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Primeval (2007)
An upmost nostalgic and entertaining science-fiction for prehistory fans.
Primeval is an English science-fiction monster action drama TV series originally created by Tim Haines famous for sparking the Walking With franchise. It's a show that's just tense and thrilling enough to keep adults invested and yet not too gritty or disturbing for kids to turn away from it. This is the perfect show that will bring a child's fascination with animals and speculative fiction to life, it makes the most of the simple plot and storyline by engaging the audience in an immersive speculative reality with relatable and compelling themes.
The storyline of Primeval, originally called Cutter's Bestiary follows the unveiling of anomalies as they're discovered by the English government, anomalies being their term for portals that randomly open across space and time throughout Earth's history. It's a fairly grounded world that places vulnerable characters in a science fictionalized setting as they find that animals from the past and future will stray to the present, the implications meaning timeline changes and justifying mythological creatures. The original cast consisting of professor Nick Cutter and his assistant Stephen Hart, herpetologist Abby Maitland, techie genius and paleontology student Connor Temple (my personal favorite), and their higher up James Lester who would later find an organization to investigate these showcase relatable emotions and experiences. Although the show follows a formulatic monster of the week approach they also showcase the ethical dilemmas behind harming the animals as well as various human villains who are solely focused on controlling and exploiting them. The animals themselves are antagonistic in Season 1, followed by Oliver Leak in Season 2, Cutter's misanthropic and skilled wife Helen in 3, Ethan Dowbraski in 4, and Phillip Burton in 5.
The series presents these intriguing themes and puts the characters through more stress and peril than facing saurians every few days, they also unpack the scientific properties of anomalies in their headquarters that doesn't hold back on impressing you. All in all it has good writing, characterizations, VFX, designs, and will satisfy 7-70 year olds for sure. It's entertaining for all ages, even if you don't fully understand the storyline you can enjoy the tension of the monsters onscreen. It caught the interest of my family members who weren't really paying attention to the show with the beasts anyway.
My only cons with the show, albiet these don't make it bad but rather not great, would be some reoccuring cliches, conveniences, one dimensional characters here and there, and a fairly simple overall storyline that doesn't offer too many twists or constant tension, but in that sense it gives viewers a chance to breathe as the characters would after facing their enemies. Particularly, it should be mentioned that Seasons 1-3 slowly escalate to reach full potential, 3 offering many unique creatures, character development, and more depth into their storyline due to episode length. 4 and 5 however are severe downgrades and suffer budget cuts and drops in writing quality, for example there are many recycled CGI scenes, poor special effects, slightly lower quality acting, and ultimately slow plot progression compared to the first three. Nonetheless the show is overall enjoyable and the perfect family friendly yet thrilling monster show.
Knock Knock (2015)
A grounded and unsettling psychological thriller that will chill you to the bone.
Overview: First of all I'm quite surprised at the reception here, I should mention that due to the mature content in the film it is absolutely not for everyone but if you can look past it you're presented with a well constructed thriller of how one man's seemingly inconsequential mistake utterly ruins him. Knock Knock, a 2015 thriller by Eli Roth follows Evan Webber, a family man and architect who has an extramarital affair with two girls Bel and Genesis while his wife Karen is out of town with their kids, only to be shown that the girls have a sick hobby in psychologically torturing men and ruining their reputations.
The actual plot of the film is good, I would say the execution, imagery, acting performances, and utter feeling of dread and hopelessness created by the movie is even better. It doesn't really have any problems except that some scenes here and there drag on but that makes it realistic. The film starts off innocent enough showing Evan's family life and how it completely falls apart after he meets the girls and they seduce him. It's implied that the girls grew up abused and violated and that they project that upon others. Evan may have an unhappy marriage and makes no resistance to their seduction, we'll never know. All we know is that the one decision he makes here leads to the girls holding him hostage, destroying his house, physically and mentally torturing him to condemn him for cheating, and eventually pretending to kill him. The fact that what's presented in the film could possibly happen to anybody and scar them for good is indeed chilling. The only con I would say with the concept is that the handful of plot holes, where Evan could have made better decisions and the girls make zero effort to cover their tracks, which means they would get caught easily. They have also done this many times before but I can toss that aside in favor of the good aspects. This is indeed worth the watch but it's not something I would see for entertainment, it's not meant to be fun as opposed to unsettling, and if it frustrates you that means it worked.
Kabzaa (2023)
A watchable and average period epic that's very similar to KGF. A few places of wasted potential, but it's a significant improvement over Kantara.
Kabzaa is a 2023 period epic film created by R. Chandru, it's set in the 1970s and focuses on Arkeshwara, an Indian Air Force pilot who's forced into the life of a gangster after forming deadly rivalries in the lawless gang ridden world of Amarapuram. As one can imagine from seeing that fire trailer, by the way that's a 10/10 trailer, it takes heavy inspiration from KGF. The premise, plot, characters, and aesthetic all take inspiration from it, and there's nothing wrong with that, but it does struggle overall with originality and emotional weight which gives it heavy wasted potential.
The actual plot of the film is a bit too simple, it is for KGF too but they make the most of it by deeply exploring Rocky's characterization and the roles of his enemies. Kabzaa does this but merely brushes major parts off, and there's more exposition than action. But the story itself is followable, only minor confusion by the name dropping of the characters. It follows Arkeshwara leading a normal life until the upcoming election for Chief Minister changes the character's lives. Arkeshwara is in love with Madhumati, who's the daughter of a dreaded king Veer Bahadur, known for owning a massive slave force and being a powerful man during the British Raj. Due to the power vacuum he and multiple gang factions compete for power, leading to his rival gangster Khaleed and his son Sartaaj to start a shootout in Amarapuram. Arkeshwara's courageous brother Sarkeswhara kills Sartaaj and this act changes everybody. Khaleed butchers Sarkeshwara and this may be one of the most emotional parts, though it's quickly glossed over in favor of progressing the plot. Arkeshwara has previously been shown to be cowardly but is put in rage by this, and kills the police officer who betrayed him to Khaleed. Arkeshwara is forced to run and in a short span becomes a self taught gangster who's pit against Khaleed, but he does have help from Veer Bahadur who supports him. Eventually he is allied with Target, another gangster who was self taught like him, and he and his new allies turn against the other gangsters in the area including Bhangira and Malik. The problem is that these plot points happen too fast, these emotional troubles for the main character and characterizations of the villains could have been deeply explored, and they were to an extent in KGF.
The film gets slightly better in the third act than in the middle, when it's shown that Arkeshwara took charge of Bhangira's massive criminal empire for his own safety and had kids with Mandumati, much to the disapproval of Bahadur. It's shown that he craves Arkeshwara's power and despised his daughter for eloping with a gangster, so he turns on them both and kills his daughter's kids. I feel like Arkeshwara should have seen this coming but it can be excused. Bahadur sends the dreaded cop Bhargava Bakshi to apprehend Arkeshwara, but out of nowhere another gangster named Siddantha attacks both of them, and this is to be the plot for the sequel. Overall Kabzaa works as a movie, it has spectacular visuals and among the best soundtrack I've seen in film, it constantly gives you something to be excited about but the writing itself is flawed and you don't know what you're supposed to be feeling. It is worth watching however, heck unlike Rishab Shetty, R. Chandru can actually write a coherent story with likable characters. Hope the sequel can improve on the weak points of this film. I theorize that Siddantha was the gangster who killed Arkeshwara's father in the beginning of the film, and if it's true it would fit perfectly with an arc for the sequel.
Kidnap (2017)
One of the best action thrillers I've seen.
Overview: Kidnap is a 2017 action thriller film written by Knate Lee, it focuses on Karla Dyson, an ordinary waitress and single mother who leads a normal life until she slips up and finds that her son Frankie is kidnapped by a couple Margo and Terry who are presumably involved in trafficking or ransom. It's a simple premise but the film takes the upmost advantage of this and will have you hooked as it shows a seemingly ordinary and helpless woman fighting and killing to get her son back.
I'll have to say that I don't think there are any cons with this film as evidenced by my rating, it doesn't have any flaws. The primary strength would be the dynamic plot, it hooks you from the very beginning where Karla is shown to have a generic bond with her son as one would expect, but this is heavily cemented in the ensuing chase for which I have to praise the acting and performances, and the tension created is more than satisfying. My favorite aspect of this is how seemingly grounded it is, and yet it presents an extraordinarily thrilling story of a mother doing whatever it takes as she speeds down the freeway trying to stop the abductors, and there are points she engages in fights with them. She's not a combatant, she's helpless, vulnerable, and fights for her life. It kind of reminds me of a masala film but instead of being comedically and outlandishly good at combat it's real and genuine. After the many struggles in real time she confronts the couple's leader and there's a satisfying moment where she bludgeons him in the face after seeing through his deception. She doesn't care that she could lose her own life and goes above and beyond to save her son. I'd like to watch this again sometime, other aspects of the film including technical are good but the fast paced thrilling plot is the central treat. I'd give this an 8.5.
Nexo Knights (2015)
Lazy, flat, and boring. One of the worst shows I've seen.
I realized just three to four episodes in that this was indeed a massive waste of money, animation, and marketing effort. I forced myself to watch two seasons and I can tell you you can go your entire life without seeing this lazy excuse for an epic fantasy. It's extremely effortless, the story is basic, the characterizations despite having good designs are flat and one dimensional, and very annoying and cringy from time to time. There's no consistent plot, the character interactions and filler episodes resemble Sesame Street or Dora the Explorer in simplicity, and really insult the audience. You're better off watching Ninjago or Chima, both of them are memorable. The flaws with this show are comparable to that of the Ninjago Movie including awful writing, bad characterizations, childish tone, lame jokes. It's a kid's show yes but good kids shows are serious in their own right and educate, and tell compelling stories but restrict the violence and maturity slightly as to appeal to their audience. When written well they're still fun to watch by most if not all ages. Ninjago, Amphibia, Carmen Sandiego, and She-Ra to name a few are all well done, not this.
Pros- Let's get this out of the way. The visuals aren't bad, the monster and character designs are good, there are many recycled ones for the robots but it can be overlooked. The visuals are good, and they put very miniscule effort into story but it's still there, it has a premise.
Cons- The lazy story and flat characters are the biggest problem. It focuses on the kingdom of Knightington in which the Nexo Knights native to it defend their land, and their threat is Jestro, a jester who's been humiliated and mocked for his incompetence. It's a one dimensional origin but it works slightly, then he gets corrupted by the dark sorcerer Monstrox. The first two episodes had a promising start, as it went on it became a silly slapstick adventure arc with slow and dragged out subplots and childish antics that can't be taken seriously. Legends of Chima does similar things to this and it's slightly flawed but in the end the the plot is progressed and the characters are put in real danger and conflict, not just goofing around. It's quite shocking that this show went on for four seasons. The first two and last two episodes of Season 1 were worth watching, you can skip the majority of it and you won't miss a thing but cheesy anime power call outs and meaningless storylines. The New Ninja in Ninjago are more properly characterized than the Nexo Knights and that's saying something. I gave this a 3/10 because there's a tiny bit of effort put into visuals and premise, there's nothing else good about the show that you'd want to sit down and see even one season of it for. All it is is bland, dragged out, and sleep inducing. The show itself is unnecessary, it should have been cancelled after Season 2. With Ninjago still going strong this show is obsolete and insignificant, and I believe there's a serious lack of passion on the part of the producers/writers but rather a desire for money behind this, as much that can be earned with little effort put into the show.
Varisu (2023)
A refreshing masala film and one of the best Kollywood movies.
Overview:
Translating to "Heir", Varisu is an action drama originally created by Hari, this is the first of his films that I've seen. It focuses on Vijay Rajendran, the youngest son of Rajendran Palanisamy, a business tycoon. When Palanisamy is on the verge of death by pancreatic cancer he needs to pass down the company and picks Vijay despite having hated him for defiance and questioning of his authority after it's revealed that his other two sons Jai and Ajay have disgraced his legacy, Jai having neglected his family by having an affair and Ajay having embezzled money to pay off a debt to a fellow investor Mukesh. Mukesh works for Jayaprakash, a rival to Palanisamy who manages to expose both of these secrets. The plot follows Jai and Ajay attempting to use violent means to dispatch their own brother and steal the company, until Vijay manages to reform them after a series of emotional predicaments.
Pros:
Story/Writing/Themes: I'd like to get this out of the way. The only reason this has mixed reviews is because people who are not in the target audience saw this and think it's bad. Masala and cheesy comedy action are an acquired taste and have been a part of Indian cinema for a while, you have to suspend belief to enjoy it, and Varisu is among the more grounded. The overall plot and story is solid, the characters have realistic conflicts, emotions, all arousing from the fact that the family is dysfunctional and the sons of Palanisamy have been pit against each other viscously, having exhibited no love towards each other. Vijay is kicked out of the family for defying his father and opposing his cruel ways, including looking down upon the less fortunate. After returning from his exile to see his mother JP's exposure of Jay and Ajay leads to him getting the company, after which Vijay's two brothers attempt to repeatedly attack him. When Vijay manages to humbly outsmart them the brothers nearly give up until Jai's daughter is abducted by a trafficking ring. Vijay manages to fight his way into the kidnapper's territory and save her, earning Jai's respect. It's not cliche at all, he genuinely realizes his wrongs and finds enough love for his family to call off the affair and reconcile with them. This also follows with Ajay who's reformation is slightly weaker but he too asks Palanisamy for forgiveness upon being betrayed by Jayaprakash. In the end they attempt to make amends for their wrongs following their father's passing. Despite their severity Vijay forgives his brothers and preaches the value of family regardless of how they treated you. This is a debatable message but the fact that the brothers were sincerely remorseful makes it work.
Action: Vijay is a pro combatant which is a trope in much of Indian cinema. It can be defined as a flaw but it just makes the movie entertaining, as no matter what his brothers throw at him he manages to dodge. This isn't simply him being a Gary Stu, it's him being confident about himself and what his cause is, and a message of power that he cannot be put down. The fights are so entertaining that Vijay is essentially an epic movie protagonist. They try to mythologize this common man so much that there's a scene where he breaks a trafficker's arm, and the visual shows a purple light path on his hand as if he has some kind of superpower. You don't have to take it too seriously, it's intentionally goofy.
The other good aspects of this would be the cinematography, visuals, acting, and soundtrack, all of which were good. There are honestly no cons with this, it's just a matter of taste. The story, characters, technical aspects, and themes were all done well. It's a refreshing masala film that's good for a family.
Velma (2023)
Not remotely as bad as people are saying, but not that good either.
First of all I should clarify that I find the backlash to this show completely unreasonable, primarily because it's a black comedy that gets criticized for doing exactly what shows like Family Guy does and that gets praised. Velma is an animated mystery crime adventure drama based off of the titular Scooby-Doo character, and reimagines her life in highschool with her friends Daphne, Fred, and Shaggy who has been renamed Norville in this. I have seen the first episode and upon watching multiple reviews of people's analysis on youtube I can understand why people didn't like it but it's not remotely as bad as they say. Velma has a serious problem with storytelling, character development, relatability, and tone.
From a technical perspective it passes all checks, it's well animated and drawn. I don't understand why everybody trashes the show's humor cause a lot of it is actually funny black comedy, the problem with a lot of them is relatability, much of the jokes are political based and forced, and have racial tendencies. Now I don't have a problem with this and I don't think anybody else does, cause again, Family Guy does this, American Dad, Fugget About It, I'm sure every other adult series does this, why should Velma be an exception? I suppose the only reason is because it's a Scooby Doo show, perhaps in that department I think differently since I was never a Scooby Doo fan. I never liked the concept, found it too silly, which is why I was initially interested in this show because I thought it would be suitable for me. However upon watching it it's pretty clear that they have a serious storytelling problem. The characters are too antagonistic towards each other for you to like them, and this could work if they develop or get punished which they don't a lot. There is no compelling story nor properly paced narrative, if the reviews I saw are accurate. The show seems to be very agenda driven and I'm not one of those overly critical watchers who nitpicks this, but I want them to fit with the story but they're usually forced as well. Episode 7 was particularly offensive to males, it depicts Velma disguising herself as one to use male privileges to get her way. I can confidentially say as a guy I've never assaulted anybody or impersonated a doctor, or gotten away with murder cause I'm a male. If these jokes were used cleverly to convey some kind of irony or if there was an outlier character who could correct these mindsets it wouldn't be as bad. I did see reviews and reactions to the finale as well, which reveals Fred's mother as the serial killer who's been plagueing the town and it's littered with cliche writing in which Velma's mother Diya was hypnotized after being used by Fred's mother to extract brains in order to find one to be implanted into her son's body. All in all the series appears to be boring and effortless in terms of story, it has unappealing characters overall which makes the whole show very unengaging and non memorable, but it's not super bad. The show is confirmed for a Season 2 and I believe if the writers change gears they have a lot of potential for a creative and funny story.
Inception (2010)
Is this some kind of expensive April Fools joke?
I didn't expect what's called one of the best movies to be one of the most unoriginal digital mess I've seen. Inception is a 2010 science fiction action thriller (more accurately, it's supposed to be one) created by the king of convolutedness and confusion Christopher Nolan. If you're wondering what it's like to watch a two hour film with zero emotion this would be one such example, cause nothing about the film is coherent, it's just a two hour compilation of random insignificant one dimensional characters engaging in pointless car chases and gun fights.. Upon reading Wikipedia this is what I got, two agents named Arthur and Cobb use technology to infiltrate dreams to extract thoughts and information, in the film they try implant a thought into a businessman in order to shut down his company, which is supposed to be a hard task.
Straight to the point and much to the polarized reaction of the film's fans, the movie was bad. Nothing about it is understandable, there's no direction, story, purpose, uniqueness, nothing. Nolan only has two good movies and they were still nothing special and his work usually makes extreme confusion out of the simplest ideas. That's not a bad thing if it's handled properly but it isn't, it ends up boring you. Nothing about Inception made sense, the characters and their personalities were flat, you'll watch it without any idea of what's going on, what the story is, and just sit their confused like you're watching a quantum physics lecture. I intend to see it again but I wouldn't watch this for entertainment, it's not entertaining or informative, it's just dull, boring, flat, and convoluted. There's little I can say about it cause it offers nothing unique, media works like Doctor Who and Smile make a much better execution of this "trapped in dreams" premise so I'd recommend watching them. If this is the best that Hollywood has to offer in the eyes of the people then I wouldn't trust Hollywood to write well, but it certainly isn't. This is is a film you're better off skipping, you're better off watching science-fiction masterpieces like Avatar, the MCU, and Jurassic World.
Jallikattu (2019)
One of the worst I've seen. Painfully terrible film with no redeeming qualities. No story, no good characters, no direction, nothing.
I want to make it clear I don't support the barbaric sport that is Jallikattu and I'm ashamed of every Tamilian who does and calls it tradition. The movie had an opportunity to address how cruel it is but just ends up bad in every way.
The premise follows (or at least it's supposed to) a bull who escapes captivity from a butcher, and the villagers go on a mad chase to killl him. First of all as I mentioned this is about animal slaughter, not Jallikattu, but it would have been easy to sneak a message about its cruelty. There's absolutely no sense of story, the first half is villagers argueing over nothing. I unfortunately can't describe what happens cause nothing happens, the first half of this waste of money are the villagers argueing with each other about irrelavent things. Nothing contributes to the plot, nothing moves it forward, nobody has any unique or relatable personality, it's utterly pointless. The bull himself gets five or so minutes of screentime in the first half. Needless to say this was a massive disappointment and I heavily question the intent of everybody involved in writing and direction. With the positive reviews surrounding this I thought it would be some intense high scale monster work like Moby Dick and have strong animal rights themes to go with it, but it wound up being one of the worst things I've seen. It's a real shame that an idea with such great potential went to such an incompetent creator who was probably looking for a cashgrab to scam people with. Do yourself a favor and skip it. A movie similar to this that's actually good would be Beast (the Hollywood one, not the Kollywood one which I also intend to see). It follows a similar concept and despite being average it's actually thrilling and well written.
Vedalam (2015)
An iconic legend of Kollywood cinema.
I feel like people absolutely do not know a good story when they see one, it makes me wonder what they see and think while watching. Anyway, Vedalam is a 2015 Kollywood epic gangster action drama created by Siva Jayakumar and boy what an emotional ride it was. Every aspect of this film is perfection, one may dismiss it as a generic masala but it's much more than that. Everything from the writing, pacing, characterizations, performances, technical aspects, action sequences, overall storyline, everything is taken to an eleven. This is up there with Kaithi and the Enthiran films.
The plot focuses on Ganesh, a seemingly ordinary civilian known for his excessive optimism and happy demeanor which earns the respect of even dangerous rowdies among other residents of Calcutta, where he moves to to enroll his sister Tamizh in an art college. They both eventually meet siblings Arjun and Swetha, who fall for them, and there are some comedic moments with Ganesh's boss Laxmidas, whom he works as cab driver under. None of these characters are flat, they all have a unique aesthetic and hilarious personalities that suit their actor performances well. The plot progresses we get to see more of the villainous characters, the siblings Rahul, Abhiney, and Aniket, who lead the French-Indo Cartel crime syndicate responsible for mass smuggling and trafficking. The characters too have unique aesthetics and vibes, and are all unapologetically ruthless, selfish, cunning, and remorseless. Rahul's reputation as a strategic crime boss is established in the hooking introduction, and we eventually see Ganesh get on their bad side and having been kidnapped by Aniket, where shockingly we see that he's capable of combat and brutallly kills him and his men. The emotional weight of the film is seen when we see his relationship with Tamizh, where the film details that he used to be a powerful gangster but reformed upon seeing the kindness of Tamizh's family, who were killed by the brothers, causing Ganesh to spend a year tracking them. Tamizh loses her memory in the attack, so another interesting subplot is seeing Ganesh carrying out his hits without his adopted sister finding out about his violent nature.
Every aspect of the film from soundtrack, cinematography, and editing all the way to writing, characterization, pacing, and emotional weight is perfect. The film constantly gets you excited and thrilled, and attached to the characters and their struggles. The scenes aren't wasted and even the songs usually convey importance about the plot, all in all it's one of the best films of 2015 and worth watching.
K.G.F: Chapter 2 (2022)
Like Hollywood's Avatar and MCU, India's KGF is a once in a lifetime high octane epic experience that will burn into your memories.
Prashanth Neel's masterpiece KGF 2 brings in fresh new themes and concepts that Indian cinema rarely expresses, including the signature gothic visuals and a morally grey and emotionally broken protagonist villain. The film itself is stylized as a mythological epic taking place in the modern day and focuses on the journey of Rocky, the broken man trying to find purpose as a crime lord. It showcases both his good and bad side as he sets the slaves of Narachi free and tries to safeguard them from the neo viking Adheera and tyrannical prime minister Ramika Sen. The film is a historical landmark for Indian cinema and my 8th favorite movie.
Raavanan (2010)
One of Mani Ratnam's best and revolutionary for Indian cinema. Considerably better than Ponniyin Selvan.
I agree with everyone who thinks the movie is generic, it's nothing too special and follows tropes of any typical action thriller but it's the concept for the aesthetic and themes that make this stand out. It's a grounded take on the Ramayana epic and was made back when in my opinion Indian movies were struggling to tell good stories outside of cheesy romance musicals and masala films. Raavanan stood out, and since I saw it when I was very young it made a lasting memory in my mind. The visually spectacular adventure and characterizations of both Dev Prakash and Veeraiya are worth checking it out for.
Beast (2022)
It's really sad when good movies get bombed by people whom it clearly wasn't meant for.
It's a generic grounded monster thriller with good characterizations and drama, and obviously characters will make dumb decisions in the heat of stress. You try getting stranded in South Africa with a lion hunting you and let's see how logical you are. The film passes all the checks, good camera work, VFX, thrilling action, good visuals, nothing wrong with it. But it doesn't really go out of the way to make itself unique either, it tries with the animal rights themes and family conflict but nothing too much to separate itself from others. I wouldn't say I'd go to a theater for it but it's satisfactory nonetheless.
Kantara (2022)
A mediocre attempt at a fantasy epic that should have been a short film on Youtube instead.
Kantara is a fantasy epic movie created by Rishab Shetty, focused on the conflict within a forest village between a hot headed hunter and Kambala champion Shiva and forest ranger Murali.
The movie glorifies animal cruelty as Shiva takes passion from exploiting bulls and happiness from killing animals. The landlord Devendra is his close friend and supporter, and Shiva constantly becomes a thorn on Murali's side. When Murali calls out Shiva's violent practices that endanger the forest wildlife or consume it's resources he and the villagers get into fights, not only with him but Shiva's temper causes him to fight other villagers. He also starts overhunting for fun and cutting down trees just to piss Murali off, which eventually leads to him getting arrested when he nearly kills Murali. All in all this is the majority of the movie, the potential here is that Shiva could have been humbled and reformed from his violent actions, specifically if the village demigod Panjurli taught him. Murali also could have been less violent and explained his cause for safeguarding the forest.
The movie is dragged out with this until it's revealed in a twist that Devendra was trying to acquire the land for himself out of greed, and Murali and Shiva quickly have a rushed reform despite the lack of reason too, as they had hurt each other not too long ago. When Devendra gathers men to try to destroy the village Shiva, Murali, and their armies clash with his, and Shiva gets possessed by Panjurli to defeat Devendra. The premise is good but the plot and execution is extremely bland, there was room for character development for interesting characters but nothing as such happened. Shiva was a firm believer in Panjurli, he could have started out as flawed and violent but learned an emotional lesson. Murali became friends with the villagers too quickly and was more victimized by Shiva, but he's still a villain. Shiva's girlfriend Leela could have been conflicted trying to settle the war. Devendra worked and the final battle between him and the villagers/rangers was good, but that was it.
The rest of the movie was quite boring and I could have easily improved the plot. I'm confused at why this has acclaim and I believe this of all movies does not remotely deserve it. This is not worth watching, but if you really want to, go for it.
Brahmastra Part One: Shiva (2022)
Promising premise, good storyline and great visuals but lacks character development and has cliches.
The movie itself has a solid story that's easy to follow, about the DJ Shiva who tries to find the origin of his powers and Junoon, the drone of Dev who plots to ressurrect him using the brahmastra. The movie however was very basic, and often lacking in many scenes. The romance was very cliche, and it wants you to root for the characters but we rarely see them speak with meaningful conversation. I'm shocked by the negative reception cause it wasn't remotely that bad, but it could have been so much better. I'd say this is certainly worth checking out but there were many points of improvement, the astras were glamorous to watch but the character interactions needed improvement. However this is considerably better than Ponniyan Selvan.
When Aliens Attack (2011)
Exciting and thrilling docufiction.
Not perfect but it's very engaging and primarily talks about military strategy. It focuses on an unknown alien species wishing to conquer Earth for resources, and they send robots and drones to overwhelm Earth militaries and it also interviews real scientists and authors on the hypothetical eventuality of it. It is a documentary but is very much suited as a movie, could have easily been a science fiction action one. It follows a narrative and shows the events from just moments before the aliens land and an entire year following their invasion, to eventual victory. The alien craft, robots, and drones are well designed, it is thrilling and enjoyable, and I would watch it again.
Singham (2011)
Cheap rip off of Singam.
This movie was a pain to watch. It takes everything funny and exciting about Singam and somehow downgrades it. Don't bother watching it, it's a scene for scene copy with conveniently bad acting and terrible humor. The main character Bijarao Singham has no emotions or anger, all that make Durai Singam who he is. However Jaikant Shikre, the counterpart to Mayil Vaaganam is slightly better than his original version as there's a subplot exploring a cop he pushed to suicide which was moderately interesting. However I wouldn't recommend this at all as entertainment. If you'd like to watch this while doing household work or just have it play in the background that would be nice.
Ponniyin Selvan: Part One (2022)
Mani Ratnam's worst movie. Decent technical achievement but terrible storyline, pacing, and character development. Watch Raavanan or Anjali instead.
This rating is generous enough. If not for the decent action sequences this would be two stars and the fact that Shamshera did poorly somehow but this got good is beyond me. I really wanted to like this movie, I'm a huge fan of epics but it sucked. The story was nonexistent and impossible to follow, too many characters are namedropped and yet despite it being over 2 hours almost nothing happens. It's just eye candy, things happen for no reason. Clearly so much money was put into sets that they hired a child to cowrite the script. I'm extremely disappointed that an epic genre movie was poorly executed and I sat in the theater bored and wanting to leave by the time I got halfway. I expect so much more from Mani Ratman. He made Raavana, one of my favorite movies about a police officer hunting a terrorist. That's such a basic idea he made last over two hours and it was more engaging than this. I intend to read the Ponniyan Selvan book to see if it's any better. Please don't waste time watching this, it's just a hollow husk that's passed on for a movie. There are so many Indian epic movies that are actually written properly, including Shamshera, Baahubali, KGF, Sye Raa, and actually Thugs of Hindostan was more coherant and entertaining than this.
Kuang shu lie che (2021)
Really good
I have seen this on a channel that uploads many Chinese monster movies and they're usually mediocre with poor budget but this was among the good ones. I think it's worthy of a theater release, they put effort into character development, thrill, and suspense. The rats were destructive, imposing, and entertaining to watch. Among the many movies on the channel this is without a doubt the best but it could have been extended for character development. It is watchable but doesn't offer anything unique to be considered beyond 7/10 but I would recommend this for anyone who likes horror, thriller, or monster movies.
The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017)
Inexcusably bad, painfully effortless, and a disgraceful adaptation. A 4 year old can tell a more compelling story than this.
There's disliking a movie because it's bad and then there's this, hating it to the point that it angers you because of how atrocious it is. I'd argue the directors and screenwriters are deluded or have no idea how to appeal to an audience. It's not only bad by technicality but it's also a complete disgrace to the source material, it's like a bad fanfiction and it infuriates me particularly cause people who get their first impression of Ninjago from this god awful movie will think the show is just as bad. The show is remarkably well written for a LEGO branded show and deserves so much more than this. The writing, characters, and story of the movie are a complete joke and have little to no effort put into them. The only remotely redeeming aspect are the colorful sets and vehicle designs but these are overshadowed by how wasteful and boring the movie is. Considering we have a good TV show, the Ninjago series which is arguably one of the best fantasy epic animated shows written has these and will give you much more enjoyment than this cheap cashcrab excuse for a movie. Don't waste time watching it, it's not even a "so bad it's good" movie, it's just cringe after cringe. You'd rather want to watch Asylum movies and independent low budget ones like Birdemic over this and I feel bad for the animators and marketers who had to waste time on this that could have gone to other projects.
Shamshera (2022)
Baahubali levels of emotion and one of the best of Bollywood! Don't trust toxic ratings.
Shamshera only did poorly because of a toxic political agenda from the year of release, any unbiased watcher can see that this is revolutionary for Bollywood. But this movie is a satisfying historical epic, with a supreme villain. Singh is as good as Adheera, the plot is emotional and engaging and there were a few writing flaws here and there but this isn't even an average movie, let alone bad. Action scenes are well motivated and brilliantly choreographed, focuses on many social and moral themes. Would recommend this for anyone, it is one of the best epic films I've seen since ones like Sye Raa and RRR.
Sultan: The Saviour (2018)
Horrible rip off of Vedalam
This isn't a remake. This is just a mediocre attempt to knock off it's inspiration Vedalam, which is perfection. The budget and camerawork for this is cheap, the acting is trash. On top of this if you pay attention to the beginning where Ronnie (counterpart of Rahul) threatens the SWAT leader you can see that they STOLE FOOTAGE from Vedalam. They were so lazy they didn't bother making their own. They also stole script lines and plot ideas such as when the leading soldier says that they're going to arrest Ronnie on his private jet (which Rahul was doing in Vedalam) but Ronnie was actually in a building. The movie had many technical and writing flaws and the action is lackluster and boring. This was a serious waste of time and money, only good for being one of those cheap free youtube movies. Watch Vedalam, a masterpiece of Tamil cinema and not this knock off.
Firestarter (2022)
Did I watch a different film?
I have no clue where the negative reviews are coming from cause I thoroughly enjoyed this. It's a thrilling representation of an unstable powered individual losing control and actually enjoying causing destruction. I'd recommend this to anyone.
Stitch! (2008)
Hilarious and entertaining show.
I feel like any opposition is from people who are obsessed with the original series. I like the movies but this is tremendously better, not remotely childish, the episodes are dynamic, funny, great characters, great comedy. The third season is the best one although it takes place in a different location and I love the blend between mythology and science fiction it creates introducing alien and yokai characters.
The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes (2010)
This is incredibly overrated, but not terrible either
As a TV show this is very much generic and bland in many times. The show tries to compress major Marvel events and rush their stories to the point that episodes are one off. Character development is almost nonexistent with many, the character designs and artstyle are awful to look at. It's not a terrible series but not that good either, and it's not nearly as engaging, funny, action packed, or well written as Avengers Assemble. All the episodes are basically the same stereotypical hero vs villain fights without change. I imagine if many characters and concepts attempted in this show were brought to Avengers Assemble their outcome would be much more appealing.