Movie Review : Legend of the Guardians (2010)

Directed by : Zack Snyder.

Starring : Emily Barclay, Abbie Cornish, Essie Davis

Run time : 97 min.

I have to admit, I got a thing for animation movies. Especially with the kind of stories being told in them (shrek, up, wall-e, 9 etc), they have become irresistible.

Zach Snyder is a big enough name to be taken very seriously, with movies like 300 and watchmen to his credit. So expectation were huge from this film and the movie doesn’t disappoint.

This is a story about two young owl brothers Soren and Kludd. They got adoring parents and cute lil sister. Soren is a dreamer and always wants to reach out to stars, thinks of myths and legends that their parents tell them and keeps his lil sis mystified by telling her those stories again and again.

Kludd on the other hand is a practical no nonsense and ambitious owl. Once while their parents were away the brothers fall down from the tree and got kidnapped by evil owl army of “Metal beak”.

They were slaved and forced to stay against their wishes. Kludd sees an opportunity to grow and gets corrupted by the riches offered while Soren maintains his innocence and decides to flee.

And thus the adventures begin. How Soren and his merry band of friends find the TREE of ga’hoole and play a pivotal role in the fight of good against bad is the rest of the story.

The story has been done numerous times before but the treatment is different. The animation flawless, the production quality – very high standard and the story telling supreme.

The fight sequences are beautiful to watch and the music is absolute fun.

It will appeal to the kid in all of us

Rating: ***1/2

Movie Review : Salt

Directed by  Phillip Noyce

Starring : Angelina Jolie ,  Liev Schreiber ,  Chiwetel Ejiofor

Salt is a fast paced action caper starring Angelina and Liev Schreiber. It’s the story of a CIA agent on the run, which goes something like this.

Salt is a CIA  field agent, highly trained and skilled. Post marriage she decides to opt for a desk job. All’s going well for her but on her anniversary all hell breaks lose.

She was suspected of being a double agent. A sleeper spy planted by Russia during the cold war times. One of the many for the anticipation of Day X. She goes on the run around the city. Is she the victim or the spy. Which side she’s on ?

Salt is right up ms. Jolie’s alley. She has done this before (Wanted, Mr. and Mrs. Smith & tomb raider). That she still brings something new to this shows her capability. She looked both vulnerable and tough.

Liv Schreiber is suitably vicious and sharp. He brings a whole lot of charisma to the job. Another power packed performance from him too.

But the winner is the director and editor, who run the show with strict discipline. The audience never got bored. He keeps introducing twists and turns to the story at regular intervals, leading to the climactic twist in the tale.

This should compete for the best action movie of this year with RED (more on which later) and just topples over “From paris with love”

Must watch.

Ratings: ***1/2

Movie Review : From Paris with Love

Director:  Pierre Morel. 
Starring : John Travolta, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Kasia Smutniak.
Length:  92 min.


You gotta admit John Travolta is one helluva charismatic actor.
His old school style and energy takes you by the cuffs on this rag-tag ride of a movie.


The story goes like this. Meyers works in american embassy in paris as an assistant to the ambassador, but aspires to be a field agent of secret service. His is a life of roses, a beautiful girlfriend, chess playing boss and high paying job. But his aspirations take him to do minion jobs for secret service like changing no. plates of designated cars of agents.


One day he gets a call that changes his smooth life and turns it upside down. He was asked to chauffeur around one top agent (Travolta) and escort him around the city. 


And then the story takes you the interesting by lanes of paris with one surprise after another. What is the agent upto, is he telling meyers truth, is he on some personal vendetta, or is he following orders. will meyers life remain the same ??


You gotta watch the movie for that.


Jonathan meyers worked commendably. But the movie rotates around Travolta. He is the one to look out for.


And finally some words for that driver in the climactic car chase.Dude you deserve a separate movie all to yourself maybe something like SPEED ..... !! 


Purely for the action buffs. Go watch it.


Rating: ***.1/2

Movie Review : The A-Team

Directed by Joe Carnahan.
Starring: Liam Neeson, Bradley Cooper, Quinton "Rampage" Jackson

The A-team is a typical Action movie from Hollywood which churns similar movies by the dozen every year. Liam Neeson brings some solidity to the movie and Jackson brings in the X-Factor.

The plot line is simple, A bunch of army guys, team headed by Neeson, are set up during an assignment of acquiring currency plates, in Iraq. The team is arrested, discharged of duty and jailed. Now, they have to get out of the jai

l and clear their names.

The action set pieces are entertaining and require full attention. The actors all seem to enjoy it so much that it contagiously spreads to the viewers as well and you will have fun watching the movie too.

It doesn’t have much recall value. But I would consider it better than the much hyped “expendables” which had too much dark scenes to find out what’s going on.

Jessica biel had nothing much to do, other than look hot. Could’ve been done by any other numerous starlets Hollywood has.

Photography is superb and background music is passable. Editing is too tight. Could’ve relaxed a bit.

All in all, its a mindless fun film. Its for the die-hard action movie lovers You can watch it once.

Rating : **1/2

Movie Review : GolMaal - 3

Hello people .. so .. my first review will be for the movie "GolMaal -3"

Star cast: Kareena Kapoor, Ajay Devgn, Mithun Chakraborty, Kunal Khemu, Tusshar Kapoor, Arshad Warsi, Johny Lever, Ratna Pathak-Shah
Director: Rohit Shetty
Rating: **

This movie has been directed by the talented director with a funny bone - Rohit Shetty
This is the third installment of hugely successful franchise Golmaal, so obviously the expectations were higher.
Also in between Rohit delivered the laugh riot "All The Best".

With such a background its tough to fulfill the expecations. And thats exactly what happened.
The movie is funny but only in parts. There were some nice set pieces and a lot of john woo styled slo-mo action sequences.  But it seems like Rohit is running out of jokes.

It was a given that there will be no story but I was only expecting a lot of fun n laughs.
The laughs were there but very few, amongst stretches of lull.
On the acting front, the usual suspects Ajay and Arshad played their part out nice. Kareena was ok and the rest barely noticeable.

With music director as Pritam, there were bound to be some chartbusters in the movie. and here they are "Desi Kali, Apna Har Din' and 'Ale'

The story line is simple enough:
Arshad, khemu and tushar are orphans brought up by Mithun and Ajay, Talpade are another set of orphans brought up by ratna pathak shah.
Mithun and Ratna got separated in their youth because of him being poor and both of them never married.
Kareena another orphan in love with Ajay, finds out about Mithun and Ratna's love story and decides to get them married. So Mithun and kids move into the house of Ratna and kids. "Khatta Meetha" anyone :)

Rest you can imagine yourself.
Watchable once on rented DVD.

Rating : **