G – Force (2009)
Posted by: vijay on: November 5, 2009
Cast : Sam Rockwell, Penelope Cruz, Tracy Morgan, Jon Favreau, Nicolas Cage.
Director : Hoyt Yeatman
Running time : 1 hour and 26 minutes
Rating : 3 out of 4.
Release Date : July 24, 2009
The title would make you think that this is some super hero movie who goes by the name G-force who saves the world from a definite destruction. Nope! The move is about 4 guinea pigs and a mole, who call themselves G-Force, simply because the name sounds cool. That is what the movie. Cool and below-10- years-only fun!
Now the premise is like this. Let’s say you are the nice who is told take care of a bunch of kids 10 years and below. You decide to show them a spy movie. You can’t show them James bond or James Bond. Not with all the cleavage and blood and violence. That is where G-Force comes in. You have, like I said earlier, a set of 5 rats who are super trained spies. You have
Darwin – Team Leader
Juarez – Action girl
Blaster – Weapons and Demolition Specialist
Speckles – Hacking
Mooch – Surveillance
These rats do everything and have all kind of cool gadgets. Infiltrate bad guy liar. Use grappling hook to reach unreachable spots and swing unrealistically, Infra Red goggles to look in the dark and one awesome set of vehicles to escape when being chased.
The objective of the bad is just plain proposterous and stupid enough. So, is the bad guy behind all this. He wants to take over the world using Kitchen Appliances!! Like I said the movie is for 10 year and below.
Transformers Revenge Of the Fallen.
Posted by: vijay on: July 17, 2009
In a summer where every other high voltage action movie has disappointed (Watchmen, X-men Origins : Wolverine, Terminator Salvation), I for one am amazingly impressed with Transformers ROTF. Even before I write the review, I have to say that I am one of the bay-explosions fan. I write reviews, I read them as well, and I see almost no one has a good opinion about the movie. Well, I do and I love it.
To start with, I loved the first Transformers. Trucks and Cars changing into Humongous kicking robots. That’s pure awesomeness. So, when the sequel was announced, I was excited to say the least. All I wanted was bigger robots, bigger settings and louder explosions and that is exactly what is there in the movie. I do sound like a moron here, but there is nothing like watching building sized alien robots fighting death-match on the big screen with big sounds.
What is interesting is, Bay does manage to fit in a story. The left over piece of the All Spark, from the previous movie is the key this time as well. Sam (the kid with the camaro) is now in college, and is exposed to a piece of the All Spark, which implants detailed plans to the location of the Energon Generator, which is the source of life and power of all Transformers. So, the Decepticons (the bad robots) are after Sam for that information and the Autobots (the good robots) are with Sam to protect him. A decent story for a summer blockbuster.
Let us not forget that the story is just a setup for more and more battles. Optimus Prime and Megatron and their colleagues are beautifully rendered in never-before-seen CGI. The way they are integrated into the scene, you have to give credit to the designers for the limits they have pushed themselves. I read somewhere that, a few computers caught fire while rendering these images. Wow! The music is spot on as well, and Bay uses slow motion at appropriate situations. There were at least 3 times, when I went like ‘Ooooooooooooooo’ right there in the movies along with 100’s of others in the theater who were equally charged by what they are seeing.
Mikaela (Sam’s girl friend) is hot, and she is there only for eye candy, Bay does not even bother to justify her presence in the movie other than that of her pure hotness. There also twin robots, who are there to just talk non-sense humor. Here again, Bay knows they are for that and that is it, and does not give any other justification. Many reviewers seem to have complaints regarding this.
A whole new set of robots are introduced in the sequel. In one scene, 6 Construticons (Decepticons disguised as construction equipment based vehicles) transform into one HUGE MEGA DECEPTICON, and you have to be there at the movies to experience it. Not to miss is the Optimus Prime Vs 6 – 8 Decepticons fight in a forest, where Optimus Prime protects Sam is simply awesome. Bumble bee is just plain sweet in its devotion towards Sam and gets as bad-ass as Optimus with several Decepticons.
One thing I missed though is the amount of screen time given to Bumble bee and other Autobots. You almost don’t get to see them fight, with most of the focus on Optimus Prime. Other than that, this movie is awesome. I am watching it again next week, and so should you.
4 out of 4
The Proposal (2009)
Posted by: vijay on: July 17, 2009
What we have here is a really sweet, warm, romantic comedy. Two people, who hate each other a lot, or at least have no reason to like one another, are pushed into a situation where in they have to pretend to like each other. Margaret is a high maintenance, tight-ass boss of Andrew. She is also highly successful, probably employee of the year. However, almost nobody at her company likes her to the point of being scared of her. Andrew hates her as well, and wishes everyday that she gets hit by a bus and hopes he is lucky enough see it when it happens!
Things change when Margaret is informed that her visa has expired, and is being deported back to Canada from USA. To save her own career, she goes ahead and declares that she is marrying Andrew! This is a shock for everyone, including Andrew! He refuses of course, and she threatens him with his job. He agrees or has to.
We already know by this point that, they both will start pretending, and eventually will fall in love. So far, I have not given any spoilers because, all this is already there is the movie trailer.
I must say though, that the way they both keep pretending, and the weird and rather uncomfortable situations they get into are really funny. I don’t want to give away all the scenes, but the one with the male stripper is hilarious. Andrew and Margaret, being asked to stay in a single room also leads some funny events. The movie’s setting in Alaska gives way some really fantastic scenery. The movie is filled with characters you will start identifying with right away. Andrew’s Dad who is unhappy with his son’s career choice. His Mom who likes him for what he wants to do, and is upset with her husband for his attitude towards his son. His ex-girlfriend who is upset she missed the bus with him. Of all the characters, Andrew’s grandma is so cool, you will start wishing that you had such a grandma. There is also this immigration agent, who behaves like he is some kind of a James bond, and is simply heartless, in a funny way. The whole town itself is simply ‘warm’. Also, don’t miss the scenes which play along with the credits.
Pretty much, the movie is a nice one. I loved it, and if you have not watched it yet, please go watch it. Also, do not forget to get it, when it comes out on DVD, and watch it on a Sunday evening, with a cup of coffee in hand.
3 out of 4.
Kencha (2009)
Posted by: vijay on: July 12, 2009
A few years ago, there might have been a blockbuster (Kannada Movie), and it probably had a tag-line, in English. Following that leader, it has become mandatory for all Kannada titles today, to have a tag-line whether it makes sense or not. Kencha tag-line’s itself as ‘Man Of The Match’. What does this mean? It means, the director had no script/screenplay to begin with, and the only thing he wrote (probably on a old newspaper) was this tag-line.
Rahul, is a engineering student (all heroes are always in college. Why don’t they ever graduate?). He is orphaned, and is a big time philanthropist, and is the dude of college. He funds his philanthropy by betting on risky (according to the movie) activities like running and biking. Yeah. I am not lying. He falls in love, blah blah blah songs, and everything. Through some twists and turns (which seem forced) he ends up jamming with the underworld and has to fight a lot and finally one more last, big fight to save his girl (he needs to have a weakness, so slot load the heroine). Also, included is a mandatory back-story for the hero. That is pretty much the story.
I do complain a lot about Kannada movies (but continue to watch them. Sigh 
), and this tag-line, gave me enough as a heads up, that this movie has nothing new to offer. So, I walked in to the cinema hall with complete awareness to expect a standard issue Kannada movie. Which means there will be :
a) A Hero who is orphaned (available in the movie)
b) A Heroine whose only job is to appear in the songs, usually in skimpy outfits (available in the movie, but she is neither hot nor pretty)
c) Movie set in college, still every other cast member in the college scenes looks drastically younger compared to the hero (available in the movie)
d) 4 fights sequences, all of them involving the hero bashing up all the mooks one by one, while making sure all the bottles/empty boxes/crates/make-shift beeda stores are destroyed in the fight location(available in the movie and also, where do all those boxes come from? Why would any store keeper buy such fragile boxes?)
e) The hero is the top of the class, top in sports, top in college events, top in, well everything (available in the movie)
f) All the girls have a huge crush on him in the movie, as he is already studying in the college for at least a year or so. In spite of that, the hero is still single! That is until, the day heroine joins the college, and he immediately falls in love, even though there are better and hotter girls already in the campus.( available in the movie)
g) All the rowdies in the villain kill other villains using guns, but when they want to attack the hero they prefer hockey sticks and similar non-lethal weaponry. (available in the movie)
h) Hero walking away in slow motion, after delivering some punch-lines with metaphors in English mixed with words from Kannada (available in the movie, but why do the ever impatient villains keep listening to these monologues by the hero?)
Yeah, I already expected this, but my complaint is this. Why does the director messes up each and every one of these scenes. The Hero is orphaned all right, but where does he get the money to buy the branded jeans? If you really have to insert fight scenes, why does the choreography suck? Your story has nothing new, but the fights can surely show better style and craftsmanship. Punch lines are there, but why don’t they give any punch? There seems to be a general lack of attention to detail, and the director seems almost bored by the time 3/4th of the movie has passed, as the remainder of the movie is wrapped up in a hurry.
The acting is plain bad, which is evident by most of the cast being filled with has-been or television artists. The production quality is amazingly low, and even decent locations are not made the most of. All effort has been put in, to make sure that you will never have a single moment of suspense. The leading lady has no role, and the director fails to make the most of her looks as well. Bummer .
With movies like these, I will give 10 years before the Kannada Movie Industry goes down under. Good luck! Where is another Mungaru Male or Jogi when you need one?
Movie Rated -2 (minus 2) on a scale of 1 to 4.
Terminator Salvation (2009)
Posted by: vijay on: July 5, 2009
McG gets 2 things right with the movie. Hiring Moon Bloodgood as a pilot (god she is hot) and the Post-Nuclear War scenery. Everything else about the movie, is, well, so so.
I have watched all the Terminator movies so far, and they were like awesome (even the 3rd one was good enough). All the previous movies had these snippets of future war scenes which always made me think, ‘wow man. It would be awesome if they ever make a movie just about this war’. Salvation is supposed to do that, but in spite of everything being in place, it simply loses the plot somewhere.
Where does it go wrong? To start, why are the Sky-net (the computer system which is bent on destroying humans) Robots, depicted as morons. There is this nice scene where a T-600 (a predecessor to T-800) is trapped and hangs upside down. To get down, what it does is shoot its own foot (literally!) and letting itself fall without its toe. Well, it could have let itself fall, if it had aimed its rail-gun just a bit higher, and shot the rope which was holding it up. Duh!! Also, most of the Robots resort to punching and taking ages to kill a human, while, we have seen in Terminator 3, that even the simplest robots can get rid of a human in seconds. What’s up with that? I do agree that if the robots were so lethal, then there would be no movie at all, but after showing them as lethal in the first triology, how can you depict them as losers now. Also, why is the time travel not discussed at all? Of all the things, Time Travel is an integral part of the terminator movies.
Also, the casting which looks good, does not really do its job. Bale as Connor, just shouts and shouts. I am guessing, he just did not have enough time to prepare for the role. This being a future war movie, there are a number of supporting characters, but thanks to lack of character development, you forget every character as soon as they are out of the screen. Except for Kyle Reese’s character. Now, that is one guy, who we have met in Terminator 1, and he is really, really cool. Come to think of it, he is actually cooler than Connor in this movie. Another character you might remember, after she is gone from the screen, is Blair Williams, only because she is played by Moon Bloodgood who is just hot ( even though the reported nude scene of her’s has been cut to get a PG-13 rating. Bummer . Hopefully, it will be restored when the DVD gets released 
).
However, McG does manage to insert some shout-outs to the old movies. Kyle Reese says the line, ‘Come with me if you want to live’. There is Arnold (or his graphic image inserted on some one else’s body). A shot to shot copy of the T-800 walking on stairs from the first movie. He also keeps things in cannon. Judgement Day happened on 2003, Connor’s wife being pregnant (it was told in the third movie that Connor couple are gonna have kids) and so on.
Every thing is well and good, but one thing which seriously screwed up the whole movie experience was the Marcus Wright character. No, nothing is wrong with him. It is just that, till the intermission, it is not revealed that he is actually a robot. I (and million others), who have watched every pre-release trailer/clip/tv spot of the movie from day one, already know he is a robot. You know how? Well, those marketing geniuses working for WB made the big revelation in the trailer itself. Not only that, every big explosion, unique robot sequences and everything cool in the movie was simply showed on the trailer itself. I have seen several other movies (Spiderman 2 Trailer, for instance) who show the entire movie in the trailer, but with Marcus Wright being such a turning point character for the movie, they should have kept this secret, well, a secret. I am sure, if I did not know that he was a robot, and found out he was, while watching the actual movie, I would have liked the movie better.
Well, at the end of the movie, there is a sequel hook (Connor says, the fight will continue), but I doubt if it will ever get made. If not, I am sure McG will be blamed for that. Still, the visuals he has captured are awesome. If I ever had an idea, as to how the world will look if it went through a nuclear holocaust, I am sure the movie gives the right picture into my head. The deserted land, the destroyed buildings, the wreck of metal, the survivor camps. Also, the design of robots, awesome. Self propelling robot-bikes with built collision detection and avoiding protocols! Who comes up with stuff like that? McG has got the visuals and the robots 10 on 10. Unfortunately, he does not rate high on other things.
2 out of 4.
