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Interstellar (2014)
Take away the visuals and the soundtrack and the feelings of grandeur - and you get utter nonsense
DISCLAIMER: I'm in general, a huge Nolan fan.
There are times when you can ignore plot holes in films, and times when you can't. You can overlook some when the pacing is fast, or when the film doesn't take itself too seriously. Unfortunately, Interstellar does neither - it's unnecessarily slow and takes itself really, really seriously. And it's full of plot holes, fallacies, paradoxes, and logic taking a beating in general, to fulfill some emotional quotient - which, I must say, worked on most people.
Let's start with the whole premise the film is based on - in the future, earth's resources have been drained, and everyone has turned into farmers - with conscious efforts to eradicate science education in general to force people to go into farming. Let's take a moment here to realize just how ridiculous that premise is.
Moving on - our protagonist is a genius NASA astronaut/engineer turned farmer (because, y'know, everyone's a farmer) - and the first half mostly shows him bonding with his family, with completely unnecessary scenes to prolong the film - like taking down a lost drone (by pointing things towards it), which had no relation to the story later whatsoever. Then our hero stumbles onto a NASA facility (if you aren't a farmer, you're with NASA) after decoding things which occurred due to... uhh, gravitational anomalies. This NASA facility, as claimed by uberscientist Michael Caine, was humanity's best kept secret, though 5 minutes into that - all our hero's family members were informed about it.
So anyways, since our hero stumbled into the facility anyway, uberscientist decides to send him into space to save humanity because, well, just like that. We get to see our hero saying goodbye to his family and immediate fast forward - he's in space! No training, no nothing! Economic storytelling, certainly, and it would've worked, had the other "scientists" on board later didn't have to explain things and plans to him on the fly (which, for all intents and purposes, should've been explained before leaving) - and having conversations that were mostly like what college freshmen studying physics would have. (Oh, and discussions about love! Love transcending all dimensions - when humanity is at stake!)
Anyway, so future earth has the technology to do all this, and build robot A.I.s which were more human than most humans, but it doesn't have doctors any more, or any other visible technological advancements for that matter. All efforts to save humanity were concentrated on ONE and just ONE uberscientist, who'd been working on his cure-all formula for years. And every other scientist have just been waiting for him to solve it all himself! (And what's this? Other nations you ask? Well there ain't no other nation apart from the USA to do earth saving, is there?) This is something I particularly take offense to, scientists don't work that way.
So, Nolan throws more science at us on the fly, which everyone dodges. But in the end, everything is explained by, yep, five dimensional space! Somehow our hero gets into such a space, goes back in time (opening up a ton of paradoxes), behind a bookshelf in 5D space, and uses vague messages to communicate with his daughter back in time, instead of giving clear messages like "I'm your father back in time". His daughter, when all grown up - suddenly realizes that it was his father all along and we get no clue as to how she got to that conclusion - but hey, PLOT TWIST! And with that new information, she becomes the new uberscientist, saving everyone. How? By making an orbiting space station around Saturn (for which you somehow required "quantum data" from other galaxies and black holes?). So okay uhh... it's complicated.
There are however, some great visuals (3D would've done justice) and soundtrack in this, and hence the 5 - but ultimately nothing we haven't seen before. Beyond all that glitter, there's no gold - just a forgettable movie.
Men in Black³ (2012)
Agents J and K are back, and so is another earth invading force!
Definitely a huge apology for the mess of a sequel Men In Black 2 was, MIB 3, in my opinion, could even be better than the original MIB. Revolving around a time traveling plot, which usually has a good probability of screwing up, the film pulls it off quite nicely, keeping it really, really simple as far as the time traveling is concerned, avoiding too many paradoxes.
The story revolves round a certain "Boglodyte" Boris The Animal, the last of his kind, who Agent J imprisoned 40 years ago, breaking out of a lunar jail to get revenge on J for blasting off his arm and imprisoning him. He decides to take a trip to the past so he can rectify his mistakes that got him caught. Meanwhile, our Agents J and K have a heated argument over the incident concerning Boris, and J refuses to tell K what happened back then with a "Don't ask questions whose answers you don't want to know". But before they could go anywhere with this, J simply disappears by the next day, and K finds out that he's been dead for around 40 years, killed by Boris, which implied Boris' plan was successful. So K decides to travel back in time to 1969, to prevent J's death. Perhaps not a jaw-dropping plot, and it does have a few holes here and there, but it's more than enough to keep you seated till the end.
Tommy Lee Jones didn't have much screen time this time, as he had only kind of a secondary role in the film, since it mainly revolved round Agent K (Will Smith) and a "younger" Agent J (Josh Brolin). Will Smith, like in the predecessors, serves as a great comic relief, and even if a few of the jokes were clichéd, he was a major driving factor of the film. Josh Brolin performed his role of a merrier, more talkative Agent J almost perfectly, yet to encounter the event (the Boris incident) that changed him completely. The screen chemistry between these two agents was really tangible, and made for a great watch. Another character which needs mention is the Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), the last of his multi-dimensional seeing kind who could look into the many possible futures, and the second half pretty much revolved round our agents saving his ass, and him saving theirs. Occasionally providing comic relief with his future predictions, he was a delight to watch. Jemaine Clement as Boris The Animal (Really, "it's JUST Boris!") did what he was supposed to do, growl, act and talk badass, and
growl more.
The CGI effects were impressive, if not ground breaking, and the aliens looked pretty realistic. A complaint I have would be the 3D, it was completely unnecessary for a few aliens popping out of the screen. Even though the film was shot wholly in 3D instead of being converted, it didn't impress much, and seemed pointless (or maybe that's just my usual 3D hate, because having to wear two glasses to watch a film is, well, uncomfortable to the say the least). Action sequences were more or less ordinary, and comprised of the usual shoot 'em up, though I don't have much problem with that, since the rest of the film helps you forget it.
One more thing which I really liked about the film was the scope for character development, and specially the twist in the last few minutes (which would be the most emotional moment in the whole series) contributing heavily to that, to the bond that J and K shared.
And like in all MIB films, we have revelations about famous characters being alien: Mick Jagger being an alien sent to breed with earth women, and also, Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber appear briefly as extra terrestrial life forms in the film (kind of makes sense, really). And then we find Andy Warhol actually being a secret agent working undercover.
Overall, Men In Black 3 is a great entertainer with its fair share of humorous and emotional moments, and I'd recommend it to all fans of the series. Yes, the 2nd installment did disappoint, but this one more than makes up for it. 8/10 from me.
Don 2 (2011)
This was an... Epic facepalm
With all the hype surrounding the film, I decided to watch it; and though it was very, very hard for me, the only reason I managed to watch it till the end was so that I could be armed to counter all the fanboys shouting out loud for this film.
Well anyway, here's what you'll find in this film:
>>Shah Rukh Khan sauce: A primary factor for the film's success, since people here usually go to watch big stars give big dialogues, and not the film itself. Want proof of that? Let's try calculating how many of the reviews that rated the film as "excellent" don't have the words "Shah Rukh Khan" or "SRK" or "The King" in the summary. Surprisingly(?) not too many.
>>Priyanka Chopra and Lara Dutta: Isn't it surprising that many of the reviews *emphasize* on the fact that these two women look hot? I'm not denying or supporting it, I simply don't see how *that* can be considered as a parameter for reviewing an action film.
>>Pointless action: Yes, POINTLESS is THE word.
>>A story with a glaring amount of plot-holes to MAKE WAY for that pointless action, not to mention predictable: Seriously though, if you actually intend to kill "Don", and you have him and his ex-girlfriend- turned-enemy-who-still-has-a-soft-spot-for-him in front of you, unarmed, would you engage in melodrama or would you... just kill them? That brings to mind another point, why does a trained killer shoot a stationary target at the abdomen instead of the head/heart, if they intend to kill? Of course, the answer is: To make way for some melodrama, and to get yourself killed by a now-angry-Don.
PS: Our hero here doesn't even have 5 people working under him, yet he's "Don", and though a "Thief" or "Bank robber" would've been more appropriate, let's overlook that fact for now. (Underworld dons don't go about robbing banks themselves usually, do they? Oh wait, technically they weren't "robbing" a bank, but what they were doing kind of qualifies for that anyway.)
>>Too much (and completely unnecessary, and uncalled for) drama: I guess I kinda explained it in the last point.
>>Childish dialogues: Most people will call it "attitude", that doesn't make it less childish, or less stupid. Our Don here is very fond of giving crowd-pleasing, self-praising dialogues every 5 minutes. At the end of this ordeal of a film, I just wanted to cry out loud like Boman Irani did in the film: "SHUT UP!"
>>Many foreign locations: Yep, filming Bollywood films outside India is the new fad, and this follows that trend for the sake of following that trend. And conveniently, the German Police is hopelessly incompetent, and a few Indian people with the Interpol has to take care of everything. Ain't that nice?
>>Nothing you'll not find in random Hollywood action flicks: Accept it. Move on.
To look at the pros however:
>>The action sequences, though not original (or most often needed), weren't bad.
>>Camerawork was impressive at times.
>>Acting wasn't bad: Can't say that for SRK (then again, I'll have to take into account the lame script he had to work with, which often sounded hilarious to me), but it applies to others.
A final warning to the sane folks: Keep your brains at home, if you go to watch this film. I ended up facepalming the whole length of the film; and if you're not easily impressed by a few visual effects, lots of gunfire and bomb blasts, and you look for depth/story in a film, I'm sure you would too.
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011)
Try to enjoy what's happening, and don't try to make sense of it.
In a nutshell: Random Russian dude wants to start a nuclear war (because as we all know it, the most common pastime in Russia is planning to nuke the US), and like always, it's up to our friendly neighborhood Americans to stop them; only this time, they have to go to a variety of places (Dubai and Mumbai for example) for who-knows-what- reason to stop a nuke (apparently to try to appeal to global audiences). Overlooking the clichéd and linear plot, and discarding any logic whatsoever, if you're looking for some nice action sequences and Tom Cruise doing a Spiderman on the Burj Khalifa, this is the film for you.
To expand on that, let's start with the plot. Our hero, Ethan Hunt is being held in a high security Russian prison, and of course, American agents manage to break into it and free him just like that. Hunt with his allies then get a mission to intercept some codes in the Kremlin, and find out random Russian bad guy wants to get his hands on that too because, well, he wants to blow up the world. So predictably, nothing goes right for them and random Russian dude manages to blow a part of the Kremlin up, while pinning the blame on the US because, well, blowing up the Kremlin is that easy. Tensions rise among US and Russia, and the IMF is dissolved, leaving only 4 American agents between random Russian bad guy and a global nuclear war. So thus is the movie's plot, and it follows pretty linearly after that, with our heroes traveling across the world (mainly Dubai and Mumbai) to get hold of the launch key for the nuclear missile. (Yes, somehow USA's security depends on a code in a server room in the Burj Khalifa, and Russians can launch nukes against the US from India with the codes being presumably safe in the hands of a random Indian.) A few stealth sequences later, everyone screws up and the missile is launched, but our heroes still manage to salvage the situation, after a few more action sequences. Not like we didn't know that, gah.
THIS obviously fails to impress as a story at any level, and being linear and predictable, fails to hold our (at least mine) attention to it. But let's not forget this is a spy/action flick, and as much as I would've wanted a good story, that's not all it should be about.
To look at the pros, the action was intense, the gadgets were jaw dropping, and the stunts were (most of the time) mind blowing. Of course that's what most people look for in a spy/action flick anyway, and this being a crowd pleasing film, will definitely do that. The film is very fast paced, and doesn't give you much room to breathe, which is in my opinion, a good thing for such films. The character's roles were given justice, with nothing to complain about acting quality; and in my opinion, Simon Pegg as Benji Dunn and of course Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, stood out.
Overall, if you overlook a good amount of the plot and don't try to apply any sense to what's happening whatsoever, then you might find this movie very enjoyable. To me, it wasn't anything special (because unfortunately, I rate mainly based on story lines), but it wasn't bad either.
The Adventures of Tintin (2011)
From a Tintin fan who had been waiting for this film the whole year: Kind of disappointing, and below my expectations...
I'll be honest here, I'm a big fan of Tintin, having read all of the comic books, and this was one film I was looking forward to the whole year. But sadly, it was kind of a letdown.
Supposedly based on "The Crab with the Golden Claws", "The Secret of the Unicorn" and "Red Rackham's Treasure", the film follows none of the story lines and instead creates a new story with a brand new villain, Ivanovich Sakharine, who wasn't really a villain in the original "The Secrets of the Unicorn". Minor deviations from the main plot can be overlooked, but seriously... this?
...And the story continues, mixing the settings and scenes from all the three comics, mainly during the action sequences. This new plot seemed very much forced and lacking the natural flow of the actual story. For those who've read the books, the base story used here is from "The Secrets of the Unicorn" in settings from "The Crab with the Golden Claws", with the ending from "Red Rackham's Treasure". There was too much random shooting and blasting (in short, action), and too less stealth and humor for a Tintin story in the film. Was this staying faithful to Herge's Tintin? I'd say no.
Now, as for the character representations, I felt Tintin's role was given justice, while Haddock's definitely wasn't. Haddock is famous for his antics and his language use, and that wasn't quite captured well at all. He even gave serious advice at one point! Sure, some of his actions invoked laughter, but I expected much more! Occasional humor was also provided by Thomson and Thompson, and I enjoyed them thoroughly. Sakharine excelled as a villain as well. However Allan, though in the actual story was quite a character himself, was reduced to a mere order following thug in the film. Bianca Castafiore, who wasn't there in "The Crab with the Golden Claws", made an appearance in the film, but Professor Calculus, who made his first appearance and was an integral part of "Red Rackham's Treasure", wasn't in the film!
Though the story hardly followed "Red Rackham's Treasure" at any time, the ending did. Any sequel of this film would have to completely divert from the original story as well, because in the comic, Tintin and Haddock found the treasure after a failed search in the ocean, while in the film, they found the treasure first and then found directions for more.
In short, I'm unhappy because the story of the film didn't follow the actual story, which could've been excused had the story of the film been an entirely new one with a good plot (such as in, say, "Sherlock Holmes"), but it wasn't, and it used parts from the original stories to create a very linear but nevertheless jumbled-up plot, which didn't appeal to me much.
Well, that's enough of looking at the negatives, there are a lot of positive aspects to the film as well. For a start, the animation (using motion capture technology) and visual effects were mind blowing, spellbinding, and very awe-freaking-some, and this is probably the best visual treat of this year. Attention to detail was amazing, and it was often easy to forget that I was watching an animated film. The soundtrack was very fitting and blended with the atmosphere very nicely.
I saw some people criticizing the film because it didn't give any introduction to Tintin, and that he's too lackluster as a character and all that, but I'd like to give the film credit for portraying Tintin's character like that, because he essentially was in the comic books as well. Tintin is a reporter and gets into trouble wherever he goes, and that's all we need to know to enjoy the stories.
Overall, this film could be fun for Tintin first timers, but for a veteran like me, it wasn't. It failed to give me any nostalgic feelings, but on the other hand, the stunning animation and special effects partly managed to counter those deficits. I wouldn't discourage anyone from viewing it, but I wouldn't encourage it either.