An entertaining but flawed look at the mafia that promotes cheating during college exams.

Director Rob Marshall is the authority on musicals, he’s directed movies like Chicago, Nine and Into The Woods. So he’s perfectly at home with the song, dance and elaborately detailed choreography of Mary Poppins Returns. The film is a homage to Julie Andrews’ original and this 2018 version, with a bizarrely satisfying and unabashedly pastiche approach, is a pure delight for children and adults alike.

…the screenplay is too disjointed. It takes you on a flight of fancy for the sheer indulgence of it. It’s like an arrow shot high in the sky. You admire its trajectory but it’s not going to stay afloat forever. To cut it short, you feel like you’re watching two different films as the first half and the second half are vastly dissimilar to each other.

At one point, Zero dazzles with moments of colour and vibrancy, but then it also follows up with dull scenes that fail to launch the drama in the zone that it’s supposed to be in. Some of the comedy moments between SRK and Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub stand out, so does the song Mere Naam Tu with SRK dancing in a storm of colours. While the film has a wealth of references to Bollywood and its stars, these details don’t compensate for a story that starts with a beautiful plot, but takes off on a bizarre ride. At first go, the film makes you light and easy, which is good, but the problem is that it doesn’t really take you on that flight of entertainment, which you set out for.

For a love story, there are no romantic tracks that really hold your attention. Apart from the song Namo Namo, Amit Trivedi’s music doesn’t create the required mood for a love saga like Kedarnath. Director Abhishek Kapoor’s attempt to make a film set against the backdrop of a natural calamity of this proportion is ambitious and sincere.

Baazaar uses plenty of stock market jargon and showcases complex ideas like insider trading and financial manipulation with ease. It’s great to see an edgy story unfold in completely new settings in a Hindi film. The movie has a lot of hustle and power play from the world of industrialists, politicians and money brokers, and that makes for a smart investment, especially for movie buffs.

‘Badhaai Ho’, much like its subject, puts a fantastic new spin on the usual. In a new-age rom-com, you’d expect Ayushmann and Sanya’s love story to take centre stage, but when you see the middle-aged parents blush with romance, the entertainment really becomes novel.

Tumbbad is a moody and atmospheric film. Some viewers may find the film a little too deep and disturbing, but fans of Hollywood horror films will be reminded of memorable movies in the genre like Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) and Eraserhead (1977). This one is genuinely scary.

Vishal Bhardwaj, as he always does with his films, has tried to put many quirky spins into this comedy. The music is rustic, but very pleasing. He has also provided an interesting background score. During the second half, as the film briefly explores a psychological reason for the sisters’ tendency to fight, the sci-fi sounding background music adds a delightful touch to the proceedings. But for all its wonderful and creative touches, Pataakha still feels like a story that stretches a short concept, for a little too long.

With a tighter runtime and more focus on the crux of the story, this social drama had the potential to shine bright. The cinematography by Anshuman Mahaley manages to capture the beauty of Uttarakhand’s hills very well. The movie also has a parallel track of two characters named Vikas and Kalyan, narrating the story, but the metaphor doesn’t quite click. BGMC loses power under the load of its heavy-duty screenplay.