FutureGuy Reviews

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan (2023)

A rare glimpse of the hidden world behind our fake social presence

[8/10 · 29 December 2023]

I am truly at a loss of words after watching this movie. I didn't expect much to begin with and I was genuinly surprised at how great the story is. Yes, I am one of those people whose heart strings are easy to pull but I won't lie, I was not ready for what this movie held in store.

Ah how much I love Adarsh Gaurav. He always manages to be in the best movies. I love his persona and the presence he creates is just brilliant. Siddhant was a surprise as well. I remember being a little disappointed in both him and Ananya after Gehraiyaan. I hated that movie but Siddhant can really portray a charismatic womanizer, the perfect cassanova and this movie uses him to achieve that brilliantly. Ananya, seems to have grown a lot. This performance definitely falls under her top 3, heck I would call it her best performance yet. Pretty darn impressive.

About the movie, like I said before, with a name "inspired" by the lyrics of a song, I didn't, I couldn't expect much. I decided to watch the movie at 1.25x speed and yes, the first half is kinda slow and could've been paced faster but doesn't matter, as the movie progressed, it revealed a lot layers deep within itself. The portrayal of the ugly things that go behind social media, the toxic influencer culture that permeates our society. It is a revealation. I loved that these topics were covered because I am definitely in for that.

I would love it if more such movies are made and hopefully these messages are taken positively by the community and we learn something from these. Really wish for that to happen.

Monica, O My Darling (2022)

A solid whodunnit

[8/10 · 13 November 2022]

There is enough twists and turns to keep yourself entertained for the 2 hours duration this movie boasts. I feel this was the right amount of movie, any more and we would have had an over-explained disaster that leaves nothing for the audience. Any less, it would've simply become bait for part-2. Something that I have come to hate.

I do have a gripe that this was not released in the theatres. It definitely seems like a movie worth watching in the big 8K screen surrounded by brilliant speakers that enhance every twist with the subtle bg tracks!

About the movie, like other whodunnits, it starts with a murder, only here, it has a cascading effect on various people. It's entertaining to find out who did what and what happened to them. Using Netflix regular cast was also pretty nice. It felt like there exists a "Netflixverse" (or maybe "Vasnverse") where some actors crossweave their stories with others. Like, having Radhika Madan be the one who discovers the body and obviously Radhika Apte ... wait a minute. 2 Radhikas. Hmm... Vasan!

It's a good movie! Watch it, I'm glad to wash down the garbage that was Brahmastra with this. Cheers!

The School for Good and Evil (2022)

It gets better. Hear me out!

[6/10 · 19 October 2022]

Like always, I went in without watching any trailers or any knowledge about the source material.

In the beginning, the movie starts with the same vibe as other generic fantasy movies out there. As you progress into the story, you feel that the movie is a try-hard Harry Potter like. You're not wrong. It is. It's Harry Potter if there were only 2 houses, Gryffindor and Slytherin. Gryffindor (Good) has all the good qualities and quite obviously Slytherin (Evil) is all bad things possible.

For 70% of the movie, things remain pretty black and white. This is really infuriating for me because I hate such movies. Hunger Games, Divergent, depict an unnatural society where humans are so easily divided based on some function or trait. Harry Potter does the same as well. This movie repeats it too. Except here, and this is after 70% of the movie, the movie shows a tiny bit of uniqueness in the form of Agatha. I love that her character is exactly like the voice of the people watching this movie. The voice of reason. She goes around pointing almost all the same things I pointed that it's Not. As. Easy. As. That. Yes, I know other movies do that too but in those movies the protagonist is supported by a mentor character who shows them "the truth". Here, it's all Agatha. It's just her common sense. There's no Dumbledore here who comes and tells her the grand plan. In a way, Agatha feels like us. If we got into a school like that, we would act exactly like that! Like seriously, you're giving me an F for not smiling good?? I love her character.

That's the thing that I like the most about this movie. The rest of movie after this is also interesting because it tries to break from the pattern. In the form of Agatha of course. I felt the self-writing book was also a very nice plot and some very interesting story lines can emerge from that alone.

The movie should target the right audience for this to get good results. It isn't a movie for most adults. Maybe the next part would be better?

The Curse of Bridge Hollow (2022)

Not that great

[5/10 · 14 October 2022]

The relationship between Marlon (dad) and Priah (Sydney) feels forced. I don't understand why this relationship was even explored in the first place. It feels like the writers were trying to get into as many sub-plots as they could. I don't even feel like mentioning Kelly (mother). Why is she vegan? Should we care? If not, why was it put into the movie? The most we get is that near to the end, she ends up making a normal baked product compared to the beetroot muffin she made before? Like .. what?

Regarding the story, of course, they moved into a haunted house. Of course, the kid wasn't happy about moving into this weird town and of course, the house they moved into had a secret (not really) haunted artifact. I predicted the entire story in the first 10 minutes.

The story is riddled with lazy cliches and boring plots. The scenes with Marlon and Priah are just unbearable. I rolled my eyes so many times. The "kids exploring supernatural stuff" trope should be retired as it has lost its charm. The comedic nature is just cringy. Even remembering it makes me cringe hard. The stuff that Marlon did made sense in the 90s and early 2000s but if you want to do these things now, you need to have a different approach to it. I don't mind slapstick, but at the very least, it has to be original. This was just bad.