All posts tagged: Moviereview

Ananthan Kaadu review: Murali Gopy swallowed an encyclopedia, now we’re paying the price | Movie-review News

Ananthan Kaadu review: Murali Gopy swallowed an encyclopedia, now we’re paying the price | Movie-review News

Ananthan Kaadu Movie Review & Rating: “The most honest form of filmmaking is to make a film for yourself,” thus goes a quote widely attributed to Sir Peter Jackson, renowned for creating the Lord of the Rings movies. Among the current crop of Malayalam screenwriters, I would say Murali Gopy pens the most “personal” scripts; he essentially writes for himself. However, the issue is that he often writes solely for himself, without the slightest thought that it is for the eventual consumption of others. Sure, artists like Rick Rubin may have said that “the audience comes (only) last,” but that doesn’t mean the audience doesn’t exist at all. I am not suggesting that screenwriters should be swayed by audience sensibilities or craft scripts with people’s preferences in mind. Nonetheless, to jot down whatever comes to mind, however one wants to, and then put the onus on the masses to like it no matter what — simply because it has hit theatres or “a lot of effort has gone into making it” — is unfair. Ananthan …

Chinna Chinna Aasai review: Indrans, Madhoo lead an underwhelming tale of self-discovery | Movie-review News

Chinna Chinna Aasai review: Indrans, Madhoo lead an underwhelming tale of self-discovery | Movie-review News

Chinna Chinna Aasai Movie Review: There’s something oddly fascinating about sitting down to watch a two-hander, particularly since it pretty much has to defy the “show, don’t tell” commandment of visual storytelling while also avoiding boring the audience with the abundance of dialogues. While it’s easy for creators to make a film featuring nonstop back-and-forth exchanges between the central characters, the real challenge in crafting a two-hander lies in sidestepping that pitfall and making an artistically impressive work instead. Debutant director Varsha Vasudev’s Chinna Chinna Aasai revolves around two middle-aged people, Madhavan (Indrans) and Leela (Madhoo Shah), whose lives take a turn when fate brings them together in Varanasi (Kashi), Uttar Pradesh. While on one of his regular visits to Varanasi, Madhavan, a Malayali, meets Leela, who hails from Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu. After getting separated from her tour group and having her belongings stolen, Leela is petrified and unsure of what to do next. When Madhavan offers to help, she is initially suspicious and hesitant. But with no other option, she goes along with …

The Furious movie review: Kenji Tanigaki delivers a taut actioner | Movie-review News

The Furious movie review: Kenji Tanigaki delivers a taut actioner | Movie-review News

3 min readJun 19, 2026 05:55 PM IST The Furious movie review: Hell hath no fury like a father scorned in The Furious – certainly not fury as taut, economical and razor-sharp as this film. Presumably, hell also involves a lot more chit-chat. The Furious dispenses with dialogue too; why waste your breath when you will need every ounce for the next tackle? A much-celebrated action choreographer, director Kenji Tanigaki knows that all he needs is a skeletal story with an emotional tug (in this case, kidnapped children) to set his two action stars, Miao Xe as Wang, and Joe Taslim as Navin, on a mission. Once that machine starts, it barely takes a pause. Four people are credited as writers, and at the very least they ensure that we don’t raise too many questions about where exactly all the action is happening (“Somewhere in Southeast Asia”, says the film), and why are more people not noticing Wang racing down streets bleeding and barefeet behind a pick-up truck or his daughter (Rainy, played by Enyou …

Balan movie review: A ‘survival’ drama that impresses in first half, but stumbles in second | Movie-review News

Balan movie review: A ‘survival’ drama that impresses in first half, but stumbles in second | Movie-review News

Balan The Boy Movie Review & Rating: When British naturalist Charles Darwin popularised the phrase “survival of the fittest” (first used by English sociologist-philosopher Herbert Spencer) through the later editions of his popular scientific work, “On the Origin of Species,” did he also mean that one ought to do whatever it takes to survive? Maybe not. However, people have long given it a connotation beyond its widely accepted definition — “organisms best adjusted to their environment are the most successful in surviving and reproducing” — interpreting it to mean that the law of the jungle, “kill or be killed,” is the one to abide by in a dog-eat-dog world. In a way, director Chidambaram’s Balan: The Boy also emphasises this idea. But not in an ultra-violent way, as one might assume a movie with such a story would. Rather, Balan maintains without any bloodshed that those determined to survive will do so, no matter what. The boy (portrayed as a child by Adhisheshan and as a teenager by Muhammed Zinaan) and his mother (a mesmerising Farzana …

Maa Inti Bangaaram movie review: Samantha delivers career-best performance in a rare Telugu actioner | Movie-review News

Maa Inti Bangaaram movie review: Samantha delivers career-best performance in a rare Telugu actioner | Movie-review News

Maa Inti Bangaaram review: Female led action films do not get easy acceptance in Telugu cinema. They rarely get big release dates, rarely get real stunt budgets, and almost never carry the benefit of doubt that a male star walks in with by default. Maa Inti Bangaaram arrives carrying all of that history on its back, and it spends two and a half hours trying to argue that a woman in a saree can hold a screen the same way a commercial hero does, fight for fight. For most of its runtime, it actually pulls that off, largely because Samantha Ruth Prabhu delivers what might be the best performance of her career in the lead role. Svarna, played by Samantha, eloped with Anirudh, played by Diganth Manchale, three years ago, and the film opens with her finally being welcomed into his family after all that time spent kept at a distance. Set in a fictional village, Suvarna now has to settle into the role of the ideal daughter-in-law, even as pieces of a past she …

Toy Story 5 movie review: Pixar franchise feels past its prime | Movie-review News

Toy Story 5 movie review: Pixar franchise feels past its prime | Movie-review News

4 min readJun 19, 2026 02:36 PM IST Toy Story 5 movie review: Child’s play has always been serious business in the Toy Story franchise. Now, it’s just business. The fifth iteration of this profitable Pixar franchise is way past its game and, more importantly, has lost its sense of play. The central idea is that tech and tablets are replacing toys and imagination. By the end, the central takeaway is that the twain can co-exist happily. After all, says a wisened Jessie/Sheriff (Cusack), once much water has flown under the bridge, the sole mission on Earth for all of them — the ageing Woody (Hanks) to smitten Buzz (Allen) to new-plaything-on-the-block Lilypad — is to be there for the kids when they need them, at the right moment. Could that moment also have something to do with the fact that Pixar owner Disney needs the tech bros by its side, as much as any other corporate, in the world according to Donald Trump? The message of tech being not just man’s but also a …

The Voice of Hind Rajab movie review: A potent anti-war statement, if ever there was one | Movie-review News

The Voice of Hind Rajab movie review: A potent anti-war statement, if ever there was one | Movie-review News

4 min readUpdated: Jun 19, 2026 09:25 AM IST The Voice of Hind Rajab movie review: Some films come carrying so much weight that they become hard to bear. Some films become testaments to their time. The Voice of Hind Rajab is one that does both: it lets us in on the agony of a small child left alone in the back of a car, her family members murdered, calling for help; it also asks us to bear witness. Director Kaouther Ben Hania first heard the clip in which a five-year-old girl is heard sobbing, saying she is afraid of the dark, asking for help. The voice belonged to Hind Rajab who was travelling with her aunts, uncles and cousin in the Gaza strip when the car was strafed by Israeli forces. Everyone in the car is dead, the cousin is grievously injured: we learn that the latter dies too, leaving the terrified Hind hiding as best as she could behind the backseat. When the volunteers of the Palestine Red Crescent Society realise the gravity …

Disclosure Day movie review: A gripping Steven Spielberg spectacle | Movie-review News

Disclosure Day movie review: A gripping Steven Spielberg spectacle | Movie-review News

3 min readJun 12, 2026 02:50 PM IST Disclosure Day movie review: Disclosure Day rolls out smoothly and fully formed from the atelier of the great Steven Spielberg, with humanity – once again – discovering itself in the face of the divine and the unknown. Spielberg himself has described it as the closest to his film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Disclosure Day perhaps dabbles most evidently with the question of God and aliens. And because it’s Spielberg, what you see is what you get. There is talk of a government-military-industrial nexus, but it is suggestive of an older time, not now, when the President’s family and the biggest weapons profiteers are in bed together without raising a scandal. There is talk of “empathy as humanity’s evolutionary advantage”, but nothing about why and where and how fast it is eroding. The only aliens in Spielberg’s film are the ones that come from outer space, and they are the same big-headed, slender-limbed, bug-eyed creatures he favours; the director clearly hasn’t spotted the ones closer …

Sing Geetham movie review: At 94, Singeetam Srinivasa Rao delivers a musical fable | Movie-review News

Sing Geetham movie review: At 94, Singeetam Srinivasa Rao delivers a musical fable | Movie-review News

Some films take years to make. Sing Geetham took nearly a lifetime. The idea lived in Singeetham Srinivasa Rao’s head for close to four decades before a producer finally said yes. This explains why the film feels the way it does: deeply personal, unique, stubbornly unconventional, and made with the kind of sincerity that cannot be manufactured. The man who once made a film without dialogues asks you to imagine a world where everyone sings, quite literally. Kuberapuram is a fictional village in Andhra Pradesh that feels like it exists slightly outside of real time. It sits on gold, and outside interests have noticed. A young man named Pratap (Ayaan) arrives expecting a business opportunity. What he finds instead is a community that is holding itself together with less and less left to hold. At the center of the village’s resistance is Gowri (Ahilya Bamroo), a young woman with an unshakeable attachment to the land and the life it sustains. A gold mining operation managed by Renu (Shalini Kondepudi) is slowly eating into both. Then, …

Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata movie review: Resurgent Kangana Ranaut leads this gripping film | Movie-review News

Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata movie review: Resurgent Kangana Ranaut leads this gripping film | Movie-review News

3 min readUpdated: Jun 13, 2026 10:31 AM IST Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata movie review: My first reaction when I heard that Bharat Bhhagya Viddhaata was yet another version of the Cama Hospital shootout during the 26/11 terror attack was one of dismay. Did we really need yet another iteration, when we’ve had a flurry of films and shows on the same theme? Turns out that we did. Despite its mouthful of a title, which is more a paean to the performative patriotism encouraged by the current regime than anything else, and the familiarity of the main events, which have been well documented, this latest film, written and directed by Manoj Tapadia, stands out. It takes into account the bravery of the Cama nurses in the face of tremendous odds, making it an ode to an unsung section of our society. And even more importantly, it lauds their actions, while showing us the casual and constant cruelty of the two men on a killing spree in a space dedicated to saving lives, without demonising a minority. …