I bitterly regret missing the first 5 minutes of the movie, as I’ve missed five whole minutes in possibly the greatest movie of the decade. I’m resolute about not giving out any spoilers. This movie should be watched by every single movie-lover, and if you’ve completely understood the plot and can explain it to a movie-hater, you might well have added a member to the former faction.

I had watched Shutter Island on the same day before watching this movie, and Leonardo DiCaprio’s character was still fresh in my mind. I daresay he’s still in the same character, but somehow manages to still pull it off with such panache that truly compliments the beauty of the story. Ellen Paige is one of our generation’s best actors, and has once again proved it with her wonderful emotions. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is another complete package, with sublime dialogue delivery and like one of my friends put it, “he’s so cute!!”. Ken Watanabe is one of the finest actors from Asia, and I’ve always believed he’s truly gifted. His portrayal of a dishonoured samurai in “The Last Samurai” moved me to tears. As he fits the role of a millionaire business tycoon like a glove, his English however, was very difficult to decipher.

The plot was truly confusing, but captivating enough to pull everyone into following it. The true allure of the movie, however, lies in the visual magnificence of the dreams. The bending of the streets of Paris, the shifting gravity sequence and the surreal dream city built by Dom and Mal are wholesome visual treats that need to be watched over and over again. One small gripe, however, would be the lack of emotion in the love between the lead protagonists. But like I said, the storyline makes up for that.

Do not miss this movie. And buy the DVD too once it comes out, and stash it under the ‘SuperFreakyAwesome’ category. Many years down the line, you could make your kids watch this (by then, you would’ve figured the plot) and tell them “you know, they used to make such awesome movies in my time”.

The Verdict: Watch this movie to fulfill your purpose of existence! DO NOT MISS IT!

My Rating: ★★★★★ 

Eeram, from the production house of Shankar and directed by debutant Arivazhagan, is a class act. I don’t want to give up the genre, even the film crew kept a low profile and didn’t reveal anything even during the launch of the movie. And it does work well in their favour; it is better to go to this movie without having any idea of what’s in store for you.

The movie starts with the scene where Ramya (Sindhu Menon) is found dead in her apartment with a self-written note that says she’s committed suicide. Vasudevan (Aadhi) who takes up the case thinks otherwise. Vasu is the ex-boyfriend of Ramya and having known her that well he simply couldn’t agree with the fact that she has committed suicide. But as the case is being investigated more deaths follow in the apartment and Vasu finds that all those who die are linked to Ramya in one way or the other. He also finds that the weapon of death is water (the movie is after all named Eeram right!). That is when Vasu realizes who the actual killer is and struggles to bring the evidences to limelight.

Aathi has donned the role of police officer with flair and ease. The transition from the animal-like Mirugam to a sturdy police officer has come good. Nanda, playing the role of Ramya’s husband has done a good job too. He has essayed his character well. The best part of the movie apart from the apt cast is the cinematography and the BGM. Musical score by Thaman is above average with all the songs having been tuned in a rather similar style. But Manoj Paramahamsa’s cinematography is top-notch with good tone and innovative camera angles. The color tone is pleasant throughout the movie and the way the camera swirls around is just splendid. It was like watching a Hollywood thriller! Speaking of which, the filmmaker has lifted few scenes as it is from Hollywood thrillers like Final Destination, Mirrors and the like. But still the way it is brought to life on screen makes you shudder! This is one movie where people sat with eyes glued to the screen for 3 full hours without even blinking. None of us even used our mobile to fight boredom as it happened when watching Sarvam or Delhi-6. (Of course I’d never miss an opportunity to insult Sarvam, I paid 120 bucks to watch that load of crap on it’s first day).

Shankar always has luck with movies. I’m sure that Eeram will be a blockbuster (Isn’t it already!?). So you can be rest assured that it’s worth watching at least two or three times.

The Verdict: Eeram = Super awesome!

My Rating: ★★★★☆ 

P.S.: The movie has been shot in Chennai and it’s always raining! Now in which season was it filmed? Or was it that water plays such an important role that they’ve portrayed so!? Mr.Director, the “well” in my house is almost dry and I need an explanation

This review would’ve been worse if I had watched the acclaimed Malayalam original. This movie had a ridiculously superficial feel to it. I couldn’t blame the actors, everyone has done their part quite well. But the way the scenes passed through, that just did not cut it for an enjoyable movie. Especially being fresh out of college myself, I just could not tolerate the artificial screenplay. Movies need to be made with intelligence, and this movie was not!

In Priyamani’s introduction scene, she gets down from her car and greets all the students. I seriously thought she was a professor! Turns out she was a student. And when they decided to film the movie in an engineering college, they made sure they covered up the name of the college at the gate with the logo for ‘NAC’ (National Arts College), the fictitious college our cast studies in. But it looks pretty dumb when everyone is chatting up standing in front of the ‘Information Technology Block’.

Also, I failed to see the logic behind why Priyamani’s dad would force her to contest in the college elections just because he’s an MLA. It sounded like a dumb-ass plan when Karthik conspires, but then that is what happens. But wait, the stupidity doesn’t end there!

There’s a scene where Priyamani is hit on the head by police. So Prithviraj saves her and rushes her to the chemistry lab. (No prizes for people who wondered why every other person was running around the college without anyone thinking of taking refuge in the lab). She’s bleeding, so what our hero does is he takes some base in a conical flask and adds phenolphthalein (yup, that shit) to it and serves up Dettol for the bruise. And so she falls in love with him and in the next scene, asks him to kiss her in a restaurant (after which she asks him if he loves her). I instantly found myself shouting Vivek’s line – “Very fast girl”

There was this girl who plays an important role in the climax. Man was she creepy! She’s 100% Ram Gopal Varma material. But seriously, I couldn’t understand why she had to put on her possessed-zombie face whenever she narrated her sad story. The songs were remarkably drab and they kept popping up just when you’d least want to listen to them. The attempted comedies seemed too shallow (surprisingly, the older people in the audience laughed at it). The few true moments in the movie came when Bhagyaraj consoles his crying wife and then as she walks away, wipes away his own tears and when Karthik tells Bhagyaraj that he only wanted to apologize to Prithviraj. He sports a moustache this time and it suits him well!

The movie is only for those in their early thirties, who may relate to the movie and reminisce about their college days. The rest, watch the movie if only you are absolutely bored and have nothing else to do (that’s why I watched the movie in the first place, but ended up getting even more bored). So much for my first movie review!

P.S.: Movie makers should stop glorifying student power in movies and make them look like bad-ass punks who can just make fun of their professors in class and walk up to their principal and throw cockroaches into his lunch. No, this kinda stuff doesn’t happen in colleges. Nor did it happen in their days. And neither will it happen anywhere in the future. Students do not have that sort of freedom in colleges here! In fact, it’s not even freedom. It’s just plain stupidity to do something like that.

The Verdict: Ninaithale Inikkum = Ninaithale Kasakkum

My Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

The movie began with a bully inspector who pockets a lump sum of money meant for a lady and her family supposedly offered to save her husband by the Lord Kanthaswamy himself. He is aptly punished for his act by our hero the cock rooster. Vikram appears to a threatening slow music (which was surprisingly good) and does a cock uhm, rooster-dance fit to make any real rooster jealous! There begins the hilarity. It was like Ganesan silently told us that if Hollywood could experiment with arachnids, we could do justice to a creature that wakes us up every day! The storyline is obvious – the hero resorts to behind-the-scenes punishment for the rich who swindle government money and also plays Robin Hood with his band of merry talented men. Two minutes into the movie, you could guess that it is a cross between Sivaji and Anniyan. Ganesan doesn’t seem to mind that! Vikram’s sincerity is back with this movie. Anniyan inflated his head and Bheema taught him a just lesson. With Kanthaswamy, Vikram does what is expected of him. And he looks fit except in a few angles where age shows.

I would call Shreya the Charlie Chaplin of the movie! She has absolutely no purpose in the movie and the concept of the heroine being the villain’s daughter (and not knowing her daddy cool is after all a devil) is centuries old! Honestly, if daughters of bigwigs watch a couple of Tamil movies it they’d start fearing their dads are baddies. Shreya sports a hairstyle that makes her look like a psycho hybrid, and as if the meagre drapes she wears is too much she rips them off aptly for the situation at times; Well, look who saved Ganesan a lotta money on clothes! There is a scene in the movie where she enters in a velvet figure hugging dress with a cut right up her thigh and 2 guys go “looks like this time she has already ripped her dress”! You don’t have to worry about spending energy to be surprised about her acting skills and all as she makes no attempts at it. RJ Suchi’s voice-over for her emotes way far better than what Shreya shows on her face. With the lipsync out of the loop in a few places this only looks unnatural. And Ganesan seems to have saved money on choreography too, because the the steps Shreya performs look lifted straight off from a Shakira video and with time we are convinced that her hips do lie because it gets absolutely monotonous. Nothing about the picturization for the songs is worth mentioning. They are shot at different locations just for the sake of it (remember they saved money? This is where they put it!) Vikram’s feminine makeup is sure to bring a lotta giggles. He’s good but too very manly for it! I appreciate Ganesan for the thought regarding the fight sequences where the hero has complete backup – right from BGM to hooks and wires from his friends. It is well-orchestrated and that makes it believable. But then I read this was already done in a couple of Hindi movies! ? Vadivelu’s comedy track was an unnecessary attachment. It looked like it was compulsorily made to fit the plot and it just didn’t gel.

I couldn’t help but go into peals in a scene were Vikram pulls out a blacksheep officer who tries to warn the villain by texting him. Vikram tells him that he wasn’t smart enough to note that the room has a signal jammer and points to the wall where – lo and behold – hangs a black box the size of a large pizza box and painted on it in bold white letters reads “SIGNAL JAMMER” In a world where everything is going nano, only Ganesan could think of something like this! And if that officer couldn’t read this big sign, wonder how he is part of an elite team that is out to hunt miscreants! Sigh.. I wish filmmakers would watch their own movies a dozen times before they show it to people!

The best form of hilarity ever was presented in the climax when one of the villains dances to a meaningless item number – thats not it – he does a pole dance in his underwear!! The audience was wheezing with laughter! No one really understood why it was in the movie! Maybe it’s from the formula book again – the villain’s downfall always happens wen he is dancing to an item number at the same time when the hero is on his heels. We’ve seen it even before “Aatama.. Therottama” happened and continues to happen! Let’s call it the Nero-fiddle mania!

On the whole Susi Ganesan’s attempt at infusing practicality into the minds of people in a shankerish way falls miserably short because of the lack of focus. Unsurprisingly, Sudhish Kamath’s review in The Hindu takes a huge crack at this. The only person who seems to have benefitted onscreen is Vikram – now that he has his head back on his shoulders, we could probably hope for mature stuff from him in the near future!

The Verdict: Kanthaswamy = Kaamedysaamy

My Rating: ★★☆☆☆ 

For the uninitiated, Avatar is the story of Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a US Marine who is wounded on duty. He is sent to the beautiful planet Pandora, inhabited by another race called Na’vi. As Pandora’s atmosphere is different from that of the Earth, humans have created human-Na’vi hybrids, called Avatars. These Avatars are tied to a human’s mind and controlled by them. Jake enrolls for the program and takes on control of a scout Avatar. As he travels across Pandora, he falls in love with the planet’s beauty and also, with a female Na’vi warrior. So now he’s torn between Earth’s forces and the Na’vis, forced to choose between them as a great battle ensues. Some story!

For all ye Muggles who think ‘its jus a movie’

Harry Potter is a teen wizard (yes he can do magic and stuff) who has returned to his school with best friends Ron and Hermione for his sixth year. His headmaster Dumbledore takes him through preparations to face and ultimately destroy the baddie Voldemort who in the past killed Harry’s parents. It’s a story of revenge that has a good dose of friendship and in the case of this movie – a lotta adolescent love. The visual effects are mind-blowing and the movie boasts of a cast comprising some of Britain’s most talented actors.

For all ye who live through the pages of JKR’s classic series

At first glance this movie had an awesome trailer. It was dark as expected and came with great sound and visuals. In person the only thing that lived up to the trailer was the CG work. Anyone would give it a 20 on a scale of 10! That’s how terrific it was. The grounds of Hogwarts, the cave in the midst of the ocean, the breathtaking collapse of the Brockdale Bridge! Tim Burke and Tim Alexander deserve the “awwww” that those scenes get! Kudos! The overall music also was good.

Coming to the story. Well, logically the movie should’ve been based on JKR’s work but seems Mr. Yates took liberty to change quite a lot about it. Trouble is those parts left out took the soul of the movie with them. Let me elaborate..

       The sixth book takes a major reality check as this is where the magical world extends to the Muggle world – the Muggle minister is warned of Voldemort’s rampage and Dementors are creeping out normal people too. Yates is content with just showing the faces of a dozen Muggles when Brockdale comes crashing down. Nothing is spoken about it later anywhere!

       Narcissa and Bellatrix head to Snape’s and during the conversation that ensues Bellatrix ends up making the Unbreakable Vow! Any one who has read the book would know it is Cissy who has to make it as she is the one requesting it and Bella is only a bonder. Also, in the book, Cissy goes to Snape to plead with him to save her son.. A mother’s plight that her son is being revenged for his father’s mistake. In the movie, Helen McCrory as Narcissa, merely enjoys a glass of wine, makes the vow and leaves like it’s an everyday job! The beauty of a mother’s love for her son even when she is a Death Eater seems totally lost on Yates!

       Everyone is aboard the Hogwarts express and Harry wants to spy on Malfoy. Harry uses instant darkness powder to distract them all so he could get onto the luggage rack. Nothing like that happens in the book! Yates made it that way so as to avoid the Slughorn party on the train! Ok.. Minor change forgiven. But what happens next had us all stumped! Malfoy jinxes Harry out cold, covers him up with the invisibility cloak and Luna finds him through her Spectrespecs as she claims there were Wrackspurts all over him! The book had a more non-insane way of finding Harry! Tonks does it! How much more simple can it get and what was the point of changing it?

       Jim Broadbent was a new addition to the already talented cast. But sadly all that he got to do in the second part mostly was stare stupidly and go ‘eh’?! Slughorn’s character could’ve done with a lot more polishing!

       The worst betrayal ever IMO came in the form of Michael Gambon as Dumbledore in the third installment of the franchise. And that punishment continues! To those eyes that had the privilege of watching Richard Harris as the greatest and most respected wizard of all times, Gambon is a mismatch. No offence to the talented actor but he simple doesn’t fit into the scheme. I felt it then but alas, am not in charge of casting! For playing DD, Gambon is short, doesn’t have crystal blue eyes that seem to X-ray you when he looks at you, talks a lot (!), has zero humor, jumps about from place to place like he is a 6-year old (DD is close to 150 yrs old), has just a few locks of hair and oddly has some kinda band tied to his beard! I regret Harris’s death every time I watch Gambon on screen. If only he could’ve held on till the series was done! If I had a time turner I’d bring Harris back! Gambon just doesn’t fit the bill. Guess we should blame his granddaughter for it as it was she who told him that she would stop talking to him if he refused the role! Kids!

       Another sentimental fact that Yates seemed to have ignored is that DD wears half-moon specs! Gambon is seen sporting it only in a few scenes (even in movie 5). Add that to the list of how un-Dumbledory he is. He is hunting down Horcruxes with Harry and maybe took it off for the ride. You suggest? Well, just take a look at the cover picture of the sixth book and you’ll know that even when there is a ring of fire encircling him and Harry, DD still has a gleaming pair of half moons on his crooked nose!!!

       The climax fight between the teachers and Death Eaters seemed to have jumped right out of Yates’ mind! I read in Wikipedia that it was removed to avoid monotony in the next movie! That fight forms a crux of this film and would’ve brought put amazing performances from the likes of Maggie Smith and moreover, the sixth book was as much of the action genre as it was magical and a duel would’ve only made it more grand. We fans could’ve been lucky to witness more of the brilliant CGI!

       There is no funeral for DD!! Again Wikipedia quotes the makers’ reply that they took it off because it had no connection with the rest of the movie! My comment to that would be that none of the crew members have understood anything about what people feel towards DD! We don’t love him for no reason Mr. Yates and the least you could’ve done was give him a decent sendoff! The best and most cynical irony here is that the producers took so many pains to make a gigantic dead spider, just for 3 characters to watch it as it lay dead on its hinds for a quarter of a minute in the movie! It would’ve cost less to have made a white tomb and a dozen people laying flowers over it, but no, Mr. Yates is the man! He opts to give DD a mobile phone-torch send off like fans do in a music concert! Everyone holds their wands alight for a while!

       I saved up my take on the supposed romance in the movie for last because I have just 2 words for it – “outright stupid”! There was absolutely no necessity to show Lavender and Ron kissing every instant. It didn’t matter even in the book. Everyone knew Hermione would end up with Ron anyway! Mike Newell handled it way far better and more subtle yet powerful in the fourth movie.

       Bonnie Wright would probably be wondering what the heck she was doing in that movie! Because there was absolutely no justice done to Ginny! One moment she is kissing Dean and the next she is dropping hints to Harry that she loves him and – lo and behold – she is kissing him next! Sheer stupidity! Not a single soul, and by that I mean Yates, Radcliffe or Wright seems to know what exactly is going on between Harry and Ginny and what they are supposed to show!

       The sequence where the Burrow gets burnt doesn’t appear in the book at all! It was absolutely unnecessary and made no point at all. And there was not the slightest mention about it anywhere else in the movie. That is Yates’ biggest problem – he just leaves sequences unfinished and to our imagination. Thankfully JKR is deprived of that talent – she always ties loose ends together in her books.

       Adding a couple of nonchalant errors – in the movie Snape tells Harry the truth only in the end (that he is the HBP) but in the book, logically enough, Snape suspects Harry has his book when he performs Sectumsempra on Malfoy! That also appeared in the movie but Yates left Snape ignoring the person behind the curse! It just shows how lagging the script is. No one seemed to take care to make sure the sequence has a flow and made sense! Sloppy work

       There were 3 ridiculously stupid scenes – One in the opening where Harry checks out this waitress at a café and along with DD stares at a picture of a model on a huge banner at the station…I sincerely think Mr. Yates could’ve put his film reel to better use like enacting a funeral for DD instead of inserting such totally pointless and irritating scenes. By the way that was the excuse to leave the Dursleys out of the movie! Two – where Ginny ties Harry’s shoe laces! Almost every one in the movie hall went WTF because that’s how idiotic it was! It was like watching a ‘60s Tamil movie! And isn’t it obvious to anyone who reads the book that Ginny is more level-headed than that! Three – when Ron is in the hospital and Lavendar Brown comes rushing in and pours out her jealousy over Won-Won in front of DD, Snape, Slughorn, Harry, Ginny and Hermione! The staff just watch on as she rants about her love! For the love of God, Mr. Yates please get out of your Imperius curse! Someone is making you humiliate yourself! And coming to think of it I guess even Steve Kloves (the scriptwriter) had his memory modified – because in no other way could someone who wrote a crisp script for the first two movies come up with the rest! There were changes in those two movies too, but they did not destroy the main line or turn out to be stupid – good times!

       There was absolutely no mention about Bill and Fluer! And nothing was said about the romance between Tonks and Lupin! Yates was determined to do away with anything that would make a fan happy I think.

Phew! Now that am done with the brickbats I do have some bouquets to handover.

       Yates managed to insert a good amount of Quidditch into the movie! Thank you just for that.

       The best always remain the best – Robbie Coltrane as Rubeus Hagrid, Mark Williams and Julie Walters as Arthur and Molly Weasley respectively, Alan Rickman as Severus Snape, David Thewlis as Lupin and Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange remind us yet again what true talent is and why we are all in love with the world of Harry Potter! I bow down to each of them! Their performances can never be matched!

       I’ve never been a fan of Daniel Radcliffe. He was cute enough for HP 1 and 2 but I still feel someone else could’ve done a better job at Harry. Yet it seemed to me that Daniel did put up a good show in quite a few scenes!

       Emma Watson was a universal favourite and she lived Hermione to the hilt till maybe the fourth movie. The fifth saw her losing a bit of interest in the franchise, and to me she’s lost most of it in this movie – she still is brilliant in a few sequences but that cute little curly haired nerdy angel seems to have taken a long vacation! This is why some kids should never grow up!

       Rupert Grint does a decent job – like Ron he seems to have a gift for growing considerably with every passing day!

       Dave Legeno appears as Fenrir Greyback and with excellent make up fits the character to a T! He is tall and muscular and every bit savage – not surprising given he was a bouncer before he took up acting!

       The only actor who has my heartfelt appreciation this time is Tom Felton for his perfect portrayal of Draco Malfoy. I had judged Felton as ordinary in the first couple of movies were he was just a prop when Radcliff ran away with all the good scenes but seems like Felton got his pay off in this movie. His expressions were brilliant towards the climax when he faces DD and is stuck between having to kill his headmaster or getting killed by the Dark Lord for failing in his mission! Great job Tom, keep it up!

       Like I already said, the music and sound in the movie were good, though I felt a lot of bangs were unnecessarily loud!

On the whole…it was nothing like the heaven of magic that the first two movies created. Still, we got to see a couple of characters we love on screen – and with the special effects it wasn’t hard to sit through the movie. But the magic was missing (ironically). Yes there were wands, broomsticks, spells, hexes, jinxes and even a singing phoenix – but the magic of the entire concept was missing! And the fact that the seventh movie lies in the hands of David Yates only makes me wish that I make myself ready to face a similar experience yet again next year!

The Verdict: Watch it for the CGI and Felton!

My Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

This page contains entirely personal views in a lighter perspective and is not meant to hurt or piss off anyone! You might want your attorney to read my disclaimer first.

Ajith Born – May 1, 1971 (Thala, Ultimate Star)	Vijay Born – June 22, 1974 (Ilayathalapathy)
Entry: Before stardom happened, he was a mechanic. His friends cajoled him to do modeling and one thing led to the other.	Entry: His dad is a film producerdirector and he made a handful of films with Vijay in the lead before someone else dared to make a film with him.
Movies: Sure, he gave a string of flops. But there were some gems like Vaali and Billa. Though Ashoka wasn’t a hit, he still acted in a Bollywood movie with SRK!	Movies: He had a Kadhalukku Mariyadhai and Thulladha Manamum Thullum too. But from 2005 came movies that were completely ridiculous bordering on the insane (read Hobbies). An award for Thirupaachi? Seriously??
Acting: So everyone thought he just couldn’t act until K. S. Ravikumar’s Villan happened. Maybe he doesn’t get meaty roles, but he’s already proven that he sure can act.	Acting: He dances great, but yet to deliver on any serious acting. He’s into over-acting though, making you want to strangle yourself.
Awards: Filmfare – 4, TN State – 5, Cinema Express – 1, Dinakaran – 2, Kalaimamani – 1.	Awards: Filmfare – 0, TN State – 5, Cinema Express – 0, Dinakaran – 1, Kalaimamani – 0.
Looks: Just watch Billa.	Looks:
Singing: He can’t. He doesn’t.	Singing: He can’t. He does.
Fans: Ajith’s message to his fans – “Be my fan, but not just my fan, because one day you’ll wake up and realize you’ve wasted half of your life”.	Fans: When invited to a famous city college’s cultural event, his fans asked for 20-foot cutouts of him to be placed on roads leading to the college. Arya was invited instead.
Endorsements: He doesn’t believe in “celebrity status”. He avoids interviews and award functions as he feels acting is just like any other profession. But he does work for social causes, though. He is the ambassador for the Green Revolution (a Chennai-based organization promoting environmental cleanliness). He also created the non-profit organization “Mohini-Mani Foundation”, named after his parents, in order to promote self-hygiene and civic consciousness and to help ease the problems of urban sprawl.	Endorsements: Coca Cola (on and off) and Chennai Super Kings (he was shown once or twice on TV as no one there knew him, which was the butt of so many SMS jokes).
Hobbies: Ajith is a Formula 3 racer and also a very good photographer. Nuf said!	Hobbies: Lifting jeeps, flying atop buildings, jumping across trains.
Attitude: He is known to greet everyone on the sets before shooting commences. Once, one technician came late everyday because he had to cycle a long distance. Knowing this, Ajith anonymously gifted him a TVS XL moped. No one knew who gifted it, even that technician himself, until recently. Also, for Attagasam, shooting was called off due to heavy rain and the entire unit was held up at some place. Ajith immediately arranged for boarding for everyone out of his own pocket. Actress Pooja acknowledged this fact during an interview.	Attitude: Okay so you would’ve already seen this video. It is known that he treats waiters and the like with much disdain. He even pushed down a hyperactive fan once when asked for an autograph. Down boy, down!

Granted, both of these actors have talents and a huge fan-following. But Vijay isn’t helping the industry in creativity, freshness of content or even realistic movies. All of his movies are the same and his next movie will definitely look like a rerun of his last one (Note: Applies to his remakes too). His fans argue (and probably Vijay does too) that he doesn’t experiment because of his “mass-hero” image. That is such a lame excuse! The money made or the number of fans an actor has is no real measure of how good an actor is. Why does everybody love Surya? Because of his paycheck? His fan clubs? Nuh-uh. Because he can act.

Thanks to Anand for inspiring me to write this and no, he did not bugger me to write this though he’s a devout Ajith fan

Caution – Contains spoilers!
Hari has done it again.. He’s included the whole plot!

During a mission by the Resistance against the Skynet base led by John Connor, John discovers human prisoners and the plans for the development of a new type of Terminator incorporating living tissue, but he is the only apparent survivor of the attack after the base is destroyed in a nuclear explosion. But suddenly Marcus emerges from the wreckage of the base and makes his way towards LA. He has no idea of the ongoing war and that the machines have taken over Earth. Meanwhile, the Resistance has discovered a radio frequency capable of shutting down Skynet machines. They plan to launch an offensive against the Skynet base. John Connor and Marcus Wright meet each other and some unexpected turn of events take place. Connor is suspicious if Wright is really a human or some machine set up by Skynet to infiltrate the human base. John also learns that Kyle Reese (Yelchin) is held hostage by Skynet. Marcus offers help to save Kyle and both are off for a final assault on the Skynet base.

There are some twists and turns towards the climax. We also see Arnie emerging for a short fight sequence with John. It’s CGI though and we hardly needed it in the movie. All the action sequences and special effects used deserve a hats off! It is a completely entertaining movie when it comes to action. But the plot has some holes and at times I was confused with what actually the director is trying to say.

The movie moves at a good pace but it is not as gripping as the first two editions. May be it is no more a chase between terminators and Connor. But the movie has its moments. This installment is much better than the third but not on par with the first two.

The Verdict: A good action entertainer!

My Rating: ★★★☆☆ 

The movie can be reviewed from two viewpoints-those who have read the book and those who are yet to. Those who have read this thrilling un-put-down-able sci-fi tend to think that the director has deviated much from the original script. There are places where you feel the narration was much better in the novel. But this problem persists with almost all movies adapted from novels. It’s difficult to replicate a book as it is into a movie. But A&D has done a great job! For those who are yet to read the book, I assure you, this one is an edge-of-the-seat roller coaster thriller which you will immensely enjoy.

Contains spoilers!
Close your eyes and scroll down to the bottom of the page if you’d rather not know the plot!

Tom Hanks reprises the role of the Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon. The movie starts with the collision experiment of the LHC at CERN. A scientist named Vetra successfully collects some anti-matter (also known as God’s particle) which forms the basis of the life on earth. But even before he could rejoice this find of his, he is brutally murdered and the canister containing the anti-matter falls into the hands of the bad guys. Meanwhile, the Vatican is mourning the death of their holy Pope and Langdon receives an urgent call to visit Vatican. On reaching there he finds out that four cardinals who are the likely candidates to be the next pope are abducted and threatened to be murdered. Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor) informs Langdon that the Illuminati (a secret society of scientists against the church) is responsible for the abduction. Also Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer) joins Langdon and informs him of the anti-matter. Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgård) and Inspector Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino) find out that the antimatter is placed somewhere within the Vatican by the Illuminati and they are threatening to blow up the whole place. From there on starts the Vatican cat and mouse chase where Langdon, using his ability to solve puzzles, tries to hunt down the killer and save the cardinals and the Vatican from abomination.

Tom Hanks has played his role with ease. He fits the role of the highly talented symbologist well and his dialogues at times tickle your humour cells. Vittoria, the adopted daughter and main assistant of Vetra, who plays Langdon’s second fiddle in the book, is wasted in the movie. She neither is seen sharing information with Langdon nor helping him find the path to the Illuminati’s church. They hardly get to know each other since they are busy running from church to church across rome to find the killer. The movie is void of any emotional content between the two which plays a great role in the book. Ewan McGregor does justice to his role as Camerlengo Patrick. His innocent looks and rage when he learns that the Pope who adopted him when he was young is well portrayed. But there isn’t much scope for Commander Richter who is scantly seen in the frame. The paid assassin (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) does a fair job in keeping up the tempo and the movie moves with good pace throughout.

Director Ron Howard has ensured us all a beautiful ride across the Vatican. The chase is well portrayed and the sets are beautifully crafted. The BGM adds to the tempo and keeps us glued to the screen without winking. This movie is many folds better than the DVC movie, which lacked the pace and thrill. I felt that Howard should have stuck to the book for the climax rather than changing it.

The Bottomline – A fully entertaining and thrilling movie overall. A must watch for all movie goers! Let the angels guide you to the theatres and demons haunt you if you’re one of those filthy downloaders

The Verdict: Great movie!

My Rating: ★★★½☆ 

Sarvam starts off well with an intro song for the hero Arya. Except for the song sung by maestro Ilayaraja, nothing else goes well. Usual item girls clad in miniskirts do rounds with the hero. Then we move into the so-called story. Karthik (Arya) and Sandhya (Trisha) accidentally meet in a go-karting track. Karthik is completely swept away by Sandy the moment they meet and as with any Tamil movie they find ways to meet each other again and again (be it the death mourning or Mocha). Whenever the heroine is anywhere nearer our hero gets to hear Ilayaraja’s tunes being played at full volume and he gets to know that his ladylove is somewhere near! (Gosh what an ESP! ). Sandhya is a doctor and Karthik makes it a habit visiting the hospital daily to ensure that she falls in love with him. Now this part is very annoying and you need a lot of patience to get through. Now there is a song where the hero senses that he has super human power because now he’s in love!!!. So he does this Matrix-effect and damages a few trucks and cars with some of Neo’s moves. After luring Sandhya into his love trap, the duo hit the usual duets and are happy to be with each other. And in Tamil cinema that can’t stay that way for long, right? So tragedy strikes, Sandhya dies in an ill-fated accident. Parallel to this romance runs a suspense track where a psychopath Easwar (J. D. Chakravarthy) stalks Indrajith and his son Imman (Rohan). The background for this is that Indrajith accidentally runs over Easwar’s wife and son. Easwar cannot bear the loss and owes to take revenge and make Indrajith pay the price for his mistakes. His idea of revenge is to kill Imman and make Indrajith suffer just like he does.

The story is loosely based on Chaos Theory I guess, or that is what was intended by the director. It is how the lives of all these 5 characters meet and intervene. Now with his ladylove dead the suave happy-go-lucky hero turns into Devdas with beard and stuff. That is when he learns that his lover’s heart is transplanted to Imman and so pays him a visit. That is when he learns about the psycho Easwar and his want for revenge and he takes the boy in his shelter. The climax is poorly portrayed with a wild goose chase and some unbelievable fights. Karthik (Arya) is sliced by a knife clad with snake blood but he miraculously survives without any medication for more than a day. The small talk and silly fights between Imman and Karthik makes you run out of patience. Imman can’t even speak Tamil well! Someone should have dubbed for him.

I guess director Vishnu Vardhan has not yet come out of the Billa effect. The locales are exotic and the set is marvellous. I have never ever dreamt of such clean and sparkling hospitals. But maybe he should have concentrated more on the screenplay than such things. Arya has done a great job transiting from the outcast Yogi (Naan Kadavul) to a chocolate lover boy in this movie. Again, Trisha doesn’t have much scope in this movie. She is just a glam doll, but the chemisty has somewhat worked out. The music score by Yuvan Shankar Raja is good with two songs making it to above average. But the BGM is a little loud at times.

The Bottomline – It’s an edge-of-the-seat thriller; yeah you desperately wait at the edge of the seat for the movie to end so that you can run off!! If you have a lot of patience and are feeling completely bored, maybe you can take a chance and go watch the movie!

The Verdict: Sarvam – Sarvanaasam!

My Rating: ★☆☆☆☆