At 2 hours and 22 minutes, ‘Singham Returns’ feels long and occasionally plodding. There are some nice scenes that inspire police pride, but the predictable story tires you out eventually.

This could be hazardous to your health; doesn’t matter if you’re a movie critic or a movie buff, so go in prepared.

At best it’s a guilty pleasure, with a convincing performance from Johansson who convincingly goes from victim to warrior with the ease of a pro.

Packed with not-too-bad 3D effects – arrows whizzing out of the screen, dangerous creatures lunging at you – and unapologetically embracing its B-movie ambitions, Hercules is watchable and occasionally good fun too. Just don’t go in with Gladiator-level expectations.

I didn’t hate it. If that’s enough encouragement, sure, go watch it. But you were going to anyway, right?

Go in with modest expectations and perhaps you won’t be disappointed.

The climax plays on interminably, and the film suffers on account of way too many songs. But there are little pleasures to be had – the consistently witty dialogue, Amit’s too-cool-to-be-true mom who speaks almost exclusively in abbreviations and emoticons, and his childhood pal who takes great pleasure in his sufferings.

Despite the 3D, none of this is particularly eerie; the film fails to deliver even a few good ol’ fashioned cheap thrills. And the acting by everyone involved is so abysmal it’s hard to muster up much sympathy. A twist in the end never feels well-earned, raising even more questions about plausibility. This ‘Pizza’ is stale.

…isn’t even a satisfying rom-com about squabbling lovers. The humor is consistently juvenile, the climax so obvious you’ve guessed it long before it arrives, and the dialogue phoney despite being peppered with modern-day slang. You’ll be bored out of your mind.

Whether goofing off with her motley bunch of accomplices, or making an impassioned plea to her stubborn father, Vidya is consistently watchable without ever hogging your attention away from the story.
It’s a shame then that she’s let down by the very script itself, which — despite raising important questions about gender equality, financial independence of women, and parental obsession with marriage – fizzles out post-intermission. It needed more humor and more meat, but Vidya Balan comes out tops again.

Like the previous films, this fourth installment is beset with script holes, clunky dialogue, hammy acting, and the overconfidence of a director who doesn’t know when to stop. But for fans of the same noisy but vacuous spectacle that these films have come to represent, ‘Transformers: Age of Extinction’ is actually a step up from the last film.