Top Rated Films
Nandini Ramnath's Film Reviews
-
The movie works best when it forays bravely into the tornado, conjuring up suitably awe-inspiring acts of devastation, and is at its most tedious when it tries to establish emotional connections with its characters, including Richard Amritage’s suspiciously buff school vice-principal and Sarah Wayne Callies’s anxious single mother and weather scientist.
-
Guardians of the Galaxy is the kind of movie that frequently sends up its own clichés, only to rescue them eventually and reassert the reasons we flock to such movies in the first place.
-
There is endless punning, a play on the names of actors (example: “I Rajini-can’t believe it”) and iconic Hindi movies, SMS forward-worthy jokes and the idea that a dog can get the better of humans. Junior’s bored expression and lack of affection towards the two-legged creatures on the set is glaringly evident, but the rest of the cast has far more energy, sportingly submitting themselves to the pratfalls aimed at knee-high viewers and going along with the occasionally madcap plot twists.
-
Humpty Sharma Ki Dulhania is an extended, 134-minute review of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge by a debutant writer and director who has watched the film closely enough to have his own spin on it. Shashank Khaitan’s film-making debut arrives 19 years after Aditya Chopra’s blockbuster became the gold standard of screen romance, and he has the necessary distance from the source material to unpack the conservatism that beats loudly at the heart of the original movie.
-
The 121-minute movie harnesses the classic tropes of melodrama—coincidences, conflicts, the perfect resolution—to deliver a feel-good fairy tale of a remarkably mobile heroine who gets up and leaves whenever she feels like. The movie needed to have come with a “Don’t try this at home but feel free to dream” disclaimer.
-
ay arrives to beauty only to unleash terror on it. Transformers 4 has many superbly executed set pieces, but its showcase is a pre-climactic sequence that makes excellent use of Hong Kong’s architectural mix of tenements and high-rises. A Hong Kong Tourism Board hoarding gets tucked into one scene, but, as the saying goes, you need to let the right one in.
-
Sajid Khan has declared in every available forum that his movies are for audiences rather than critics (whatever that means). The same audiences booed his last offering, Himmatwala, out of the cinemas. If there is something to relish in Humshakals, it is the opportunity to sharpen weapons and words. It’s been a while since there’s been a movie this hatchet-worthy. For that, the team behind Humshakals needs eternal gratitude and continued support.
-
The first thing to be said about Grace of Monaco is that it is not as maul-worthy as it has been made out to be. The next thing to be said about Olivier Dahan’s movie is that it isn’t exactly noteworthy. The best thing that can be said about the 103-minute biopic is that it is always lovely looking, dressed to the hilt and bathed in the kind of lambent light dear to films about movie and actual royalty.
-
How to Train Your Dragon 2 has few surprises, enough predictable fun and a running time (106 minutes) that respects the scantiness of the material.
-
Doug Liman’s new movie Edge Of Tomorrow proves that despite the doomsday predictions of his detractors, time is always on Tom Cruise’s side. The object of avoidable ridicule and the unavoidable effects of ageing in recent years is nothing but unputdownable, which is just what he needs to be in this heavily weaponized version of Groundhog Day.