varun-25071997 Reviews

Dune: Part Two (2024)

Ridiculous Cinematic Achievement

[10/10 · 1 March 2024]

A worthy sequel which gives us the high the first part promised. Spectacularly shot, well acted, and incredibly written. Every scene is a payoff and not a single second is wasted as a filler. Denis uses the familiar troupes used in blockbusters and mixes it well with his own vision to deliver a product suitable for everyone.

When modern blockbusters are afraid to be serious and fill themselves with pop culture references, it is is refreshing to see filmmakers push new boundaries in filmmaking. For a story set in a dystopian time period, it used the contemporary politics and existing feudalism in our societies to give us a compelling tale of faith and disbelief.

Maestro (2023)

Complete Misfire

[2/10 · 23 December 2023]

15 minutes into the movie I was wondering what was the point of this movie? It is not even your regular wikipedia to screen Oscar bait biopic. It is bombarded with dialogue and most of them add nothing to do the plot (if there was one). The prosthetics and over acting performances from Bradley and Carey were so painful and cringe inducing to watch.

A movie with a stellar cast and technicians yet the output is something so painfully bad. Could someone tell Bradley he doesn't need to explain everything and can actually show us what's happening. The entire 120 minutes felt more like a podcast with annoying fake accents rather than a feature film.

Leonard Bernstein is regarded as a genius and one of the greatest composers to exist but this movie was nothing about it. It was a dull unemotional Marriage Story where people keep talking and talking about the most mundane aspects of life. The use of music is comically bad, for a movie about a composer, not a single piece of music sticks with you. Bradley uses the most original idea to drift between timelines - B&W for past and color for original (The creativity!).

Club this along with Theory of Everything, Eyes of Tammy Faye, Judy, Bohemian Rhapsody, The King's Speech, and The Darkest Hour in "Please Give me an Oscar, I am doing acting with 10 KGs of prosthetics on my face and faking a foreign accent" sub-genre.

The Royal Hotel (2023)

The Most Accurate Depiction of Drinking Culture Amongst Men

[8/10 · 26 November 2023]

Kitty Green follows up with a stunning thriller after the highly acclaimed debut The Assistant. The Royal Hotel's biggest strength is the way it conveys how power structures work under a male dominated society and the toxic drinking culture that has been normalized.

There are complains about how the characters don't change but that's precisely the essence of the film. There is no male savoir or a white knight in shining armor to save the day. The final shot was symbolically justified but felt a little over the top and cliched.

Jessica Henwick and Julia Garner are very natural in their roles. Not for once do they give more than what's required for their roles.

While We Watched (2022)

One of The Most Important Documentaries of Our Time

[8/10 · 13 September 2023]

Journalism has evolved more than any industry in the world today. Today, journalism isn't about just reporting the news, in today's capitalist world, the word "news" itself has a totally different definition. News channels do not care about reporting what is true, their channel survives on revenue from advertisements and other vested interests. This is true everywhere but it's ugliest face can be seen in today's India and most particularly North Indian/Hindi news channels.

Ravish Kumar, the face of this documentary is a popular prime time news reporter, whose rapport has grown over the years for being a sane voice in the midst of madness. His unapologetic criticism of today's media landscape and the current ruling party is unrelenting. He doesn't bow down to threats and never compromises his principles even when sorrounded by a lynch mob. While the documentary, solely focuses on his struggle to be a principled journalist in "New India", it also shows the tidal wave of hate that has destroyed Northern India's civil society.

Gone are the days when news channels in India reported on actual issues like climate change, unemployment, crumbling infrastructure, etc. Over the last 10 years, their focus has shifted to promoting chest-thumping toxic nationalism and mainstreaming islamphobic conspiracies. Ravish Kumar tells us how words in studios lead to actual violence against India's religious minorities, especially Muslims.

This documentary is a tribute to the 1000s of journalists who to this day, report actual facts and not dumb down a nation of billion people in these dark uncertain times where democracy dies every day.

Oppenheimer (I) (2023)

A Landmark Movie

[10/10 · 21 July 2023]

To make a movie of this standard on a 100 million dollar budget is a significant achievement by a modern filmmaker. For 180 minutes, Oppenheimer narrates a single story and opens up multiple themes like a flower blooming. It is vivid but not obvious, there lies the success of the movie.

Nolan follows the same narrative style of Dunkirk, he doesn't show the enemy or the victims but makes us understand the horror through mere sound and imaginations. It is often said that ghosts are scary when they are felt more than they are seen and Nolan attests this statement. The movie goes back and forth with flashbacks in a nonlinear narrative structure, the trademark Nolan style at thos point. But this time the story is connected by a clear set of dots.

The Manhattan Project is a very tough story to sell in the commercial space without compromising anti-war and nuclear disarment ideals. To blend in commercial elements in a politically significant storyline is no easy task today and this is the biggest success of Oppenheimer. The movie doesn't read like a Wikipedia page and doesn't use excess prosthetics for the sake of "transformation". The actors are well talented in this ensemble and there is a clear trust for their style.

While Cilian Murphy is undoubtedly the star of the show, it was Robert Downey Jr who gets the best role of his career. For years he was underutilized in the performance department and was purely used as a mould for the MCU, it is refreshing to see him unleash his acting prowess. While the technical departments are getting their rightful praise, it is the makeup and hairstyling which caught my eye here. Impressive and simple work to create aging, which many fail to grasp.

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)

A 160 Minute Anxiety Attack

[8/10 · 13 July 2023]

Dead Reckoning is another milestone for action movies and for the Mission Impossible franchise but unlike Fallout or Rogue Nation, there isn't the right blend of realism and fiction which makes it almost flawless but not perfect nonetheless.

The movie begins in a Russian submarine and whatever happens inside it puts the map for the next two parts of the franchise. There are many tributes given to the first Mission Impossible movie but the mask trick seems to be over done here almost bordering to the point of convenience. Unlike the other parts, most of the story happens in just 3 or 4 places in the entire movie. The action set pieces are without a doubt a phenomenal achievement and a landmark for action movies.

Tom Cruise without saying continues to prove why he is the last superstar to exist today and sets boundaries for action movies in the future which most probably won't be touched in our lifetimes. The best part of the Mission Impossible movies is that, the humour is genuine and doesn't relate on endless pop culture references and trends.

A major character dying in the 2nd act of the movie was rather a bold choice which most blockbuster franchises should be doing. Coming to the soundtrack, Lorne Balfe's same score is used in pretty much all scenes, this is where Ludwig Goransson would have shined.

The movie ends of a mini cliffhanger and the 2nd part has a big responsibility to conclude the saga and produce the same standard of goosebumps inducing set pieces to keep the crowd elevated. I'm confident Christopher Macquarie and Tom Cruise won't miss.

Asteroid City (2023)

Excellent Screenplay Undermined By Dry Humour

[7/10 · 27 June 2023]

Asteroid City is rather an unique attempt by Wes Anderson. Unlike his previous films, Asteroid City moves away from his linear narrative structure and tries to tell two tales in one movie with multiple flashbacks.

The film excels technically like all his movies but what worked in The Grand Budapest Hotel and Moonrise Kingdom doesn't click here. This movie never needed an ensemble cast and we can clearly see Wes Anderson try to give weightage to every character and sometimes those scenes just feel unnecessary. The jokes don't work everytime here and Desplat's score is a big negative here.

Despite it's flaws Asteroid City still is a solid entertainer and great attempt to tell multiple stories in a single feature.

Beau Is Afraid (2023)

Beau is Afraid strikes golds

[10/10 · 1 June 2023]

Knowing absolutely nothing about the movie is the best possible way to experience it. As a big fan of Joaquin Pheonix since the days of The Master, I have been looking forward for this movie for quite a long time, despite the delays and Ari Aster's negotiation over the running time. Unlike his previous two movies, Beau is Afraid doesn't deal with cults but explores multiple themes in a 3 hour ride.

Beau is one of the strangest protagonists in recent times, he isn't a hero or an anti hero, we just travel with him without trying to unpack anything. There is nothing to unpack or theorize in Beau is Afraid, it deals with multiple issues and doesn't provide the answers or asks the questions, it just shows what really it is. For some its about the failure to match our parents' success, for others it's about guilt or childhood trauma.

The play sequence of the movie is an absolute stunner and Joaquin Phoenix peaks as an actor here. Aster cleverly uses the most basic animation possible to tell us the clear story which is extremely powerful in the sequence.

Air (I) (2023)

This is how biopics should be made

[9/10 · 6 April 2023]

Ben Affleck directs a wonderful film which is earnest, self aware and a crowd pleaser. Air has colorful cinematography, good one liners, constant highs and lows to keep the balance, an underdog rising to the top, a brief look at the marketing department in the sports Industry and finally the inspirational monologue from our protagonist. Basically it sticks to the basics and that's why it works.

Matt Damon carries his Ford vs Ferrari energy and plays the role of Sonny without any struggle. When biopics today are full of forced transformations, over the top acting, bad prosthetics and Oscar bait to the core. Air gives us a lesson on how it to make it actually enjoyable and tell a true story.

John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)

Greatest Action Set Pieces You Will Ever See

[8/10 · 24 March 2023]

John Wick 4 is not just the best film of the franchise but undeniably one of the greatest action films of all time. Despite it's lengthy runtime being felt at points, the action set pieces out do each other with every passing minute. We might have witnessed the greatest action scenes in film history.

Keanu Reeves has once again proven why he is up there with Tom Cruise as one of the greatest actors in the action genre. With each decade he continues to deliver and doesn't seem to slow down. The use of music in the movie is second to none. The beauty of John Wick is that it's unapologetically maximalist and unlike the MCU films which is scared to take itself seriously, John Wick 4 believes it's hype.

It will be criminal to deny this movie accolades for cinematography, editing and sound. Chad gives us a fitting conclusion for the John Wick saga. The fight scene in Osaka never gets tiring and raises the stake by every kill, which is metamorphic to the entire franchise.

The Son (I) (2022)

I Don't Understand The Negative Reviews

[9/10 · 15 February 2023]

I don't know much about depression but I do know how people react to it if someone close to them have it. Florian Zeller may not have presented how accurate acute depression is but his depiction of characters around a person suffering from it is near perfect.

The Son works for me more than The Father because it relies very little on subtext and the story is out there in the open. Hugh Jackman gives his career best performance as a role of a successful person but an absent father. There are criticisms of how the movie does not empathize with Nicholos but I didn't feel it that way. I felt it was rather accurate because of how less most of us understand what depression is actually is. Most of the times, people think "it's just in your head" or "move forward" are actual solutions to depression.

The scene where Hugh Jackman fights with his son was spectacular and shows us how much we are like our dads. Hopkins appears in just one scene but that single scene shows the irony of Jackman's character. The ending was absolutely devastating and very brave. The Son is one of the very films which worked very well for me despite it's not so favourable general public reception.

The Whale (2022)

A Morbid Tale of a Guilt Ridden Father

[9/10 · 3 February 2023]

The Whale is a devastating film just like The Father but with better music and more committed performances.

The movie does have it's moral flaws and some of the dialogue is so cute throat but for the most part it creates sympathy to all characters involved.

Rob Simonsen's score was the USP of the movie, especially in the climax it feels like you are teleported to another world.

Brendan Fraser couldn't ask for a better return. He really transformed into this role and it wasn't just the prosthetics doing the job this time. Aronofsky movies are known for the morbidity but The Whale really offers some home when it ends.

Babylon (I) (2022)

Movies, Jazz and Cocaine

[10/10 · 21 January 2023]

Movies about making movies is a subgenre at this point. Several adaptations of the making of Godfather, Jaradowsky's Dune and even Spielberg's The Fablemans came out just recently. Babylon deals with the era of transition from silent cinema to sound and like Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards it mixes real event with fiction to create a dopamine effect in the cinema.

Babylon is very similar to Wolf of Wall Street and Boogie Nights in depicting the excess party culture of a high pressure work environment. The movie doesn't shy away from being unapologetically bonkers. The opening scene before the title reveal is a wild cocaine and booze fueled party with wild animals wrecking havoc while Margot Robbie dances in trance.

Despite it's 3 hour+ runtime, the movie doesn't have a low moment even for a minute. The first hour shows the rise of our 2 central characters and Brad Pitt. The second hour introduces the the transition to sound in filmmaking and how it impacts the careers of our characters. The final hour closes the character arcs and depicts the brutal reality of pop culture fame and downfall.

Justin Hurwitz's score is pure adrenaline. Unlike La La Land and First Man, the music in the movie is loud and blasts through the speakers. The final 15 minutes of the movie is a tribute to cinema itself on the whole. It was the best theatrical experience I had in my lifetime. Movies like Babylon may not be box office successes and may divide viewers but will leave a long lasting impact in pop culture. Damien Chazelle continues to dazzle us every time.

Troll (2022)

Monster Movie With A Touch of Nativity

[8/10 · 1 December 2022]

The Troll should have been a theatrical release first and foremost. It is the best monster movie since Godzilla (2014) and a movie like this deserves more than a straight streaming release.

While most monster movies are more scifi than horror, and barely have any relevance to the place where it is it, Troll shines in this department. The Norwegian folk fore is an important part of the story and it is this touch of nativity which makes Troll work.

Roar Uthaug wasn't afraid to show his characters as serious people with real emotions and didn't subvert the sentiment with a joke at the end, which is what we see in Marvel movies these days. Troll also doesn't rely on toxic military supremacy as a weapon to take out the monster, it relies on fantastical methods which is rare for a movie of this genre.

The Menu (2022)

A Dark Comedy Which Understands What The Viewer Wants

[9/10 · 21 November 2022]

Dark comedies aren't easy to make, David O Russell has been trying to do them for ages and he never made a single good one. Adam McKay who delivered the splendid The Big Short also gave us two snorefests in Vice and Don't Look Up. Unlike those movies, The Menu doesn't try to be insufferable with the message it wants to convey, rather it stick to it's apolitical tone and gives it's message only towards the end of the movie.

Mark Mylod is a known name if you have seen Succession (If you haven't, drop everything and start watching it). There are only few choices who could handle dark comedy and he is certainly one of them.

The Menu starts with a group of customers leaving to eat in an expensive restaurant, they all are wealthy except for Margot (Anya Taylor Joy), who arrives at the last minute with her plus one Tyler (Nicholas Hoult). Tyler is a typical snobbish foodie bro who won't stop raving about the head chef Julian (Ralph Fiennes). The food tasting begins and with each course things get weirder and the customers are put in a situation they never expected.

The Menu thankfully gives the freedom to the actors and they all shine in their roles. In recent times, actors go over the top in comedies and it ruins the whole movies, The Menu totally avoids the mistake. The writing in simple and like the meal which, Margot eats in the movie, it doesn't complicate itself but fully satisfies us.

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Colin Farrell Deserves All The Awards In The World

[10/10 · 21 October 2022]

5 years after his brilliant dark comedy "Three Billboards, Outside Ebbing, Missouri", Martin Mcdonagh directs another brilliant tale about Friendship, Ambition and Loneliness. The Banshees of Inisherin is the best a Mcdonagh movie has ever looked, every scene has a visual landscape setting and color tone is completely balanced.

The movie revolves around 3 arcs and all the 3 have their perfect conclusions and intersect cleverly. It's one of the best writing you will ever see. Like 3 Billboards there is a perfect blend of humour and tragedy. The stories revolve around Colin Farrell coming to terms that his best friend doesn't want to do anything with him, his sister played by Kerry Cordon trying to find the ultimate purpose in her life and Dominic played by Barry Keoghan, who is living a worst life possible.

Colin Farrell has been doing some great work over the last 20 years and this is his Eureka, Eureka moment. The Banshees of Inisherin is the best movie of the year so far and deserves both commercial and critical acclaim. Very rarely movies that satisfy everyone are made, this is one of them.

Don't Worry Darling (I) (2022)

Mashup of Many Cult Movies

[5/10 · 23 September 2022]

The thing about Don't Worry Darling is that it was marketed as an erotic psychological thriller but it was nothing like that. Olivia Wilde's debut Booksmart was very unique in the way it was made and it stuck by it's genre. Despite the negative attention towards the movie I wanted to watch it purely because I wanted to support Olivia's work when she is facing some of the worst misogynistic attacks online by sadly her partner Harry Styles' fans.

The plot of the movie is a mix of the obvious Stepford Wives, the most popular mind bending thriller and a popular Joaquin Phoenix movie which I'm not gonna mention. The movie fails to create the suspense and when the "twist" comes it's just seems inevitable. Some of the characters have barely any dialogue and not even Harry Styles' character was written well.

The entire movie focused on aesthetics rather than substance. But any bad plot could work with some good moments and acting. The plot of this movie isn't very bad by any stretch but it just feels like there is a vacuum of meaning in it. The performances from Florence Pugh especially was disappointing, she clearly seemed disinterested and Harry was totally miscast. The lead paid had no chemistry whatsoever.

Don't Worry Darling is a misfire but that doesn't mean the movie has no merits. The costumes, cinematography and production design are good and even the last few minutes had nice tension but for it's concept it clearly didn't reach its potential.

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

Sometimes It's Best To Keep Things Simple

[8/10 · 11 September 2022]

When modern horrors today rely excess cheap scares or over the top acting and still failing to deliver , Bodies Bodies Bodies is a well written script which is very easy to shoot and doesn't require much post production work.

Many horrors have involved games to scare us like Ouija or Candyman recently, Bodies Bodies Bodies follows a similar path except there are no ghosts involved. A group of 7 people, 5 of them girls play a peculiar game called Bodies Bodies Bodies, and things go haywire when one of them is actually dead. What follows is a serious of bad decisions and dark secrets being revealed which is a complete chaos to watch on screen.

The entire movie is shot in one location and the movie works only because of how good the actors are. The makers weren't afraid to give their cast complete freedom and the result is visible. Pete Davidson plays..... Pete Davidson again but the star of the movie is "Shiva Baby" fame Rachel Sonnet. She really found the right balance of fear and comedy in her role.

Where the Crawdads Sing (2022)

There Is Nothing Much To Say Really

[4/10 · 9 August 2022]

Firstly the source material isn't as great as it was said to be. Large parts of it are overwritten and the main character is so underwhelmingly written that none of her life story is even remotely realistic. The "twist" was very predictable and everyone who has read Gillian Flynn's works could guess it from the first page.

Coming to the movie, there is nothing bad about it but nothing is remarkable about it either. It's a page to page adaptation that leaves out the most important details to add more context to the story. The court scenes falls so bland and the suspense is completely lacking in a murder mystery.

Men (2022)

A Misunderstood Movie

[8/10 · 13 June 2022]

Just after watching a screening of this film in cinemas and making sense of the ending, the Depp-Amber trial verdict was out and it only made me realize in horror how accurate this film was. Alex Garland sticks a dagger to the "Not all men" argument by depicting the violence and subtle misogyny and patriarchal notions of a society through Rory Kinnear.

Harper (Jessie Buckley) goes on a short vacation to "heal herself" after the death of her husband. She is blinded by the guilt that she may have been responsible for her husband's death. Slowly we see the multiple men causing problems to Harper in the present and her "incident" with her husband which lead to his death.

Men is a rare body horror with a strong message which could be easily misunderstood by many. Jessie Buckley who is at the peak of her career, adds one more feather to her cap. Men is a great follow up to Annihilation in terms of the technical aspects of the movie but the core plotline is far more sinister than Garland's previous work. The Horrors of Toxic Masculinity.

Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

Bigger & Better Than Top Gun

[10/10 · 25 May 2022]

The best sequel in recent times after Blade Runner 2049. Tom Cruise in his late 50s is still the biggest movie star in the world for a reason, he doesn't need a franchise character to achieve stardom, he is the FRANCHISE. Tom Cruise has always been underrated as a performance actor due to his action work overshadowing anything else. In Top Gun Maverick we see a glimpse of Tom Cruise we used to see in his earlier movies.

Top Gun Maverick is the perfect summer blockbuster you would be seeing this year, the movie surpasses the original by having a more relevant plot and better choreographed action sequences. Miles Teller does a decent job as being the "prodigy" but this role required someone like Lucas Hedges or Will Poulter to square up against Tom Cruise.

It was great to see Val Kilmer again, but his role was nothing more than a cameo. Jon Hamm and Jennifer Connelly are very good casting choices who were able to measure up to Tom Cruise and play their parts convincingly. In an ideal world, movies like this should be in contention of winning awards too.

Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

A Landmark Movie

[8/10 · 10 May 2022]

A genre bending movie that will go down in history books as one of the most brave and unique movie of all time. Michelle Yeoh delivers her career best work and is the heartbeat of the movie. The plot is so absurd that we forget the premise of the movie and just enjoy it's robust visuals and crackpot comedy. A movie that should be truly enjoyed in a cinema.

The Batman (2022)

The Batman Is Not A Superhero Film And That's The Best Thing About It

[8/10 · 4 March 2022]

The Batman is a vigilantee film, not a superhero film. There isn't eye gouginh CGI or the prototype good vs evil plotline. Matt Reeves breaks all the traditional stereotypes and presents us a story where a masked vigilantee is involved in an ongoing murder investigation. Much of the movie is like a 1940s noir rather than an action film.

Robert Pattinson, Zoe Kravitz and Jeffrey Wright are brilliant casting choices. Colin Farrell, John Turturro and Paul Dano have done justice for their characters but they don't have the true antagonist feel unlike the TDK trilogy. Unlike Nolan, Reeves touches on the political aspect of Gotham to give a perspective of crime and justice from the lend of Batman. The ever present bond between Bruce and Alfred has very little substance in this film.

Batman stands out unique unlike it's predecessor due to its noir style story telling but like the TDK trilogy, it has an incredible instrumental score, cinematography and mild octane action scenes. The 2nd installment will be a tough challenge but Reeves has laid out the Easter eggs already.

Sundown (I) (2021)

75 minutes of Tim Roth just vibing

[7/10 · 19 February 2022]

Jokes aside, Sundown is a devastating movie about how a man grieves in his own way and plans to spend his final days. At times we feel like blaming him for his sister's death but it was clearly not his intention for that to happen. Neil (Tim Roth) just wanted to spend his final days in a beach doing what he likes, but his wealthy family just wouldn't leave him alone.

Scream (I) (2022)

A Nice Start to 2022

[8/10 · 19 January 2022]

Easily the best film of the franchise after the first part. The screenplay is outstanding and it creates a slasher satisfying modern day horror fans and also bringing back the nostalgic elements which worked in the first part.