dssadhyapak Reviews

Vikram Vedha (2017)

Entertaining solid thriller!

[8/10 · 2 August 2017]

Who is the hero? Who is the villain? Who is the good guy, and who is the bad guy? Can you say for sure? - This is a very interesting concept which was very nicely brought out in this movie. I was eager to see how well they would explore this concept, with these 2 versatile actors, Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi. And who would have thought I was in for an engaging, thrilling ride overall!

I would like to start by appreciating the performance of Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathy. For Madhavan, a guy who has come a long way from Anbe Sivam to Yaavarum Nalam to Irudhi Suttru and now this, and Vijay Sethupathi, from Soodhu Kavvum to Naanum Rowdy Thaan to a fearful gangster role who provides occasional comic relief, shows how far both these actors have come. Madhavan plays a hard, no-nonsense cop, who sees black and white and nothing between, and Vijay Sethupathi, a fearful rowdy who asks intriguing questions to Madhavan, through which the story progresses. Madhavan's gruff voice and demeanor fits the bill for Vikram. He's still got his good looks and his facial expressions are natural. Vijay Sethupathi acted so well, that I did not even realise it was him, but was Vedha, a powerful rowdy! His line delivery, his swagger, his multitude of facial appearances and expressions captivate the audience thoroughly. He provided excellent comic relief too!

Any scene which featured Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi were downright fantastic! It was a blast watching these 2 interact as the "hero" and the "villain". You sometimes side with Vikram (Madhavan), on why he sees rowdies the way he sees. Sometimes, you as a normal person, might feel that the world is just better without the bad guys. And whats the harm in killing them? Then we see Vedha's (Vijay Sethupathi's) side, on why he thinks that he and Vikram are on the same side! He unfolds a series of incidents (that shape his scarred past) and questions Vikram as to how he'd have acted given the same situation and leaving the audience to judge whether said bad guy here was inherently savage or was it mere circumstance that pushed him to embracing those extremes? He tells to justify his statement that "Just being on either side of the line, cannot make you decide that one is good & one is bad". These scenes, coupled with some good twists and turns, provided for an entertaining and an interesting movie overall! The BGM "Karuppu Vellai", was brilliant, and suited this movie to perfection!

The movie showed you that not everyone is perfect. There might always be a good person in a "bad" one, and bad qualities in a "good" one. You never know what or who someone truly is, unless in under certain circumstances. It asked and also made us ask interesting questions like - Was Gandhi's father also Gandhi? Was Godse's father also Godse? Is everyone a bad person? Can anyone ever say that they have not committed a single sin in life?.... for which we don't have a definite answer. It played around these themes very well.

My biggest problem with this movie was the length, and how it felt dragged out in some of the flashback scenes. You were engaged as hell in scenes featuring both Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi, but when they're not on screen, you are not that much invested in some of the side characters! Some played their part well, some were underdeveloped. This pulled me out of all that thrill and joy I experienced in some other scenes! The pacing was slightly uneven overall.

Some scenes were random, in the sense, they felt out of place, and completely irrelevant. And my God, that useless bar song. Usual Tamil movie tropes (Sigh!). At least if it was a good song, I would've listened! Songs need to flow with the story, in my opinion. Otherwise, it just pulls you out of the movie, especially in genres such as thriller, horror or mystery.

Apart from the movie being dragged out issue, it is a must watch. Those who are bored of the usual masala flicks and same old romantic stories would have a blast at this! Fans of both the actors, of thriller/suspense genre would also enjoy this! I would probably give this movie around say ...7.5/10.

(P.S : I freaking loved Vijay Sethupathi's entry scene!!! If no one has spoilt it for you yet, watch out for that :))

If you liked this, check out my other reviews on: https://sudarshanmovieandtvreviews.blogspot.com. I have reviewed some English & Tamil Movies & TV series. Do check it out!

Wonder Woman (2017)

Simply brilliant and amazing!

[9/10 · 10 July 2017]

So here we are in 2017! Audience and critics alike still criticizing DC for not being able to make a solid movie in the right tone, without studio interventions etc. Well, they can all watch this fantastic movie called Wonder Woman (2017) and finally bring back their hopes in the DC Movie Universe or DC Cinematic Universe :)

Wonder Woman is a marvelous movie, that has finally revived the DCCU, and made it for a fun, "multiple-times watchable" movie experience. (I'm not including Christopher Nolan's the Dark Knight trilogy, as that's just on a whole different level above all this!). Gal Gadot proved all her naysayers wrong, and was absolutely amazing in this movie (I mean her acting and her role, obviously :P).

Jokes apart, this was a well-directed, beautifully shot, properly edited movie. The drastic effects of war, the spirit of women empowerment, the visual effects, story, the colors (Yes this movie has some colorful imagery for different scenes, her lasso, her powers etc) and the fight sequences were downright splendid.

The movie starts with Diana receiving the photo of her posing with Steve and others, which Bruce Wayne found out in Batman vs Superman, and she goes on to narrate her origin story. We go to Themyscira, a home to the Amazon race of warrior women created by the gods of Mount Olympus to protect humankind against the corruption of Ares, the God of war. We meet her mother Hippolyta, who feels she does not require any training as Ares is dead, and her aunt Antiope, who secretly trains her to become a skilled warrior.

We get proper introductions of who she was, what was the urge in her to become a skilled warrior, how she is THE one and only Wonder Woman, why she feels the need to go help Steve and the others in the World War after he crashes onto her island and tells them about what is going on in the real world outside, and why she is such a badass!

The movie takes it's own time in the first half to get to this though. After a pretty good battle sequence at Themyscira, the movie slows down a little in the middle to build character/relationship between our protagonists Steve and Diana. They travel to London to return a book containing important information obtained by Steve to defeat the Germans, led by General Ludendorff and Dr. Maru (Dr. Poison). During their visit to London, the movie provides for some good comic relief when Diana tries to adjust to the general mannerisms in the society, and thankfully the jokes do land! Phew!

And then the awesome stuff starts! Some of the best moments of Wonder Woman are the fight scenes. The one at the Western front in Belgium, where she pretty much kicks everyone's ass and saves the villagers was arguably the best scene in the movie. What inspired her to finally reveal herself to the world and become Wonder Woman, was shown brilliantly in this fight scene, where she gets up from the trenches, bravely stands out and starts defending the bullets with her shield! Wow! No point in me describing it here. You must see for it yourself! The one in the end with Ares was good too. I'm no CGI expert, but I definitely believe they did the CGI heavy action better here than in Doomsday in Batman vs Superman. Both these and other action scenes were jaw-droppingly amazing! What you saw in the trailers is nothing. When you see all those fight sequences in the theatres with Hans Zimmer's instrumental in the background, it sure is guaranteed to get your feet kicking with joy and excitement!

The one small problem I had with this movie was some of the villains. This seems to be a recurring problem across many comic book movies these past few years, be it Marvel or DC, and God knows who can make this right (Thanos, you better be good). In this movie, Ares was a pretty good villain, and was an equal match for our Diana. Sadly, not much could be done with him, as revealing that Sir Patrick was Ares could have ruined the twist. Ludendorff was okayish. He inhaled some gas and was somewhat powerful, but was nothing in front of Diana. The worst was Dr. Poison. Not much character development was given to her at all, and she was at best a disposable villain. Sigh!

I usually don't like romantic or rom-com stuff in movies. Don't know why though. In this movie however, I bought into the relationship between Steve and Diana. During the 1st half when they both were "romancing?" I was like "Urgh!", but it had a good payoff in the end with Steve sacrificing his life by flying the plane full of bombs in the air due to his love for Diana (Unfortunately though, I'd already seen a similar ending in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D so the effect wasn't that much). That being mentioned, Chris Pine did a good job portraying his character. Thankfully, this movie was also not all about "Women are good, Men are bad!". Steve and his other mates also had something to do! Not bad, movie. Not bad.

Overall, this is a fantastic movie that needs to be watched multiple times. It has seriously brought back hopes in me regarding the DCCU, and now I so can't wait for Justice League! My rating - 9/10!

If you liked this review, check out my blog for more reviews on English movies and TV, and Tamil movies here-

https://sudarshanmovieandtvreviews.blogspot.in/ Thanks for reading. :)

Iron Fist (2017–2018)

The worst of the Marvel Netflix series!

[3/10 · 10 July 2017]

Iron Fist is the worst of the Marvel Netflix series! Here are some of the major problems with this show: 1. SHOW US THE DAMN FLASHBACKS!: One of the major reasons why I hated this show is not showing the flashbacks, when this show badly needed to, in order to sympathize / get to know / wonder at how Danny Rand got his powers. How he became the "Immortal Iron Fist", how he is able to channel his chi and summon the fist. How he bloody learned the damn martial arts! Well, guess what. They don't. Not even a little bit. All you keep hearing from Danny is "I trained for 15 years at Kun-Lun". "I am the Iron Fist". "My parents died in the plane crash and I was the only one alive". He even slayed a goddamn Dragon! Dude, a goddamn dragon! Why, just why. Do you say lack of sufficient budget? Well then I blame whoever allocates the budget for this show!

2. Not so great action scenes: The show is supposed to be all about martial arts action sequences. It is supposed to be cool, entertaining and well crafted. I don't think I am wrong in expecting such stuff after seeing how amazing it was in Daredevil. Here, they seem poorly edited, they are not engaging, and the saddest part is that the scenes with Colleen (Jessica Henwick) were much better than the scenes with Danny. Unbelievable, right? The Hand was portrayed as a dangerous, ruthless group of ninjas in Daredevil. If you have seen Daredevil, you would know how difficult it was for Daredevil and Elektra to fight them off. Here it was like the Hand sent its junior trainees to fight Danny. LOL. I heard the crew had very less time to prep and train. I mean, just why? Why did it have to be so.. normal and just the usual?

3. The character of Danny Rand - So he is supposed to be a trained warrior, who has undergone rigorous training to be calm and composed, fight using his inner peace, restore his chi, and summon the Iron Fist. Turns out he retains none of it, when he is back in New York City. Danny is always portrayed as a whiny, school kid who thinks he is the Iron Fist, and he just keeps whining!! If you ever count the number of times he uses the Fist, it's not even 1%. The one cool scene what he does with the Fist was already shown in the trailer. Wow. The Fist is the USP of your show, and you focus instead on other stuff.

4. Too much time on corporate board meetings: A lot, I mean a loooootttt of time is spent on corporate policies, strategies and problems faced by Rand Corporation, a company now run by his friends Joy and Ward Meachum. The show creator thinks he is developing their characters, how they are, what they are doing for the company etc, but you and I know this is just filler. Usually fillers somehow have an impact on the bigger plot as a whole. Fillers, if done right, can do characters and screen time justice. Here, no no no just no! Nearly 8 frigging episodes are spent completely on the damn company. Who the hell cares???? The main point of the show should be all about the mystical stuff - How Danny became the Iron Fist, what he can do with the Fist, how the Hand becomes a great villain for him, and some cool fighting. But no! We don't have the budget. Hence, we are going to waste our precious time on Joy and Ward dealing with corporate matters! How exciting! (Not) Scenes with Harold and Ward and Joy weren't that great either. It looked interesting at first, with one of the most complex villains being Madame Gao involved with what's going on with Harold, but it still couldn't lift this show

5. The ending - If you thought the fight scenes were just OK so far this season, you will laugh at the finale! What the hell was that fight between Harold and Danny on the rooftop? Full of stupid stuff such as Danny hitting Harold and then just running away, fighting in hiding! I mean wth! You are a skilled warrior! Hit him with your damn normal fists! Also, the very end scene was so contrived and forced for Season 2. It was so sudden and out of place. So finally when Ward and Joy come to terms with Danny, you suddenly see Joy teaming up against Davos (the one could've been interesting character, who was a friend of Danny's back at Kun-Lun) along with Madame Gao! I mean, what? What indication did you even show for these 3 to team up against Danny? So Joy knows Harold is bad, Danny kills Harold, and Joy is furious for that? What the hell!!! You are even almost teased at least a glimpse of Kun- Lun, and then you come to know someone had closed the barrier, but still no idea on how he became the immortal Iron Fist. They almost showed the damn dragon he was going to fight. And then "Oh Snap! Budget cuts. Sorry!" I am like "UGGHHHH!!. Damn it."

The one thing I did like was how they developed the character of Ward. He became from a irritating dick to a guy who finally overcame his dad bossing around him. I felt his character was at least given some kind of justice, and that was good. Claire is just here, just like she was in all the 3 shows before. Sigh!

To conclude, this show had the potential to be a kick-ass show, but ended up falling flat on it's face.

If you liked this review, check out my blog for more reviews on English movies and TV, and Tamil movies here-

https://sudarshanmovieandtvreviews.blogspot.in/

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

The most awful, dragging, overrated and boring movie I've seen ever

[9/10 · 13 November 2014]

Now that Interstellar had released a few days ago, i came to see the IMDb reviews and on YouTube. Everyone seemed to be comparing that to this movie. Some people were like "Its the next 2001: A Space Odyssey", and some others were like " You cant compare Interstellar to 2001" and all. People were also comparing this to Gravity. So i decided to download and watch this piece of crap, blindly believing the 8.3 it got.

I now realize i made a big, big mistake. Oh my God! This movie is terrible to the inner most core you can imagine! Let me brief it out to you :

First 2 minutes of nothing but a blank screen. Thank God i fast forwarded that. Wonder how people back in the 1968's watched that in the theatre. Then 20 minutes of apes. Some bit of narration could have been better for that scene right? All you see is apes shouting, eating, then some monolith randomly appears, they look at it, some super irritating noise in the background, then apes fight and then it just cuts away to another 10 minutes of establishing shots of space shuttles. Oh goodness. Couldn't they just move on? I've watched many movies that have had slow starts. But this one was toooooooo slow. If you see the entire movie, at least 50 minutes of it was shots in the space. I get it. Its all "art" and stuff. But seriously? Those shots were so dragged on and boring, and the same music was being played again and again. How irritating can it get?

The only interesting part was with that HAL 9000 computer. That super genius, villainous, smart computer which knows everything you do on that space shuttle. And it just kills everyone. And it dies. Pfft! Over.

This movie also lacks dialogue. Its almost like watching a silent movie. Let me tell you something. There's nothing to explain you the ending that will not make any sense. I was so bored i opened the Subtitles Explorer to see when the next dialogue will come. Guess what? From 1 hr 57 minutes till the ending (2 hrs 28 minutes), you get nothing. Nothing that will tell you what the heck is going on!

Look, i can understand things without the dialogue. But The ending of this movie is so confusing that you would at least need some thing to explain whats happening. Suddenly, that monolith will be floating in space, then Dave (some scientist in the movie) flies into beyond infinite (i guess), which is shown by a long draggy 7 minute light show (Arrgghhh!) and then he lands up somewhere old. And then the monolith appears again, and he becomes some Cosmo baby, and is probably going back to Earth. What would you even understand from this?? I heard its based on some book. The book probably explains everything. But for people like me who don't read books and have just watched the movie, they must tell something right?

I would have liked this movie, if they had cut out that useless ape scene, and reduce the establishing shots of space from 50 minutes to probably 15, and the movie simply started with that scene where some scientists talk about some problem up in Cervius (sorry if i got the name wrong), showed more or at least told more about what that monolith could do, then the HAL 9000, and explained the goddamn ending. But.... No.

Overall, this is a movie that is so boring and draggy, that even if you 4X those space shots, nothing will happen. I don't know why this movie got 8.3 and all! Doesn't even deserve a 1. Completely overrated.

Even though Gravity was slow, it instilled that fear in you that how it is when you are in space. I haven't watched Interstellar yet, but I'm sure it will be better than this piece of goat poop!!

UPDATE : I watched Interstellar, and its amazing. If this movie at least had some dialogue, then it could've been better

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999)

Hilarious! The best R-rated animation movie ever, with just one problem for me

[7/10 · 10 November 2014]

Let me tell you that i have not watched the TV show. Only after browsing IMDb did i even know that this was based on a TV show.

This is the most funniest, craziest, perverted animation movie i have ever seen. So much of swearing. That was awesome. It is simply portraying the truth. Kids nowadays are so corrupted at such young ages. This movie is just a funny take on that. Plus a lots more (which i'm not gonna spoil. Just go watch it and it will be a superb laugh riot).

Well, this is a movie which would easily offend you. And yes, it did offend me. Not because of the swearing pr anything, but because of that character "Mole" who is an atheist. There's nothing wrong in being an atheist. But to call God like that, really infuriated me and made me angry. Which is why instead of a 9, I'm giving this a 7.

Well i know its a movie thats just made for fun. But talking about God like that would instill anger in many many people all around the world. If not for that character, the rest of the movie was simply amazing.

Must watch movie, FOR ADULTS!!!!!

Game of Thrones (2011–2019)

You need a lot of patience to watch this!

[8/10 · 2 November 2014]

Please note that I have not read the books. So this review is completely based on the TV show.

My my! What a show this is. It has a brilliant story, character development which is done very well (some movies / TV shows don't even care about this), and a whole lot of sex scenes and gore!

Yes,yes. I know. The first 4 episodes of the 1st season are boring as hell. It takes quite sometime in introducing all the characters, it confuses you as to who is what, but after a point of time it all gets fine. This show knows who must you hate, and who must you root for. It does this job perfectly. (Tyrion Lannister is my favourite. Peter Dinklage, you are an awesome actor!) There is the element of suspense, the action, the tension, the politics, the drama...so whats not to like about this?

Probably because of its slow start, loads of sex scenes, and confusing characters. I mean, come on. The sex scenes are unnecessary. I do agree with that. But whats to complain about it? When you have hot actresses like Emilia Clarke and Rose Leslie, why are you complaining? The books probably had them. So if they are staying true to the books, then what is wrong in that?

You will get used to the characters in due course. So be a little patient about that. All the characters are well-acted by some really good actors. It was good that they shot some scenes in the Dothraki or the Valyrian language instead of everything in English. It instills that feeling of that medieval age thing in you.

The main reason why i did not give this a full 10 was because of its very very slow start and that some parts of it that are still boring me. I really don't care about Stannis Baratheon or that Red Woman or the Greyjoys. Which is a bummer, coz if they start focusing more on someone who you don't like much, then you might probably start skipping their parts. You start to feel as if their parts could have been fast forwarded in terms of their storyline. One good example i can think of is the White Walkers. i don't hate them in terms of their character, but they have not done much damage at all other than the opening scene in Season 1 Episode 1. I want to see them to do more damage to someone at least. They take so much time to cross the wall itself!!

Overall, this is a great show with a few flaws. And just because i gave it a 8 does not mean i don't like it. I love it. If you can imagine, I sat 4 hours a day watching 4 episodes each day and finished watching 4 seasons in just 2 weeks! Its that interesting sometimes.

So do not Google it, or even YouTube about this show. Coz there are idiots over there who have put so many spoilers here and there. So just go to some torrent website, download this and have fun.!

I've tried my best to give a spoiler-free review. Thanks for Reading.

Vanavarayan Vallavarayan (2014)

Dull and boring!

[2/10 · 16 September 2014]

Vanaavablahblahblah Vanavablahblah (Sry i cant even get the name correctly at times) is a really dull and boring movie. The jokes were all double-meaninged, (too many sexual innuendos that's didn't work and weren't funny) and sometimes the joke scenes were long enough that after a point of time you wont even feel like laughing!

Another problem with this movie is the timings of the jokes. Something serious is going on, and all of a sudden the next scene there is a joke. I'm not saying there must always be a separate scene for jokes. I'm only saying that in this movie, the timings of the jokes were wrong.. At one point there's some drama going in. And suddenly there is some unnecessary humor. Ka.Ba Anand although has done a good debut.

So, summing it up, this movie can be avoided. Santhanam is the only person who saved this movie.