bala08 Reviews

Parallel Lines (2021)

An ordinary 'B' movie

[4/10 · 11 March 2022]

The story was a big let down. The second the protagonist narrated his story to the police, the ending could be seen miles away. Very predictable. I just forwarded it to the end to see if I had that guessed right and bingo.

Movie felt very stretched for 95% of the time.

Decent production for a B movie. Main character has given a decent performance but that's about it.

Malik (I) (2021)

Mollywood version of Nayakan

[7/10 · 9 August 2021]

While this movie stands out on its own to an extent, I could not help being reminded of Nayakan on far too many moments during the movie. So the movie didnt feel too original.

Fahadh Faasil's solid performance keeps the movie engaging till the end.

Blood of Zeus (2020– )

Good but hard not to relate to Castlevania

[8/10 · 17 November 2020]

Well written story and good character development that dives neatly into Greek mythology. If you had watched Castlevania, there is way too much resemblance to most characters in this show. Zeus and Count Dracula - The most powerful ones in their respective shows. They can't be killed easily and hence a powerful allegiance is formed, with one of them being their son. The human lover of Zeus on earth resembles Dracula's wife in many ways. Earthly son of Zeus easily resembles son of Dracula. All the demons in Blood of Zeus resembles the vampires and warlocks in Castlevania. Heron = Alucard/Tepes Alexia = Sypha Beinades Even Hector and Issac from Castlevania has similar characters in this show.

I can go on, but you get the idea.

By comparison, Castlevania season 1 is a much better show but this one is entertaining enough to score 8/10.

Raised by Wolves (2020–2022)

Intriguing start, gripping plot, WTF end

[8/10 · 25 October 2020]

The very beginning made me wonder if it will get better or be a mix of all the recent sci-fi presented in a cheesy way. It sure got better and better, making it a worthy binge watch. Somewhere it got weird and continued to get weirder, making us wonder where are they going with this. It just rallied into a big WTF moment towards the end. Nevertheless, the show has excellent production value, making the audio and video presentation a delight to experience. I'm hoping, by season 2, they get the story back to what made it worthwhile to watch the first season.

Visaaranai (2015)

Brutal and raw

[9/10 · 21 August 2020]

The movie draws you in and doesn't quite let go until the end. If you ever wonder what cops can do to you, this will give you more than just an answer. Terrific direction and natural presentation through and through.

Mahanati (2018)

Amusing road to depression

[8/10 · 19 April 2020]

Right from the start many know where this journey is heading, so it's not about the depressing destination but the journey itself. Keerthi Suresh was born for this role and probably will be remembered so for the rest of her life. Smooth direction & a neat screenplay seals the biopic as a memorable one.

Panchayat (2020– )

100% satisfaction guaranteed

[10/10 · 14 April 2020]

Amazing character developments. The way they have made all the simple moments into such interesting episodes is extraordinary. No over the top dialogues or cheesy moments. They have carefully avoided the usual feel good moments and made this as fresh as they come. Haven't enjoyed a TV series so much in a long time. Must watch.

Aadukalam (2011)

Thanush owns this all the way

[10/10 · 16 January 2017]

Let me try to break down my scoring criteria.....

1) Casting is nothing short of perfection. Not a character out of place and every character is perfectly suited for the movie. No one tries to stand out or any over the top heroism or villain.

2) Dialog is exactly how it needs to be. Again not a word out of place. No "punch" dialogues as such.

3) Songs - Too good. No silly duets in some eye candy place. Songs are placed at the exact moments it needs to be in the movie.

4) Theme - Not often we see such themes on movies and its very hard to make a movie that is interesting and gripping out of such themes. Very well done.

5) Last but not the least - Thanush had made a killer of a performance here. Doesn't try to overact or try to be a "mass" hero. He fits in exactly how the movie needs him to be. My respect for him as a actor has grown many folds after I watched this movie.

Im 100% satisfied with this movie. Top class stuff in every department.

Irumugan (2016)

Vikram's ego trip with bits and pieces of Hollywood movies

[3/10 · 1 December 2016]

I don't mind well made movies inspired from other language movies but this movie is very poorly executed. Too many instances from Hollywood movies and they didn't know how to stitch them into a seamless one. The result looks so forced and silly. The very intro scene of Vikram was ripped from both Rambo and Sherlock Holmes. All it manages to achieve is boosting Vikram's ego and nothing more. What's with the scientist who just spills the beans even without asking much about what he has been upto ??

After a very long time, I stopped watching a Tamil movie half way through as I was not able to bear wasting my time on such a mess.

The Rebel (2007)

Finest display of martial arts

[8/10 · 15 February 2013]

I'm a huge fan of martial arts movies and I'm trained on it a bit myself, so I know good genuine action when I see it. While this movie may not be a Hollywood blockbuster it surely holds its own which cannot be matched by most other action movies. Johnny Nguyen is at his best in this movie. Incredible display of martial arts from him which looks even more convincing than Tony Jaa on screen. They made sure the opponents also have good amount of fighting skill which makes it a real treat to watch the fight sequences. The girl also shows what she can do and wow, can she fight or what.

This is a must watch for martial arts fans out there.

Blue Valentine (2010)

Revolutionary Road meets Notebook

[7/10 · 28 May 2012]

This movie is well made and realistic. However during certain scenes I was reminded of two other movies, Revolutionary Road and the Notebook. The way they move back and forth in time in Blue Valentine was similar to the movie Notebook and the emotionally depressing scenes were bit similar to the movie Revolutionary Road. So it didn't feel too original to me but still this movie had few things going on its own. Anyone who has been in a troubled relationship with the opposite sex will know how realistic this movie is but mind you it will leave you depressed. Good to see some realistic movies keep coming along the way in the midst of stupid scripts.

Warrior (2011)

Carefully executed movie

[8/10 · 21 December 2011]

Despite the good reviews here I wanted to put off watching this movie for a while as I thought this will be one of those standard movies where they develop a plot just to take it to the last fight which is supposed to make up for everything else the movie may not be. I finally got to watch it and was pleasantly surprised on how well the whole movie was executed from start to end. The movie had many chances to slip into the ordinary but they carefully kept off that road and made a really convincing movie. The lead characters are neatly developed without overdoing any of their individual traits. The fights also had the right balance to it, thereby gelling with the rest of the movie rather than standing out and causing a distraction. 'Balance' is the right word to describe this movie as all the elements are carefully balanced to deliver a good movie. Definitely worth a watch.

Rango (2011)

Boring at best

[4/10 · 11 July 2011]

I thought a 7.6 rating in IMDb got to make it a decent movie but was I wrong or what ? Right from the start there was not a single scene that pulled me into the movie and till the end I was hoping it will change for the better but it never did. The supposed to be funny moments were more annoying than anything else. Many scenes were so predictable and dumb. It didn't take me much time to figure out where I've heard the snakes voice accent before and its Davy Jones from the pirates of the Caribbean part 2. They are already attempting to make the same thing happen again between Depp and Jones ?

The other bad thing about this movie is the choice of characters, not even a single living thing shown in this movie is likable which is mentioned by many other reviewers as well.

I'm so disappointed with this movie. Even the magic of Depp didn't save it. The only good thing is the animation visual quality but I'm not in kindergarten to drop my jaw and watch it just for the colors.

Edison (2005)

FRAT...the very word is scary.

[2/10 · 25 March 2011]

I got to give it to one super scene in this movie. This is where LLcoolJ walks into the bar/restaurant to have a chat with the reporter. He goes about staring down everyone on his way, wow, he is FRAT and it should scare everyone out of their pants, phew. They must think he is the invincible Terminator back from nowhere.

As soon as he sits down by a table and gives a stare at the people nearby they all scram, wow, how intimidating.

I'm so scared of this guy that I want to laugh till I die.

Of course there are several other pathetic scenes and plot holes which tops what I have mentioned above but I just could not resist writing about that one scene, so scary to even think of it.

Did they ever preview this movie before releasing or what ? Probably they did and no one survived the preview and the print was already into circulation.

Salt (2010)

wanted to hate it but felt entertained

[7/10 · 27 December 2010]

I'm not a big fan of Angelina Jolie and I'm not gay either.

So I started watching this movie on blu-ray with only a expectation to have a good A/V experience on my HT.

Though it started a bit slow, eventually it built on enough momentum to leave me satisfied in the end.

Some of the stunts looked way over the top which did make me roll my eyes few times. I was able to guess some part of the story a bit too ahead which is also OK as its hard for that not to happen in these kind of movies.

The scene where she uses her panties to cover the camera was really cheesy and ultra dumb. It was like just to make "Angelina Jolie" take her panties off in the movie which might kindle some whispers around. Sorry not for me, she could have easily broke the camera lens or the camera itself in half the time she spent taking her panties off.

The biggest plus point of the movie was the slightly different touch to the standard spy story compared to the ones we have around already in recent times. This gave some decent surprises which made up for the part I had guessed already.

Bottom line: Good entertainment.

The Social Network (2010)

As clean as they come

[9/10 · 27 December 2010]

One of the finest of its kind movie for this year, no doubt.

Fantastic cast and performances all around. You don't get a good movie just because you have few talented actors in it. The director is the one who can use it effectively to bring out a great movie.

Flincher has done just that in this movie. Not one instance I felt the movie was boring or has some unnecessary scene. It has an amazing touch of class from start to end.

Very few true stories are converted to good movies which are as effective as the story itself. Usually these types can get monotonous at some point in the movie but not this one.

I strongly recommend this movie to anyone who has a good taste for movies and also for the ones who are submerged into facebook everyday.

Avatar (2009)

Total disappointment

[2/10 · 22 December 2009]

I watched this movie last night and I still can't believe this is Cameron's work. All that hype just translated into an extravaganza CGI. which may be the best in the industry but just that alone is not going to convince me to appreciate this movie. I was rolling back my eyes so many times right till the end of movie.

The story was less than ordinary and was like a rip off mix from the last decade's blockbusters.

I still can't figure out why this movie's rating is so high here. I don't know what quality movie is really these days.

Whatever the message they were trying to give also fell pretty flat. I'm big on saving the earth but small on such, not so great execution.

Please don't come back telling me I know nothing about movies. If that is really the case, I'm glad I don't.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008)

pathetic to the core

[1/10 · 30 May 2008]

Right from the word go the movie sucks to the core. Its like copy pasting from every other fantasy fairytale movie out there. I'm shocked to see this movie has a rating as high as this.

Also if anyone even thinks to talk about the special efx in this movie, please get in touch with me, all are stale stuffs done already in million other movies using softwares like 3ds max.

The last scene (crossing the bridge) was the biggest joke of all, the river itself is only about knee high deep and they have a bridge on top of it and if it isn't for that bridge, no one could get past? And while they are at it, the water rising special efx was already done in LOTR 1st part and it didn't get any better here.

At any point of the movie, you just get to see a bunch of people doing this or that and the last battle scene looks so obvious that the soldiers are all manipulated using cg efx.

The whole plot was so sick with horrible attempts to humour the audience. probably it just cost them a few thousand dollars to make this movie and maybe they are paying the theaters to run this.

1408 (2007)

One of the best in recent times

[8/10 · 27 February 2008]

Most of us must be sick of watching all the mindless horror movies in recent times and along comes 1408 for the rescue.

Its very neatly done with a smooth pace. Esp. The build up they give for the first half was simply real scary. If you are not sure on what I'm talking about, try watching this movie alone in the night and you will know how this movie can cast great fear on your mind. In my opinion, thats the way you get the most of the horror movies, watch it alone and your mind will add up thrill to the top.

The performances from Cussac and Samuel is also good.

I have always been a big fan of Stephen King and for a while thought he was fading off but this movie said it all. He is Still at the top of his form. Watch this and you will know what I mean.

I would easily rate this as one of the best horror movies I have ever seen.