Mini Review : Crawl and Drag Me To Hell

Crawl
Directed by : Alexandre Aja
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8364368/

Apex predator all day.. 

Spoilers ahead .. 


There's a Category 5 hurricane coming in Florida as Haley's (Kaya Scodelario) sister calls her to check on if she knows the whereabouts of their dad Dave (Bary Pepper) who isn't picking up calls. Haley decides to head in the dangerous weather to his home only to find him lying unconsious in the basement learning he was bitten by alligators. With the storm outside getting stronger and heavy rains sinking the town, she has very less time to get herself and her Dad escape knowing the alligators are hiding somewhere. Its hard not to draw parallels with Jaws, similar kind of arrangement with no option but to fight the alligators, and there's the use of famous dialogue 'son of a bitch' dialogue too. But unlike Jaws, the family drama here is very boring and only derails the narrative everytime they talk about the past or Haley's swim journey. They also fail to properly tell the alligators attack strategy or weakness to make use of. Also, I was surprised how with a heavy hurricane outside, the basement scenes yet were so noiseless. Being a fan of silent scenes, here the horror of background storm/rains noise would had actually served lot better. The alligator scenes do scare you and are tough to watch, specially using group of them attacking together whether its the basement or the store outside. And I must say I didn't expect Haley, her father and specially the dog all ending up alive in the end. The background theme was disappointing, could easily had upped the tension. Crawl is basically a average survival movie that entertains and gives chilling moments when it focusses on the alligators but the rest plot fails to invoke any emotions.

My Rating : 5/10



Drag Me To Hell
Directed by : Sam Raimi
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1127180/

You would be surprised what you will be willing to do, when the Lamia comes for you.

Spoilers ahead .. 


Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) who is a loan officer at a bank has her eyes setup on the assistant manager vacant position. In order to impress her boss and show that she can make the tough choices, she decides to deny an elderly lady, Mrs Ganush (Lorna Raver) a third extension on her mortgage leaving her homeless. Despite the begging and pleads, Mrs Ganush leaves in anger only to return later at car parking attacking Christine when she was heading home, and then placing a curse to let her burn in hell. Christine very soon learns about the Lamia curse through a fortune teller, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao) as he tries to help her with various ideas while she races against the time with Lamia coming to take her after the curse gets completed in 3 days. The movie starts off on a good note, a young boy is taken to a certain lady to get help on the same Lamia curse but she fails in doing so and tells the demon 'we will meet again', which is ofcourse Christine who she will now try to help out. I liked the premise, and Alison Lohman plays the character very well that you can say makes one bad choice of turning Mrs Ganush angry, ofcourse not knowing this lady would put a curse on her and her life would become a literal hell. The torture she goes through in next 2 days, all the tormenting of her mind, smashed around in her home, banging of plates, strong winds blowing the windows, Ganush appearing in different forms, eyes getting stuck out into blood, her mouth often used to fill with gross things (which personally I am not a fan of at all), god the torture felt endless to see. I totally enjoyed the dining sequence where Christine goes to meet parents of her boyfriend Clay Dalton (Justing Long) at his home, and you just know that it will get pretty awkward soon whe she starts hearing those noises again.

The jump-scenes are overused but despite knowing they are coming they do work and scare you. The loud background score helps too in that regards. There are ofcourse some fun scenes (silly to be honest if you ask me), which I am assuming were infact kept intentionally, like the demon dance or Christine bad mouthing Mrs Ganush while heading off to her grave. Justin Long is good in his supporting act and its good they didn't overdo the 'I don't believe your crazy curse theory'. The ending felt predictable the moment Rham told Christine to choose someone to pass the curse on, maybe an open ending would had worked better. Drag Me To Hell is a decent horror film, if not for those gross moments and some unwanted sillyness, I would have given 2 stars more to the film. Its a watchable movie for Christine Brown act specially and the plot that was pretty good.

My Rating : 5.5/10

Mini Review : Hotel Transylvania 3 : A Monster Vacation and Peter Rabbit

Hotel Transylvania 3 : A Monster Vacation
Directed by : Genndy Tartakovsky
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5220122/

Who made you such an amazing daughter? 
You.
That's right. What a father I am. 

Spoilers ahead.. 


Mavis (Selena Gomez voice) decides her dad Dracula (Adam Sandler voice) needs a break from the hotel and thereby takes him, family and friends on a secret vacation to a cruise. In a first of its kind, the cruise is for sea loving monsters to have fun and adventures throughout the journey with various stops. But they aren't aware that the captain of the ship Ericka (Kathryn Hahn) is related to the Val Helsing family who have always hated the monsters and this whole cruise is just a trap to kill all of them. The story is totally predictable, it was easy to guess that Ericka would have a change of heart and save Dracula in the end. There are some fun moments that will make you laugh, that positive vs negative energy songs played at dj competition between Johnny (Andy Samberg voice) and Ericka's great grandfather, Van Helsing (Jim Gaffigan voice) was hilarious, specially the choice of positive energy songs and that last one 'Macarena' (for some reasons I thought a Titanic song was coming, no idea why). Some cute moments between Dracula-Mavis and eye-catching visuals in volcano sequence. Unfortunately, that was only the interesting part of movie, the movie falls flat in the gags and jokes with other characters for most of the screen-time. The Helsing plot isn't much to enjoy either. Hotel Transylvania 3 has very few fun moments and it barely qualifies as a time-pass movie too.

My Rating : 4/10



Peter Rabbit
Directed by : Will Gluck
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5117670/

Diet starts now.... Now.. Now... Now.. Now.. Now. 

Story about Peter Rabbit (James Corden voice), his three sisters Flopsy (Margot Robbie voice), Mopsy (Elizabeth Debicki voice), Cotton Tail (Daisy Ridley voice) and a cousin Benjamin (Colin Moody voice). One day their neighbour dies and they all are happy as they don't have to secretly visit the garden anymore when they try to steal vegetables/fruits. But to their surprise, their neighbours relative, Mr Thomas McGregor (Domhnall Gleeson) arrives and he is lot more of a wild life hater. Thomas falls in love with Bea (Rose Byrne) who is very close to the rabbits and a nature lover. Its a fight between Thomas and the rabbits, none of them can see each other living together. Another predictable story as you very well know the relationship between rabbits and Thomas will turn into friendship at the end. The interactions between the rabbits is funny, specially the 'I am oldest' arguement throughout, or the Peter-Benjamin character flaw. I also enjoyed the fight scenes and strategies they built against Thomas. Pigling Brand (Ewen Leslie voice) continuously pretending not hungry and then eating everything or the diet now scene was hilarious. Despite the story been average, the animation and screenplay makes up for it as Peter Rabbit is a light time-pass movie with some dull moments to manage by.

My Rating : 5.5/10 

Mini Review : Crazy, Stupid, Love and Rosemary's Baby

Crazy, Stupid, Love
Directed by : Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1570728/

I am wildly unhappy, and I am trying to buy it, and it's not working. 

Cal (Steve Carell), middle aged man, is taken by a surprise when his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) at restaurant suddenly asks for divorce and also tells him she slept with someone named David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon). Cal's son Robbie (Jonah Bobo), who is 13 yrs old has feelings for the 17yr old babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) who herself has a crush on Cal. And then Cal meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling) at a bar learning how easy its for Jacob to pickup girls. The premise makes a clear case of many comical moments and most of them do land pretty well. It was fun watching Jacob teach Cal with those routine slaps at cheeks. The teacher-Cal scene at bar followed by the house and then meeting at school was easily my favourite and the one where Cal talks to Emily on phone while watching her secretly outside the garden. I almost failed to identify Emma Stone (plays Hannah), whose scenes with Jacob are ofcourse very romantic including the dirty dancing moment. Robbie's love for Jessica and things he tries to do to win her over are fun and cute at same time. All the big stars, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore and Emma Stone give in very good performances yet somehow this movie is nothing more than a timepass flick, maybe too many subplots is the issue, specially David-Emily scenes and Jessica's crush for Cal that I found boring.  A light-hearted fun movie that despite the flaws I won't mind watching again on T.V.

My Rating : 6.5/10



Rosemary's Baby
Directed by : Roman Polanski
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063522/

Oh, God!
God is dead! Satan lives!

Spoilers ahead.. 


Set in 1965, a couple, Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) and Guy Woodhouse (John Cassavetes) move into a fancy looking apartment called Bramford despite been told by their friend Hutch (Maurice Evans) that the house has had its share of deaths in past. The lullaby sung by Rosemary itself at start of movie sets up good mood (sung by Rosemary herself) as we slowly learn about the neighbours living in the same flat with most focus on an old couple, Minnie Castevet (Ruth Gordon) and Roman Castevet (Sidney Blackmer). For me, what worked was the performances of the cast, the acting is really good specially Mia Farrow and Ruth Gordon. But the going is very slow as the narrative takes half of the film to reach the stage when Rosemary is pregnant, and on the way we get one dreamy very creepy rape scene. This scene, sudden death of girl living with Minnie through window jump suicide and the over-friendly attitude of Minnie is enough to believe she and her husband have some evil motive in their mind, which is further strengthened with the vitamin drinks provided by her daily that includes some tannis root. Only twist if I can call it that, comes when we learn Dr Hill (Charles Grodin) and Guy Woodhouse were involved too. As a horror movie, there's almost next to none scare sequences, even the atmospheric tension isn't that high to my liking. Then the witch angle comes when only 30 mins of movie is left, and it feels so under-utilised in the narrative as for me they took way too much time to reach here including some un-necessary repetitive scenes.The climax is pretty ordinary too. As a psychological thriller, Rosemary's Baby is still a decent watch but sorry its not a great horror or even a classic movie in any sense for me. So, after Repulsion, that's second Polanski horror movie in a row that didn't click for me as it does for other people.

My Rating : 5.5/10

Mini Review : Kaamyaab and Extraction (Netflix)

Kaamyaab
Directed by : Hardik Mehta
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7881550/

Just enjoying life.. aur option kya hai?

Spoilers ahead.. 


In a random interview with a journalist, Sudheer (Sanjay Mishra) a yesteryear's famous sideactor learns that he did 499 films and with a friends suggestion he gets motivated to complete 500 movies and come out of retirement. There's a lovely tribute done at starting credits with many popular Hindi movies sideactors from Samba to others shown. Some of them are in the film too like Viju Khote, Birbal, Lilliput, Avtar Gill etc, the latter in a long role. Love Avtar's pretending to be Hirani scene or when he is with Sudheer at a place to do some stupid advertisement to earn some money. The starting scene is hilarious way Sudheer tries to define a side-actor also known as potato or someone whose value is nothing in comparison to stars, before journalist gets annoyed and asks him to be positive and motivate people with something better and we see him put on his character face. His character 'Shera' clearly felt like depiction of Sholay's iconic 'kitne aadmi the' scene with different setup and dialogues, and quite well done. I had problems with the star they kept, Rahul Chopra (Vikas Verma), unless there was money issues, a real star like Hrithik or maybe Shahrukh would had worked better, specially for that climax scene when the audience turn face and forget Sudheer performing for them on stage. Also, we get to see very less of Sudheer's daughter, Bhavna.. played very well by Sarika Singh who in one of the scene tells Sudheer that doing an extra film won't change his old status. Isha Talwar as the neighbour living in same building also gets some nice scenes with Sudheer, my favourite when he tells her how her wife was heartbroken when she learned the song 'Jab koi baat bigad jaaye' was a copied song and then both start humming the track, one in english and other in hindi. Deepak Dobriyal as Dinesh Gulati who believes in only casting and no couch, is fun to watch too, lovely dream sequence between him and Sudheer, and that funny Steve Bucknor reference. There's a lot to like in Kaamyaab, yet you can't help but feel it never reaches a level up from where it starts, maybe the director wanted to keep it lighthearted with less conflicts. Should watch it, you won't regret.

My Rating : 6/10



Extraction
Directed by : Sam Hargrave
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8936646/

You drown not by falling into the river but by staying submerged in it. 

Mr Mahajan (Pankaj Tripathi), a druglord gangster who is in prison gets information that his son Ovi (Rudhraksh Jaiswal) got kidnapped by his rivalgang leader Amir Asif (Priyanshu Painyuli) in Dhaka. He asks Saju (Randeep Hooda), who works for him, to go there and get his son back at any cost. Saju hires a fearless mercenary, Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) who is a broken man and got nothing to lose on this suicidal looking extraction mission. If a movie without plot and emotions but just action works for you then Extraction would be a decent timepass movie. I got tired very early, there's the cliched Tyler's flashback with something bad that had happened with his son. Then the very quick bond developing between Ovi and Tyler. Pankaj got just one scene in entire film, while Randeep Hooda's hairstyle is irritating and also has a long fight sequence that I assume is one-take (getting too repetitive, didnt we have 1917 already?), only to see him join Tyler later on to save Ovi from the streets of Dhaka that have been locked down with Amir Asif having control over army and police. By the way Priyanshu Painyuli felt awfully miscast for this role. Also, I am not sure if it was true depiction of Bangladesh way it was shown. Nice to see Golshifteh Farahani (playing Nik Khan, leading the extraction), last time I saw her in a film was long ago in Paterson which I had loved a lot. Unfortunately like others, her character also is under-written. Even Chris Hemsworth fails to impress. Easily a movie I will forget I had watched.

My Rating : 3/10 

Mini Review : PaatalLok (AmazonPrime) and Betaal (Netflix)

PaatalLok
Creator : Sudip Sharma
Directed by : Avinash Arun/Prosit Roy (9 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9680440/

Yeh system jo hai, dur se sadha gala kachde ka dher lagta hai.. lekin andar ghuske samjhoge na, well oiled machinery hai.. har purje ko maloom usko kya karna hai, aur jisko nahi pata hota uss purje ko badal diya jaata hai.. lekin yeh system kabhi nahi badalta. 

Four suspects are arrested on the highway while on the run and later its found out that they were planning to assassinate popular head of a leading News Channel, Sanjeev Mehra (Neeraj Kabi). The case is assigned to Haathi Ram Chowdhury (Jaideep Ahlawat), a cop from the outer Jamuna Par police station who has been looking forward to get one such high profile case that could change his career, but little does he know how everything is not what it seems and the further he investigates the more he finds himself lost. Its adapted from Tarun Tejpal's book 'The Story of My Assassins' which I haven't read.

Haathi Ram is on the lookout for proofs and past history of all 4 suspects, with a newly joined junior Ansari (Ishwak Singh) helping him out. Their camaraderie goes through ups and downs, sticking for each other with their developing friendship. PaatalLok works as a slow-burn thriller, as we slowly learn about every character. Was interesting to watch Sanjeev Mehra's character that is trying to stay in news and not be ethical while disclosing news, he very much resembled all the news anchors we see in real who only care about money. In one scene he aptly tells how the journalists and news people were heroes once and now they get trolled and killed. All the flashback scenes of the 4 arrested guys had tragic incidents happening, everyone had interesting stories but Mary Lyngdoh (played brilliantly by Mairembam Ronaldo Singh) one specially appealed to me with that emotional court-room last scene and her constant cry in prison, as she plays someone pretending to be a girl in the narrative to help the other 3 guys in the mission when she was actually a transgender.

There's plenty of scenes that are hard to watch, whether its rape of an elder lady, child abuse or a guy beaten for eating beef. The social commentary over our country is told at many instances which I assume didn't go well with a particular wing as they rated the show so low. One of the most hard-hitting scene for me was when the father of one of those 4 suspects tells Haathiram 'jisse maine musalmaan tak banne nahi diya, usse aapne jihaadi bana diya', his pain could be really felt in there. Then there's Ansari who is Muslim cop, a minority among rest police force resulting in some verbal attack at times.

Jaideep Ahlawat completely steals the show, though in last few years ever since that Gangs of Wasseypur character he did, I have always enjoyed watching him in most of the films. Even at the toughest of situations, his character Haathi Ram is hell bent on finding the truth, sometimes breaking laws to get the information. And Abhishek Banerjee was other highlight from the series, very less dialogues but those eyes full of menace and yet been soft with his love for the dogs! The female actresses get less screen time but Gul Panag as HaathiRam's wife (Renu) and Swastika Mukherjee as Sanjeev's wife (Dolly) do leave a mark. Renu's brother track was probably only boring thing in the series. While Dolly's love for dog despite knowing Sanjeev has allergy for it plays a very important and good part when we learn later that the dog is what that actually saved Sanjeev's life.

PaataalLok deals with many themes like greed, dirty politics, Islamophobia, caste, gender oppression and ofcourse dogs. The finale wasn't hard-hitting but lets put it this way that I very much bought the realistic appeal they give with nothing changing about the system and ofcourse the ending had to happen over a dog scene. If excessive abusive language and slow pace don't bother you then this a series for you. I would rate it quite high among other Hindi Series that I love like Mirzapur, Asur and Delhi Crime. Another season of Hathi Ram solving a new case would be fun to watch.

My Rating : 8/10



Betaal
Directed by : Patrick Graham/Nikhil Mahajan (4 episodes, 2020)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10651790/

Pehle hamara desh churaya, phir hamari naukri churayi, sona churaya, zameen churaayi.. ab kutte ki jaat, hamare bhoot bhi chura gaye, behanchod! 

Vikram Sirohi (Vineet Kumar Singh) arrives at a tribal village to demolish it and take the villagers to a safe new place which they deny to go to. The idea is to develop a project with the contractor, Mudhalvan (Jitendra Joshi) bribing the CIPD  squad leader, Commander Tyagi (Suchitra Pillai) who then instructs Vikram and his team to do the needful by filling in wrong information that the villagers are dangerous naxals, knowing Vikram is an honest soldier. Vikram and his team is stopped by Puniya (Manjiri Pupala) who warns that the place is cursed by Betaal/Colonel Lynedoch (Richard Dillane) a leader of 1857 British regiment. But Vikram and his co, ofcourse don't listen or we won't get the zombie episodes that follow. Inspite of very few jump scares, and fact that its only 4 episode series, Betaal still finds a way to fail and the search for a very good horror indian series continues.

Why would zombies beat drums, wait for almost entire episode and then attack the barrackhouse. And since when zombies got the features of Demons who can talk and also scare with slow turn of head. Then the funny sequences, one where Tyagi hairs turn white and reason told is 'shock' or dialogues like 'Hard Brexit' or a game of numbering so Sirohi can keep track of his team in the dark or a soldier killing the zombies while mouthing 'yeh bhagat singh ke liye, yeh jallianwala bagh ke liye' like seriously? or a bitten human soldier that spits out motive of Betaal. What works are the flashbacks Sirohi keeps getting about a small girl in his last mission as we are kept in suspense if he did kill her or not. The faces of the Undead army (Colonel and his team) with those big red eyes was another turn-off, and also some scenes were so dark it was hard to see what was happening. When Tyagi and few soldiers go inside the tunnel, or the 2 dead bodies that make noise of turning into zombies, were the only scenes that have scare element in the series. They do find a way to end series on a note of next season to come but they will have to really work on the writing. Even Vineet Kumar Singh act isn't satisfactory. Aahana Kumra acting was good who played Ahu Ahluwalia. Betaal is watchable only because its a short series and things do happen quickly enough, if only the story and horror was on right lines too.

My Rating : 3.5/10 

Mini Review : Criminal Justice (Hotstar) and Hostages (Hotstar)

Criminal Justice
Directed by : Tigmanshu Dhulia/Vishal Furia (8 episodes each, 2019), Tigmanshu Dhulia (2 episodes, 2019)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9095260/

Kaisa laga yeh case haarke? 
Bahut badhiya, charamsukh aanand. I am looking forward to lose some more cases. Suna hai isse moksha milta hai.. 

Aditya Sharma (Vikrant Massey), a FirstCab driver, has a one-night stand with one of the passenger, Sanaya (Madhurima Roy). Later that night when he wakes up and tries to say goodbye to Sanaya while leaving, he realizes she's dead with blood on his hands. Aditya has no memory of the incident and he fears that he will not be able to prove that he is not guilty. Criminal Justice is inspired from HBO's 'The Night Of' show which itself was a remake of 2008 mini series. Initially the series keeps you hooked in because you are unsure who the killer is, and since the narration is linear, chances of Aditya being guilty is very much cut off. We get some very good court scenes kudos to Mandira Mathur (Mita Vasisht) who is a delight to watch in a no-nonsense strict lawyer and just wants to win,unfortunately she's part of 4 episodes only before her assistant takes up the case which I would had preferred rather going in hands of Madhav Mishra (Pankaj Tripathi). He steals the show (minus the stupid background theme) with his curiosity and gut feeling that he can't let a innocent do jail term. Madhav's scene with therapist is hilarious about how happy he feels to have lost a case, and also his chemistry with Nikhat Hussain (Anupriya Goenka) is one to watch. Jackie Shroff (played Mustafa) is also tailor-made for the gangster kind prisoner having power over everyone inmates and ofcourse using lot of 'bhidu'. Vikrant Massey wierdly doesn't make the mark like I expected, and main reason is he very much gets lost in the jail politics plot which is also why I felt the series diverts away too much. I personally won't say they shouldn't have shown that aspect, but they clearly went overboard with it, had they cut it to say 8 episode series with some crisp editing then it would had appealed the way it should. I do however enjoyed that scene where Mustafa stops Aditya in time from killing the rival cell-inmate Layak (Dibyendu Bhattacharya), telling that innocent should stay innocent. In the previous episodes leading to that scene, I had this feeling that by the time Aditya would be proven innocent for Sanaya's murder, he might already had become a murderer inside the jail, so that was a good twist. Some of other supporting actors however felt miscast and the emotional manipulation through background music is done way too much to my liking. Also, why would you not show the crime scene in the last episode when the real culprit is found. Criminal Justice works mainly for the court-room scenes, and performances of Pankaj Tripathi and Jackie Shroff but its atleast 2 episodes too long to sit through.

My Rating : 5.5/10



Hostages
Creators : Omri Givon, Yezira Ivrit, Rotem Shamir
Directed by : Sudhir Mishra (10 episodes, 2019)
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9094282/

Hona toh aapko narak mein chahiye, par filhaal aap.. 

Anand's villa daily-life comes to a standstill as four masked men take the family hostages with Dr Mira Anand (Tisca Chopra) told to kill CM next day who is supposed to do a surgery on him. She has to make a choice between her family and CM. Another inspired/remake series, with same title from Israel's show done in 2013. Starting two episodes sets right tone, we are told right at end of 1st episode that SP Prithvi Singh (Ronit Roy) is the leader of the masked men, but the motive behind this is revealed very slowly later on in the show. The way Dr Mira Anand keeps finding ways of getting out of Prithvi and its team radar to find evidences who these masked men are or try to let her children run off, made me think if she would had been much better team member of Prithvi and co. Atleast I would had liked a scene kept before they invade the Anand family or a flashback, as to on what basis they chose team and what planning they did because they sure looked like total rookies who kept giving chances for Anand family to get away. One of the guy among them especially had a bad temper and made it tougher for Prithvi all the time to have a look at him along with Anand family, which again begs question 'why did he hire him? Show a backstory maybe to justify'. The end you could predict from very 1st episode, but what is funny to see is how easily a CM's body gets replaced with a random body and no one notices or finds out. Then there's other sub-plots, Mira's son trying to please girl from school by hacking papers, her daughter is pregnant to a guy who broke-up with her and her husband has been hiding many things. None of those plots felt engaging enough. And the tussle between Mira and Prithvi also gets repetitive after a while. Both Tisca Chopra and Ronit Roy give in very good performances, yet not enough to save what is a very silly and a series going nowhere with all the loopholes and a non-satisfying ending.

My Rating : 4/10 

Mini Review : Pokemon Detective Pikachu and Gerald's Game (Netflix)

Pokemon Detective Pikachu
Directed by : Rob Letterman
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5884052/

I push people away and then hate them for leaving.. 

Hearing news of his dad's car crash, Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) returns back to his hometown Rhyme City where humans and pokemon's live together. Tim meets a talking pokemon, Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds voiceover) who wants to be a detective and help him find his father. In roughly 15-20 mins, Pikachu's character gets in the narrative and from thereon the film is carried through his shoulder with very witty and fun one liners or his reactions to the situations been thrown as they try to dive further into the mystery surrounding Tim's father. But I can't say same about the rest characters or the story that is quite weak and the predictable as you can easily make out who the villain is. Its the various Pokemon's intereactions that you enjoy, be it pikachu or the pokemon of Lucy Stevens (Kathryn Newton) or the one who talks through guess what I am saying game. Lucy and Tim sub-plot is very cliched, and their adventure leading to answers isn't satisfactory. Pokemon Detective Pikachu turned out to be quite underwhelming, but having said that Ryan Reynolds makes sure I atleast had a good time. Definately expected better movie from what the trailers had suggested.

My Rating : 6/10



Gerald's Game
Directed by : Mike Flanagan
Imdb link -> https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3748172/

Everybody's got a littler corner in there somewhere, a button they won't admit they want pressed. Year after year, I barely gave you a glimpse of mine.

A couple Gerald (Bruce Greenwood) and Jessie (Carla Gugino) decide to go to a remote lakehouse trying to get their marriage back on track, but a tragedy happens when Gerald has a heart-attack and dies with Jessie handcuffed on bed. With no neighbours or people around, Jessie must find a way to survive and get help or let herself free of the cuffs. I liked the starting of movie, director doesn't waste time coming to the main part of story, as Jesse is all alone tied to bed, door open with a stray dog eating her dead husband and a scary 'Moonlight' figure appearing at night suggesting Jessie won't survive long with the hallucinations she was having. Her imaginary conversations with herself, her husband, and flashbacks of her father that involves child abuse makes for a interesting watch. But after a while it gets tiring, I would have liked to see some more struggle or attempts made by her to free herself, the isolation situation should had been explored more and also the scare element was less as the diversion to past with husband or father during childhood affects the screenplay. Oh but when at end she does free herself through wrist cut, that was one hell of a hard scene to watch, made me pause movie for few minutes before I could start watching rest movie again. My other biggest complain was, why did they try to give closure to 'Moonlight' story, had they ended say 10-15 mins earlier and left it to audience to guess whether he was real or unreal, it would had made the film look lot good. Carla Gugino shines in her performance, specially when she is talking to herself, also enjoyed Bruce in those conversations where he tells about human desires. An adaptation of Stephen King novel, Gerald's Game makes for a good one time watch despite the mentioned flaws.

My Rating : 5.5/10