Reviews

Review : 7/10

Positives :

1. The fights and the staging of the fights were superb. Theater fight , wedding fight and car fight were staged impeccably well and the stunts were not over the top which was excellent.

2. The cuts and transitions used in the movie are on par to that of a Hollywood movie. I don't know if that was there in the script or it was improvised in the edit table but kudos 3. The camera movement was also good; kudos to the cinematographer. Personally liked the way the camera turns when someone wakes up or does a turn 4. Acting from the cast was ok.

Negatives :

1. Even though most of the scenes have a group of friends , I felt the chemistry was missing. The chemistry between Tovino and Shine Tom felt far better than Tovino's friends group or with Kalyani 2. Background score was better , Songs were good but the placement of songs was bad. Most of them did not land well.

3. The non linear pattern felt as both positive and a negative. The transitions were good but it was not effective. All the transitions leads to a fight again.

4. Writing was good but could've been better

Overall Thallumaala is Mollywood's ode to Scott Pilgrim vs the World that works in terms of technical aspects but misses a better screenplay. Would be liked by people less than 30 years of age.

Rating : 8/10

Positives :

1. Cast did their job very well and Dhanush aces his relatable , literally me middle class role again. But the show stealer were Bharathi Raja and Nithya Menon 2. Background score and songs ( except Thaaikelavi ) were so good and cinematography was on point.

3. Writing was good ( special credits to Dialogues ). Also writing a feel good drama isn't everyone's cup of tea but Mithran did a great job

Negatives :

1. Scenes related to PBS and Raashi could've been written well 2. Thaaikelavi felt out of place and even if it was cut, the pacing would not have been affected.

Overall Thiruchitrambalam is a refreshing and great feel good drama that Tamil cinema misses right now. Directors should make more and more non cringey relatable content.

Rating : 8.5/10

Positives : 1. Except the lead actors, all the other actors are new comers but their acting performance was so mature.

2. Writing a social issue related movie with satire is not an easy task but the director pulled it off with ease 3. Cinematography and background score was perfect for the movie.

4. Editing was good enough but still 3-5 minutes of portion could've been cut

Negatives :

1. Songs were average and song placement slowed the movie's pace.

2. Few characters felt out of place for the story and I personally felt that they were added for the sake of comedy

Overall it's a highly recommended courtroom drama filled with satire and hard hitting dialogues.

Rating 7.5/10

I found the premise and the setting of The Sandman to be interesting. The first 5 episodes went so fast in terms of story and screenplay. The conversations were good and there was a suspense factor to hook me. The Sandman peaked for me at 24/7 episode but once episode 6 happened things started going downhill for me.

Sure episode 6 has it's own moments but I felt that it did not add anything much to the story that followed it other than provide some character development to Morpheus.

After episode 6, we're introduced to a very new storyline which did not have any emotional connect and was pretty bland most of the time. There was a grandmother-granddaughter sentiment , a brother-sister sentiment and some emotional scenes involving a character ( Lyta Hall ) but all of these scenes are conceived poorly and we do not feel anything for them. There are scenes that are brutal near the end which was written well but as a whole it had a mediocre ending. The cliffhanger was pretty good.

I rounded off to 7 in IMDb because I personally felt some conversations were straight from the books and felt preachy.

Rating : 7.5/10

The Black Phone is a yet another addition to the less characters , more substance and zero sudden jumpscares movies like IT and Don't Breathe. This is a mix of Thriller and Horror but Scott Derrickson gets the formula right and it is balanced perfectly.

The first half an hour might test your patience but it does payoff in the third act. Ethan Hawke is brilliant as The Grabber and the supporting actors played their characters well too. Music and Cinematography were good too and editing was ok for the script.

I wish the director added 30 minutes of content to clear all the loose ends that are left throughout the movie. Also since the duration is 1 hr 46 minutes , there is no breathing time between the scenes. Still a very good film.

I am following the MCU since it's inception and I'm updating myself by watching all it's content. Ms. Marvel is one such series that I watched for the sake of not missing the continuity of MCU.

The first episode was a sigh of relief because the mix of 2D animation with live action was new , the story worked well for a pilot episode and there was no teenage cringe ( Looking at you Riverdale ). But once the story moves into the "superhero" part , the story gets split into multiple branches that in the end you are not interested in any of them.

There is no suspense or hook factor to look out for , the family sentiment did not work at all , there is no character that had an actual character arc ( Even the titular character Ms. Marvel herself ) , villain arc felt unnecessary and diluted the story , The only suspense factor also had a mediocre reveal.

I am happy that some Muslim friends of mine gave feedback that they got the representation right and it did not hurt their feelings. Cinematography and Colour Grading was good and song selections were ok but they went too overboard with the background vocals in the last 2 episodes and it was unbearable.

I'd suggest this for very strict Marvel fans who are hellbent on seeing the storyline of Ms. Marvel character visually. Otherwise do read the episode information in Wikipedia and don't watch this.

Review : 6.5/10

The bad phase of Marvel ( read : Marvel movies after Endgame ) continues again and Marvel fails to capitalize on great MCU characters like Spiderman , Dr. Strange and now Thor. Despite having polarized reviews I personally liked Thor Ragnarok and it was the best movie in the Thor quadrology in my opinion. Atleast the slapslick comedy worked out so well and the chemistry between Thor Hulk and Valkyrie were so likeable.

In Thor 4, A similar premise was there. There's a goofy team up, A well made villain character and some quirky events with goofy characters ( Grandmaster , Zeus ) but Taika failed to recreate the same magic as the team up was so muddled , Gorr had less time but Bale made good use of the character and Thor meeting with Zeus was so ridiculous.

B&W scenes between Gorr and Thor were surprisingly good and sequences involving Stormbreaker vs Necrosword were good. The crew tried to save the movie but except Hemsworth and Bale , others were not contributing much to the movie. Some comedies were a hit but most of them fell flat. Movie was mid till Thor escapes from Zeus but it was okayish after that. As a Marvel fan , I'm worried about the future of Phase 4 after this.

Premise : An mercenary for hire wants to become an actor

Barry is a well made dark comedy and some may not like it but overall it is one of the best in that genre. I felt S03 to be a bit laggy in the beginning but the ending made up to it. Other streaming sites should learn from HBO on selecting content for a series.

Spy x Family is a breath of fresh air after a long watch of shounen anime. There are very less number of action scenes and I personally liked it. It has all the elements of a spy genre content but the way it is presented is commendable. The storyline is interesting and Anya,Yor pair make it cuter too. There were very few areas where the flow of the series felt a bit slow for me but overall it was so good. Waiting for the upcoming episodes.

Gullak is the tale about the Mishra ji ki family which is said from the point of view of a Piggy Bank. Like a Piggy bank, the series too has standalone episodes like a photograph or a memory that these family make. Most of the episodes are disjoint but the emotion remains the same. The cast , the writers and set design deserve a special appreciation since most of the scenes take place within a middle class home and it was picturised perfectly. Waiting for more seasons and relatable series from TVF.

Rating - 7.5/10

Suzhal is a mystery thriller surrounding a missing person and a factory fire that happens in the same night. Like it's name, the narrative of suzhal makes a complete spin every two episodes. Except for the lacklusture 4th episode, all the other episodes are well made. One thing that stood out was the production design which was rich. Also the cinematography and music elevated many scenes. The performance of many leads were commendable too but few characters felt unnecessary. Editing could've been a bit better but overall it was good.

Except for few logic loopholes, Suzhal is a very good bingeworthy series on par to that of Vilangu.

Rating 8.5/10

I have already watched Kaithi and at that time , I had a 7.5/10 rating in my mind but after re-watch , it does get better. Except for some hypothetical situations, all the scenes work. All the characters are etched well and technically it is a sound movie too.

Season 1 : 8.5/10 - Except a couple of episodes , rest were watchable and animation was good.

Season 2 : 7.5/10 - Some stories fell flat but the animation was superb as compared to the previous season.

Season 3 : 8/10 - Here the animation and stories are better than S02 but the 3-4 stories had average content.

Will update the review after successive seasons.

Watching Panchayat gave me the same feeling as that of eating a Pani Poori - it's a snack that has all types of taste in a balanced way. Likewise Panchayat runs at 30 mins/episode ( snack ) with all types of emotion. It might feel boring at very few places and some scenes may feel amateur but as a whole , this is such a feel good series that I've seen in the recent times.

I couldn't stop comparing this with The Matrix since both these movies share a common technology but in EEAaO there is a catch. I don't want to spoil these moments but these goofy elements are what makes this movie an original. There are so many inspiration and Easter eggs of other movies but still there's uniqueness in this movie. Everything in EEAaO is a masterpiece - Stunts are funny and serious at the same time , The cast have aced their roles , Editing deserves an Oscar and the Cinematography is a contender for Oscars ( Though I'm sure The Batman would win it ).

The themes of Nihilism and Existentialism are discussed in a scene consisting of rocks and if that scene doesn't convince you to watch this movie then I don't know what will.

Saani Kaayidham is a female centric revenge drama with more blood and minimal story. If Rocky had shades of Oldboy , this movie has the shades of Kill Bill. Cinematography is top notch and the background score is weird yet it goes well with every scene. Arun Matheshwaran really likes to let go of a scene so the editor takes a backseat again.

The main issue with Saani Kaayidham is that the emotion behind the revenge does not reciprocate well and the first act of the film is not so convincing. Also this movie relies so much on the leads Keerthi Suresh and Selvaraghavan that the villains are too weak. The entire movie felt like a Video game that has too much of violence played in the beginner level difficulty.

In Saani Kaayidham, I felt that the chapter names were apt for some and were the names were not apt for some chapters. This is kind of the same feel that I have with the entirety of the movie too. It works at parts but is mostly forgettable. The violence may feel new for tamil cinema.

RRR is a fictional take on Alluri Sitaram Raju and Komaram Bheem and like Bahubali , the grandeurness is visible in each and every frame. The lead cast aced their roles but Ajay Devgan, Alia Bhatt and Shriya Saran were wasted and were added only for Pan India tag. The screenplay was solid in the first half but falters at times in the latter. The movie has some trademark Rajamouli moments and they were executed to perfection.

The set design and Cinematography complements each other as well.

The flashback scene in 2nd half was a negative. Also like Bahubali , the heroes are kind of invincible which might not work for everyone. I personally felt that Rajamouli should come out of his Bahubali kind of movies. Still it's a very good movie.

Rating - 7.5

In one scene , Rocky says " This is a new game of chess, the way of play remains the same but only the king is replaced ". This kind of sums up the entire movie. In chapter 2, Rocky is the new Sulthan to the KGF and the story revolves around how he defends his throne. Cinematography, Music and the elevations are the most positive aspects of the film. Fights are choreographed better than that of the first part and the villains are better too.

The issue is with the edit pattern which is trailer-like or fan-made edit like pattern which might work out for a scene or two but the entire movie is cut like that. Also the heroine characterization is not written properly. I personally felt that both KGF 1 and 2 had good elevation scenes but these elevations alone do not make a movie , a well written one.

Ozark follows the Breaking Bad template of an actions and it's branching consequences but other than that Ozark is unique on it's own. It deals about money laundering in the beginning then it deals with internal conflicts and politics involved in drug trafficking. Except for the lack of a good series finale , I found this to be a very good series.

Unlike Valimai and ET, Beast does not suffer from Family Audience disorder but with a highly potential story, Nelson fails to deliver an apt screenplay.

Beast is technically sound , kudos to the rich Cinematography, Set Design, SFX team and Music. Most of the characters are wasted and Vijay's character is one dimensional. He still makes use of it though and after Master, he has come out of his comfort zone. Still with a movie having logical loopholes as big as a Black hole , Vijay should've said no to this movie.

I had already seen bits and pieces ( and they were serious spoilers too ) of the tamil remake version but I still decided to watch the original and man it blew me away. The edit patterns, acting and direction are simply mind-blowing. I have seen Pawan Kumar's other content like U-Turn and Kudi Yedamaithe but still Lucia is the best of his content as far as I know. -1 because I was genuinely bored at some places that I stopped streaming once. Still it's one of the best Psychological thriller one can ever see in India for a meagre 50lakh budget.

Every great sci-fi series have a simple storyline and Severance has one too; What happens when a company pushes work-life balance too far by severing the memories of it's employees into two halves - work and life? The takeaway here is the way the story builds and the profound eerieness that acting, set design and the music brings into you. In my opinion, this is definitely Apple's love letter to Lost , Westworld and The Promised Neverland S1. Can't wait to watch the rest of the seasons as the first season ended with a banger of a cliffhanger.

P. S : The person who came up with the title animation definitely deserves a pay raise.

Musical score is perfect. Practical effects? Perfect. Colour grading and locations? Perfect. Cinematography? Absolute perfection. But is The Batman a perfect CBM movie? I'm a bit skeptical about that.

The problem with The Batman is over exposition. There were some places where I literally felt that Reeves should have spent some time on characters like Pengin and Falcone instead of some lengthy unwanted scenes. The interrogation scene in the third act literally changes ( or should I say ruins ) everything that it built in the first two acts.

It's a really good and a different take on The Batman but there has been a constant talk if The Batman is better than The Dark Knight but in my opinion it does not. But Matt Reeves promises a grounded and more realistic version of the batman that drags some times.

Diabolical is a collection of random short animated content set in the universe of The Boys. We get to see some actual characters from The Boys which was an actual surprise ( I hadn't seen any trailers before ) and there are some Easter eggs which are good. Episode 03 and 08 were bangers because of Homelander and Billy Butcher. Other episodes were average at best. This is how I'd rate the episodes :

Very Good - Episode 3 and 8 Good : Episode 2 and 4 Average : Episode 1,6,7 Worst : Episode 5.

Dystopian survival thrillers is a genre that is personally a minimum guarantee content for me. Take Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Squid Game and AiB...All of them are atleast worth watching once. AiB is the best of all these I'd definitely say. Right from the very first episode ( The first 10 minutes drags the narrative though ) , it grows in you and makes a better bingewatching experience than Squid Game.