The Woman In Black : Scary

   It’s been a while since a good horror movie has hit the screen. Many "horror" movies these days just show blood in the name of horror. The Woman in Black does manage to scare you without much bloodshed.

  The stage is set in  the 19^th century England. Arthur Kipps a lawyer who is working hard to make his ends meet in London, has a son to raise, and has come to terms with wife passing away. So to save his job, he moves to a small village in England to sort out the papers of an isolated mansion of a deceased mentally challenged woman. Once inside the mansion Kipps sees the spirits.

  The movie is well shot. The  country side looks really beautiful. The mansion itself looks very spooky and scary .  Everything about the mansion will make you feel its haunted. There are a few genuinely  scary moments. So if you are going to watch it, be ready to jump out of the seats. There are good surprises. The sound effects are particularly good.

  The Woman in Black has nothing new that you have not see before, but it’s done with conviction. Daniel Radcliffe gets out of Harry Potter mode into an adult character. If you have been a fan a of Harry Potter series, it will be hard for you see him play a dad, as you will still see him as a “boy”. But he does justice to his character and you will actually feel sorry for him.

 Over all The Woman in Black is good. It manages to make you jump out of your seats. 

Ek Main Aur Ek Tu : Good

       

        Ek Main Aur Ek Tu has all the typical ingredients of the regular RomCom and is very predictable. Rahul, an architect meets Riana, a free lance Hajaam ( Hair Dresser) in Las Vegas . Rahul has controlling parents - Boman Irani and Ratna Pathak Shah , while Riana is “live in the moment” type of a character. They get drunk one night and get married . They decidoo to annul the marriage, that is when they realise that they get along very well. 

The movie unfolds with a few funny moments when the couple gets to know each other. There are moments where the humor falls down. Even though the movie is predictable with all the standard ingredients that go into RomCom, you will feel a connect with its characters. But the movie ends on a more mature note than the other regular RomComs , which will come as a good surprise.

Imran Khan gets into the Rahul’s character very well. Including an emotional scene where Riana takes Rahul to her school to show him around. Kareena Kapoor’s role is very much like her role in “Jab We Met” who encourages her counterpart to take life easy and have fun.She gives the movie energy with her bubbly performace. If you liked her in “Jab We Met” you will like her in this movie. Boman Irani and Ratna Pathak Shah play their characters of a boring success minded business man and fashion obsessed woman with conviction. The music too strikes a note Amit Trivedi and Amitabh Bhattacharya having done a decent job.

Overall the movie is good . Its engaging for most part and does not drag along for too long and has a different ending.

Source Code : Keeps you thinking

    

        'Source Code' keeps you hooked on to it right from the beginning.  The movie opens with  lovely shots of Chicago, on a beautiful sunny day. The camera goes over the city’s skyscrapers,  highways, before getting to a speeding train.

Colter Stevens  (Jake Gyllenhaal)  is an  American Army helicopter pilot , whose last memory is fighting in Afghanistan, where he is flying a helicopter, suddenly wakes up on the train as though he has woken up from a nightmare.  A pretty girl - Christina (Michelle Monaghan) sitting opposite  to him, sees and knows him as Sean Fentress  who is a school teacher. Stevens insists that he is not the one who she believes him to be, even though Stevens looks like Sean in the mirror. Before Stevens could make sense of  what is going on,  a bomb on the train explodes killing almost everyone on the train. Stevens then finds himself in some kind of a pod, in uniform , strapped to a seat , as a woman’s voice murmuring something about “beleaguered castle” ( a card game). The voice is of officer Goodwin (Vera Farmiga),  she along with her boss Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright)  explain that Stevens has zapped in from another time and space through a software program called Source Code and will keep returning to the train to relive the last 8 minutes before the bomb goes off, to identify the bomber was , so that another major terrorist attack could be prevented the same day.

Even though plot seems a little unrealistic rather far-fetched, Duncan Jones , makes it very believable. The characters make an impression, even if they have very small roles and keep doing the same thing  (well almost ) over and over again. Stevens develops very soft corner for Christina, and also manages to get some compassion from Goodwin.

The movie over all is very engaging. It is centered around a very interesting concept. The performances are very good. The movie keeps you thinking all the time and its always ahead of your thoughts. It good fun watching it and will make you think even after you have left the hall after watching it. 

Fast and Furious 5: Rio Heist - Movie Review

 Image source: Wiki

 

I had seen the trailer of this movie once. I was excited at the prospect of Vin Diesel and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson facing each other in the latest installment of the swashbuckling, high-speed "Fast and the Furious" series. In this edition, the action shifts to Rio where Dom (Diesel), O’Conner ( Walker)  and others plot the downfall of the most corrupt businessman in Rio. However, they must at the same time, take on the FBI team headed by Dwayne Johnson.

 

 

The opening scene sets the pace of the movie, where O’Conner and his girlfriend - Mia , free Dom from a jail sentence by ramming into a prison bus. What follows is a series of interesting action sequences, which keeps you glued to the screen. The  rooftop chase sequence, Dom and O’Conner robbing cars from a moving train, are all well shot and keep you interested. The introduction and a few scenes involving the associates, who help Dom in this mission are humorous, specially the way they get the fingerprints of the businessman is something new. The subsequent part of the movie features a typical Bollywood style planning and execution of the robbery, including how all The Rock’s men die and The Rock finally decides to join Dom and Co. The climax where Dom and O’Conner drive a huge safe tied to two cars through the streets of Rio adheres to the typical Hindi movie way of murdering all Newton’s Laws.

 

 

The Fast and the Furious series has always been known for its cars, high-speed races and escapades. I was very surprised and rather disappointed to see that the cars have not been given as much importance as the characters in the movie get. The shiny cars have made "The Fast and the Furious" series such a hit and the primary reason to watch the movies for many people.

 

 

To sum things up, its a movie with a lot adrenaline rush in it. Even though the movie has a lot of Bollywood flavour, its fun. As one of my friends rightly said, "Its done in such a way that it will make you want to believe in the stunts they do. That's the difference between a regular Hindi movie and this one.". 

 

In all, its good fun to watch the movie.