…craft alone can’t make a good film great. A movie is built on stories one would like to hear and characters one would like to empathize with. The film has one but falters on the other. The measure of the movie’s capability to stand out comes with its final shot. It alludes to the burgeoning Watergate Scandal, and you’ll realize that you’ve enjoyed All The President’s Men much more than The Post. One was truly great and the other is just good.

Simply put, watch this one if you absolutely must. No FOMO here, though.

I could go on and on about all the issues plaguing this film and the subsequent plagues it just might unleash on the world. But I’ll simply end it by paraphrasing what one of your own, Kate Beckinsale, said in the movie Serendipity. The English got bad teeth, bad hair and good children’s movies. You got the short end of the stick lads, you just don’t know it.

Kaalakaandi is a great ride. At an hour and fifty minutes long, the film tells its story effectively and without any side-tracking. Sure, there are some expectations in the second half that are not met – like the sudden excitement when you see Khan in a Birdman-like costume, only to see it lead nowhere – but that would be akin to nitpicking just for the heck of it.

Ultimately, the movie stays true to the franchise roots and refuses to make logical sense, but powered by Jason Blum’s genius production and marketing strategies, Lin Shaye’s performance and an execution that isn’t as bad as Friday The 13th The Final Chapter or The Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master or The Return Of Michael Myers, it ensures that you are in for a decently good time at the movies.

In this entry at least, the spectacle is fuelled by true narrative ambition. Because these 150 minutes aim to give you a Star Wars experience you never knew you wanted. Once you’ve experienced what a great story can do in this universe, settling for anything less is not an option. It’s all on you to send the new trilogy off in style Abrams.

Making up for some blatantly juvenile word-based humour is the film’s electric editing. As the spoken words land with a sickening thud, the smooth cuts between characters whose expressions build off each other find those jagged gems of comedy in the murky landscape of this film.

The good people walking in with fresh, unhampered eyes are bound to be entertained by Branagh’s antics and the story itself, whereas weary aficionados of literature and cinema are bound to leave their halls moderately entertained at a version whose existence seems unnecessary.

When the most offensive part of a Bollywood comedy is two men insensitively wearing Klu Klux Klan robes as ghostly garb (sure most Indians won’t get the context, but you are releasing this film worldwide right?) instead of crude sex jokes and copious amounts of inane sequences, you’ve done something right.

As the movie does not lend itself to comedy as much, I’ll throw in an observation of my own to send you home thinking if not smiling. Salman Khan still rules Eid and Aamir Khan still rules Christmas but Shahrukh Khan has been ousted from his tentpole Diwali release date. What does this mean?