheerful and full of pep, Angela seems the unlikeliest target for demonic possession. Given her normal existence prior to possession, her transformation from mellow to malevolent is all the more disturbing to witness.

In the Vatican, a few priests are aware about various evil forces at play all over the world - forces that result in an increased number of demonic possessions (depicted via found-footage format) and events that could pave way for the Antichrist.

Angela's strange behavior starts manifesting just before she gets into a car accident. It takes months for her to wake up from a coma. She does so, strangely enough, when Father Lozano (Pena, suitably somber) blesses her with holy water. But all is far from well. Angela can speak in ancient tongues (Aramaic included), summon ravens (considered a symbol of death) and cause people to temporarily lose their minds and fatally injure themselves.

Vatican Tapes now treads down a somewhat familiar exorcism-horror film path. After a disastrous stint in a psychiatric ward, where head shrink Dr Richards (Robertson) is unable to help her, all hopes are pinned on the hard-headed Cardinal Bruun (Andersson, fairly intense), down from the Vatican, to try and perform the said exorcism. But can Angela really be cured? And does Bruun know the magnitude of evil that he is dealing with?

While Hounsou is somewhat underplayed - seen in only a smattering of scenes - Scott and Amedori's roles are fairly run-of-the-mill. Dudley however, injects her performance with the right shade of eeriness. Neveldine's effective use of light combined with Joseph Bishara's creepy score (he's also scored Insidious and The Conjuring) is also noteworthy. But while there are a few appropriately scary scenes, the overall feeling is that Neveldine could have served up far more terrifying film if he'd pushed the envelope more, given the intense subject matter.

 

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Horror ,

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Southpaw

 The famous boxer Billy Hope loses his wife, his property and his daughter after an accident. The film traces the story of how he gets back on his feet against all adversities.
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Forest Whitaker, Rachel McAdams
Direction: Antoine Fuqua
Genre: Action
Duration: 2 hours 4 minutes

 
Southpaw Review: Southpaw is a lethal concoction of drama and pugilistic action. The film's bland scripting put its lead character through a circle of physical and emotional suffering. Jake Gyllenhaal skillfully moulds himself into the character of Billy Hope whose dwindling career in boxing is revived after life forces him to stand up for his daughter. Billy's character is quite that of a man child, who runs by the decisions taken either by his wife Maurie or his manager.
After a bloody match, Maurie is the first to sense that Billy is losing his edge. But, as fate would have it, an accident kills her leaving Billy emotionally derailed, in debt and left to re-build his life from scratch. It's a predictable story which relies solely on the performance of its lead man.

Director Antoine Fuqua extracts a dazzling act from Jake who is supported by a neatly-scripted story which might miss the streak of genius but is earnestly heart-felt. There is no melodrama which drives home the film's punches swifter. The thing with these sport movies is that impact works better than nuances. Not that it is any less fun watching Jake's Billy master his defense strokes, but it is the film's sentimentality that scores over its well-choreographed punches.

Jake is winsome in the physically demanding role. He has the perfectly-sculpted abs, the correct postures, seething with anger in his brawls and filled with love as he carefully caresses his daughter's tresses. With his flawed diction and pitch-perfect demeanour, Southpaw is a Jake-show all along as he takes us through the agonizing discipline of boxer's routine.

With a heartening story in tow, the film transforms a regular tale of suffering, loss and redemption extraordinarily. Though laden with cliches, it is consistently hard-hitting and never loses plot. The right blend of heart and skill works in suffusing an operatic feel to the movie which is an absolute knockout.

 

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Action ,

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Mr. Holmes

Story: Sherlock Homes is 93 - as his memory fades, will Holmes find his last case quite so elementary?

Cast: Ian McKellen, Laura Linney, Milo Parker, Hattie Morahan, Patrick Kennedy
Direction: Bill Condon
Genre: Drama
Duration: 2 hours 4 minutes

Review: An aged Sherlock Holmes (McKellen) has retired to a country cottage where, instead of criminals, bee-keeping occupies his time. His housekeeper, Mrs. Monroe (Laura), wants to leave but her young son Roger (Milo) is a huge Sherlock fan. What happens when Holmes teaches Roger about keeping bees - while losing his memories?
Mr. Holmes is an ironic new spin on iconic Sherlock Holmes which, instead of a deerstalker, raises a wry old eyebrow at the best-selling brand of Baker Street. Ian McKellen's creaking antique Holmes, a direct contrast to Robert Downey Jr's sexily pouting, super-athletic Sherlock, underlines a real man, as wheezy as an old harmonium. The veteran McKellen is superb as Sherlock, trailing his own memory, luminescent when he remembers, growling when he can't. Laura Linney puts on a lovely, lemony Mrs. Monroe, softly sweet but troubled by her own memories. As young Roger, who lives in the bright sunshine of now, Milo walks a dramatic tightrope with flawless, natural ease, fascinated by a legend, then appreciating a fragile old man.

Alongside wonderful acting, the cinematography captures an enchantingly pretty country, lush green gardens, busy London streets, towering white cliffs, winding steamy trains. The editing, cutting from 1947 to 1917, is swift, but the narrative is actually too rich - a Japan track detracts from Holmes' last case, involving a mysterious Mrs. Kelmot (Hattie) and her suspicious husband (Patrick). Holmes' time travelling is excellent - McKellen presents a crisp, dapper Sherlock, from whose body 30 years fall neatly away, donning tails and top hat to stalk London with elegant determination. Had the narrative only moved across time, not continents, the impact of such acting would be far greater.

However, the philosophy of this tale, inspired by the novel A Slight Trick of the Mind, charms. At the end of his career, his powers fading, Holmes faces his greatest challenge. Having always dismissed emotions while underlining "Logic is rare", Holmes now needs love to crack his last case.

Why? Elementary, really.

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Drama ,

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Ant-Man

Scott Lang (Rudd), a petty thief, is trained to wear and operate a super-strong, size-modifying suit by tech genius Dr Pym (Douglas). Lang needs to save humanity from destruction by thwarting the plans of the evil Darren Cross (Stoll), Pym's nemesis.
Cast: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Tip “T.I.” Harris, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Anthony Mackie, Judy Greer
Direction: Peyton Reed
Duration: 1 hour 58 minutes


Review: To start with, the idea of a superhero character that can shrink down to infinitesimal size, become stronger the tinier he gets and command an infinite army of ants, sounds extremely interesting. Reed and team have crafted a superhero film that is not only action-packed (not excessively so), but also funny and thankfully devoid of bluster. At its heart though, this is a heist movie.
Cross was Pym's protege but went renegade and tried to crack Pym's human-shrinking formula to create his own kind of 'ant man' suit - Yellowjacket. Pym knows that Cross will sell this deadly tech to the wrong people - something that can only bode ill for humanity. Lang is trained to infiltrate Cross's HQ and destroy Yellowjacket along with the entire facility. Pym's daughter Hope (Lilly) doubts Lang's competence for the task. That aside though, it's easy to discern the crackling chemistry between Lang and her from the outset.
Ant-Man's effects are often astounding - for one, flawlessly recreating a younger-looking Michael Douglas early on in the movie. Then of course, the plethora of ant scene renderings as well as other sequences, like Lang's journey into the sub-atomic realm.

But this isn't just a VFX flex-fest. Douglas' Pym could have had more of an edge (think Gordon Gekko) and Lilly is a bit ho-hum. However, Rudd's Lang is refreshingly self-effacing and charming. Pena is flat-out hilarious; apart from getting the last line of the film, he absolutely owns the scenes he's in. If he had a bigger part, doubtless he'd have stolen the show.

Guardians of the Galaxy ushered in a new flavor of superhero films - of fairly 'ordinary' people who learn to do extraordinary things - and this brings a more human angle to the film. Ant-Man continues the trend. Oh, and don't miss Marvel legend Stan Lee's cameo too!

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Action ,

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The Gallows

4 teenagers find themselves trapped in their school at night. Three of the four had attempted to vandalize the sets of their school play called 'The Gallows'. A mysterious being - either real or supernatural - tries to prevent them from escaping alive.

Cast: Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos, Cassidy Gifford, Price T. Morgan, Jesse Cross
Direction: Travis Cluff, Chris Lofing
Genre: Horror
Duration: 1 hour 21 minutes
 
The Gallows Review: The found footage horror sub-genre came into its own back when we saw the Blair Witch Project. There has been a clutch of film since then that serve up cinematic variations of found footage fare. Some work, some don't. The Gallows lies somewhere in between.
It starts off with a perfectly good premise, with a minimum of jump scares and a location (trapped in a nightmarish high school at night) that sets the scene for an eventful time, to say the least. Ryan (Shoos) is the archetypical school bully-cum-jock who was seemingly born with a camera strapped to his hand and a gift for verbal diarrhea. Neither his girlfriend, cheerleader Cassidy (Gifford) nor his best buddy Reese (Mishler) seems to mind Ryan's motor-mouth though.

An accident during a staging of the play in 1993 resulted in the death of Charlie (Cross), a student at that time. His then-girlfriend was devastated and the blame was placed on some students rather than a mechanical malfunction. Many years later in 2013, Charlie's ghost it seems (Or perhaps a flesh-and-blood murderer?) seeks revenge.

There are a few unexplained elements. Given that the camera work is all point-of-view - shot by the students - there are scenes where it appears that some other person is holding the camera. Also, why would the grudge vendetta be passed on to poor Reese? And why doesn't Ryan keep his mouth shut for a few moments at least, thereby allowing his admittedly more intelligent buddies and girlfriend to get a word in edgeways, even as they are running for their lives? Furthermore, since when are spirits captured on ordinary handheld cameras? That said however, the sound mixing as well as the use of light and shadow in deliberately claustrophobic conditions is effective and serves up a decent amount of scares.

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Horror ,

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Minions

After accidentally killing past bosses from the Tyrannosaurus to Napoleon, the minions alienate themselves and set up a desolate colony in Antarctica. The mirth of living independently wears out and the tribe slips into collective depression due to the lack of a leader. A minion, Kevin swears to bring life back to his clan by finding them a new boss. Along with two others, Stuart and Bob, he embarks on the cumbersome journey that will finally make them meet Gru.

Cast: Pierre Coffin, Sandra Bullock, Jon Hamm, Michael Keaton, Allison Janney, Steve Coogan
Direction: Pierre Coffin, Kyle Balda
Duration: 1 hour 31 minutes


Review: Minions made their way into our hearts with the unabashedly hilarious Despicable Me in 2010. Five years on, these goggle-eyed yellow creatures take on the centre-stage in this origin-story flick with their gibberish blabber and their stock pratfall frolics to amuse us.
Taking the plot away from humans was a bold move on the part of its writers but the skill with which the story holds its ground is laudable. Though the minion antics become repetitive 30 minutes into the film, they are so endearing that it never gets boring. Of course, the bravado of the earlier parts is missing from this tale that relies solely on its non-humans to pull off the impenitent gags. But, it still comes off as a breezy, fuzzy watch.

Tracking their evolution chronologically, the minions take us through their tainted history of losing bosses to strange mishaps. With fewer humans in the film, it is left to Sandra, who lends her voice to super villain Scarlet Overkill, who thrives in bringing forth the desired wickedness. But Overkill is loud and feebly-plotted, lacking Gru's subtlety and panache.

Yet, the writing is nuanced in places as the gags are thoughtfully orchestrated. There is a fleeting President Nixon joke, a Beatles reference (imagery referencing the 60s), props like the inclusion of a 'villain-con' are all put together with verve. The sequence where the minions break into the Beatles' song Revolution is incredible.

At 91 minutes, these tiny yellow blobs steal the show from their human counterparts. With charming elements galore, adorable gibberish talk and winsome screen presence, the film is cuteness overload.

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Cartoon ,

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