Victoria & Abdul offers mixed reactions. It is pleasantly sweet but annoyingly off-putting.

Judwaa 2 is not a great comedy but it is an engaging entertainer with some laughs and a sort of warm goofiness.

Overall, what could have been a strong film, well-researched, stimulating and perhaps hard-hitting film, ends up as a poorly executed court room spectacle sans any drama.

Overall, sans the thrilling factor, this hard boiled heist comedy, is unconvincing and difficult to digest.

Technically, sound and made with moderate production values the film offers a convincing appeal. The background score by composer Amar Mohile and the songs choreographed by Ganesh Acharya add life to the jamboree.

So pretentious and hammy are the actors it would be an insult to good taste to call them actors

Overall, swathed in mindless but slick action, this poorly told tale is purely risky to watch.

On the production front, director Sandberg along with production designer Jennifer Spence make great use of the eerily vast layout of the Mullins’ farmhouse just as director Wan did with the haunted home at the centre of “The Conjuring”. But it is clustered – Annabelle’s room, the barn, the well in the courtyard and the unexplained lift shaft in the farm house that is used as the focal area of action and are well-exploited.
Overall, the film is visually well-captured but the spirit is missing.

The film’s dialogues are impeccably written and aptly included. Chuckles seamlessly grow to laughs, applauds even, as the writers (Nitesh Tiwari, Shreyas Jain and Rajat Nonia) successfully capture the flavour of life in this town.

Too much sugar in this barfi…