The film, in effect, appears over plotted and a little too long-drawn with a flagging middle act and a neatly executed conclusion. This Bond is akin to an ageing Romeo striving to engage in young-man games…and falling flat just a little too often to be exciting!

While the food and the actors involved looked good and come close to creating a gastronomic orgasm, the angst-ridden dynamics of the drama don’t manage to steer clear of melodramatic flourishes and dissentious familiarity of genre staples in it’s relapse and recovery route. And yeah, Jones is presented as someone gifted and terribly behaved and it’s not a sight that can be forgotten easily..even with all that heavenly gastronomical window dressing on display!

Del Toro’s brilliance is unquestionable but his talent doesn’t always come through with a completely credible experience. This one is somewhere close to brilliant but in experience falls well short.

The film has an old-world charm that is cozily ensconced in vividly enumerated, shadily expressive visual dynamics that scores high with it’s carefully calibrated tension and crafty cinematic constructs. Donovan is an intelligent hero who does not need the appendage of super-heroic powers. And Tom Hanks just makes it stick!

The acting is solid, if not exactly extraordinary. And the Imax heightens the dread and the perception to incredible heights. CGI is also quite majestic. This is simply note-worthy entertainment brought about by the best technicians in the business of cinema.

No doubt that this is a frequently mined area of operation for most Hollywood flicks. But Villeneuve doesn’t take the by-the-numbers route to achieve his distinction. The characters are beautifully fleshed out.

Scott and his team get innovative in creating a framework for plausible realism, well aided by Janty Yates costumes, un-obstructive 3D effects and splendid space vistas. There’s suspense, thrills and excitement in ample measure and though this is speculative fiction, it appears so very real.

Pawn Sacrifice is a fascinating drama, a biopic of sorts, that sheds light on the life and career of America’s most valued asset during the height of the cold war. And it’s not a weapon of mass destruction I am alluding to, but a homegrown champion whose mastery over the game of 64 squares put the chess giants, USSR, on the back foot.

The unnecessarily overly stylized extension of runtime towards the end makes it an anticlimax of sorts. But all things said, this one’s worth a dekho for sure!

At best ‘Hunterrr’ is interesting and entertaining – It certainly could have been much better than that though!