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Adipurush (2023)
One time watch---an unpopular opinion.
On the unusual decent rating of three stars out of five, i.e., six out of ten:
The film has been thrashed since the launch of the teaser, and I had given up completely on the movie. Countless negative reviews, memes, trolled trailers, and commentary on the poor dialogue and VFX---the stream of critique on the movie was endless. I just went in anticipating the worst thing. And when the movie was over, I felt it was not "that" bad. Gets an extra star just because I was sensitized to bad bits, and the good bits felt decent, so it ended up been an anticlimactic experience for me. Had I gone in blind, I would have rated it either one or two... the anticipation of absolute worst helped. Also the acceptance of the movie being a "loosely-adapted" film based on Ramayana---just another action flick---helped me to just relax and watch it without the burden of negative publicity. Don't do the folly of equating it to the Ramayana despite what the title, the moviemakers, or other people affiliated with the movie say---life will be much easier that way; otherwise, all you will see is endless flaws, and then even negative stars would be insufficient to rate the movie.
Coming to the movie:
Major things that did not work for me:
a) Prabhas: One-tone angry man look. It has been six years since Baahubali 2 released, and he is still caught in that Baahubali mold. Awful. All his T-series flicks, including Saaho and Radhe Shyam, have been horrendous. Perhaps it was the genius of Rajamouli and freshness of Prabhas to non-Telugu audiences that shined in the Baahubali duology.
B) Color grade of the film: Even in a 4k premiere theater with a 3D show, the entire film looks so dark. Many things are not visible at all, which might have been done to hide the many valid criticisms when the teaser was launched. No day shots or lack of light felt so off throughout the film.
C) Animation: There are several interesting, nice bits of VFX and animation in the film mixed with equally poor, low-quality, horrendous effects. The most notable of the poor animation shots being everything to do with the Vanar army (Lord Ram's army) and Lanka army (Ravana's army). The sequence of Bali and Sugriva fight was simply yuck. Several of the animation shots were simply unrefined and done without due attention to the detail. The intro scene of Lord Ram also felt shoddy (I was like what the heck are Dementors doing in the film 😂).
Major thing that worked for me:
a) Sound: The sound department did good (not talking about the music here). Perhaps it was the Atmos effect, or the choice of my seating to be in the dead center of the theatre, that the sound effects and design felt good throughout the movie.
B) Watching on a big screen in 3D. The scenes getting trolled everywhere did not look "that" bad in a big, good-quality theatre. Also some visual effects looked nice.
C) Once you accept that the film is "very" loosely based on the original text, I liked the dark, evil (and comical in parts) portrayal of Ravana and Lanka. Although I am sure that I am in a rare company here.
On Om Raut: I liked his Lokmanya Ek Yugpurush, and thought that Tanaji was okayish--sub-par at best unlike how much people enjoyed it. The difference in quality of the two films is fairly evident when you switch from a real movie like Lokmanya into the use of VFX and animation heavy film like Tanhaji. Tanhaji felt unreal, visually dark, and unrefined in the CGI domain. Alas it at least had some live action unlike Adipurush where they bit more than they could chew---everything looks so cartoonish. Very little feels live action, which is a major bane of the film.
On Manoj Muntashir Shukla: I did not give much attention to the dialogues, so no comments---although I can firmly say that at least the dialogues were not as awful as in Brahmastra 😂.
Minamata (2020)
A missed opportunity!
Ideally, I wouldn't be very critical of a human-interest story, but the tragedy of Minamata is such an important lesson for all us humans, so any art work based on the tragedy needs thorough critical assessment.
With all due respect to Eugene's work and with the utmost respect to the victims of this gory man-made tragedy, the movie falls short of doing true justice to the actual Minamata story. Some powerful imagery and soul-stirring shots/scenes are present, but the narration, acting, and screenwriting felt haphazard. Poor attention to detail. The backstory was under-developed and focus on unimportant bits does injustice to the real story. Also, the deviation from true events to satisfy cinematic liberty feels unreasonable.
Common guys, you have an incredible story to tell here; you should have buckled up as you don't get a chance every day to portray something as important as this.
Given the sensitive nature of the Minamata tragedy, I would like to reiterate that the 3/5 strictly represents only the movie---a missed opportunity; it is no way a rating for the associated ghastly tragedy, real-events, or the truth.
The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2021)
A flawed masterpiece.
The woman, Tammy Faye, had a fascinating life. No wonder the PTL network took off because the lady had such a charismatic personality and soulful voice. Had the Tammy-Jim duo continued to spread love without blatant monetization of God compounded with some bad financial decision-making and complex inter-personal chemistry, their story would have definitely taken a more positive turn; aftercall they did have a powerful message. It is very moving to see their demise.
All the actresses did a tremendous job of portraying Tammy. The story had a lot more to be explored, and the runtime of feature did not do adequate justice to the story. Especially, the part where she is sidelined from the network after her admission of her cheating with a Nashville-based composer, things with the rest of her life have been curtailed short. Same goes with her not so glamorous PTL afterlife. However, given my keen interest in human interest stories, the movie was powerful enough to stir me and make me research about her and televangelism, which is equally captivating.
El hoyo (2019)
Radical
One of the most radical movies to have come in a very long time. Brilliant. Highly original. Despite multiple viewings, the movie didn't not for once felt like losing any tension except the ambiguous ending (more on that later). A mirror to the society... Scary how mostly accurately the movie shows how "modern" society functions (metaphorically). As the director himself points out in one of the interviews---his aim is not to preach or indoctrinate via the movie rather he just wants us to watch and feel the movie for ourselves (each individual for himself). Extremely relevant in today's time. Pet peeve: The ending... Spoilers: What could possibly be achieved by sending the kid to the administration? What sort of message is that (totally ill-informed)? Feels like not well thought out.
Pathaan (2023)
Facepalm.
Horrendously awful. Just thinking that this time it is going to be different was such a big mistake. Whoever did the trailer and teaser, you have my respect for drawing me in. Was expecting a sleek, cool action film. Instead we had a cheesy, ridiculously over-the-top cringe fest with an added dose of stupid dialogues. Nevermind the shoddy story. Was expecting it to be at least decent along the War (2019) lines. I am done with YRF, spy universe (which this film is a part of), and SRK. Deepika Padukone was good, but the rest of the things were so bad that I can't bear to give it a 2/5 (4/10) for her. I feel sad that I watched it in an IMAX.
Brahmastra Part One: Shiva (2022)
An honest review.
Neither a hater nor a worshipper. An honest review.
Ok, first things first, the dialogues: cringe fest. Jesus Christ. Not even teen-level; pre-teen. Poor screenplay really overall. But then even if the concept is good, the story is weak and immature. So it becomes that bit difficult to come up with a good screenplay. Also it seems that the sound department was on anabolic steroids throughout the film. In the entire movie, the sound is one-tone loud, which makes it bland and irritating; where is the nuance? You want to titillate the audience aurally in every single scene? Give me a break.
On the positive side, the actors have immersed themselves completely and tried their best to portray this make-belief world. Mouni Roy was special. Who knew she could perform so well. All I knew about her was through the glamour shots. The VFX is also amazing, top-notch.
I honestly feel it is a lot of potential wasted. The audience will watch it for the love of Indian Cinema and their favorite stars, but pull up your sleeves guys. You can certainly do better.
Summary: Good action, VFX, and actors (shout out to Mouni). Unforgivably poor screenplay, weak story, and excessive sound.
BTW, I watched it in 4K Atmos 3D. Couldn't get the IMAX tickets like three days in advance; what gives.