#WonderWoman1984 #WW84 #HollywoodEnglishFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas

 

Hollywood Film Review

Johnson Thomas

Unbalanced by over-ambition

Film: Wonder Woman 1984

Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Lilly Aspell, Amr Waked

Director: Patty Jenkins

Rating: * * ½

Runtime: 151 min.

(Streaming on HBO Max)

 

Director Patty Jenkins’ first Wonder Woman outing was a well-balanced entertainer that was believably put together and offered the audience some high-tension adrenaline gushing moments. Gal Gadot’s belief in the role and its place in the superhero hierarchy was evident and she made the role indelibly hers by living the part of Wonder Woman with equal muscle, grace and heart. She put on such high-end testosterone action finesse that the resultant was singularly bedazzling. She was a regal superhero living much beyond the scale that DC comics envisioned her to be. In this, Jenkins’ second DC comic’s adaptation effort of Wonder Woman, a cold war set spectacle, the Superhero is shown to have come into conflict with the Soviet Union during the 1980s and finds a formidable foe in Cheetah. The arsenal gets more modern and heavier of course and the makers try to go for bigger and better but the attempted over-indulgence only makes the lack of a credible narrative rallying point all the more obvious. 

 

The film opens with a bang. The flashback sequence featuring Diana (Lilly Aspell) as a young trainee warrior in the magical island of Themiscyra competing in a contest that tests her strength and skill with opponents twice her age and size opens our eyes to her valour, tenacity and unflagging fighting spirit. What she learns from that experience forms the basis of our empathy towards this warrior princess whose innate goodness shines brighter than her God-killer-Sword’s blade. That opener is basically the centrepiece of a narrative that eventually flags under the weight of its desire to excel with excess. The tonal and elemental balance displayed in the first outing, gets lost in the battle ground that this outing weighs in with. 

 

The script co-written by Jenkins, Geoff Johns and Dave Callaham, based on William Moulton Marston’s original characters, is about avarice and is set in a time period when people had caught on to consumerism and materialism with a vengeance. Even though the reference point is the height of Reagan-era (“WW84”), the inference that self-seeking behaviour to the exclusion of all else could well be destructive, has relevance even today.

 

The ageless Diana Prince(Gal Gadot) is currently living in Washington DC( The Watergate to be precise) and working as an archaeologist at the Smithsonian, a befitting position for a resourceful linguist with unchallengeable knowledge about ancient artefacts. An emotional and period misfit, she bonds with co-worker Dr. Barbara Minerva (Kristen Wiig) a misfit herself, who eventually transforms into the villain with chameleon like stealth. But that happens only after Barbara gets her hands on a mysterious wishing stone, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine) gets resurrected and Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), a fake oil Tycoon makes his evil desires felt.

 

Gadot of course towers over the unwieldy narrative with a regal power and grace that is magnetic and Wiig manages a transformation that is brilliantly timed. Unfortunately the action set-pieces feel a little repetitive and over-the-top. The story doesn’t feel original either because the linkage to archaeology and ancient wisdom harkens back to ‘The Mummy’ series while some of the other story elements link it to the ‘Superman’ series. The longish, ungainly runtime is utilised mainly for ensuring chaos as the script follows the three main characters and their wish-fulfilment escapades. Despite Gal Gadot’s charismatic screen presence, this second edition fails to bring wonder mainly because it takes a little too long to show-off its flash and super power.

Johnsont307@gmail.com

#Soul #HollywoodEnglishFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas

 

Hollywood Film Review

Johnson Thomas

Film: Soul (Animation)

Cast(voice): Jamie Foxx, Tina Fey, Graham Norton

Directors: Pete Docter, Kemp Powers

Rating: * * * ½

Runtime: 100 mins

(Streaming on Disney +, Disney Hotstar)

 

Pixar’s ‘Soul’ is a magical experience – one that manages to reach the heights that ‘Inside Out’ scaled a few years back. This animation film about a musician Joe who has an out of body experience and must find his way back with the help of an infant soul, is a brilliant psycho-social mapping of a human being’s growth processes. 

 

 

Joe’s soul is desperate to get back to his Earthly body but being mistaken for a mentor to 22 (Tina Fey) who has no desire to get her pass to an Earthly body, is an impediment he will have to overcome. Joe will have to convince 22 to get away from the abstract Great Before and into photo realistic New York. 

 

 

The narrative gives weight to an interpretation that could in logical terms be only imaginary. Yet, as an audience, we connect so entirely to this proposition that it becomes altogether enigmatic and philosophical in ideology. What we see and believe in here is a depiction of the soul with thought-provoking poignancy and heft. The animation craft is cutting edge and the story just draws you in. All the technical aspects are admirably high-end.

 

The opening sequences are a little difficult to follow given the heaviness of the subject matter but eventually it eases into a beautifully sublime emotional rollercoaster that makes you realise the value of life itself. Soul is beautifully put-together in that, it sends out a strong message without being overly obvious about its intent. Every facet here is well-thought out and presented in a visually colourful and amiable way - making it meaningful for both, the young and the old alike.

Johnsont307@gmail.com

#Sayonee #BollywoodHindiFilmReview #JohnsonThomas

 

Bollywood Hindi Film Review

Johnson Thomas

Damaged Revenge drama

Film: Sayonee

Cast: Tanmay Ssingh, Musskan Sethi, Rahul Roy, Yograj Singh, Upasana Singh

Directors : Nitin Kumar Gupta & Abhay Singhal

Rating: * ½

Runtime: 112 mins

 

A romance cum revenge drama this one is a wannabe ‘Ghajini’ but without the vibe, smarts or savagery that catapulted the ‘Momento’ into a monumental hit. 

 

 

 

The narrative here is typically slip-shod, loosely connected and doesn’t bother to allow for any empathy towards its lead characters. 

 

 

Recently crowned and crowing National shooting champion, Rajdeep Randhawa(Tanmay Ssingh) is waylaid by a generically chirpy, bold orphan girl Mahi( Musskan Sethi) who apparently is studying herbology but appears to have all the time to steal Rajdeep’s gold medal and deliver it to an ailing kid who dreams of owning one. And before you can say ‘what the heck?’ the twosome become inseparable, the boy’s parents ( Yograj Singh & Upasana Singh) give their consent and Mahi sets off to Russia for her higher studies.  

 

 

Gory stories about the Russian mafia and drug lords have obviously percolated down to Bollywood’s simple minded scriptwriters – so the narrative thrusts forward deep into the Russian underbelly with Rajdeep embarking on a journey to save his love. What happens in Russia thereafter, is beyond unbelievable. Needless to say there’s not much hope of raking in the moolah in such devastating times with such a substandard, unaccomplished product. The songs are hummable but the days of hit songs propelling a movie to super-hit status are long since dead. The story-telling is jumpy and feels like the two helmers literally had to do a tug of war to decide on which sequence to fit into the final cut. Even though the characters here are half-baked and unjustifiably volatile, the two lead actors do make their presence felt. Tanmay has the look of flop actor/singer Vikas Bhalla and Musskan mines Manisha Koirala. Both fail the originality test but their screen presence cannot be doubted. It’s pretty clear (from this abysmal engagement) that Bollywood's talent pool is devoid of ideas worth churning into movies for the big screen!

Johnsont307@gmail.com

 

 

 

#Tenet #HollywoodFilmMovieReview #JohnsonThomas

 

Hollywood Film Review

Johnson Thomas

Going Loopy with TIME

Film: Tenet

Cast: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Dimple Kapadia, Himesh Patel, Clémence Poésy Denzel Smith      

Director: Christopher Nolan

Rating: * * *

Runtime: 150 mins

 

 

Mind bending has become Christopher Nolan’s hallmark and with Tenet he not only plays parallel and surround with thoughts but he also goes loopy with Time. Tenet is probably Nolan’s most ambitious (in terms of complexity) with a degree of difficulty that even auteur filmmakers might find too challenging to take on. Nolan has scripted this time-twisting sci-fi fantasy (am calling it fantasy because we don’t really know that this can happen in real time) by using tech tricks and scientific throws like loops, bridges, parallel universes and time inversion to ensnare our minds in a tale that has the protagonist ally with the past and the future while existing and saving the world in the present.

It’s a high-concept enterprise and Nolan sets the stage beautifully in the opening gambit itself. While a classical orchestra is on, a team of assassins lay siege to the auditorium and its audience. Then comes in the cavalry… the play is on whether this was staged, a test or real. But we don’t really care because it’s an impressive set-piece opener that gets the ball rolling for what is to be an outrageous world saving (from Armageddon caused by the future) endeavor that involves a CIA operative who calls himself ‘The Protagonist’ (John David Washington), a Russian Oligarch Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh) who is the antagonist here, his abused wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) whose main motivation is to be reunited with her young son, a jack-of-all-skills Neil(Robert Pattinson) and an arms dealer from Mumbai Priya Singh (Dimple Kapadia). The funny thing here is that everyone appears to know what’s going to happen, there’s a sense that fate overrides free will and counter programming and yet there’s this protagonist who is striving to avert something that is already destined to happen. It’s confusing and confounding to say the least… yet it’s all so intricately laid out in an elongated exposition that you are totally spellbound by the visual entreaty of it.

There’s no scene chewing performance here. The acting ranges from enigmatic, playful to one-dimensional serious and villainous. There’s a method in this kind of streamlining. The script and direction don’t ask for anything more as any overplaying would have rendered the entire set-up thankless. The narrative depth comes entirely from Nolan’s consummate sleek and slick direction, Jennifer Lame’s tricky editing, thought-revoking momentum, heart-thumping background score, beautifully envisioned set-piece action sequences, pulse-pounding sound design and dazzlingly entreating widescreen cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema.

Nolan’s films are complex enough to demand a second viewing and this film, designed to be watched on big screen cinemas is more so. Unfortunately it has released at a time when most pockets are running on empty amidst an ensuing pandemic that has life and death in its thrall. So it remains to be seen whether the cinema going public will make a second run to the theatres in their effort to decode Tenet’s complex algorithm.

Johnsont307@gmail.com